beans re-reified

Thomas Jefferson says...

2010-05-14T09:03:00.000-04:00

"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare...To consider the latter phrase...as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please...Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect." ––Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on National Bank, 1791

Shocking Thoughts From The Mind of Dan

2010-01-20T07:23:00.003-05:00

Everyone wants to cast Scott Brown's victory in terms other than what it was: the people of Massachusetts choosing the best man...errr...person to represent them in the US Senate.

Here's my prediction/analysis: the 2008 presidential election partially occurred because of President Obama's excellent get-out-the-vote effort harnessing a new pool of voters, and partly because Republicans were frustrated and demoralized and lacked leadership.

The special election in Massachusetts demonstrates the same thing on the other side of the fence. Democrats are disappointed, disillusioned, and in disarray. They are unable to muster their voters to the polls for a special election.

I don't think Brown won because a bunch of Massachusettsians suddenly decided to become Tea Party Republicans. I think Brown won because 1) the Massachusetts Tea Partiers are motivated, will get out and vote, and wanted to send a message about helath care reform and, 2) Scott Brown ran an excellent campaign and won the trust of a wide variety of people, including a whole boatload of Democrats, in a way that his opponent didn't.

Here's the exciting thing--I think we are entering an era of weakened political parties. People--and not just the centrists or whimsical--are deeply disenchanted with both major political parties. The Tea Partiers who are celebrating Scott Brown's victory aren't celebrating a Republican victory, they're celebrating a Big Government defeat on the issue of health care reform and expanded government. They're as frustrated with the Republican Party as staunch libertarians such as myself. If Massachusetts and the approval ratings of the Democratically controlled Congress and White House are any indication, we could be seeing the same disenchantment hitting the Democratic political establishment as well.

Here's why that's excellent news: it decreases the value of that "R" or "D" behind a prospective representative's name and increases the value of that person's ideas, his or her skill in executing those ideas, and his or her connection to the electorate. So Scott Brown wins because he's "Scott Brown, a trustworthy fellow with great ideas, who won the confidence and enthusiasm of the people of Massachusetts, who happens to be on the Republican ticket," not "Scott Brown, Republican, who you should vote for because you don't want the Democrats to win."

In short, when the motivating power of a party affiliation to get out the vote decreases, the quality of political representatives increases, as they are judged more on their merits as representatives and their ability to marshall otherwise frustrated voters, rather than their connection to a political party. Additionally, the value of local flavor--being in close tune to the needs and opinions of their constituency rather than the national agenda of their party--increases.

Altogether, I think that's good for our democratic republic, and I'm curious at to how a Massachusetts Republican Senator votes. It should be an interesting show!

[Edit]

"It is becoming increasingly clear the extent to which November 2008 entailed a repudiation of the George W. Bush presidency rather than an affirmation of the Democratic Party platform. In particular, the public is looking primarily for a real improvement in the economy and secondarily for a resolution of our military's involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq." --David Orentlicher
Professor, co-dir., Center for Law and Health, Ind. University Schools of Law and Medicine

The Semi-Regular Weekly Reader!

2010-01-12T06:44:00.003-05:00

The White House quietly changes the manner in which it reports jobs saved or created by the stimulus package...thus solving the problem of the known inaccuracy of the numbers shown on it's recovery.gov website.

Some sensible talk from my favorite legal bloggers on the Harry Reid gaffe.

In the middle of forcibly devaluing his own country's currency, Hugo Chavez's Venezuelan Air Force intercepts a US Military Plane and escorts it out of Venezuelan airspace. The Venezuelans are, of course, manage this using F-16 jetfighters, the best jets money can buy...manufactured in and purchased from the United States. It must be rough, being dependent on those capitalist bastards across the pond!

Turkey-Leftover Reading:

2009-11-27T09:37:00.002-05:00

Interesting approval ratings: Sarah Palin vs. Barack Obama. (LA Times). Of course, it's much easier to be popular when all you have to do is talk.

Wild Boar Population Exploding in Germany. I wonder if Boar Bacon is as amazing as it sounds? Organic, free-range meat that raises itself...is there anything better?Boar hunting is a pretty intense experience, I hear. This guy died hunting boar recently. Too bad he didn't have access to modern semiautomatic high capacity hunting rifles, maybe he would have survived...but that's European Gun Control for ya.

Speaking of Pork, Can Islamic Militant Groups Be Compared To The Protestant Reformation?

Also in Pork, Another look at Health Care reform, from an incremental perspective, by a dude with a really sweet name. And, conservatives are crying foul over "hidden" doulbe digit deficit predictions (as a percentage of GDP).

Finally, Today I am thankful for Civil Liberties. "The Russian authorities retaliated with a $17.4m tax case against Hermitage and arrested Mr Magnitsky, who had uncovered evidence of fraud and implicated the policemen who arrested him. In jail he developed a severe medical condition but was left without treatment, a fact that he meticulously documented in his diary. Investigators seem to have denied him help in an effort to extract a confession. On November 16th he died of an abdominal rupture...Mr Magnitsky’s death was shocking, but hardly unusual: many people die in pre-trial detention across Russia, and even more in prison."

Stuff to Read

2009-11-20T07:21:00.003-05:00

Maersk Alabama attacked again by pirates. This time, however, they didn't tie up the Navy in an unneccesarily costly and hazardous rescue attempt. Somebody had enough brains to bring real self-defense weaponry to troubled waters.

In other news, the USA PATRIOT act is up for renewal and being debated in the Senate. "In a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department said the administration might consider “modifications” to the act in order to protect civil liberties. 'The administration is willing to consider such ideas, provided that they do not undermine the effectiveness of these important authorities,' Ronald Weich, assistant attorney general." Now that's the hope and change we were looking forward to...

Sen. Wyden of Oregon (D) believes the USA PATRIOT renewal is being rushed.

"Bipartisanship"

2009-11-12T11:44:00.005-05:00

"Mr. Speaker, this rule is an affront to the democratic process...At 1 a.m. this morning, with absolutely no meaningful opportunity to review the almost 700-page prescription drug legislation, the Committee on Rules met to consider the resolution now before us. By now I should be used to it, but we cannot tolerate these continual attacks on democracy. When you refuse to allow half this House to speak and to give their amendments, you are cutting out half the population of the United States from any participation in the legislation that goes on here. It defies reason and it defies common sense that political expediency and newspaper headlines could force this monumental legislation, probably the most monumental that any of us will do in our tenure in the Congress of the United States, to force it through the Chamber with little more than cursory consideration."

--Louise Slaughter, Democrat Representative from New York, protesting the use of "special rules" for consideration of the Prescription Drug/Medicare Benefits Bill of 2003.

Today, you can hear this exact same quote, almost word-for-word, from House Republicans who have been ignored and marginalized during the debate over Healthcare Reform in the House.

Under Special Rules, the majority party of the House (in 2003, the Republicans) can restrict debate and amending privileges on a bill after is passes committee. In this case, Representatives were given several hours to debate, and no amendments were allowed. The bill was formed in Republican committees and amended post-committee without any Democrats being invited to the table. The bill passed the House 216-215, after the Republican Speaker held the 15-minute voting period open for a full hour in order to give his party whips time to persuade two Representatives to change their votes, in return for promises to amend the legislation later, in conference between the House and Senate.

As long as committee processes and House rules are subject to simple-majority control, there will be no bipartisanship, cooperation, or moderation in policy proceeding from the House. Unless Representatives are institutionally encouraged to think for themselves and their constituents--and a 2/3 majority vote of the entire House is required for amending the House rules--the majority party in the House will simply be able to ignore and walk roughshod over the minority party. In 2003, it was the Republicans steamrolling Medicare reform, and in 2009 it is the Democrats steamrolling healthcare reform in general.

Allowing a majority to trample the rights of a minority is wrong no matter what policy you are pursuing. It's not American, it's does not serve the long-term interest of the republic, it destroys the public trust and deepens the divide between citizens, and it's just plain not right.

The Daily Read

2009-11-12T07:28:00.006-05:00

Health Care--With a 69% Capital Gains Hike

...And Encouragement for More Medical Lawsuits

Long Island Recreational Fishermen Fight For Local Sovreignty On the Basis of a 331-year-old Colonial Charter.

And finally, Sometimes Being Grumpy Is Good

Oh, and in the vein of "You Can Buy It But You Don't Own It," Microsoft Bans Users Who Have Modified Their XBox360s From Playing Online. Corporate Orwellianism?

Dual Interest: Traditional Islamic Social Charity At Work Is A Good Thing...but 40,000 People A Day Getting Free Food in Karachi? Those Numbers Cannot Be A Good Thing For Political Stability.

Oh, Why Not: Tea Party Protestors Made Look Like Peaceful Hippies Compared To Iranian Street Demonstrators. "They seem to be chanting an old revolutionary poem. It says: 'You killed the youth of my country, God is great, Death to you'." Ahhh, gotta love the Iranians, they know how to phrase a protest.

This deserves some research

2009-10-25T13:08:00.002-04:00

Anybody have insight information into the following quote from Fearless Comrade's post on healthcare reform?

Why can't part-time workers, small business employees, or entrepreneurs get affordable health insurance? Because the government gives tax breaks to big companies for overpriced plans. Because individual states have absurd minimum coverage mandates. Because the federal government allows states to prohibit interstate health insurance sales (every other kind of insurance can be bought across state lines). The only people who have challenged this are Republicans, but raising the evil specter of freedom and interstate competition sends Democrats into howling fits of rage.

The fact that people have insurance plans that pay for the bulk of costs (as opposed to nearly all other forms of insurance, which cover only catastrophes) and don't pay out of pocket is why insurance companies make the payment decisions. If you want to make the payment decisions yourself, pay for it yourself. But of course, decades of liberal government and government meddling have assured that the last person who will pay for your care is you. And who does he think created Medicare?

The answer to him, of course, is more bureaucracy and more government meddling--that, not freedom, will increase supply and decrease costs, just like it never has in any market segment, ever (so we are lapsing back into the health industry not being ruled by economics). The answer is more price-fixing and more mandates. This is what von Mises predicted in Liberalism: Because government interventions harm the market and cause results opposite to what was intended, interventionism gives way to more socialism. Governments fail upward.

Modern Greek Tragedy

2009-10-16T20:05:00.002-04:00

The neat thing about the Wire, according to creator David Simon, is that it's a modern Greek tragedy, where the Olympian gods are replaced by modern institutions and social structures. So the capriciousness and tragedy make sense--they come from the real world circumstances that the characters (who are often based on, or actually played by, real Baltimore politicians, drug kingpins and police officers) are grounded in. So the triumphs and failures feel real, because the last word is not delivered by some triumphing individuals, but rather the systems in which those individuals live, move, and have their being.

Read Simon's interview with Nick Hornby here.

And go watch the Wire for Pete's sake...so I can have someone to talk about it with :)

"Much of our modern theater seems rooted in the Shakespearean discovery of the modern mind. We’re stealing instead from an earlier, less-traveled construct—the Greeks—lifting our thematic stance wholesale from Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides to create doomed and fated protagonists who confront a rigged game and their own mortality. The modern mind—particularly those of us in the West—finds such fatalism ancient and discomfiting, I think. We are a pretty self-actualized, self-worshipping crowd of postmoderns and the idea that for all of our wherewithal and discretionary income and leisure, we’re still fated by indifferent gods, feels to us antiquated and superstitious. We don’t accept our gods on such terms anymore; by and large, with the exception of the fundamentalists among us, we don’t even grant Yahweh himself that kind of unbridled, interventionist authority.

But instead of the old gods, The Wire is a Greek tragedy in which the postmodern institutions are the Olympian forces. It’s the police department, or the drug economy, or the political structures, or the school administration, or the macroeconomic forces that are throwing the lightning bolts and hitting people in the ass for no decent reason. In much of television, and in a good deal of our stage drama, individuals are often portrayed as rising above institutions to achieve catharsis. In this drama, the institutions always prove larger, and those characters with hubris enough to challenge the postmodern construct of American empire are invariably mocked, marginalized, or crushed. Greek tragedy for the new millennium, so to speak. Because so much of television is about providing catharsis and redemption and the triumph of character, a drama in which postmodern institutions trump individuality and morality and justice seems different in some ways, I think."

I Take Back Everything Bad I Said About the Nobel Prize Committee...

2009-10-13T15:12:00.003-04:00

The Nobel Prize in Economics has been awarded to Dr. Elinor Ostrom, the first woman and the first non-economist to receive the prize.

Beyond that, she is the author of an incredible book that changed my life: "Crafting Institutions for Self-Governing Irrigation Systems."

That book (along with Hernando De Soto's "El Sendero Otro (The Other Path)" formed the cornerstone of one of my favorite classes in college, Dr. Oakerson's "Community Organization and Development," which rocked, end of discussion. And if you don't believe me, ask Kate Shaffner.

Discuss amongst yourselves...

2009-07-18T20:41:00.003-04:00

From Inhabitatio Dei, via the Boar's Head Tavern:

"A bit harsh perhaps, but coming from a background of being highly socialized into Christianity, and knowing full well the kind of irrational protectionist mentality that persists in the church about the young people “falling away” if they are allowed to actually experience the world, I think there’s a good point in here somewhere.

"If we think the church can only be sustained through concerted social and psychological manipulation of our children, then the church isn’t worth preserving. After all, if we don’t really believe that the church lives by the power of the gospel to call people out of the world, we’ve lost the gospel altogether.

“[Much of the church] fears that if the young person, especially in adolescence, is permitted to become acquainted with the world and its lures, he is sure to be lost. This prediction is, in all its intended realism, a lack of faith and a surrender to determinism. If the Gospel cannot call people out of the world, it is no Gospel. If what we preach to our young people cannot call them out of the world, then we must ask ourselves if what we are preaching is the Gospel. If placing people in a context of choice where it is possible to choose the wrong is unwise, then God himself made the first mistake when he created Adam and the worst mistake when he let people kill his Son. At the bottom of it all, this pessimism means placing oneself fully on the level of the world. It means agreeing with the world that all human development is determined by physical and psychological necessities; agreeing with the world that Christian faith is a matter of behavior patterns and of truths to be passed on; agreeing with the world that there is no miracle of resurrection, no miracle of faith, no Holy Spirit.”
----John Howard Yoder, “Christian Education: Doctrinal Orientation,” in Concern for Education, Forthcoming from Cascade Books.

How a revolutionary Islamic Republic balances power

2009-06-16T06:42:00.002-04:00

via the BBC.

Call me a polysci nut, but I find this interesting.

One More Reason to Love the Swedes

2009-06-09T15:29:00.004-04:00

They have a Pirate Party that has a seat in their national legislature.

Also, here are some interesting things to read:

There's an interesting balance with all this webbyness we live in. If my facebook identity is too well known, it's not private enough to express myself freely. If it's not well known enough, I lose out on the benefit of having people to express myself to. If I maintain anonymity at my blog, I can say whatever I want without fear of professional or personal repercussions...but I can't use it to share cool photos and exciting news with my friends.

So self-presentation on the internet can be an either/or thing. Do you want a professional face, or a private one? Do you want lots of readers and good conversation, or do you want a more personal experience? Or do you have the time to manage two different blogs, two different facebook lives, etc, etc...

Anonymitiy in blogging became an issue for this guy when he was "outed" by someone he had criticized in his blog. He lays down the personal and professional reasons he had wanted to remain anonymous.

Blogging as a "way of news" was interestingly portrayed in a good, and underappreciated movie recently released called "State of Play." It's got Russel Crowe and Rachael MacAdams (Oh, and that Affleck dude). Go watch it. It's even got Jason Bateman in it. There are some structural incentives to blogging and the new wave of public discourse that is the Internet...and some dude has an interesting blog post that's worth reading. About the flaws of blogging and reading blog posts. Appreciate both the irony and the good points here, at the Front Porch Republic. He has a word of caution about the ease with which an internet life encourages us to be narcissistic, detached and lazy.

