Seuss ex Machina

Everyone say "Aye Matey!"

2009-09-18T09:26:00.001-07:00

Yes, I lost my zeal for posting, I also lost all sense of ownership regarding time. None of it belongs to me really, I'm a graduate student, therefore am owned by the University. I wanted to get this quick post in however, because when I'm a teacher and am stressed and burned out, I want to be able to reset to the mindset that I now occupy.

Last spring, I shattered my preconceptions of what a junior high band looks like. I watched Clyde Quick interact with 7th, 8th and 9th graders and draw out of them musicianship I didn't think possible. Not only music, but behavior. He worked the kids so that they shared his enthusiasm for music and that overrode their egocentric little circuits to the point that they wanted to learn as much as they could about music.

When working at DHS, I never once thought that elementary music would interest me. The lack of musical maturity in the students was always a turn off. I realized that they all had to start somewhere, but I was only interested in working with the end result. Now I'm teaching general music in 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade classrooms and am completely enamored with my students and the concept of general music and am ready to champion the cause wherever I go - even if I have to do it myself. It's only the 4th week of school, I have 11 more to go with these kids, but I'm only looking forward to it.

Today I got to conduct a combined band of 6th 7th and 8th graders and again my preconceptions of beginning band were shattered. The students were engaged, they listened intently, and gave me what I asked for. I have to learn to let these preconceived notions go and believe that children are capable of doing anything as long as they are provided the right scaffolding to get there.

Sacred

2009-06-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

This is something I wrote a few weeks ago and posted to facebook. I'm tired of seeing my last post here be right after picnic day.

This past week I was sequestered at National Camp School for the Western Region of the BSA (affectionately known by the staff at my camp as "camp camp"). The school trains camp staff in all the different aspects, from camp and program directors to aquatics and shooting sports.

I am now a certified BSA Climbing Director - which sounds awfully spiffy until you realize it's really no different than what I've been doing for the past 5 years, only instead I get to do all the site inspections myself an sign off on my own stuff (I still am subject to inspection from an annual "visitation team," however). Oh, and I get to train staff... which my camp can't support beyond Mike and myself, but it was a lot of fun, and will take a bunch of hassle out of my summers for the next five years.

I was thrown in a patrol with 13 other college aged kids (21 is the minimum age for a director) based on our program. We spent the week wading through powerpoint presentations and trying to stay awake as they piled on the mandatory standards and regulations, alternating with time spent out on the granite, setting protection and building anchors. We were in the high desert, somewhere between Temecula and the Salton Sea and I had expected it to be sweltering, but instead the temperatures lurked in the sixties and dropped into the forties at night. Although we weren't caught unprepared, I was certainly surprised by the weather. Whatever free time my patrol had was spent in the camp's dining commons, trying to warm ourselves in the shadow of the artificial rock wall, sipping inordinate amounts of coffee and benignly taunting our patrol's one LDS kid in a caffeinated blur. Beyond that, we were only expected to act in a sufficiently dorky fashion, putting together skits and songs for campfire and developing rivalries between programs and patrols.

The camp we stayed at was on a reservation, leased from a tribe. After driving through ten miles of what they insisted was a road, through nothing but scrub and dirt, the camp opened up into a meadow and valley floor filled with oak trees. The valley, "Lost Valley" was most impressive at night, when the wind died and huge banks of what could only be described as slasher-movie grade fog rolled in. The moon cut through the clouds and illuminated the far side of the valley, mountains seemingly caught above and below two sets of clouds.

Both the program and the site were impressive, but what left the greatest impression on me over the week was a story told by one of the staff, as the fog banks rolled in one evening and we headed inside the dining commons for our "campfire:"

The tale's teller recalled a conversation he had had long ago with a Cupeño woman, one of the Native Americans from the reservation. She had been born in 1890 and up through the great depression had travelled with her tribe to this valley (which they called Wiatava, "the valley of the live oaks") every summer to collect acorns and grind them to meal against the rocks. The work had been deemed women's work, and it was a social activity. These summers were where she learned stories and songs, and the majority of her heritage, sitting around with the other women, grinding the acorns in bowls in the granite, worn over generations of this activity. She was being interviewed because the tribe was in negotiations to lease the land of the valley, and opinions varied as to whether this should or should not be done.

Those against leasing the land cited that it was Sacred, and the tale's teller was confused. He asked if there were rites conducted in the summers here in the valley or if spirits lived there. The old woman sighed and smiled. Apparently there is no similar word for her feelings in English other that Sacred. It was not something mystical or religious, but the importance of the land was great. She tried to explain: The valley was important to her when she was there, but it was more important to her when she wasn't there. This was where she grew up and the memories of it where part of what made her who she was. To her and to many others, the valley was sacred.