Stanley Fish of the New York Times responds to the Internet Atheists

2009-05-18T11:25:00.003-04:00

(who seem as wild-eyed and camelhair-clothed as internet Calvinists)

here. h/t the Boar's Head Tavern.

Quote from such:

"So to sum up, the epistemological critique of religion — it is an inferior way of knowing — is the flip side of a naïve and untenable positivism. And the critique of religion’s content — it’s cotton-candy fluff — is the product of incredible ignorance."

Hmmmm....

2009-05-11T18:50:00.006-04:00

I saw a comment on a youtube video today, to the effect that what we're viewing in the bailouts is not socialism (government ownership/control of large portions of the economy) but rather capitalism gone horribly wrong: large corporations leveraging their significance to the economy in order to faciliatate "the largest transfer of public funds to private organizations in the history of our fair nation."

It's a different train of thought than the one I usually follow, with government involvement in the private sector leading to corruption, stagnation of creativity, etc. This line of logic begins with greedy capitalists paying attention to the motto of the Clinton years--"It's the economy, stupid." Our elected representatives, since the Reagan yeasr and probably before, are being elected on whether or not they can promise prosperity.

I've seen people engage in sick attention-seeking behaviors where they will use the threat of self-injury, or suicidal statements, or claim to have been assaulted or raped in order to get attention and feel significant. They hold themselves and their health hostage against the good will of their friends/the emergency medical system and demand that people drop everything and take care of them. In essence, the theory is, "If you don't give me what I want, I'll hurt me, and that will make you feel guilty and everyone will feel sad and you don't want that! So give me what I want!"

The capitalist at the top of a sinking corporation, however, is a little more clear minded. "Help me," he says to the elected official, "or I'll sink your economy AND your political career. Help me help you, Bob! Give me nice fat loan that no bank in their right mind would sign on..."

I was reminded today of a simple statement: government = the power to coerce obedience. But economic power is coercive too. An increase in governmental powers is a de facto increase in the governors' coercive influence over citizens. But governments do not posess a monopoly on coercion. Any relative concentration of power is inherently a relative potential for coercion.

I like to use this example: everyone has their price. For some, it's high, for some, it's ridiculously low...but it's probably graphable on a bell curve. It would take a lot for me to prostitute myself (and I'm talking like, hostages' lives on the line) but some will do the job for ten bucks or a quick fix or affirmation and attention. There's a market with an average price for corruption.

So let's say Joe Citizen is a salaryman--it isn't worth the (rough guess of the average) couple of thousand dollars it would take to convince the mayor to pass some legislation favoring him in a land dispute with his neighbor. But let's say the same Joe Citizen is a business owner who stands to gain a few thousand dollars per year in business if he gets preferential treatment from the town legislation or the zoning board. Whatever expenses he incurs in obtaining the coercive services of the state, whether through straight cash, services rendered, quid-quo-pro favors or socialization are simply business investments that--if he refuses--will put him at a competitive disadvantage with those who will. So there's the rub--when an unjust businessmen competes with a just businessman, the just one loses. Hence most of the Old Testament.

So that's why we have this fantastic legal system in our country. If you split power between the exectuve, legislative and judicial, you increase the number of people you have to influence, and hence the cost of obtaining legitimate coercive power. This is clever institutional planning--it is exponentially harder to influence fifteen people than it is to influence one, and the chance of one of those people being incorruptible is way higher than if you have just one king. Concentrated power, says Mr Reagan, is the enemy of liberty.

But we don't just have a separation of powers--the rule of many kings. We have made these kings accountable servants. And not servants of the public, or the majority--but servants of the law. Lex rex, the Latins like to say--"The Law is King." We live under the protection of the rule of law (fast forward to 2:05 for a moving tribute to the rule of law...) What a great system of government, that so effectively empowers the meek and lowly and protects them from the sway of the powerful and rich!

Unfortunately, it's not perfect if you have a situation in which the welfare of the community rests in the hands of a few powerful people. If there's just one or two factories in a town, their owners are pretty important people--they control, partially, the hopes and future of the entire town. Everyone, from grocer to librarian to plumber to homebuilder to IT specialist to gas station attendant, relies on the profits of that factory flowing through the hands of its owners and workers. So they have a lot of influence in town politics.

If you run the metaphor further up the food chain, you end up with Michigan--it's a three factory town. If the three automakers do well, the economy prospers, and the elected officials are safe and the populace is happy. And the factory owners know this--they know that the economic welfare of an entire state rests on their shoulders, and they do multi-billion dollar business with a clear incentive to work closely with state and local governments to ensure that they make lots and lots of money. The business is large enough where the costs of corruption are relatively minor. The only check on their power is public will, the integrity and pride of public servants, and the hope that such servants can see far enough ahead to preserve the interests of future generations, rather than making short-term, politically expedient decisions. Of course, if you pit a just politician against an unjust politician, and the public will is not robust and wise--all of the just politicians will be run out of business.

This is what I hear when I hear the words, "too big to fail:" I hear, "I own you. You are dependent on me, and you have to do what I want. You are going to pay for my problems, because you can't stomach the pain of being free and you won't make a difficult decision and make us all suffer for my problems. So you're going to work for me."

I hear a bigger, sicker, and more twisted version of some messed-up girl with a knife to her wrist for the thirtieth time that year, leveraging the kindness of others because she cannot imagine a world in which she is not the most important thing. Human nature at its finest, unrestrained by the rule of law, prudence, or the public will.

Thomas More on the Rule of Law

2009-05-10T21:41:00.001-04:00

wait for it...it's good. Reform vs. conservatism.

Bela Fleck takes his banjo to West and East Africa

2009-04-24T05:23:00.004-04:00

Which is awesome.

In a completely unrelated note, this baby seems to have mastered the art of pentecostal preaching. I mean, this kid's good...he's got the timing down, tonalities, dramatic pause, and an excellent fist shake. Kid's got a future!

In other news, this FBI Supervisory Special Agent talks about the effectiveness of torture in interrogation.

I have recently been informed that in New York, even if you are found not guilty of a traffic violation, you still owe the State of New York an 85$ mandatory fine for the privelege of being tried in their courts. Is this true? I don't know. But if it is (and I will found out later next week in traffic court), I find it insulting, shocking, disturbing, and entirely a perversion of the justice system. And it opens the door wide for corruption and tyrrany.

Speaking of which, after a recent discussion of the selective nature of the ACLU's defense of civil liberty, I have decided to coin a new phrase. Remember the five-point Calvinist? Well, get yourselves ready for the ten-point civil libertarian. I hold firmly to all ten.

Every one of these amendments is carefully crafted to make sure that those who govern cannot exercise arbitrary, coercive, or intimidating power over their citizens. These are not lofty ideals enshrined in law--these are very practical ground rules set up by fellows who clearly have first-hand experience with corrupt and tyrannical rulers. They read like a summary of the Despot's Handbook of Power Consolidation: harassment by arbitrary search and seizure, secret trials in faraway jurisdictions without legal counsel or the ability to compel witnesses, detainment and prosecution without public accountability or a sympathetic home audience, cruel and unusual punishments, punitive bail, a monopoly on weapons and violence, restrictions on the freedom of speech, press, and public assembly...they had experienced all this and they said, no more! Get it right! You shall not treat your citizens as subjects, and you shall not be able to intimidate, bully, or coerce them with your power! You shall be held accountable!

So in the spirit of that, should we allow our government to access our phone records, read our email or tap our phone lines without warrants? Shall we give the government power to institute roadblocks and search our cars without probable cause and a sworn, specific affidavit? Shall we let our government have the power to interfere with our business decisions and contracts? Shall we let them have the power to decide which businesses are funded from the public coffer, and which are left to compete unfairly due to lack of political connections? Shall we let our government hold prisoners indefinitely without charge, and subject them to torture? How much do you want your rulers to be able to hold over your head when it comes time to dissent?

Hmm...all this from a post with a banjo and a preaching baby.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Our Saviors...

2009-04-04T16:00:00.007-04:00

Sales of children's books printed before 1985 banned in the US.

Several months ago, George Will warned us of the danger of ADD legislation--sweeping, emotionally driven reform through nebulous legislation that calls for action without careful thought of structure or consequences. That we leave up to the experts--the bureaucrats. And they apply desktop logic (not business or common sense) to the problem and, voila! China toy scare (which affected how many people?) and we pass legistlation in hysterical fear and...now you are safe from beautiful heirloom collectible golden-age children's books which cause no harm to anyone and it is a tragedy to destroy!

These are the bureaucrats who will save us from media-fed panics. Now, hey presto, let's expand their power to the administration our economy. This, folks, is why ordinary people who work for a living are scared of bureaucrats with controlling governmental interest in the private sector. They tamper with what they do not understand to the ominous chant of THE GREATER GOOD.

(Hat Tip to Fearsome Comrade, Fellow of the Boar's Head Tavern.)

This Should Be Splashed On The Headlines

2009-03-23T08:00:00.002-04:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7958039.stm

Tourists in Iraq! Of course, good news about Bush's war doesn't make the headlines.

clever

2009-03-23T05:33:00.002-04:00

a humorous and interesting note, by an Orthodox Priest, discussesing the King James Version of the Bible, and some sly translation therein.

"First, in order to make the argument for the King James, those who believe in that text make an argument for Holy Tradition. That is, the argument is not simply that the Textus Receptus is a manuscript that survived entire and supposedly unchanged. Read the sites and you will see that the argument goes further and claims that the Holy Spirit preserved this particular version to ensure the purity of God’s word. As you can imagine, I have no problem with arguments from Holy Tradition. I love arguments from Holy Tradition. I agree that the Holy Spirit has preserved in the Church the Truth that was passed down from the Apostles. I simply do not agree that the Textus Receptus is part of that Holy Tradition, though the Bible itself is. But, I find it humorous that fundamentalists argue from Holy Tradition about a particular Greek text while denying that God could have preserved anything else by his Holy Spirit. In fact, the King James only people are, in just about every case, radically against any type of tradition, liturgy, church structure, etc. That is, in every case but this one...

Third, the original King James version is quite helpful in making an argument for Holy Tradition because its translation of a certain Greek word is more honest and more consistent than in several modern Protestant English translations. That Greek word is paradosis. If you look it up, it is the word commonly translated “tradition.” Except for one verse, the King James faithfully translates it “tradition.” That one exception is corrected in the New King James version. But, in several modern Protestant versions, there is an unfaithful switcheroo pulled. In them, the word paradosis is translated as “tradition” only when either Our Lord Jesus or one of the apostles is speaking against the practice. If they speak positively of the practice, then paradosis is translated as anything but “tradition.” Let me give you a couple of examples:

King James Version
2 Thessalonians 2:15 — Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.

2 Thessalonians 3:6 — Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us.

New King James Version
1 Corinthians 11:2 — Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you.

Compare with the New International Version
1 Corinthians 11:2 — I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the teachings, just as I passed them on to you.

2 Thessalonians 2:15 — So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

2 Thessalonians 3:6 — In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us.

Compare with The Message
2 Thessalonians 2: 15 — Keep a tight grip on what you were taught, whether in personal conversation or by our letter.

2 Thessalonians 3:6 — Our orders—backed up by the Master, Jesus—are to refuse to have anything to do with those among you who are lazy and refuse to work the way we taught you.

You see, one good way to destroy Orthodox and Catholic arguments about Holy Tradition is simply to deliberately mistranslate a word when it is found in a context that could give “aid and comfort” to the people with whom you disagree. Nevertheless, I find it humorous that the Bible most often used by hard-core KJV-only people contains translations that are accurate with respect to Holy Tradition and help us make our case."

[emphasis added]

The Ruins of Detroit

2009-03-21T09:40:00.002-04:00

This house is quite similar to one that Josh Bedford and I did the electrical work on during a pretty sweet renovation project. It started a lifelong desire to own a big old house with a turret and a vaulted ceiling in the third story. And a spiral staircase.

Progress

2009-03-18T07:02:00.003-04:00

This from an old post on "A Cool, Wet Place," illustrating an excellent point--nothing equalizes communities like firearms. They are the ONLY weapon that does not discriminate on the basis of upper body strength, weight, and reach. They are the only option for people too diminutive, undernourished or outnumbered to put up a resistance to injustice. Disarming the helpless is the first step in commanding and controlling them with fear.

" "[Young, educated Afghan woman] Ms. Ellaha's younger sister, who had been pledged [to marry] another cousin, was facing the same treatment. After a week of being tied up, the two sisters agreed to marry their cousins. "So we went home," Ms. Ellaha added, "and escaped."

"The two sisters moved into a cheap guesthouse as they prepared to flee Afghanistan. But their family learned where they were hiding, and the police came to arrest them."

"The police subjected Ms. Ellaha to a mandatory virginity test. Fortunately, her hymen was intact, or she would have faced a prison sentence."

I didn't provide a link to this because after two weeks of being online, NYT content morphs into pay-per-view. It's from Kristof's 10/6/04 column "Beaten Afghan Brides." You can tell it's good from the dateline "Kabul, Afghanistan" whereas I'm betting if most of the other columnists were honest, they would have datelines like, "Sitting At Home, In My Underwear."

But back to the substance of the article. I have an idea that might provide women in poor, lawless, fundamentalist countries with a measure of security and equality. It would be cheap to implement, have immediate effect, and be applicable in a wide range of cultures:

Give women guns.

I say this as a registered Democrat, an Ivy League graduate, an idolizer of reason and culture, and a vegetarian. Reform of civil society, enforcement of human rights, separation of church from state; these are all great things. But of greater imminence to women in poor countries is the terribly pressing need to NOT BE BEATEN, RAPED OR MURDERED. And since police are usually doormats for whatever stone age tribalism is closest at hand, I say again: Give women guns. They don't have to form an army or even be very good shots. Yet all the same, the presence of armaments fundamentally changes the relationship of the rulers to the ruled."

[emphasis mine]

"The presence of armaments fundamentally changes the relationship of the rulers to the ruled."

That's why I'm pissed off at our President's administration for destroying perfectly good brass cartridges at cost to the government instead of letting civilians re-use them for peaceful, legal target shooting. He's making it clear that he doesn't think Americans should be trusted with firearms. Once you disarm a country, those communities of shooters that are necessary for the fostering of knowledge and practice that makes for civilian marksmanship disappear. And they don't come back easily when you need them. You effectively remove a set of survival mechanisms from your society's gene pool. You end up with a society of individuals who are just a little more helpless, just a little more reliant on expensive and unreliable specialists for their own survival. They are just a little more domesticated and a little less free--closer to sheep and farther from mountain goat. That might come back to haunt your children when their America is less prosperous and secure than it is today.

Some Viewing

2009-03-08T12:21:00.002-04:00

The Wire totally had me at "Hello:"

"This America, man!"

This looks like a pretty sweet movie (thanks Ethan Zuckerman). You've got guys rapping about keeping governors accountable and being involved in the political process in Dakar, Senegal. (Hey! I got friends from Dakar!)

African Underground: Democracy in Dakar - Episode # 1 from Nomadic Wax on Vimeo.

Also, Dave Matthews goes to Senegal:

I didn't realize til I saw this video that Dave is the amazing piano savant from this episode of House. Now that I see Dave Matthews not acting like an idiot savant...I kinda see how he played the role so well?

So's you all know...

2009-03-05T01:26:00.003-05:00

Here's a little update from the late shift.

It's closing on my 26th birthday, which is a little scary. Last year around this time, I was gearing up for Officer's Candidate School. Part of that gearing up process was a high-intensity running schedule, during which I sustained bilateral (that's both-side-ical in medical jargon) lower leg injuries due mostly to bad shoes and an idiotic determination to "run through the pain." After months of trying to treat shin splints through all sorts of techniques and resting and physical therapy, it's finally been confirmed by X-Ray that I sustained at least one stress fracture, in my right tibia. I went in for a bone scan last week to see if there were any more. Still waiting for the results on that. I have an appointment with an orthopedist to see if I'll ever be able to get back on my feet.

And, in the meantime, I've thoroughly enjoyed plugging myself back into life here at Houghton. I'm working with the volunteer rescue squad again, hosting game nights on Wednesdays with an exciting variety of local guys, and getting psyched for another riding season (the snow is almost completely gone now!). At some point, I'll put some feet on a new career search (ideas, anyone?), but for the meantime, taking an EMT refresher course, applying for another part-time job in emergency dispatch, and making more trips back home to Michigan is keeping me busy enough.

Thought of the day, from the Fellows of the Boar's Head Tavern:

“Living in the age of sensation, we think that if we don’t feel something, there can be no authenticity in doing it. But the wisdom of God says something different, namely, that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting. Worship is an act which develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God which is expressed in an act of worship. When we obey the command to praise God in worship, our deep, essential need to be in relationship with God is nurtured.” -Eugene Peterson

books! books! books!

2009-02-16T17:02:00.006-05:00

From Pete Jones, the BBC's top 100 books. You're supposed to see how many you have read--I'm guessing Kat and Gustav are going to crush me here...unless I get to count extra points for having read the Lord of the Rings more than ten times. My addition is a one-word adjective describing how worthwhile I felt the reading experience to have been.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien (X) excellent
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (X) muddled, boring, and pointless
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman ( )
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams (X) brilliant and hilarious
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling ( )
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee ( ) liked the movie? :)
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne (X) cool
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell ( ) But I have read, with awe, Brave New World
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis (X) excellent
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë ( ) loathed the movie?
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller ( )
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë ( ) seriously?
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks ( ) never heard of it.
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier ( ) I'm guessing this is in the Bronte vein...
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger ( ) no, but Franny + Zooey was awesome!
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame (X) "there is nothing quite so worth doing as simply messing about in boats."
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens (x) abridged version with pictures was pretty cool as a kid....
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott (X) blechh. thanks, mom...
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres ( )
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy ( )
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell ( )
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling ( )
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling ( ) seriously? JRR only gets on of his trilogy? Where's the Silmarillion, huh?
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling ( )
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien (X) whatever, Rowling, Tolkein should totally be the top five.
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy ( )
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot ( )
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving ( )
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck ( )
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll (X)
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson ( )
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez ( )
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett ( )
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens (x) abridged--pretty cool
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl (X) pretty cool
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (X) great childhood memory!
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute ( )
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen ( )
39. Dune, Frank Herbert (X) I'm so glad this is on here...great book!
40. Emma, Jane Austen ( )
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery (X) unfortunately, yes, I have read this.
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams ( )
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald (X) didn't really get it...well written, though.
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas (x) abridged with pictures was awesome as a child!
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh ( )
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell (X) vaguely remember it being pretty cool.
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (X) great book...but the Muppets do it better :)
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy ( )
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian ( )
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher ( )
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett ( )
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck ( )
53. The Stand, Stephen King ( )
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy ( )
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth ( )
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl ( )
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome ( )
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell (X) This book was awesome as a kid. And really sad...
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer ( )
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky ( )
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman ( )
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden (X) was rather good, until it ended abruptly and uncharacteristically fairy-talish.
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (X) absolutely loved it. best ending line ever: "It is a better thing I do, than I have ever done before...It is a better rest I go to, than any I have ever known."
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough ( )
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett ( ) I so need to buy more Pratchett...
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton ( )
67. The Magus, John Fowles ( )
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman ( ) have to buy this one soon...
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett ( ) so glad he's on here!
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding ( )
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind ( )
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell ( )
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett (X) the man's a genius.
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl ( )
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding ( )
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt ( )
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins ( )
78. Ulysses, James Joyce ( )
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens ( )
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson ( )
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl ( )
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith ( )
83. Holes, Louis Sachar ( )
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake ( )
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy ( )
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson ( )
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (X) was incredible...my introduction to all things distopian and apocalyptic. as a child. which might explain how messed up I am...
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons ( )
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist ( )
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac ( )
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo ( ) the movie is amazing...
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel ( )
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett (X) An excellent disciple of Douglass Adams
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho ( )
95. Katherine, Anya Seton ( )
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer ( )
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez ( )
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson ( )
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot ( )
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie ( )

Yeah, that one word adjective thing didn't last very long. If anybody has any Tolstsoy or Dostoevsky, I'll loan you Pratchett for 'em. :) I also have to mention number 101, one of my all time favorite books: Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome. And then, by corollary, one that should have made the list: To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis. And, of course, if the entire world had more hardcore Christians in it, The Poisonwood Bible would have been up there as well.

On Irony, Cynicism, and Good Cheer

2009-02-04T15:33:00.005-05:00

-An excellent essay on earnest vs. comic irony, and the effect of their adoption on the human soul.

-And why not read some Chesterton? Wine, and Solemnity or Comedy?

As a Christian, I spent years sweating over the salvation of souls, mine and others', without a really clear concept (short of going to heaven and being perfected someday) of what was being saved and what that salvation entailed. I just thought it meant that I would sin less and draw closer to God--so that's what I focused on.

One can, of course, do this and still be a miserable human being, quite lonely, merely by keeping all neighbors at a safe distance from one's true self, avoiding all unmanageable temptation, being devoted and dutiful, and having an utterly flavorless, controlled and moral life where one takes no unmanageable risks of love or hate and generally is a hermit fixated with making sure the goats give milk and the crops produce and nothing wrong or sinful has been done. Mostly at the cost of never confronting any aspect of one's self that cannot be predicted and controlled, stifling unfiltered desires and creativity, and generally losing your zest for life. And...your soul while you're at it.

All while having dotted the "i's" and crossed the "t's" on the standard Christ's Plan of Salvation. And never having touched the sheer terror of loving his neighbor or himself.

So your soul can be a miserable, pathological wreck...but saved? Is this what it's saved to?

Now I find it very important to think long and hard about my soul and the vitality thereof. What is it? What are its pathologies? What is it supposed to look like? Can the things that are obviously bad about my soul, my unique yet ever-changing personality, be made right? What, indeed, are the processes of saving a soul?

---

"But neither nature nor wine nor anything else can be enjoyed if we have the wrong attitude towards happiness, and Omar (or Fitzgerald) did have the wrong attitude towards happiness. He and those he has influenced do not see that if we are to be truly gay, we must believe that there is some eternal gaiety in the nature of things. We cannot enjoy thoroughly even a pas-de-quatre at a subscription dance unless we believe that the stars are dancing to the same tune. No one can be really hilarious but the serious man. “Wine,” says the Scripture, “maketh glad the heart of man,” but only of the man who has a heart." --G.K., Heretics, Chapter VII.

The Fate of a Civilization Rests...

2009-02-02T14:47:00.005-05:00

on how it channels the ambitions of its citizens. Is it more honorable, profitable, and celebrated to work hard and produce something of value, thus adding to the economy, and to serve your society by giving back to the community through civic virtue and service--or is it honorable, profitable, and rewarding to carve out a niche for yourself whereby you benefit economically and socially from access to political power? In short, will your best and brightest be pioneering research and expanding business and participating in the arts and politics in a fashion that generates wealth and culture, or will they be pursuing power, prestige and wealth through earmarks, lobbying, regulation, monopolies, political careers, and, in short, rent-seeking behaviors?

Does your society encourage Mugabe-style acquisition of wealth and prestige through political means, to the detriment of your economy, or does it restrain and curtail the ambitions of your ambitious citizens in such a manner as to benefit the entire society? Or at least protect that society from the aims of the ambitious and well-connected?

That's the synopsis of a conversation Paul Christensen and I had recently, of which I was reminded by this article declaring a shift in culture and power from New York City to Washington, D.C. All hail the "diplomatocracy."

I find it amusing that academia is considered a meritocracy. If academia is meritocratic, it is only in that it awards the academically adept...not necessarily the guys you want running things. There's a reason the maintenance shed guys don't have PhD's--it makes you too well-read and contemplative to be useful in a crisis. Now, hopefully my non-PhD plumber managed to fix my water heater this time. I need a shower.

Sundries

2009-02-02T14:28:00.004-05:00

So, I read a two-line blip in TIME yesterday:

"$34,023: Amount of self-employment taxes Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner failed to pay on time from 2001 to 2004. The Senate confirmed him anyway, 60 to 34."

Well, hey, it's a time of trouble and crisis, and he's no doubt a smart guy, and President Obama wants him to help right our country, so expediency and better judgement once more trump tradition, and, I don't know, the law. Whatever, they know what they're doing, they're in charge!

The difference between our country and your average African governance cesspot used to be the Rule of Law. So what is it now?

Hey, also, this is cool:

(h/t clusterflock)

Which leads me to my final point--the chief difficulty with good governance in the states is that it takes so much time. William F. Buckley pointed out last year that we don't require anything more of our politicians than weak sentiment enshrined as law, instead of carefully thought out, highly descriptive legislation. We are, as a nation, routinely legislating "shoulds" that are then left up to professional bureaucrats to interpret and then apply in the form of crafting institutions and policy. How many of us have read the bailout package? How many of us know where to go to read the bailout package? No. I certainly haven't. Who has the time? There are a myriad of other, more entertaining things to do with my time. As long as it's titled "Stimulus Package," and discussed as such in sixty-second soundbites, we assume that's what it's supposed to do. If it works, we will praise President Obama, and if it fails, we will vilify...someone...and then demand change...in the form of someone else...who we will then ignore until he screws up or makes us angry. I mean, that's how we got into two wars and started torturing people without any form of due process and nationalized our banking system...all under a "conservative" "pro-business" president.

Yeah, the nation that used to celebrate heroes who would die rather than dishonor their country now cowers behind some sort of possible terrorism justification. "Who knows how many acts of terror would be committed if we didn't make some mistakes or violate our ethical boundaries in the pursuit of our enemies." Oh, I don't know, but I'd rather have terrorist attacks on our soil than commit our country to policies that violate our national morality. Our country will not fail if a few thousand citizens die horribly, or we lose an entire city to an epic disaster. We certainly made it through Hurricane Katrina without any abatement of our growth economy. And in an economic recession, dudes can still whip out cool YouTube content via their own creativity. The American dream can survive terrorist attacks--what it cannot survive is the death of it's commitment to human rights, liberties, and the rule of law that protects them.

Ten Things I Love About Barack

2009-02-01T16:22:00.000-05:00

1. He can talk in complete sentences in Midwestern English that make sense (this is not a racial comment, it's a reference to his predecessor).

2. He achieved public office (and went to an Ivy League School, for that matter) without politically influential family connections (see above), thus epitomizing the American dream.

3. Rather than taking his Ivy League degree and getting a highly-paying corporate management position, he got involved in community outreach and public service. (also, see above)

4. He has personally demonstrated an above-average level of civility and class in public discourse. (nope. I'm pretty much done trashing 43, that had absolutely nothing to do with him and everything to do with everyone else.)

5. He appears to be a loving husband to his wife and a loving father to his children.

6. He has quietly reminded the nation that tobacco is more than just a Republican special interest group or a mark of the unenlightened mind.

7. He is a prominent African American celebrity who also happens to be a Harvard-educated lawyer, was raised by a single mother and her parents, moved from school to school growing up, and is renowned for his community activism, ability to build bridges, and eloquent speechmaking. This is good for helping all Americans of all hues loosen their preconcieved notions and participate more creatively and productively in our economy and society.

8. As a new president with a clean slate and a mandate for change, he is capable of addressing diplomatic issues and international actions with a broader array of options than the previous president, who was tied down to commitments and actions chosen during the dark days after 9/11 and during the rise of the new phenomenon of globalized terrorism, and burdened by a lack of international goodwill. (gotta throw Bush a bone somewhere in here...it was a hell of a time to be a president)

9. He has a name with Arabic roots, and Hebrew and Swahili derivations, and a wide usage, all of which I am familiar with linguistically, thus providing me with an excellent way to impress pretty, enthusiastic Obama supporters in bars.

10. He has visited upon us a great mercy, by luring our pantsuited carpetbagger away from the Great State of New York. God bless ex-Senator Clinton...and keep her far away from here!

Glorious Pieces of Steaming Schlock from the Interweb

2009-01-31T14:06:00.004-05:00

For your purview, gentle readers, I submit:

Josh Harris' brothers, Alex and Brett, have to win a lifetime achievement award for poorly chosen names. This is what happens when you take yourself just a little too seriously for just a little too long...you launch a conference tour on your gag-reflex-inducingly christened "rebelution" website to promote Christian teen countercultural virtue and you call it...

The Do Hard Things Tour. WIN! Michael Scott on line 1, what's that Michael? That's what who said? I can't hear you!

And, thanks to youtube, we have this wonderful example of, like, awesome. Her inflection is spot on! Brilliant! Perfect delivery! I so want to buy her DVDs! I'm sure this is the wave of the future! No more airports! I'm off to Tahiti, in the Spirit! Perfect solution for our economic AND environmental problems. God is soooooo neat, ya' know?

But now to what I'm really interested in. Dear self-professed President Obama enthusiasts...[cough, cough, Shaffners, ahem, Dierckses, hrmmmm, Perrine]...I'm hearing a stunning lack of commentary on...well...on this stunning piece of church-camp-esque adoration:

I mean...wow. These are all, I grant you, mostly good things, and the world will be varying degrees of a better place if they get around to doing them. That guy, for instance, pledging to "consider myself an American, not an African-American"--with total sincerity, I applaud that most excellent and important idea. And we're all glad that Diddy is turning his lights off, and that that other guy has enough money to buy a hybrid. Planting trees, and volunteering in the community are excellent, excellent things that we all should be doing, regardless of who the president is. Maybe it was taking it a bit far to have Ashton Kutcher utter the words dignity and respect in a serious venue, but, hey, the kid's got to grow up some time.

But look at the narrative focus: a renewed sense of hope, personal betterment, and a false sense of personal attachment to/identification with a faraway impersonal powerful figure (You Are Not Alone!? He's rich, powerful, successful, and highly educated--he's not really needing my sympathy!) That's either religious enthusiasm or a cult of personality, Idi Amin-style. Seriously--this is pretty schlocky for the iPod set. Where's the cynicism? C'mon, folks, I expect better of you than this. In all honesty, and I ask this of my liberal friends--because I know my conservative friends' views already--how would you respond to this if it was Charlton Heston promising to teach children marksmanship and gun safety?

So, my friends who voted for our new President--what do you think of this millennial euphoria sweeping across the nation? What is it, from whence does it come, how long will it last, and what will be the end of it? Please, email me, I'd like to hear what this looks like from your point of view. Everyone else, feel free, I suppose, to comment away about Hitler youth, socialism, the end times, the ongoing ministry of what is turning into the Harris dynasty, and how really, really, really awkward that extreme prophecy lady is for people who, well, believe in prophecy and the Holy Spirit and all that.

I usually don't cotton to Baptists...

2009-01-23T17:06:00.004-05:00

but the video at the introduction to this sermon is incredible.

I don't necessarily follow his hermeneutic, but the pastor is correct--abortion, like slavery and institutionalized racism, is an issue of basic human or civil rights.

Pharaoh vs. Embryo from Russell Moore on Vimeo.

Two Recommendations

2009-01-20T14:05:00.004-05:00

Graham Greene's excellent "The End of the Affair." It's beautiful, painful, moving, and Sarah's character and experiences mirror some of my own when it comes to faith.

Clint Eastwood's fantastic "Gran Torino." You can catch Clint delivering lines that no one but Clint can deliver, against the backdrop of Detroit's racial tensions and changing economy. It's quite a story. Caution: excellent banter with really strong language, in the way cool way only Clint Eastwood can growl. And a hundred different excellent deliveries of "hrrrm." Go and see.

And, congratulations President Obama. May you strengthen civil rights and the rule of law and finish the wars abroad.

Love of Self, Love of Others...