I smiled when I heard this story because I knew exactly what she had meant. I had used the word to describe Cody before, but had never heard the word defined so perfectly.

After spending seven years there as a scout, and another 6 as an adult, I've been heading into Cody each summer for over half of my life. Cody is an institution, steeped in tradition. The camp breeds a culture that keeps the kids coming back until they age out at 18. - and adults coming back long after their sons have gone off to college. Cody was where I developed friendships that had a definite impact on how I define myself. Beyond the institution however, the land itself commands reverence. Cody Lake and the three tiny cabins that make up the camp is a place that has shaped who I am. It is a place that I carry with me and it is a place to which I will return long after my affiliation with the troop or camp fades.

Far and wide many have tried, none have done it better.

2009-04-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

One of my classes has spent the last few weeks on a very important aspect of being a band director, that of building and sustaining a marching program. Something the school where I teach lacks. I marched for four years in college, but both in the music department at UCD, and at CSUS where I'm taking credential classes, it's a part of my past that I admit only sheepishly, seeing as the organization that I marched with, the California Aggie Marching Band(uh) is somewhat scorned by the music faculty and the band program at CSUS (which marches corps style) for their lack of... precision.

Granted, my experiences in marching don't come close to what is expected of a high school marching band - the CAMB is a show band; loud, boisterous and full of energy. They don't play standard literature, only arrangements done by bandsmen themselves, mostly of popular music, though the level of music is far above what I've come to expect from high school students. The shows are charted by the student drum major and I have to say in six years I've yet to see one french curve. What I'm trying to say is that I'm surrounded now by people who march in drum corps and percussion ensembles and stress the importance of discipline and precision and the corps style of marching, and everything I'm learning contradicts my image of what a Marching Band should be. I talked to my instructor after class one day, and in mentioning my marching history, he laughed and joked that he would make sure to provide me with extra resources to help me "undo" my previous predispositions of band.

However, as I'm slowly being conditioned, I spent this weekend at Picnic Day, the one day of the year that the Aggie Band lives for. The day they get to stand up and say, "Guess what, we're for real." Their parade show this year was tight and precise, surprisingly so, considering their fanfare was in 10/8 (3-2-2-3) followed by arrangements of Styx, Rush, and Boston. Normally I'm shamed into acknowledging that words like "phrasing," "blend," "balance" or "dynamics" have no place in the band - and it's true for the most part (when I want my students to pull out all the stops with dynamics, I say "Band-uh Loud" and they know what I mean) - but on Saturday, I felt pride for the first time in a long time, being an alumnus of the organization.

Audition Season

2009-03-24T23:39:00.000-07:00

This post is part of a blog project on student teaching hosted at So You Want to Teach.

With 7 weeks 'til our next concert, I'm spending my time this week away from the podium. Mostly I've been prepping packets of audition material for next year's Symphonic and Jazz bands.

March is a long a trying month for the music department at DHS - a school where seemingly everyone who tries makes the football team, but tryouts for the auditioned ensembles require two, sometimes three callbacks - no matter the program. Whether Choir, Orchestra or Band, it's pretty crazy if you think about it.

There's only one high school in a town of 63,000 - one standard Jazz "Stage Band," one 32 voice Madrigal Choir, only 4 clarinet spots in the DHS Symphony, and only 12 available in the Symphonic band (we have to fight for French Horns, however). The whole school's schedule is planned around making sure the kids who get into those programs can take their other classes, and therefore the administration needs to know who they'll be well in advance. The process is intense, even students in the ensembles have to re-audition and by their senior year, a lot of kids are used to disappointment and the effort required to maintain the standard of excellence.

However, this year I'm finding I have to deal with the students facing a level of disappointment for which they're not prepared: UC admissions, or rather lack thereof. I was lucky enough to work with this same band last year as a Paraeducator, and it seems like half of the Band's seniors went to UC Berkeley, and the other half to UCLA, with a few stragglers to Columbia, NYU or Puget Sound. This year, with cutbacks in admissions and hikes in fees, one person out of about 70 got into UCLA. Berkeley is sitting on their admissions still, but that outlook is grim. This fact was brought to light when their teacher excitedly mentioned that we were going to stop by the UCLA campus on our trip to San Diego in May and asked how many got in. One student tentatively raised his hand to nervous laughter from the rest of the group. I've even had kids come up to me bummed about not getting into UCD, their hometown "backup school."