2009-01-15T13:10:00.005-05:00

I think Clive Lewis would be the first to note that the easiest way to love yourself clandestinely is to love another for your own sake. And Graham Greene would be there to show you how it is done. The End of the Affair is an exquisite chronicle (so far...I am only a third of the way through) of the unenviable state of a soul which has nothing but itself to care about. Perhaps this is why human love is necessary in our reconciliation with our lives, the world, and God--we learn how much better it is to love another than one's self alone. So our surrender in the finite readies us to surrender and embrace the infinite. Losing ourselves in another is a good lesson for permanently surrendering our deep and abiding concern for ourselves. And this is necessary for our salvation.

Hooray for rediscovering the Houghton College Library! Free books...it's almost better than Amazon!

"The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than that of happiness. In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism--this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belongs to me and to no other. But happiness annihilates us; we lose our identity."

"As long as one is happy one can endure any discipline; it was unhappiness that broke down the habit of work. When I began to realize how often we quarelled, how often I picked on her with nervous irritation, I became aware that our love was doomed; love had turned into a love affair with a beginning and an end. I could name the very moment when it had begun, and one day I knew I should be able to name the final hour. When she left the house I couldn't settle to work. I would reconstruct what we had said to each other; I would fan myself into anger or remorse. And all the time I knew I was forcing the pace. I was pushing, pushing the only thing I love out of my life. As long as I could make believe that love lasted I was happy; I think I was even good to live with, and so love did last. But if love had to die, I wanted it to die quickly."

--Graham Green, The End of the Affair.

The Second-Best Christmas Gift

2009-01-11T09:25:00.005-05:00

Francis Schaeffer was a pretty big figure in the evangelical world that I grew up in--he was a lion of a figure, a man of incredible intellect and a sweet goatee who founded a community called L'Abri in Switzerland.

His son, Frank Schaeffer, wrote a book about growing up at L'Abri, about his struggles with faith and family, and about how he ultimately left what he calls the "Religious Right." Somehow I conned Ian into getting me that book for Christmas. It's excellent--Crazy for God--and it's his memoir of a dizzying life as an early mover and shaker in a movement that ended with the identification of the Republican Party and conservatism with evangelical Christianity, his disillusionment with the movement and his faith.

I like it because it's personal--the conservative evangelical intellectual world was my world and Frank's world too, and his story jives with my story and there aren't many people out there with whom I can identify. And it tells the backstory on idolizing and isolating your heroes, getting lost in the heady feeling of belonging to some movement both critical and eschatological, and about questioning your faith without losing your mind or ending bitter and angry and burnt out. Frank's deep loyalty, love and admiration for his parents and their faith shines brilliantly in the midst of his own struggles with faith and criticism for the movement which embraced their family.

It's still probably good reading even if you don't identify with the memoirist, due to excellent passages on education, childhood, family, and a beautiful chapter dedicated to his love for his wife. Francis the Younger is, after all, a novelist at heart, and it shows up in the hurricane force five-page ode to the love of his life. Or, you could just read the interview here at the Rutherford Institute, which leans a little more towards exploring the world of politicized evangelicalism and is an interesting read on its own. Or you could listen to the interview on NPR's "Fresh Air" that got me started on this whole journey back in the beginning of December.

Encounters With Jesus From The Other Side

2009-01-04T05:10:00.004-05:00

Can leftist lesbian journalists from San Francisco find Jesus? Or, in the more fun parlance, Will It Blend?

Also, some good reflections from Garrison Keillor.

And, of course, I have to agree with Mr. Keillor on the importance of proper spelling, because I'm uptight like that.

I [heart] Top Gear

2008-12-29T18:06:00.004-05:00

Jeremy Richardson and Richard Hammond, while driving a Lamborghini through the stacked switchbacks in the Italian Alps.

Hammond: "The drops! It's impossible! If you go over the edge, you'll have time to phone the insurance company on the way down!"

Richardson: "Not like Playstation, this: you can't just press the "reset" button when you get it wrong. You just go straight through the pearly gates...on fire!"

Some High Falutin' Church Worship For Your Masses

2008-12-27T17:33:00.005-05:00

Meditating on the icons has long been a way to contemplate Christ and His Work through the arts. So here is my favorite musical piece of all time, set to iconography--although I wish it did not change so quickly. I guess iconography can fall prey to limited visual attention spans even if there are no commercial breaks...

See! Via the internet, even a hillbilly in Wesleyan Countryfolk Heaven can experience some of the grandeur of a full church choir and high church art!

---

additional note: in pondering the other day with Ethan, over fine beverage, it occurred to me that the happiest memories of my life are those of communal singing. So great thanks to brother David, for helping me startle all those tourists in Frankenmouth with robust carol singing.

Sufjan sings the same. Also, "For the Widows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti."

Merry Christmas from the Night Shift!

2008-12-25T04:52:00.003-05:00

I'm totally wearing some awesome Christmas Carhartt bib overalls while listening to BNL's "We Three Kings." Merry Christmas and yeee haw!

please please please please please

2008-12-11T11:53:00.002-05:00

If anyone knows the whereabouts of my CD case with years' worth of collecting excellent music from excellent people, my iPod died and I need it back so I can listen to awesome tunes again...

Napoleon Confounds Mathematicians

2008-11-26T06:32:00.002-05:00

The "strangely polarizing" 2004 comedy film "Napoleon Dynamite" counfounds programmers attempting to algorithmically predict people's taste in film in order to improve Netflix's movie-recommendation software. Apparently, it's difficult to predict people's reactions to Napoleon Dynamite.

Read Well...

2008-11-24T08:34:00.002-05:00

"I am not a well educated man except that I have educated myself, and,
because I have educated myself, what I say will not stand up, for lack of recognized authority. This in turn leaves me free to say what I will, in the hope that, like those small forces that do not threaten empires and are thus not fully pursued, the things in which I believe can survive in some high and forgotten place until the power of empire subsides.

"And although I know that few will listen to or credit this, I think we are in a lost age, in which holiness and charity have been traded for the victory and penetration of knowledge, though all the knowledge in the world has not brought us any further than where we can go without it even in the outermost halls of grace. I believe that more is to be known and apprehended from the beauty of a face than in delving, no
matter how deep, simply into how things work, no matter how marvelous that may be. The greatest substance of the world is immaterial, the province of the heart, and its study cannot be forced or reasoned. Merely to touch upon the edge of things in parsing their mechanics is to forswear their fullness, for the entry to this fullness lies not in science but in art. I cannot prove this, for it cannot be proven, but I claim, assert, and have seen it."

— Mark Helprin, found here. Read his excellent, touching and well writ essay on humanity in the technological age here. No, seriously, take fifteen or twenty precious minutes and read it...it will give you perspective on your soul. It's about accelerated tranquility. It's got a sweet description of the life of a British civil servant from the turn of the century. It's not idealistic. It's better than good information--it's got wisdom.

Laugh

2008-11-22T09:17:00.003-05:00

This is pretty funny.

--edit--

heh heh...from the Pittsburg Post-Gazette:

"...Ms. Donnelly, who heads the nonpartisan Center for Military Readiness, argues that ordering women to serve in combat is lowering standards and creating resentment among male soldiers. "There are differences between men and women where physical strength is an issue."

That's a point Ms. Manning, a Navy veteran, disputes.

"There are some pretty strapping women out there," she said..."

Tactfully put, Ms. Manning.

Classy Speech

2008-11-06T07:19:00.003-05:00

Senator McCain shushes the booing crowds and gently rebukes the rancor and divisiveness of the long campaign. Very statesmanlike. Honorable. Classy. This is a McCain who impresses me. He plaintively asks his booing audience "Please, please..." and I wonder if he is occasionally saddened that the nation for which he endured war, prison and torture so easily descends into indecency, suspicion, bitterness and hatred, and if the necessities of campaigning warred against a basic sense of honor, patriotism, and friendship for his fellow Senators.

When Senator McCain takes the responsibility for failure of the campaign, I think he is speaking of his failure to set an example as a statesman--his failure to match President-Elect Obama's marriage of firm convictions with civility, tranquility and faith in democracy. He did an excellent job of not playing the victim. Obama seemed to rise above anger, bitterness, and spite, and encouraged his supporters to hope and believe and act. McCain didn't manage to do that--I think he got lost in a campaign of fear, rancor, self-importance, arrogance, excitement, and the odd emotions of a stubborn, beer swilling reverse-elitism.

The Old King Is Dead...

2008-11-05T05:32:00.003-05:00

Long Live the King! errr, ummm...I mean, congratulations and best wishes, President-Elect Obama! May you lead wisely, govern capably, and promote justice and peace in the land.

Thoughts from the post-election sandy-eyed dreary blur:

-I haven't successfully slept more than four hours on a presidential election night since H. W. was in office. I am and always will be incurably a political animal. I "just stopped by" the campus centre for a few minutes between working out and getting to be on time for work this morning, and started talking...and got to be at around one-ish.

-I earnestly feel bad for my most earnestly liberal friends: nothing crushes revolutionary high hopes like winning the revolution. I mean, we had a Republican Revolution and all we got was a couple of messy wars, the death of compassionate conservatism, deficit spending, government intrusion into the financial sector and the serious erosion of civil liberties. The only thing more frustrating than being powerless is being in charge when your high aspirations and messianic dreams meet the harsh limitations of reality.

-Hoooray for America! 225+ years of violence-free elections. Three cheers for the rule of law! And good for us, the land of equal opportunity, where Austrian bodybuilders can call themselves the REAL Americans and a Harvard educated, extremely articulate, very-palatable-to-white-culture son of a white woman can be hailed as the first black president. What exactly are the qualifications for being the first "black" president? Could he have been the first black president if only his grandfather, instead of his father, was black? Great-grandfather? (Is there some sort of black-ness test, involving ability to dance, general sense of "cool"...was it that fist-bump thing?) Is Obama really African-American, considering that his father was a bona-fide African, and his mother was a white American, so neither of his parents were actually African American. And was that really bona-fide country music I heard blaring at his victory party in that Chicago baseball field? What is the significance of Michelle Obama's hairstyle? At any rate, let's take a deep breath and be proud of our country, where President-Elect Barack Obama can be judged by the content of his character. As Mike said, "there is no question that I am proud of America for accepting the leadership of someone who 50 years ago wouldn't have been allowed to ride the same bus with his Vice President(-elect)."

-'Kay, time for a question--I know what Obama's opponents thought he would do as president. What do you, my friends who voted blue, think his first hundred days will look like?

For All Those Dutifully Kow-Towing to the TSA

2008-10-22T06:52:00.002-04:00

..."I once asked Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security, about this. 'We actually ultimately do have a vision of trying to move the security checkpoint away from the gate, deeper into the airport itself, but there’s always going to be some place that people congregate. So if you’re asking me, is there any way to protect against a person taking a bomb into a crowded location and blowing it up, the answer is no.' ”

A journalist decides to see how easy it is to smuggle prohibited items onto commercial flights.

old skool

2008-10-21T11:37:00.002-04:00

Steve Taylor, on Greed. This quirky early CCM singer-songwriter (he broke his ankle jumping off a stage at Cornerstone...in 1984) was a satirical genius...Too bad he wasn't quite polite enough to make it as a CCM artist. He's a done a lot behind the scenes, however, including writing and producing for the Newsboys and Sixpence None The Richer.

He penned the lyrics to this song, one of the better songs the Newsboys ever recorded, before they lost John James, and his edgy honesty, to a battle with drugs and alcoholism. Ten years after I started listening to Newsboys, and I still know every word to this song.

It's tough voting Republican...

2008-10-11T13:53:00.002-04:00

in a world of completely unethical Republicans. Perhaps you have received an email detailing the number of deaths in the armed services year by year since 1980, coming to the conclusion that, under the Clinton Administration, 14,107 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines died, while only 7,932 died under good ol' dubya, bless his heart.

This is, naturally, contradictory to "common sense," which is the point of this email. The numbers even come with a source. So I read the source, and it was pretty impressively researched. It had lots of food for thought. But, the numbers in the email were sometimes significantly different than the ones in the report (see chart, page 10). I ran a quick tally with a calculator, and verified my results with two other reports.

Clinton: 7,500 active duty military deaths.
Bush: 8,792 active duty military deaths, not counting 2007 or 2008.

Which is still pretty impressive, considering that Bush is waging two wars. Apparently, there are a good number of deaths by accident/illness/homicide even in off-years. But, seriously, did you really believe that 2000+ American soldiers died each year in 1995, 1996, and 1998 (more than died in any year of the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan?)

Hey, well, real numbers doesn't make down-home, righteous, self-assured Republicans feel better about their war. Believing something because it makes liberals out to be stupid, incompetent, unpatriotic, sniveling, add your descriptor of choice, does.

So, Americans everywhere. Could we find a way to elevate our discussion of public policy to something better than lies and vilification? Let's start here.

I, Dan Holcomb, pledge not to be gullible when someone walks by waving the flag and selling an a feel-fear/feel-good/feel-superior agenda. I pledge to take seriously the governance of our society, which is an inheritance of great value passed down to me by ancestors both conservative and liberal, and which has no legions of liberal-American-hating/conservative-reactionary-war-loving enemies but actually is constituted of a lot of people like me, except with different unfounded and often reflexive opinions. I pledge to not believe something because it fits what I already believe or want to believe, but to ask to see some real evidence. I pledge to resist actions and thoughts that come from lazy conditioning and emotional impulse.

And foremost, I pledge not to feel superior to someone else because of my ideology. I will, instead, feel superior based upon my actions--the things I actually do to make my city, my county, my state, and my country a better place, not just by voting so that someone else can be my moral scapegoat, but by doing it myself.

--

ps--for those of you involved in education, the armytimes.com article about this email would be an excellent discussion-starter on the importance of doing your own research and getting solid sources and then checking the addition and subtraction yourself instead of believing an email just because it claims to use data from a reputable source.

--

pps--I am accepting 500-word submissions at reifiedbeans+comedy (at symbol) gmail.com. Topic: creative explanations for the "mistaken" numbers in the email in question.

--

also, is anyone reading this? I've been posting a lot lately, but...no comments. Am I obnoxious? Uninteresting? Under the radar? Send me some love. Cheers!

sweet t shirts

2008-09-28T05:58:00.007-04:00

oh yeah

also: cool stuff...

five dangerous things you should teach your children to do. I like the emphasis on empowering children, inspiring inquiry, and engaging with the world in a way that involves breaking it down into knowable bits. In spite of my initial skepticism after his admission that he has none of his own. Love the introduction to civil disobedience in the last one. Even law-abiding citizens shouldn't be mindlessly so.

alternatively, you could just go full-Bedford and model cliff jumping

finally, someone besides Daniel Quinn who questions the belief that agricultural societies are, as a whole, better off than hunter-gatherer ones, but with more evidence. [edit: well, more anecdotal evidence--no sources].

finally, don't mess with the Indian Navy. they will use their tiger torpedoes on you.

from the big picture.

oh, and, because of my love of all things post-apocalyptic--apocalypse as pornography.

and one more thing--all the people in the world, represented by grains of rice.

--edit again--
As you might be aware, the top five of my google reader shared items are available on the upper lefthand corner of my little blogsite here. Basically, it's interesting reading. I've updated the header there to link to a page where you can see all my google reader shared items, and I think even comment on them, which would be cool. There's some good reading there. And I chose the "ninja" style, because they didn't have a pirate one. So check it out!

Ahhhh, Jon Stewart...

2008-08-26T05:21:00.002-04:00

You Are So Painfully Funny (With Russian Subtitles, For Extra Irony and Human Impact)

found here (warning--there are a few very obviously dead bodies in some of the other posts)

tee hee

2008-08-23T17:53:00.002-04:00

if only...

great webcomic. at least, as far as I've read--I started at the beginning.

-- edit --

I am absolutely loving the freakonomics blog. For instance, this blurb about the application of the theory of supply and demand to the a shortage of single women in an Australian town. Apparently, the mayor, seeing opportunity for everyone, suggested addressing a 5-1 male/female ratio by advertising for ugly women elsewhere to improve their relative value by marketing themselves in a scarce area. Needless to say, this did not fly so well with local women, who feel inclined to protect their monopoly and elevated values on the man-market. Oh, and there's this swell link to a bit about the importance of defined property rights at an Elton John concert.

Surprise!

2008-08-21T18:01:00.002-04:00

Wait for the humorous punchline, defensive religious Republicans!

"An article by Steven Waldman in the online magazine Slate provides some perspective on the divide:

"As you may already know, one of America's two political parties is extremely religious. Sixty-one percent of this party's voters say they pray daily or more often. An astounding 92 percent of them believe in life after death. And there's a hard-core subgroup in this party of super-religious Christian zealots. Very conservative on gay marriage, half of the members of this subgroup believe Bush uses too little religious rhetoric, and 51 percent of them believe God gave Israel to the Jews and that its existence fulfills the prophecy about the second coming of Jesus."

The group that Waldman is talking about is Democrats; the hard-core subgroup is African-American Democrats."

:) Paul Bloom in the Atlantic Monthly.

stuff of interest

2008-08-17T14:26:00.003-04:00

--thank you luke, most interesting reading on the web--

termites are very impressive

Jesus is my Homeboy

don't really know what to think about this, but it's about theology and booze, and I think the author was overindulging just a tad in both...

and, hipster webcomics

can you think of a significant literary quote by an author born after 1950?

oh, and for Kat, another way to get the old creative-writing thing going again: stories in fifty-five words.

George Lucas, Q&A

2008-08-05T07:38:00.002-04:00

George Lucas, on turning the Star Wars: Clone Wars TV series into a feature length film:

"I have the advantage of not having to have a business plan about movies..."I have the advantage of being able to come up with an idea and say 'this is a good idea' and 'gosh this turned out so great, why don't we move it over here and do this'....it's kind of ad-hoc movie-making.

"We started working on the [TV]series and we developed all this new technology, new techniques, this different look to everything and I saw it.....and I said 'wow this is good enough to be a feature film. Why don't we make a feature film?'".

Uhhhhh...because of Star Wars, Episode I. Star Wars, Episode II. A little pile of trash called Star Wars, Episode III. And, finally, because of Jar Jar Binks. Finally proof that being in charge does not equate with intelligence.

For all the lovers out there...

2008-07-19T05:02:00.002-04:00

And the fans of Bwana Jon's Animal Lectures, I give you the poster on the right:

For everyone else, the poster on the left. :)

The InterWeb!

2008-07-09T11:49:00.002-04:00

provides another forum for interesting human behavior. Tricksy Hobbitses, those humans!

Getting All Political Up In Here...

2008-06-27T07:19:00.003-04:00

From time to time, while bored, hope rears its ugly head and I go searching the interweb for information to help me vote. The process usually hands hope a slow, painful bludgeoning, whereupon it hides in the corner playing video games and licking its wounds. If the discussion is not a freehanded, predestined, lopsided and completely interested interpretation of the latest vaguely reported news story, then it no doubt will involve the invocation of "common sense;" an all-encompassing and quite tidy ideal and abstract political theory; some form of a well-rehearsed narrative stereotyping: ("Republican Corporate Whores" and "Fascist Liberal Democrats" and now I am quoting--"hell bent on the destruction of the REPUBLIC!"*); or, 53% of the time, unsourced statistics without even a reference towards methodology or ambiguity.

So, it's kinda nice when you actually stumble upon that bane of the college freshman's existence, a Primary Source--a firsthand, comparative account of two health-care systems (British and American), with their strengths and weaknesses. Ahh, now there's a breath of fresh aire...

Both experiences underscored something for me: my growing belief that if something is important and needs to be done right, and it can't be done yourself, you better keep a close eye on the process. No one takes care of you like...you!

*(Seriously...do you really think they are out there, plotting the downfall of the nation? Because that's treason...)

epistemology

2008-06-21T13:55:00.004-04:00

Hmmmmm....the sanctity of Google-truth is under attack? Google's search algorithms partially rely on making connections between search terms and websites using the labels that people apply to links when linking to those sites. So if a large number of people, or one person over a large number of sites, link to George W. Bush's official White House website biography with the label "miserable failure," they can influence the Google Search results for "miserable failure" to include that web page in the top 100...despite the fact that the authors of the page probably did not intend that to be the subject or that page. This is one example of a successful "Google Bomb."

The previous actually happened, as a joke. Then radical political activists caught wind of the Google Bomb.

"In the 2006 US midterm elections, many left-wing bloggers, led by MyDD.com, banded together to propel neutral or negative articles about many Republican House candidates to the top of Google searches for their names.[1] Right-wing bloggers responded similarly."

Foucoult said, "Power is knowledge." Any process of knowing something reveals and is influenced by systems of power. Or, as the conservatives would howl, "The news media is biased!"

What's interesting is that Google's techniques for providing information are reflective of associations that people make--they are generally generated unconsciously, by mapping common trends. But when the mapping techniques are known, they can be manipulated. Either way, it's sort of participatory truth manufacturing, right? Soooooo postmodern. We create the answers to Google searches, together. All hail the human hive mind!

In this case, we see the Google search algorithms, and the internet as a whole, as a sort of commons, or "public good." The Google search works accurately (to a certain point) as long as a majority of the public are sincere, transparent, and nonmanipulative. But, if a significant enough minority starts breaking the "rules" and trying to manipulate the system, it ceases to function well, for everyone. And then, to rob from Billy Madison, "truly dumber," because our collective knowing has been hijacked for selfish gain.

Four years out of COD and I'm still thinking with the Oakersonian frameworks. I think he and Dr. Perkins were the two most influential thinkers I have ever studied under.

Discussion Question
Since the systems of information gathering and dissemination intentionally or unintentionally choose and spin the information they provide, is it better to have multiple, competing, ideologically committed, knowingly subjective systems, or to have an atmosphere where diverse opinions and an attempt at editorial objectivity are expected--where the will to power is constrained by ideals of earnest discussion and cooperation?

Is it better to belong to a system where information is disseminated by organizations which wear their opinions, nay, their agendas, on their shirtsleeves, or one in which public morality demands those shirtsleeves be covered up, and in the name of gentlemanly good taste, that those men attempt to sublimate their opinions and agendas in the name of fair play and improving the public discourse?

It's my opinion that newsrooms--and Google searches, too, it appears--reflect the nature of their patrons. If we are willing to give our neighbors the benefit of a doubt when they disagree with us, we would be more willing to listen to them, and our news outlets of choice would be less one sided and propagandistic. But, since we seem to be set in our ways, resistant to new ideas, and content to enjoy ridicule, militancy, slander, and selfrighteous verbal abuse in lieu of discussion...we have what we have: institutions with lots and lots of noise, and very little public trust.

An Excellent Film

2008-06-11T23:00:00.004-04:00

I wish Robert Redford had made this movie when I burning out towards the end of college. Basically, he plays a political science professor giving it with double barrels to some kid who is choosing cynicism, criticism and another major over engagement with the real nuts and bolts politics. During the same hour that their conversation takes place, a journalist and a senator square off over the ethics of their respective actions as the senator announces a new strategy in Afghanistan, and two young soldiers who used to be Redford's star students take part in the leading offensive of this new strategy.

To Quote:

Todd: "Well isn't that my point? Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, they can't fix things, what the hell is Todd Hayes gonna do?"
Redford; "Bitch? Quit?"
Todd: "Hey, look, I'm gonna pay my taxes, all right? I'm gonna obey traffic lights, allright?"
Redford: "I was thinking about something bigger."
Todd: "Something bigger? Bigger like what, be a congressman? Oh, yeah, super, and then I get to be one of those turds in DC--and I mean, pure pieces of ****--make our laws? I get to be a doughboy, who parts his hair on the same side as everybody else, the guy who, who never says anything even though he never stops talking? Oh, I get to be the guy who, who lecture you on morality, while the page jacks me off under the desk? Oh, yeah, please, the guy who funnels away a million that doesn't belong to him and balls like an evangelist when he gets caught. And how many never get caught, doc? Hey, if that's something bigger than being a good joe with a good job, then, ****it. Yeah, that's where you lost me."
[long pause]
Redford: "You almost convinced me. You almost convinced me that you really know what you're talking about. You're great with words, son, but you know what would make them even better, is if they had a heartbeat. If they were rooted in any kind of experience. If you had knocked on doors, licked envelopes, been to a **** public rally...just put yourself on the line in any meaningful way."

[later]

Todd: "What changed?"
Redford: "You. The students sitting across from me."
Todd: "'Cause we're more shrewd, because we see how things work, because we don't want to live and die for these pieces of ****."
Redford: "No. Because you want to put as much distance between yourselves and the real world as possible. And these, these "pieces of **** [the corrupt and powerful]," they bank on your apathy--they bank on your willful ignorance. They plan strategies around it!
Todd: "So blame me for it all. Blame me because I, I just want to live the good life, because I'm smart enough to? You're gonna blame me, because I don't want to work elbow to elbow with you on a g-----n collective farm? Doc, you're starting to sound a **** of a lot like my parents. They're always harping on me about how they worked so hard to give me the better life, and then they resent the **** out of me because I got the nerve to enjoy it."
Redford: "Todd, what good is a $90,000 Benz...if there's not only not enough gas in the tank, but the streets and the highways are decaying to the point of becoming third world? With all your rants about Congress and the government are true, if things are really bad, as bad as you say they are...when thousands of American troops are dead and more are dying every day, probably as we are speaking, you tell me, how can you enjoy the good life? Rome is burning, son. And the problem is not with the people that started it--they're past, irredeemable--the problem is with us: all of us. Who do nothing. Who just sit, and try to maneuver around the edges of the flame. Now I tell you something. There are people out there, day to day, all over the world that are fighting to make this better..."
Todd: "You think it's better to have tried and failed that to never have tried, right? But what is the difference if you end up in the same place?"
Redford: "...Well at least you did something."

[then later, in class]

Student: "C'mon, when hasn't a big house with high walls been the American dream?"
Michael Pena: "July 5th, 1776."
Derek Luke: "What about December 8th, 1941?"
Pena: September 12th, 2001?"

[later, in the office.]

Redford: "The decisions you make now, bud, can be changed...with years and years of hard work to re-do it. And in those years you become something different. Everybody does, as time passes--you get married, you get into debt...but you're never going to be the same person you are right now. And "promise," and "potential,"--it's a very fickle thing. And it just might not be there anymore...the tough thing about adulthood is that--it starts before your even know it starts: when you're already a dozen decisions into it. But what you need to know, Todd: no lifeguard's watching you anymore. You're on your own. You're your own man, and the decisions you make now are yours and yours alone from here until the end."

This is one of those movies that shows us what it is like to be part of our generation, in the flux: part of our generation and safe and not responsible, or part of our generation and courageous.

And it's really well filmed :) Watch this movie.

Recent Accomplishments, in Ascending Order of Significance

2008-06-07T08:27:00.002-04:00

1. Acended to Near Full Time Worker status with the college, thus...

2. Actually have health (and life!) insurance!

3. Learned to read and write Arabic script, conjugate Arabic verbs in the present/incomplete tense, and assemble basic grammatical structures (also Arabic).

4. Clawed my way back into the Land Grab Top 100! (look for "wyldebeenst"--then groan with envy!)

Totally Why I Have Shin Splints

2008-04-24T07:15:00.002-04:00

[article--isn't the New Yorker awesome?]

I didn't have them when I hiked summers and wandered around barefoot as much as possible.

And then I took jobs where boot-wearing was mandatory, and lived in a city where barefoot is dangerous. And when I started running again, midwinter...

Whammo. shin splints. I'm so lobbying for barefoot.

So. Question. Is flip-flop as good as barefoot?

David Plotz Reads the Bible

2008-04-13T15:21:00.004-04:00

David Plotz, a lifelong practicing Jew, decided to read through the Bible after opening it while bored and stumbling into the gruesome story of the Rape of Dinah in Genesis (also known as "How to get an entire tribe to inflict terrible pain onthemselves, then slaughter them when they are helpless in their misery, even though there are two of you and lots of them; or, "Don't f**k around with the canny bastards who inherited Jacob's trickybastard genes."

So, he decided to read the Bible, and blog it. It's good reading. It's a great relief to see the sheer volume of characters God deals with in "the OT." It's good for the chronically spiritually insecure to be incapable of picking up a theme for God's chosen. They really run the gamut from passive-aggressive, wheeling/dealing, chill, righteous, absolutely unrighteous, dumb, stubborn...also, some God speaks to, and some God does not. You just can't predict who God's going to pick, and what he's going to do for them (or to them, for that matter), or whether or not they're particularly going to like it, or whether even God will keep his promises. Freddy Buechner says that the Old Testament is one tough pill to swalllow for the moralists everywhere--there's no discernible, predictable connection between the moral behavior (or intelligence, or likeability, or theology) of the actors and their general lot in life. Life just sort of happens to them, and they muddle along, and some are better than others, and they reap various practical rewards for their good behavior, sometimes, but there's just no sure way to be God's favorite.

(Oddly, also, the account has left the Barenaked Ladies' "Old Apartment" in my head: "This is where we used to live...")

Excerpt:

"Chapter 8
Another Deuteronomy line that everyone knows: "Man does not live by bread alone."

I know that President Bush is an avid Bible reader. I hope he and his speechwriters have been poring over Deuteronomy. Here's why: We don't have the resources to start another war right now, but we still need to force our enemies to behave. If Bush is drafting a speech that will scare the bejesus out of the Iranians (or perhaps, scare the bemuhammad out of them), he should look no further than the Deut. It's one long threat! A few highlights, chosen practically at random from the thunderous verses of Chapter 7 and 8.

"I warn you this day that you shall certainly perish."

or

We "shall obliterate their name from under the heavens."

or

"God will also send a plague against them, until those who are left in hiding perish before you."

or

"The Lord's anger will blaze forth against you and He will promptly wipe you out."

How do Deuteronomy's imprecations fit together with the book's sublime prayers like the Shema? They don't! And that's what confuses me. It's a Jekyll and Hyde of a book. The Shema, which orders us to love God with all our heart and mind, is quickly followed by rip-their-guts-out Saw-like cursing from God and Moses. That's how the whole book has gone so far: Gorgeous invocations to faith alternate with saber-rattling and lightning bolts. It's like a biblical good-cop, bad-cop routine. I suppose it's effective, because it keeps you off balance. In any given moment, it's not clear if you are supposed to love God or fear Him, so you'd better do both."

Moment of Free Associative Musing: The Torah is full of grandiose promises that don't get fulfilled: inheriting all the land, living in peace, multiplied by thousands upon thousands, bountiful harvests, utter destruction, etc, etc... It reminds me of all the Arabists and Middle Eastern experts who explain that honest liberal-minded moderates cannot govern Iraq--you have to have larger-than-life sheikhs with flowery rhetoric and iron fists, you have to make grandiose promises that you cannot possibly keep, you have to wheedle and deal and be dishonest and play factions off against each other, you have inspire fear in your enemies and be fiercely loyal to your friends, right or wrong. Sounds a lot like God and Moses and the patriarchs.

Flickr SafeSearch

2008-03-29T06:08:00.004-04:00

Flickr SafeSearch blocked my attempt to view this image, which I will post very far down on the page so that you don't have to see it by accident. Eileen reminds me that normal non-EMT people see blood and guts and are inspired to more to nausea and revulsion than morbid curiosity.

At any rate, after verifying with Flickr that yes, in fact, I wanted to actually see this picture (which I was attempting to access after having already seen the picture, posted to an archive of the excellent and thrice-worthy-of-mention Luke's Commonplace Book) I got a picture with a full story--the tragically low arc of this man's life, from his youth on the streets to his adulthood, still on the streets. And, I'm thinking, how can you turn away from this? This is, as one of the commentors put, what "man does to man," and it's become my norm for the world. This is humanity, as I see it, and it's why I post things like this.