These kids are bred overachievers, 5 or 6 AP classes on their plates, SAT scores above 2000 (they're out of 2400 now?). They're special, or at least have been told so all their lives by parents who all have Bachelor's degrees, many from UCs themselves. Now it's crashing down around them and the kids don't really know what to do, and I have no idea what to say to them.

To counteract the anxiety we're digging through new music to play on our trip. I'm learning that finding literature that's perfectly fit for a particular ensemble is one of the most important parts of being a music educator. However, the Symphonic Band my teacher has spoils him, and me by proxy. We're scheduled to play on the deck of the U.S.S. Midway in San Diego and my teacher is pulling out all the stops. Although it would be a little too blatant to dig out Midway March again (we played it last year on our trip to Victoria BC.), the director is grabbing all the "shiny" he can and dropping his own cash on scores to the Hal Leonard "John Williams Signature Series" - basically arrangements for professionals, not rearranged for younger bands. They're really just transcriptions of Williams' symphonic music to wind band parts, signed off by the composer, and the premiered by the U.S. Marine Band.

The music we choose is not just a festival set, but also enough to put on hour long "Pops concerts" around town while we're there and then come back and perform in the park in downtown Davis during the farmer's market to thank the community for their support.

The students have locked in Raider's March - the main title to Indiana Jones but the big problem we're facing is having to decide between the 1984 and 1996 Olympic Fanfares to kick off the set. This year we have an incredibly strong trumpet section. 10 kids - 7 of which are powerhouses and 3 are, well, third trumpets by definition. But selecting music like this requires a director to play towards the ensembles' strengths, and this year it's brass.

I don't know how he manages to pull it off time and time again, but their teacher has the ability to trick his students - baiting them with amazing music, and then saying something like "You know, I just don't know if you guys are up to this... " enlisting jeers and pleading from his kids to give it a shot, challenging them and forcing them to push themselves. This time though, I think he really means to cut "Summon the Heroes" the 1996 theme. Some worry or another about not being able to handle the articulation required of the piece. This kind of tears at me inside because it's absolutely gorgeous and our 1st chair trumpet player nailed the solo today. Music is supposed to evoke emotion and this piece does just that - not just fanfare, excitement and flourish, but something much more.

One Month Later

2009-03-20T00:08:00.000-07:00

This post is part of a blog project on student teaching hosted at So You Want to Teach.

It's done.

It's done, and both my students and I came out the other side feeling a sense of accomplishment. I was able to rehearse a grade four piece (I Am, by Andrew Boysen Jr.) to festival readiness with a non-auditioned high school ensemble in four weeks.

Performing arts programs are really a special learning experience. There's an immediate sense of accomplishment gained from performances. In high school, my parents never once cared about my english assignments or my history papers, much less my Trigonometry homework, but they made it to every orchestra concert. MENC sanctioned competitions are even better, with groups earning rankings and a sense of prestige amongst their peers; improving themselves with each performance and clinic. What's more, this builds a sense of group cohesion I found lacking in my other classes, due to the individual responsibility of each student to the ensemble.

Tonight was our "Adjudication Concert" which is a tradition that has arisen out of a compromise between budget concerns and the need for validation of the band program. DJUSD doesn't have school busses. They rely on the City and the University bus system to get kids to and from school. There are special lines just for the kids, the district pays the city, the city pays the university, and everyone's happy. Except when it comes to field trips.

Chartering a couple of Unitrans busses to Sacramento costs several hundred dollars, which when added to festival fees tops $1000 - more than double the band program's annual budget. So instead of heading to the CMEA Golden Empire Festival, we invite one of their judges to come to us. Instead of 15 minutes in front of three judges, some scribbled notes and barely decipherable taped recordings, we have one esteemed director come work with all three bands for the entire day, and return to see the concert that evening, giving comments in front of parents on everything that we worked on and improved.

It's an awesome arrangement, and it's really helpful. It's also a tad nerve-wracking - especially when on Tuesday during my last rehearsal with my students, my bari soloist was having problems subdividing and missing his entrances, and all the brass couldn't figure out phrasing and breath. Even though we'd worked these problem sections four weeks running.

I've watched my role as a conductor change over the past month. This piece wasn't difficult by the standards that the kids were used to, but it required a lot of difficult entrances and some serious counting issues (rhythms in four against my beat pattern of three for example) and I realized as much as I strive to bring intensity and artistry to the music, what's increasingly important is that I don't just give abrupt gestures to cue my students, but provide them with confidence, welcoming them in to their entrances. They can count, they know they're right, but still, I look up from my score and see eyes pleading me to confirm that they're right. Most of the time all I have to do is smile at them and they play beautiful music, but I have to cue them.

However, to cue them, I have to be absolutely certain that we're all on the same page.

This afternoon I couldn't have asked for a better performance from my students, we did a mock concert for our adjudicator (my teacher never once called him a "judge") and he had comments a-plenty but what stuck most were those about air stream and intonation. My trombones were trying too hard to play softly and were a wee bit flat.

This evening, they did just as well, but I almost fell apart. We were well into the piece and approaching an important juncture in the music. There's a canonic fast section that gives way to a series of metrical changes punctuated with a syncopated bass line. That probably doesn't mean a whole lot, but it's at 2:45 on an 8 minute recording, so about a third of the way on this recording.

My score is like a security blanket, it makes me feel safe. As long as I have the music in front of me, I don't need it. I went to turn the page, and I knew what was supposed to be on the next one, except it wasn't there - I had turned too many pages. I felt the bottom of my stomach fall away and part of my brain started screaming a stream of expletives.

Another part of my brain however, just counted: [...&4&] [12-12-123] [1.2.] [1.2.3.] My hands cuing half the band to come in on the "and of 3" beating a bar of 7/8 followed by 2/4 and then 3/4. It was like something out of an exercise from a conducting class but the rest of me was frozen in terror. My parents noticed it, my teacher noticed it, my conducting lost all expression for about a minute but the kids somehow didn't notice, or rather, care. It was their confidence in my ability to lead them that kept me in the game. I was a little shaken for the rest of the piece, I missed some cues, but they all got their entrances, even the Bari Sax soloist that had trouble earlier this week.

I've mentioned before my terrible performance anxiety, and the thought of choking as a conductor - with all my students counting on me - is terrifying. At that moment I was paralyzed with fear, but I had cultivated enough trust with the band that they assumed I knew exactly what I was doing - the same expectation I have of them when they head onto the stage. It's that interdependency on each other, and on me - that sort of trust that really brings the ensemble together and makes it more than another class.

Just another experience confirming that the one place I know where I belong is at the podium in front of my students.

What do you mean lesson plan? I just direct a band.

2009-01-29T22:49:00.000-08:00

This post is part of a blog project on student teaching hosted at So You Want to Teach.

My director is going to be out tomorrow - this is when all the effort put into obtaining that pesky sub credential pays off. He's left a list of songs for the jazz bad to run, but it's a practice, and not a rehearsal. With their rhythm section, they're pretty much autonomous, and I couldn't really have much constructive input since most of the kids know more about Jazz than I do about Irish trad - or anything else for that matter.

However, everything about the other two periods was left to me. What to rehearse, and how. And more importantly, he wants me to rehearse the kids, even his audition ensemble, not just run them through their music. We only have a few weeks and he just dropped new music on them this Wednesday. This is the difference between being a conductor and being a teacher.

One small problem: I've never even seen a lesson plan for an ensemble course. I've put plenty together for the Music Theory course I interned in last year, but here I'm doing everything backwards. I've none of the credential programs under my belt, but have over a year's worth of observation and teaching experience in this same classroom. I fretted about this for a while until I realized, I put a lesson plan together before I step up to the podium every day.

In preparing my score, I go through it, listen to a recording endlessly, or more often, sing it (much to my brother's annoyance). Anywhere I trip in singing it, I drop a sticky note. Anywhere I think a problem will occur, sticky note - usually covered with barely decipherable scribbles. These aren't notes to myself about conducting, they're to use to help direct a rehearsal. Anytime I come up with something to say about the piece that would help the kids in artistically shaping the piece - like "With Quiet Courage" being about a mother, who was later diagnosed with cancer, exhibiting the courage to face down anything and everything life has to offer without flinching, instead of the brash heroic deeds with which we generally associate courage - that's a sticky note.

Anytime we stumble in rehearsal, and I mention something to correct it, I go back through rehearsal after class and write down everything, and stick it in my score. After a while, if things are no longer an issue and the kids routinely get it right, the sticky note gets tossed.

Right now, my score for Chorale and Toccata by Jack Stamp is covered to the point where I almost can't read the music. Almost. They just got it on Wednesday, and hopefully in three weeks, the score will be clean and ready for the Festivity of Bands. Tomorrow I'm going to come in and pull down a few of his books on "Teaching Music through Performance in Band" and find the pieces we're playing to get another point of view on what's important in the piece, and a few more sticky notes will go into it.