So, anyway, there at the top there, Flickr let's you choose to bail out. Eeeeeep! Don't want to see that! Hoy crap! I like my sanitized version of the world, thank you. I don't want to think about people like that, situations like that, crippled kids or those born brain dead or nursing-home-farms or nasty crap. I don't want the ugly stuff of life, just the nice and uplifting. Show me the kittens, baby! It's the new motto for the self-obsessed, the snobbish, the comfortable. Which is, oddly, a lot like shooting up heroin to ignore the sickness and the pain, except that heroin is incredibly addictive biologically, and drowning out the ugly is easier, cheaper, and only psychologically compulsive.

I rant. Here is your picture. This is what the world looks like to me, except add in equal parts Alzheimer's patients in restraints lining the hallways like forgotten children in nursing homes, belligerent and helpless psychiatric patients, 90 year-old grandmothers with bedsores the size of my face in houses with 60-inch flatscreens, and very small, very dead children. And here's a link to the Flickr page, with accompanying story. Sorry, Tegan, if I'm having a hard time hearing God's sweetness and light, lately, he's making such a great effort to be heard above the noise. It's fucked-up-psalm-day, not theological-correctness-psalm-day, maybe i just wanted a hug. And God's not showing up with a lot of those, either.

Thoughts?

2008-03-20T08:23:00.004-04:00

"Some firms wouldn't hire me--they'd probably seen the name Bob Jones University on my resume and figured, "If the school can't even call itself Robert Jones University, how bright can its graduates be?" "

"Me and Mr. Jones," a reflection on living and leaving the Bob Jones lifestyle.

"By the time I joined my law firm, no one could have guessed at my past. I had stopped attending church and begun paying fifteen dollars for a single lipstick. I worked a "man's job" and decided to wait to have babies. I fiew to Vegas to play slots with my father. Any of these was enough to doom my soul, but life felt too good, as the preachers had warned, and I couldn't stop. This transformation still comes at a price. I haven't enjoyed a success or a pleasure or a new song without suspecting that the sin was being recorded somewhere to be used against me someday. Fun still unsettles me inside.

"Today, I'm on a partnership track in a top-tier law firm...Now I give advice to Fortune 500 corporations and green-light million-dollar deals. Savvy businessmen respect my opinion. They don't know that I still wake up screaming sometimes. The world is a scary place, and in my dreams I'm still protected. In my dreams, I'm still at Bob Jones, the place where everything turns out right. That's a feeling any person would want. When I see conservative Muslims or Orthodox Jews on the street, Branch Davidians on TV, baby cousins at my family reunion, I can see they've been promised that feeling, too. Under the right circumstances, that promise can be the most powerful thing in the world. Under the right circumstances, you'll do anything for that promise."

In the midst of smatterings of the normal trasnfers, traffic snafus, asthmatics and cuckoo binge drinkers, Barrett and I managed to have the incredible luck of having to do not one, but two "confirmations"--where we arrive far too late and can do nothing but confirm that the patient is already gone and we can't do anything. One 90-ish year old guy, one thirty-ish year old woman. You think it would make a difference, the one being full up with years like Abraham, the other young and mysteriously, unaccountably gone, but the family's faces and tears were the same.

So you look around the house, and they both had their inner-city apartment walls covered in copious amounts of Jesus Crap from the Christian bookstore. So what do you say to the bereaved? We're sorry for your loss. It looks like he was a good man. It looks like she was a good woman. They were on speaking terms with the Big Guy. They're with Jesus now.

But, I, as always, wonder: what if the sunny children and "God Watches Over This House" plaques and eerily matching "When God Closes a Door He Always Opens Another" posters with the little kitten on them were the wife's, and the old man hated it until the day he cursed his last? What if the religious young woman was the worst kind of tyrant? What if the young men were crying because they did not know how to think about the not-so-dearly beloved, what if they were remembering with disappointment that all they had to remember from father or mother or sister was abuse, tyrrany, and rampant egotism.

Something deep inside me is reminding me it's not very good to speak ill of the dead.

And what do I believe, anyway, about this going to be with Jesus when we die? About the chances of resurrection, about he qualifications for eternal life? I'm certainly not on "good speaking terms" with the big guy. I think he's kind of an absentee jerk, in fact, but I'm not about to say it because, hey, my life is still pretty sweet, and there's this big, big payoff for swallowing your questions and toeing the line, so they say, and not much of one at all for saying, "Fuckit, this shit's ridiculous, I'm going to go blow my meaningless life at [pick your empty existentialist excuse for a dull, self-involved, neurotic pasttime]." (Note to self: thank Lewis and Chesterton for taking all the thrill and promise out of hedonism.)

And, hey, I don't even know who I'm talking about, anyway...he doesn't really pop up and endorse particular theologies every November like our good Republican presidential candidates.

Well, this is what that living in a moral vacuum feels like. Gee, it sucks. There must be an alternative...unless you're not sincerely convinced the world isn't a moral vacuum. So do you pretend? Especially if you're pretty sure that people who are convinced that the world is not a moral vacuum are essentially happier, and generally better, people--except when they find themselves incapable of convincing themselves anymore and fall apart into the cynical, the bitter, and the burnt out?

Thoughts and musings...

too amazing not to post

2008-02-17T09:15:00.002-05:00

the visual arts meet the statistical...arts.

Dan's Thinking About War Again...

2008-01-25T11:37:00.001-05:00

found some right excellent writing. good style, good hands-on info into the soft war on terror. very intercultural, very insightful. Read:

I began to wonder – and not for the first time - where the hundreds of men down the hall, currently employed by the Iraqi government and the United States Army, had been one year ago, before the Reconciliation. Before the Sawha. I was fairly certain to the answer to my question was caked in AK-47 gun powder and dripped with American blood. I trusted that some of the Sheiks truly believed in freedom, if not for their country, at least for their neighborhoods and for their people. Did their pipeswingers? Did these paramilitants believe in anything beyond the promise of a monthly stipend … and should they even have to? Can someone with a full stomach and a warm bed ever rightfully doubt the intentions and ideals of those without, who are seeking the same thing through whatever means present themselves?

I didn’t know the answers to these questions. Not yet, at least. So I began to type what I did know.

[ahem]

2008-01-18T11:59:00.000-05:00

So, tomorrow I am taking a rather important test: the National Criminal Justice Officer Selection Inventory, as phase one in my attempt to become a New York State Trooper. It's a pretty important test. I could use a good job. And, hey, I'd look pretty awesome in the uniform. We'll see what happens...

today in world news....

2007-12-23T05:57:00.000-05:00

My apologies to anyone who still reads this, I have been rather busy lately. Mostly this is her fault:

But I have to say I have been spending a good majority of my online time here and here and here. Yes, you're right, I never actually pay attention to my facebook wall or posts or inbox. That's because there is no score and bragging rights attached. Speaking of bragging rights, I now have plenty of time to blog because my 10-3, #1 in the league Team Billabongeritis got knocked out in the first round of playoffs by some Hutchdaddy 6-7 upstart from Shenawana and his friends with influence, notably the running-back gods and whoever's great idea this blizzard was.. So much for the best record in the league. I hate playoff systems.

So all this to say, years back I found something notable on from the internet monk, shared it with a few people, and completely forgot about it. Apparently I have done something with my life, as others latched on to the old philosopher. Thanks to brother Jeff, who has no quicklink because he lives in the Dark Ages where he would rather wander the Serengeti in pursuit of small, helpless grazing animals to pick on, I have rediscovered the monk and added him to my regularly browsed feeds on Google Reader. I like the simplicity of his Advent meditation.

This is pretty cool too, if you like Phil Collins.

Oh. And Merry Christmas to all!

[edit]

Tegan (look! you get a special mini blog post all to yourself! you should be proud. anecdotally, i was very happy the other day to remember my xanga password for the first time in months and actually be able to read your blog again. it made me happy. where was i? oh, her name is eileen and she works for upward bound and likes to dance and wear hats which she describes as "cute" and read Barbara Kingsolver and try out new recipes with organic and local food and in fact she is a not-a-lot-of-meat-arian and there are quite a few things about her but i will be skewered by many if i fail to mention that she also likes coffee quite a lot. can you tell from my writing that i finally bought a Dave Eggers book? i did.)

Well, Tegan, just because I can, I dedicate this song to you.

This is what I did Tuesday

2007-11-08T18:35:00.000-05:00

First snowy day of the season...bad time to go canoeing.

watch the "video on demand" to see Ange Szymanski in his red Search and Rescue jacket.

the most accurate article.

Yeah, I'm a volunteer firefighter. Wear your lifejackets, little children.

2007-10-14T11:04:00.000-04:00

"Beam’s writing never gives in to a jaded or purely ironic tone—and in 2007, that’s no small accomplishment...What Iron and Wine’s music seems to be urging toward more than anything is innocence, and the touchstones in this quest are frequently religious in nature...the heartfelt prayer of Our Endless Numbered Days’ “On Your Wings”: “God give us love in the time that we have / God, there are guns growing out of our bones / God, every road takes us farther from home.”

"But while it may puzzle some that a self-confessed agnostic like Beam would ﬁnd consistent inspiration in biblical images and characters that are as likely to converse with the Holy Spirit as they are to address a love interest, for Beam it’s a natural, essential part of his writing process. “I like to use [religious images] because it starts you off a little bit further along in the story. You know, you could say Bob and Jerry did this, but then you have to explain who they are. But if you say ‘Cain and Abel’ it carries a certain weight. They have a connotation everyone understands, they symbolize the duality in us all. ... I like using those, because it’s our mythology.”

"...With a second round of mojitos on deck and a crackling, dry August heat making its presence felt on Guero’s outside porch, Beam pursues this line of thought further. It turns out that religion is not merely a cultural shorthand or creative prop for Beam but, like Johnny Cash before him, it constitutes one of the only three topics he’s genuinely interested in as a writer. “You have your three big things that you can talk about, basically, if you’re going to write something that actually means something to you as a human being, which is Love, God and Death. That’s basically the thing. Love, which occupies a lot of our time, because we don’t like being lonely. God, because everyone wants to know that there’s a reason behind what they’re doing and what the hell is going on. And death is just the reality of your ﬁnite time here.” "

--From the Paste Magazine interview with Sam Beam, otherwise known as "Iron and Wine," the most whole and full music I've heard in a while. Thanks to Kat for Paste, Mike for introducing me to Iron and Wine, and much jealousy to Becca who saw Iron and Wine in concert, in a tiny venue, before they were big, because her brother was opening the show...

"with the plastic eyeballs, spraypaint the vegetables/dog food stalls with the beefcake p****hose"

2007-09-13T12:44:00.000-04:00

[censored lyrics in honor of mrs. kjbls]

Courtesy of dad, I now have the amazing Uncle Jay in my life.

Think Family Life Network gone horribly...right.

"with butane in my veins and I'm out to cut the junkie"

2007-09-04T07:06:00.000-04:00

3.

Sometimes I wake, and, lo! I have forgot,
And drifted out upon an ebbing sea!
My soul that was at rest now resteth not,
For I am with myself and not with thee;
Truth seems a blind moon in a glaring morn,
Where nothing is but sick-heart vanity:
Oh, thou who knowest! save thy child forlorn.

10.

When I no more can stir my soul to move,
And life is but the ashes of a fire;
When I can but remember that my heart
Once used to live and love, long and aspire,--
Oh, be thou then the first, the one thou art;
Be thou the calling, before all answering love,
And in me wake hope, fear, boundless desire.

George MacDonald, Diary of an Old Soul, which you can read online here.

In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey

2007-08-19T15:34:00.000-04:00

And, in other news, something I agreed wholeheartedly with before it was even broadcast.

A Belated Question

2007-08-17T13:03:00.001-04:00

What are the long-term consequences of American unilateralism--namely, the willingness of President W. Bush to employ American military force unrestrained by international consensus or the United Nations?

The answer is increased global insecurity--no one knows who the US will decide to strike next. Additionally, the status quo rules for the use of armed force have changed. If it's acceptable for the US to pursue its interests abroad, unilaterally, using diplomatic, economic and military force to strong-arm lesser countries into compliance, then there is no moral ground to condemn countries such as Russia and China for doing the same. In fact, it's in their interest to cooperate, because the world's sole superpower is being downright bully-ish in pursuing its interests. And they can even use "security" and "combatting terrorism" to justify expansion into other spheres of influence.

The President's actions abroad (the global war on terror, the iraq war, ignoring the UN and global cooperation) and at home (encroachments on civil liberties and the right of habeas corpus, the Patriot Act, labeling dissidents as unpatriotic, labeling criticism as aiding and abetting the enemy) may not be actually immoral, unjustified, and a threat to human rights and the stability of the international community.

But they belong to--and by similarity tacitly lend approval to--the international rulebook of totalitarian and imperialistic governments. They have placed the United States squarely into a moral and structural grey area where totalitarian states exercise military force to achieve their own interests unrestrained by the necessity of membership within an international community. In undermining the authority of international institutions like the United Nations and by ignoring treaty obligations, the cowboy president has made the world a distinctly less orderly, and potentially less peaceful, place. If the United States can invade weaker countries in the name of security, while leveraging economic and political power to obtain consent and compliance from other countries, who is to stop Russia, China, India, or Pakistan (all nuclear-armed countries) from doing the same?

We should be wary of exercising "we can, and we will" diplomacy--lest we be held to the same principle in a weaker moment. This especially worries me in a world where basic democratic freedoms and institutions are disappearing under strongmen such as Hugo Chavez (yes, Steve, it does pain me to say it) and Vladimir Putin.

[in rereading my journal I find quotes]

2007-08-05T00:50:00.001-04:00

"We are human and finite, and thus cannot live perpetually in a sense of expectation, or in a continuous Advent. We are distracted by many things. Our spiritual awareness waxes and wanes. If an attitude of expectancy, or an inclination to poignant spiritual experiences, is cultivated by conscious effort of our own, we will suffer severe limitations.

"Such effort totally misses the mark. We will get lifted up in moments of tenderness but we will be cast down in in hours of dryness. The swing of emotions is natural to us, and some are more subject to its swings than others. We musn't despair about this. But we shoudl be aware of cultivating religious emotions under the delusion that these are the workings of the Holy Spirit. Such...are unstable. They get in the way of our communion with God...

"God has come to us because we, by our own power of soul, by our own emotions, even the noblest and most sublime, can never attain redemption, can never regain communion with God...

"True expectancy, the waiting that is genuine and from the heart, is brought about by the coming of the Holy Spirit, by God coming to us, and not by our own devices. Spiritual depth, if it is true, is the working of God coming down and penetrating to the depths of our heart, and not of our own soul's climbing. No ladder of mysticism can ever meet or find or possess God. Faith is a power that is given to us; it is never simply our ability or strength of will to believe.

"To put it simply, spiritual experience, whether it be of faith, hope, or love, is something we cannot manufacture, but we can only receive. If we direct our lives to seeking it for ourselves, we will surely lose it, but if we lose our lives by living out daily the way of Christ, we shall find it...

"The most striking revelation...is the laying down of power that is revealed in his birth. Christ did not spring armed from the head of Zeus. He came as a child...This pattern of complete abandonment of human strength in total surrender to God's will is vital...When we experience God's love we turn away from the notion that...we by our religious efforts can set something in motion that God must obey in response."

"To believe that we, by an effort of will, can mount nearer to God or add one cubit to our stature is as un-Christian as the belief that we have no task as Christians for the mundane affairs of this world. Both beliefs have the same root--the pride that seeks to climb its way to God--and produce the same kind of confusion as the ancient attempt to build the tower of Babel."

--Phillip Britts

fairly amazing...