The only other aspect is organization and pacing of the rehearsal, something I'm still working on perfecting. The pieces will be on the board before the class gets in, something my director doesn't often do and we'll tear through them with a lingering promise of giving the kids "the rest of the period off" if we accomplish everything I want. Which means maybe five minutes out of 50, but they won't know that. It's Friday, their teacher isn't there, they'll expect a bit of a break, which means they'll work for it. I just need to keep their instruments on their lips as long as possible. I say on their lips because I have ten trumpets and seven trombones in my back row in one period. If you work with a school band, that actually means something.

My lesson plan needs to be modular and flexible, it's not seventh grade science or 9th grade english. Sometimes I wish it were, other times I'm glad it isn't. I have to adapt what I'm teaching to what they need to work on, what they're giving me and how it measures up to what I expect. Now, that sounds just like any other class, but I'm doing it beat by beat, second by second, and not chapter by chapter or test by test.

I have great respect for the music teachers I work with, after trying to emulate what they do for just two periods. Different music for each class. I work with a teacher whose mutters a litany with pride: "I teach 7 sections of 6 classes in 5 classrooms. I have 4 bosses at 3 schools, and I commute 2 hours a day for 1 job." After years of doing this, they just fall on their feet, as if they were airdropped onto the podium ready to go and can rehearse without too much preparation. But I need my sticky notes and an overarching plan, so here we go:

6th period: Symphonic Band. Theme for the day: LISTEN!

Warm up, tune.

Masada, the first fast part. I don't have the score with me.

Really tune.

Run the Times Square 1944 section towards the end where it pits 4 against 3, take them through it slowly, which will hamper their ability to match up, force them through it and speed up. Spend no more than 6 minutes doing so.

NEW MUSIC. Chorale and Toccata. Not technically new, they've read it once, and I'm sure my bass section has been going nuts. Skip the showery entrance straight to the beautiful bassoon/english horn solo. Normally, I wouldn't make the kids sit through a solo section, but it's important that the trumpets listen to the soloists. Make sure the soloists understand that they have a give and take dynamic in this duet. One pushes and the other gives, then pushes back. The trumpets come in right after and need to match not just the dynamics, but color of the solo. Something hard to do pitting 10 trumpets against two double reeds. together they need to bring out the warmth of their lower register, while sounding like one trumpet, over a hill somewhere for a measure or two then growing. The rest of the band needs to notice the dynamic (not volume, but dynamic) between the soloists and reiterate that when accompanying

the trumpets.

So those four bars were a mouthful, that's why I generally speak in music instead of english at the podium. Tragically, I can't sing for you here. I know my timpanist was practicing this piece at lunch today, and I'm sure my bass clarinets are rocking the toccata and are ready for tomorrow.

7th Period.

Longford Legend I.

Tune

Longford III.

New Music. (Mostly New) With Quiet Courage. The piece is thickly scored, so the lack of horns and oboe in my concert band is not going to be a problem (though always disheartening). The problem is going to be that without varying instrumentation, the piece starts to sound cyclical and isn't interesting. I'm going to try and combat that by focusing on the countermelodies and bringing them out more, even to the point of absurdity if it will bring about contrast in the piece. It's likely too easy for them, and we won't play it past tomorrow, but it's a really pretty piece, and they need to focus on intonation. They have enough technically difficult stuff on their plate and sometimes they're so focused on their fingers, they don't listen to what they sound like. This piece will force that.

Then come the shape note pieces, Geneva Variations and Rhapsody on American Shape Note Melodies. The first in my opinion is too hard for the kids, the latter, too easy. We'll run them and see what they like and don't like about each piece and what they can accomplish.

My brother just popped in to ask me a favor: if I'm going to be listening to the music I make my kids play all night, force them to play something awesome like the theme to Jurassic Park. As cheesy as it sounds, it's not a bad idea, especially for our band trip to San Diego this May. I at least started playing the soundtrack for his benefit.

I've got a bit of system down, but I really don't know how anyone else does it. My lesson plan for tomorrow? Attempt to topple my biggest challenge: shut up long enough that the kids are listening to themselves instead of me. I hope I can pull it off.

Mr. Obama's Package.

2009-01-28T11:06:00.000-08:00

It's time I briefly revert back to my original intention of this blog; to provide completely unsolicited and relatively uninformed commentary on what's going on and how it affects me. I mean, isn't that the standard definition of the purpose of a blog? Evidence certainly seems to point that way.