2007-08-04T04:31:00.000-04:00

"click on the pictures to watch the photoshopping in progress"

(no, it really doesn't have anything to do with Firefly, but I'm tired)

the photoshopping is incredible...i want to be a model now. heck, with that computing power, i could be a girl model!

see also make sure you see the change in her arms--it's absolutely staggering

see, I don't like this. people are f***ing with my mind, and it's practically subliminal. a little color here, a little wash there, a little tweak there, and suddenly I'm not interacting with real people anymore. I'm interacting with unconscious expectations in between me and them. I'm judging my life and my experiences against some airbrushed, fanciful unreality.

and it's not just sex and beauty--I'm getting these notions that work should be hyper-engaging, my recreation should be both stylish, exotic, and intensely satisfying, and my relationships should be nourished by sarcastic one-liners and an overweening sense of self-importance.

sigh. the Sports Illustrated guy wrote something quite important when talking about Barry Bonds' breaking the home-run record under allegations of steroid use: these days, it's paramount to always keep spare batteries for the bullshit meter.

or, in the amazing words of Beck,

"don't believe everything that you breathe."

--

edit: and, of course, somebody had to do this, which simply rocks.

Old Poem

2007-08-02T20:37:00.000-04:00

If I can speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but am destitute of Love, I have but become a loud-sounding trumpet or a clanging cymbal.

If I possess the gift of prophecy and am versed in all mysteries and all knowledge, and have such absolute faith that I can remove mountains, but am destitute of Love, I am nothing.

And if I distribute all my possessions to the poor, and give up my body to be burned, but am destitute of Love, it profits me nothing.

Love is patient and kind. Love knows neither envy nor jealousy. Love is not forward and self-assertive, nor boastful and conceited.

She does not behave unbecomingly, nor seek to aggrandize herself, nor blaze out in passionate anger, nor brood over wrongs.

She finds no pleasure in injustice done to others, but joyfully sides with the truth. (Weymouth NT)

Love never stops being patient, never stops believing, never stops hoping, never gives up. (GWT)

The love doth never fail; and whether there be prophecies, they shall become useless; whether tongues, they shall cease; whether knowledge, it shall become useless;

for in part we know, and in part we prophecy;

and when that which is perfect may come, then that which is in part shall become useless.

When I was a babe, as a babe I was speaking, as a babe I was thinking, as a babe I was reasoning, and when I have become a man, I have made useless the things of the babe;

for we see now through a mirror obscurely, and then face to face; now I know in part, and then I shall fully know, as also I was known;

and now there doth remain faith, hope, love -- these three; and the greatest of these is love. (YLT)

2007-07-27T03:57:00.000-04:00

" THE fact is that purification and austerity are even more necessary for the appreciation of life and laughter than for anything else. To let no bird fly past unnoticed, to spell patiently the stones and weeds, to have the mind a storehouse of sunsets, requires a discipline in pleasure and an education in gratitude."

--G. K. Chesterton, 'Twelve Types.'

a good thought on postmodernism:

"'Tis the very difference between the artistic mind and the mathematical that the former sees things as they are in a picture, some nearer and larger, some smaller and farther away while to the mathematical mind everything, every inch in a million, every fact in a cosmos, must be of equal value. That is why mathematicians go mad, and poets scarcely ever do. A man may have as wide a view of life as he likes, the wider the better: a distant view, a bird's-eye view, but still a view and not a map. The one thing he cannot attempt in his version of the universe is to draw things to scale."

--from the same

So I Don't Post So Much When I Don't Have Free Pix Messaging

2007-07-22T12:09:00.000-04:00

It's true.

So this will be an imagination post. Close your eyes.

Wait. Open them. Read a paragraph. Then close them and call visions of yours truly to mind.

I have a wicked awesome Leroy Townes shirt, from a wicked awesome show, a few weeks ago. They are fun, souldful, witty, putting the wild west and the lonesome and the down and out back into country and western. It has a bright red rooster on a dark green background, fronted by crossed pistols, and in my head it is the standard for some sort of western rebellion populated by grizzled, weatherbeaten cowhands, desperate prospectors in floppy hats, Mexican priests and weary barmaids with scrappy children. Ensemble la Revolucion!

Recent events have led me to two conclusions: the best moments in life cannot be planned--the best you can do is keep your eyes open, don't get lost in self-pity, dive into whatever is present with gusto, and earn your lumps or victories accordingly. You may not come out a rock star in the end, but you will come out grinning fiercely.

Ya see a curveball coming, and you just have to step up to the plate and swing. "For the rest of your life, you'll look back and wonder what would have happened if you got into that car..."

Speaking of Transformers, I'm sorry, the battered and classy old Camaro is totally cooler than the flashy plastic one--old Detroit iron will always maintain depth of character over electronics and injection molding and air conditioning and other farkle of the like.

So anyway, stepping up to the plate and swinging is what got me in the Genesee River last night, courtesy of Noel and his devilish ladies and evil sidekick miniCronk. But that is another story, for another day, and I may have gone down, but I went down in swinging', and that's what counts, right? Because who knows...next time might be a home run.

[edit]

judge for yourself. classic, weatherbeaten, monkeywrenched with great love on summer days in the driveway by some kid in Detroit saving his bucks for something loud and fast...

or plastic.

Now That's What I Call Music...

2007-07-19T05:40:00.000-04:00

just plain awesome. Check out soma fm for more "extremely independent internet radio," especially "Groove Salad."

in other news, Nickel Creek at TitS (that's "Thursdays in the Square" for all ya'll not-Buffalonians) tonight! Free!

Be My Netflix Friend!

2007-07-17T22:22:00.000-04:00

So if you Netflix, you should Netflix friend me. Then I'll know which movies you're getting and I can crash your party instead of wasting precious queue spots on movies I could be watching at your house!

And vice versa...

click here!

It's Great Being A Guy

2007-07-07T06:55:00.000-04:00

My housemate, Nate, and I took the hour-long minute pilgrimage to Hornell last night, the abode of the only decently stocked grocery store for three counties in any direction. We'd been living off rice, canned beans and tomatoes, and pasta for the last week and it had been a good solid month since we last darkened a grocer's door.

Two shopping carts (and approximately forty cans of tomatoes, black beans, black-eyed peas, chili beans) later, with luck, we won't have to do that again for another month. We are men. You pull down the biggest wildebeest in the herd so that you don't have to do it again for a while, even if you lose a few expendable tribesmen in the process. (Leading, inevitably, to the expression, "It pays to be alpha.")

Incidentally, we stopped along side the road to pay our respects to a sleek apparition of beauty, in excellent condition, a 1997 Honda CBR900RR, in the red and black. From the days when sportbikes were still naturally aspirated, the '97 double R is a beautifully smooth, elegant, well designed machine of death. I know this because it was for sale, and the owner asked me if I wanted to take it out for a spin.

I'll summarise: the owner (Sean) said that it will do 90mph in first gear, and 135mph in 3rd, and that he's afraid of losing his CDL license and/or ending up like his friend, a local BOCES teacher. He's got good reason to worry--that machine has a very obscene amount of power for two wheels. It bike has six gears, but I was too terrified to get to third. I never buried the throttle, but I can verify--it does do 90 in first. Without even trying. It's an utterly terrifying sensation--you could let your mind wander and hit three digits in no time. Flat.

That's the thing that I like about my bike...it goes fast (well, not really, when you compare it with a raging testosterone fiend like the 900RR), but you have to work hard get it to really move. When you want play screaming demon in the twisties, you have to really get your head into it, hit the right spot in the teensy-weensy powerband, work your way carefully through the gears, being terrified the whole time because every little wobble in the road translates through a less-than-performance suspension. If you relax, it relaxes with you, and you can enjoy a nice sedate, comfortable, fun ride through the rolling countryside.

There is no "relax" button on the 900RR (the two "R"s designating its purpose: Racing, and more Racing). It just goes and goes and goes and goes and goes, and if you want a little more power, you just twist deeper in to the throttle, and--whammo--you get way more than a little power. In the words of the inimitable Mr. Jacoby: "You don't ever have to leave first gear! It's the easiest bike in the world to ride!"

So, that was fun, and terrifying, at the same time, and I am happy to go back to my not ridiculously insane, ordinary-mortals motorcycle. Except that there's this taste of the incredible disparity between a minuscule wrist-movements and incredible horsepower response lingering wistfully in the back of my head...

Thoughfulness

I've been researching the Iraq war, and the military in general, and it struck me--whether or not the war is an unpleasant reality that we'd like to push to the edges of our consciousness in order to get on with our lives of cheerful consumption and self-importance, the entire adventure (or debacle, or task of nation-building, however you see it) is the expressed will of the American people.

The American political system, as shaped by the American people, is one in which decisions are made based on powerful emotions: emotions of borrowed superiority appropriated through belonging to a particular ideological identity, for instance, or pride in being courageous, tough, and in touch with the harsh realities of a dangerous world full of nuke-toting terrorists bent on the destruction of Western Civilization.

We are, I am convinced, political consumers. We pay people to produce convincing and stylized political rhetoric that seductively courts our desire to feel both impressive and correct, then we loudly parrot that rhetoric. And we, the people of the United States of America, are content with that system, regardless of its negative impact on the rest of the world, or its great untapped potential to improve the lives of all sorts of people, Iraqi and otherwise.

I feel like we're in a science fiction movie, where our creations have turned against us--the institutions of democracy and the free press have become institutions of mass group reaction, the enemies of sustained community deliberation. We react to events and causes as they occur, and then forget them when something new comes makes headlines. We have the political attention span--and memory--of five year olds. And the dialogue to match.

So. There are new machines. I was absolutely fascinated this week to read, for the first time, news in primary sources. I found blogs by American soldiers both for and against (and ambivalent towards) the war; I found blogs by Iraqi citizens, describing how their lives have changed since the downfall of Saddam and the beginning of a civil war. I found frontline documentary films by PBS, and independent reporters who fundraised from their websites.

I came to three conclusions:

One. The men and women of the armed forces are, for the most part, policy-implementers, not policy-makers. Their loyalty is the mission, and the mission is decided by the elected representatives of the people of the United States of the America. If those people think the mission is important, they will pay attention to that mission from the day the President declares a war (or a conflict), they will research it and critique it and be involved in the process with a long-term view in mind. They have a moral responsibility to, as it is their bombs and bullets that changing other peoples' worlds--and I think Americans have failed their duty to the rest of the world. Not feeling the direct impact of their war (unless agony-at-the-pump can be considered of equal distress with suicide-bombing-kills-hundreds-in-a-market-and-nobody-bats-an-eye-because-it's-business-as-usual), the American people haven't been terribly concerned about being informed of the details of the war and nation-building, until the shit really started to hit the fan and we started to not only look bad, but sustain uncomfortable amounts of casualties.

One Point Five. It's very sad to read in various blogs that fundamentalists are gaining social and political power and bullying/threatening people for things like playing soccer, reading books, doffing headscarves in public, and shaving. The saddest moment in my readings was when a Muslim woman described her decision to start wearing the headscarf.

"I realized how common it had become only in mid-July when M., a childhood friend, came to say goodbye before leaving the country...She was getting ready to leave before the sun set, and she picked up the beige headscarf folded neatly by her side. As she told me about one of her neighbors being shot, she opened up the scarf with a flourish, set it on her head like a pro, and pinned it snuggly under her chin with the precision of a seasoned hijab-wearer. All this without a mirror- like she had done it a hundred times over… Which would be fine, except that M. is Christian.

If M. can wear one quietly- so can I." from Baghdad Burning, 05-08-2006.

Two. Iraq, like anyplace, is quite complex. In some areas, American efforts have been more successful than others. It's entirely plausible that while the US Occupation may be successful and valuable in some areas of the country and completely futile in others--that the Iraq war could have both good and bad outcomes, dependent on circumstances and perspective. Of course, it's increasingly bad, but knee-jerk generalizations about the hope/hopelessness of the and idealizations about the use of military force have certainly hurt the war effort. Each voice on the ground, each primary source will have a different interaction with the US invasion. Sometimes the differences are subtle, sometimes they are grand--no system of government is perfect.

Three. But some are better than others, and right now, I'm tempted to say (without much concrete research into conditions under Saddam to back it up) that maybe, by way of generalization, the average Iraqi was better off under Saddam before the war, and even better off before sanctions were first levied. This is the cost of American will, and it is a cost we inflicted on the people of Iraq quite whimsically. We owe it to the Iraqi people to not cave in to sentiment or knee-jerk reaction or emotive self-important ideology politics, but to have well-thought-out reasons for whatever we do with this mess that is Iraq. We have to give them the best possible chance for the stablest, most effective, fairest chance at peace that we can--whether that means staying the course, pulling out, or working hand-in-hand with the various unsavory characters who occupy positions of authority in Iraq at the moment. It's the least we can do, since we, each and every one of us, through our choices, actions, and inaction, put them where they are today.

research continues

2007-07-05T06:59:00.000-04:00

Bibi Z...

it's amazing how long a history Iraq has had. I read an excellent book (that I then lent to Tegan and never saw again) by a sociologist's wife about her time in a small, conservative Iraqi village under the monarchy, and her experiences with the women behind the abayas...

at any rate, can it be said that as long as the Iraqi people have their bibis, and their memories of better days and better people, they have hope?

[edit]

and the headscarves are back. this happened in Iran, too...

[edit]

I think the worst is the breakdown of social order. It's not that you're afraid to die--you're just afraid to die whimsically, or for the wrong reason, or for no reason at all, in the middle of what used to be a semi-developed, secular and mildly prosperous country.

[edit]

PBS on Iraqi Police Training: Quantity over Quality, and lots of Haraka Haraka and all the Baraka that goes with it!

American Soldier Hoo-Rah Airborn.

wisdom

2007-07-01T16:07:00.000-04:00

in their own words

so there he goes singing the gospel again

2007-06-26T23:40:00.000-04:00

"and I could write a song a hundred miles long
Well that’s where I belong and you belong with me
The streets you’re walking on, a thousand houses long
Well that’s where I belong and you belong with me
Oh what good is it to live with nothing left to give
Forget but not forgive, not loving all you see
Oh the streets you’re walking on a thousand houses long
Well that’s where I belong and you belong with me
Not swallowed in the sea

You belong with me, not swallowed in the sea
Yeah you belong with me

Not swallowed in the sea."

Coldplay

Why I Love The Brits (And Their Distant Cousins, The Aussies)

2007-06-25T18:41:00.001-04:00

they write (and speak) like this:

"the difficulty is remembering not to be miserable."

I'm totally changing my name to Clive.

It's Called, "I Got Out Of Bed And Didn't Want To Work Out."

2007-06-09T07:38:00.000-04:00

1. "Sheep Go To Heaven," Cake
2. "Loser," Beck
3. "Grace Cathedral Hill," The Decemberists
4. "Anna Begins," Counting Crows
5. "Cool," Gwen Stefani
6. "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs
7. "Hotel California," Gypsy Kings
8. "Better Days," Goo Goo Dolls
9. "Weapon of Choice," Fatboy Slim
10. "Say It Right," Nelly Furtado
11. "Alcohol (Live on St. Patrick's Day)," Dropkick Murphies
12. "What's Left Of The Flag," Flogging Molly
13. "There Goes My Hero," Foo Fighters

---edit---

in the process of rambling through old drafts of unpublished posts (let that mystery dig around in your curiousity for a while) two things happened:

a) i found a draft from last June about travel and transience that i subsequently published...

b) and i realized that i've been living in Houghton for a solid year now. i guess it's time to celebrate my one-year anniversary as a bona-fide community member. who's bringing the booze?

which led to a realization: what a great journey.

which led to a smile.

:)

2007-06-08T17:03:00.001-04:00

I just did something very important. And it feels good.

"aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" goes the long-overdue release of tension.

Now if only those motorcycle parts would come in the mail.

50$ and 3 days later--I kinda fixed it so that it's worse now.

2007-06-06T21:41:00.000-04:00

From "The Biker's Dictionary:"

PMS: No, not that kind, although the symptoms can be surprisingly similar. Parked Motorcycle Syndrome. Common to those of us stupid enough to live where the evil white crap falls. Can also be caused by wrecks, breakdowns, loss of license, or an avalanche of obligations that get in the way of one's riding time. Symptoms include depression, irritability, serious post-ho'ing, and, every so often, a multi-state killing spree.

[sigh]waiting for o-rings to make it all better.

2007-06-02T14:59:00.000-04:00

1. Ben Folds is the man.

2. The Aviator is a bad movie to miss the first half hour of.

3. I wish I had a shotgun.

4. Just when you think you have one reliable, fun, open, and honest relationship in your life, your motorcycle goes and voids an entire tank of gas all over the porch for no apparent reason and [Newsies moment] "we're off/to the workbench again!"

5. Except I have no workbench. And no screwdrivers. And no can opener or spatula...I do really miss my housemates.

7. It's a beautiful day.

8. I'm watching Brick tonight.

9. I can't wait for the next "Scrubs" DVD to show up in my mailbox. Hooray Netflix! Soon I will be able to perfectly channel Dr. Perry Cox. Then maybe I can find my own special psychotically charming woman.

hmmmm.

2007-05-03T21:58:00.000-04:00

I seem to have slowly lost my blogwriting muse. And I don't have any interesting pictures to post. I need to be re-inspired. Mainly, sunshine and thoughts of motorcycle ownership are inspiring me tonight. Tomorrow it will be thoughts of sleep. After that...thoughts of what exactly "next" is and when to start doing it.

Here's the job description I wish I met the requirements for:

link to site of mystery

In the meantime, it's another all-nighter keeping Houghton safe so all those students can study for their finals...

-----------------

Ooooh! Ooooh! Something to post!

"Tanzania, once dubbed the 'man-eat-nothing' society by its East African neighbours to reflect its socialist leanings, is now outperforming both Kenya and Uganda and is set to increase the growth gap over the next decade. A large measure of its ongoing economic progress can be attributed to political stability (on the mainland) and, a so far, incorruptible top leadership. The former president, Benjamin Mkapa stepped down after two terms as demanded by the constitution and the country's new leader, Jakaya Kikwete was the natural heir. But Kikwete, writes Ahmed Rajab, editor of Africa Analysis, has his own firm views and while he might not rock the boat too roughly, he is likely to sharpen the country's economic direction."

-Ahmed Rajad, in African Business

Notable Event: an African leader aceding to term limits. Sweet! Go Tanzania!

I am SOOO Birthday!

2007-04-06T16:53:00.000-04:00

My birthday present(s)!

A sunset from the sunset-dude, a road trip from the road trip girl!

she looks and smells gorgeous after four showerless days living out of a hatchback...

i look and smell differently after four showerless days living out of a hatchback! but(t), I get to wear these awesome birthday-handed-me-down my-very-first-pair-of-Carhartt's beefy-man-pants. Yeah Dan Sahli!

The New River Gorge, West Virginia--Western Hemisphere's Largest Arch Bridge. And more sunshine than we have in Western New York, where it has decided to snow. All weekend.

Happy Birthday to Me!

OH--and we went and saw the Decemberists in concert. The amazing lady accordion-player, as well as several other musicians, were consumed by a sea monster during the finale. Really. They rock out...with sea shanties.

[party in da club/sumthin sumthin dub/hammana hammana shlub...]

2007-04-03T18:45:00.000-04:00

So. You have no excuse. You have facebook, and it reminds you that my birthday is in less than eleven hours, and I will finally be able to sing Switchfoot's "Twenty-Four" legitimately. With gusto. On the quad.

You know I'll do it.

So. Here's my Birthday wish list:

1. World Peace
2. Gladitorial Games in my honor
3. Personal, lie-detector mediated interview days with all major Presidential candidates.
4. A dog sled, team, and personal Norwegian dog handler. And a summer conversion kit.
5. A sign from God.
6. A personal early morning serenade from Sting. Followed with a breakfast by Shaffin Hajji and Emeril featuring steak.
7. A woman. (Oh. Wait. That's what Ethan wants. Never mind. I'm fine!)
8. Homemade cinnamon rolls.
9. A statue of me to be erected in the quad.

Ahhh. Rock climbing suits me. So does eating. It's time to leave. You should buy me a song on iTunes for my birthday...

haiku (for brevity)

2007-03-25T16:43:00.000-04:00

snow, ice, wind: Buffalo--
by bicycle I to work
go cursing "springtime."

--

Mike's room, bless him, dark;
I housesit, lamplit, his lit.,
many lonely nights.

--

snotty nose, bad bad!
otitis media: ear!
it hurts it hurts! ow!

--

at work to and fro
with lights and sirens we go
one dead and one born

--

"lawsuit!", lady screams--
my protocol's begotten
of prior lawsuits!

sorry ma'am, but your
friend is woozy, post-ictal:
he cannot refuse!

the law is the law--
if we leave and he gets hurt,
our asses: grasses.

ooop--Gordon's here. Time to sign off another successful Safe and Secure Weekend. Until next time!

[grunt]

2007-03-10T09:44:00.000-05:00

"Look wise, say nothing, and grunt. Speech was given to conceal thought."
-Sir William Osler

And in the new category of absolute coolest thing ever, in honor of Ben Howard who will no doubt try this at home despite numerous warnings to the contrary, I give you my latest internet discovery:

Will It Blend?

Now I can't wait for garage-sale season :) We could have entire garage-sale themed parties: get an old garage-sale blender, get various garage-sale knicknacks, and blast away!

In other news, I am heading up to Buffalo next week to put in more time for The Man and extend my stay at Rural/Metro Medical Services for another three months. I'm thinking of taking it easy this time, though, and enjoying city life again. And, enjoying bicycling, as Sera still comfortably sits under her blanket of snow--it's been far to cold to play around with wiring this week.

Water is leaking through the roof on third-floor Chamberlain Center. Strange, chemical-ish odors are filling an office in Luckey. Students are holding a video game festival in Campus Center, simultaneous with Honors Program interviews. To the batmobile!

Under the Radar

2007-02-28T02:13:00.000-05:00

Or, in the words of big brother: "Sanka, are you dead, mon?"

Nope.

Just took an early Lent and fasted blogging for a month, I guess--though I'm guessing I won't be getting much credit for fasting when it was completely unintentional. Thankfully, grace being a gift and all, you can profit greatly from things for which you are not responsible.

Work in Progress

...It's not just a personal description! I upgraded my Blogger account this weekend, which set the ball rolling for all sorts of innovations--including a subscription to Google Reader, which gives you a constantly updated summary of all your blogs, selected news feeds, Daily Show videos, and, to my great joy: podcasts. It's wonderful. And, as you can see on the left-hand bar, single click republication of the comic, profound, or merely interesting to the blog sidebar. So I don't have to login and publish everytime I want to share something cool with you, my iFriends.

And, work is progressing slowly on my most pressing project, that of paying bills. I reached a landmark 60$ surplus from last paycheck, which led to splurging...Big Al's Pizza! Soon, perhaps, I will be able to afford a new alternator for Sera, and I'll be able to go on ambulance calls without huffing and puffing my way down Centerville road just to watch Houghton 8 go screaming off without me. In the meantime, this blog will just have to be "Notes from the footpath (of doom!)". The quickest route downcampus from Babbit House involves a sketchy footbridge, a slippery slope, and lots and lots of ice and snow. Of course, my morning run to work is always rushed as usually end up snoozing the alarm clock until about 0450 (that's am) for my 0500 shift and end up half-dressed, blitzing out the door into the predawn chill (chill: your face won't move because it's below zero and the wind is busily coating it with snow that feels like sand. from a sand blaster. except really cold.)

I missed Tanzania for a few weeks, but, hey, now I walk with that proud Western-New-York snow-and-wind hunch that says, I'm too sexy for my parka, too sexy for my parka, too sexy by farka... It's good to be here--between the lovely E, experimenting with a hundred variations on rice, potatoes, beans, and other low-budget food made mighty by the currying process, and a few good housemates (here and here) and an eccentric and thoroughly enjoyable neighbor, life is good for Houghton's newest Community Member. I ski on the ski hill, get movies out of the library, take odd jobs lumbermilling and driving, keep things Safe and Secure, and play EMT volunteer-style.

And I screw up my sleep schedule. It's well past my bedtime. I spent four days without sleeping more than four hours in a row at any given time, and then I slept a lot during an afternoon, and I'm still working at five a.m. Except when I'm working at five p.m. Except when I'm working not at all. So, I stay up late and experiment.

For instance, adjacent to my Google Reader share feed (on the left) is a feed from an old blog that I've converted. I post whatever catches my fancy from the wide world of the internet via gmail to the old waybread blog, which should theoretically feed immediately to the sidebar on the new reified-beans blog. And then you can share my stream of (i)consciousness.

In the meantime, revel in this amazing song from a Scottish artist I discovered via NPR's All Song's Considered, 1 February 2007. It's James Yorkston's "Woozy on Cider," and it perfectly fit the mood Saturday at around 620, as I sat in the new superfancy conference room on the new 3rd floor of the Library, watching the sun rise deep and orange and vast across high, mottled clouds on a still campus where not a soul's step broke the newfallen snow...

London-Heathrow

2007-01-16T05:27:00.000-05:00

garrrrr...

it's a long hike from Terminal 4 to Terminal 3. But, hey, the ticket counter lady just bumped me from the 4 pm flight to the noon flight, so I don't have a seven hour layover. Hooray! Instead I have five hours in DC. No biggie...maybe they can bump me up to an earlier connection in DC and I'll get to Rochester before Wednesday...that would be nice.

all right. This is expensive. And I'm officially broke. And going home...weather.com said 58 (F) in DC, and I said groovy, that will help me transition a little between sunny Africa and not-so-sunny America. And then I looked up Rochester, where, apparently, it's not enough to be 25 (F) (and thus below freezing) but also adjusted with wind chill down to 16 (F). Brrr....unpacking the wool hat already. Puttin' my thermals on midflight.

Well. I hope for a good movie over the Atlantic! I'm a-goin' hoooooome! Woooohooo!

Not Dead Yet!

2007-01-07T10:15:00.000-05:00

Well. I'm back. The sky is yellow-grey outside, thunder is rumbling off the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, and it is freakin' pouring buckets of rain outside. My experience with electricity this trip has not granted me great faith is the Tanzanian electrician. It is with trepidation (and faith!) that I continue writing, because it's been a while since I was able to sit down and actually use the internet.

pause for anecdote

Cousin Kevin, an Electrical Engineering major, works for Catepillar. My father, also an EE man, has been wiring various things around the (American) home for thirty-plus years.

Dad: Youch!

Kevin: Wow. The entire frame of this washing machine appears to be carrying current! But you only get zapped where the enamel's worn off!

Dad: Yeah, I noticed that...

Dan: I had the same problem in an Internet Cafe in Iringa. And, come to think of it, the same thing happened with an inverter we were using to power this drill.

Dan, lacking the proper degree, demonstrates his lack of appropriate jargon. He worked for an electrician, once

Dan: I think it has something to do with a leak from hot to ground.

Dad: No, it couldn't be that. That amount of current running to the ground wire would blow the fusebox.

Dan: Ummm...Dad...That's assuming they actually ran a ground wire to the ground. I've walked around this house a few times and I haven't seen one.

Dad: This system's not grounded?

Kevin: I don't understand how people don't die all the time from all these blatant code violations!

Dan and Jeff, in unison: No, no. People do die all the time from these blatant code violations. If there's really a code...

end anecdote

So did I mention it's raining? I think hurricanes are hitting the East Coast of Africa or something. It's the wettest and longest "Short Rainy Season" they've had in a long time. Which made our safari in Ngorongoro crater quite, quite fun. :) We played in the mud with a Land Rover and a Land Cruiser. The mud gods were pleased. I drove the hairiest bit in the 'Rover, and grinned like a banshee all the way. Good, good times...

Well. Synopsis:

a) Settlers and Risk are fun and all that--but. The game of the year is definitely Bohnanza, the bean-farmer simulation card game! It's wicked cool!
b) Bottle-cap poker is now a family safari tradition. Cokes are worth one, Fanta are five, Stoneys and Sprites are tens and beers are twenty!
c) My beer-tasting tour-de-force has concluded. First place: Tusker. Of course. But it's good to know the reputation is well-earned. It even cured a nasty upset stomach. Close seconds: Castle Lager's Milk Stout, a surprisingly good twist on Guinness, and Savannah Dry Hard Cider, with points for the most aesthetically pleasing bottle.
d) Tarangire Safari Lodge has a breathtaking view. And breathtakingly good food. When they weighed me at the doctor's office the other day, I was "only" down to 74 kilograms...still a few pounds over my pre-Tanzania weight, after a week under the tender ministrations of some exotic intestinal houseguests. I attribute it entirely to that amazing buffet.
e) 4100 Tanzanian Shillings (about $3.80) got me a doctor consult, lab tests, and two prescriptions to put an end to the digestive tyrrany of both (yeah baby! go big or don't go at all!) soldier worms and bacterial dysentery. I've always like the way "dysentery" sounds...rolls nicely off the tongue. I spent the first week of the new year abed (or atoilet) with all sorts of exciting sympoms. Good times. Now I have two more diseases to chalk off my life list!

I would upload pictures, but they're not working. And dusk is falling, and I don't have a lamp for my bike. Cheerio!

hey, look at me, i am here

2006-12-14T05:10:00.000-05:00

nipo masumboni...I am in Masumbo, quite possibly my favorite place in the world. We went swimming yesterday, in the morning when there were no clouds. The sun shone beautifully on the massive boulders and ruddy currents of the Mto Ruaha. Paul and I clambered around on the rocks and boulder-surfed the main current and I partook of the opportunity to impart a little well-needed soap upon mine armpits. Life is good. We've (and by we I mean Paul, with a little kibbitzing on my behalf) been putting the finishing touches on the new director's house, and hobnobbing in the evenings with Iringa's finest and dining alternately between the Jacaranda and the Hasty Tasty Too.

It's quite phenomenal to see what has happened in the two years since I was here last. Abbas has married, Masumbo is getting a (admittedly slow) wireless internet hub, the solar water purification program (using cast-off plastic bottles and corrugated tin) is in full-swing, the craft shop has expanded fourfold and has a coffeeshop that serves panini, the bat-box program is getting onto its feet, Andy and Suzie got another baby and the closest thing anyone locally has ever seen to a Vespa...

And other things haven't changed at all. The night watchmen still chill out by the kitchen and are still good for both laughter and good conversation. The river is still the ultimate playground. And, oddly enough, people in the Iringa marketplace still remember me...and are as sharp bargainers as ever.

It's good to be here. Good people, good places, good food, good times.

on the road again...

2006-12-05T01:34:00.000-05:00

I love travelling long distances--it's not just seeing new things, it's taking your entire world and routine apart and being free to dilly-dally and dawdle and mess with it so long as you don't miss a flight.

And, you get to experience random things. Like, for instance, being chastised by a guy who barely spoke English for sleeping while wearing my shoes at the interfaith prayer room in London's Heathrow Airport...a drab little cube with an arrow pointing to Mecca and a bench where weary travellers like myself can practice their own form of contemplative prayer. I thought it was awesome that I got to slumber there and hear/see the Arabic poetry in motion that is daily Muslim prayer. I get the impression that the drab cube way off the beaten track exists so that faithful Muslims who work the airport's various menial jobs can excercise their spiritual duty of daily prayers (replete with foot and hand washing, rugs, and vigorous Sunna/Shia debates) without freaking out international travellers. It's a far cry from the quite posh "Meditation Room" here at Amsterdam's Schiphol.

By the way. I learned last night that if you use the loo's next to the exclusive executive travel lounges (where economy class people like me are not allowed) you can score yourself all sorts of perks. Like free showers. Hot showers, with no time limits (granted, there are no towels if you aren't a paying customer, but who needs towels when you are a well-equipped, moisture-wicking hiker sort?)

On the downside, if you spend the night in a Dutch airport, you will be serenaded nonstop by bad/cheezy/sappy American pop music. It's their version of elevator music. Grrrr...need Gorillaz!

Well, I'm almost out of time. Next stop: Tanzania. cheerio!