Anyways, HR 1 for this congress is coming to vote today, otherwise known as "THE STIMULUS PACKAGE" (that was a big, booming baritone announcer voice.) All week we've heard how the house minority leadership has griped about this and that; not enough tax cuts, ridiculous amounts of spending and the magic word: Pork.

Though the bill has been meticulously searched and there are no congressional earmarks, Mr. Boehner has gotten a lot of airtime denouncing projects democrats have thrown into the bill to further stimulate the economy. Condoms and replanting the lawn on the national mall have gotten the most attention, and though it's hard to defend the programs with a straight face, some have done so.

What bothered me most, was tuning in to All Things Considered yesterday on my way home from Davis and hearing that somewhere around 50 million in support for the National Endowment for the Arts was being labeled as Pork.

Ms. Blair made an argument that stuck with me, the Endowment has means to get the money into peoples hands, and fast. There is a system in place that's governed by a peer reviewed grant making process.

Think of it this way: An artist in San Francisco gets his grant for a couple thousand dollars. He might leave his job at Starbucks that he's had to hold down to support himself to work on his project. He's not going to cash his check, take all the money home with him in small bills and make a giant paper maché penis. He's going to be living off of that money and supporting himself and his work with it, it's going straight into the economy and the government is supporting a part of our society that is shrinking under the shadow of the cult of prosperity and profit.

I think everyone should listen to more Bernstein, they may not like his music, but that's not necessary, his words will work for now:

"I think it is time we learned the lesson of our century: that the progress of the human spirit must keep pace with technological and scientific progress, or that spirit will die. It is incumbent on our educators to remember this; and music is at the top of the spiritual must list. When the study of the arts leads to the adoration of the formula (heaven forbid), we shall be lost. But as long as we insist on maintaining artistic vitality, we are able to hope in man’s future."

Then there's the issue of education and HR 1. The Grey Lady brought up a much missed point in the stimulus package yesterday. Granted, who would want to talk about schools when you could talk about condoms - but the stimulus package offers up huge aid for schools, federal aid, which has a lot of people worried.

Opponents of the aid are afraid huge federal investment in schools at the state level will fundamentally change our system. Though our education is paid for in part by, we are not schooled by the federal government, something that's very important. But the question is, who's going to fund the public schools in California right now? California can't even pay its payroll of state employees, let alone fund programs. All state budgets are thinly stretched, trying to cut spending instead of raising taxes in this time of economic decline. States don't have the financial clout to borrow money, and they can't just print more like the federal government is doing. We need this support. Besides, money set aside for school construction will go far to shore up many jobs that have been lost since the the housing market crashed.

The federal government has already done enough damage to education at the state level with NCLB. They're involved in controlling what schools and teachers do with the ability to deny them funding, why don't we let them help instead?

Csus4

2009-01-27T19:09:00.000-08:00

This post is part of a blog project on Student Teaching hosted at So You Want to Teach.

Scrawled across the blackboard are some bar lines, a few ticks indicating rhythm and a chord symbol: C-sus4.

"How would you go about teaching a 13 year old pianist in your 7th grade jazz band how to read that? He's pretty good, has some Bach - a few 2 part inventions under his belt."

Cmaj7 (sus2)

"How about that one? It's just gibberish to him. 'Where are the notes?' He asks."

The blackboard slowly starts to turn into a jazz chart and my hands get a little clammy.

School's back in session, and my "Instrumental Literature" course starts off by dropping me into the deepest end of the pool as far as my experience goes. We're looking at building a strong rhythm section in a junior high jazz band. At this level, the horns already know what they're doing, but how do you get the kid on the drum set to set them up properly when he barely reads music? Or the guitar player who maybe has Stairway to Heaven memorized but doesn't know that the term "comp" is actually short for accompaniment and not another word for "solo." How do you teach kids to swing eighths? Most of all, how can I lead them if I don't have a grasp of the jazz charts myself.

I'm out of my league, and I'm excited. If I was back taking structural geology classes or linear algebra, I'd be panicking, but those days are behind me. I paid my dues, got my degrees, and now every class I take has a direct stake in my future. And tackling an issue I've worried about constantly over the last few years, and doing it head on is kind of refreshing.

I come into work every day during fifth period and get to sort, file and copy to an awesome soundtrack of a full big band. I get all the administrative crap my director needs out of the way so I can work with the "real" bands during the following two periods, but I've never been put in a position to work with the jazz students.

Nor should I though. I play the tenor sax, but couldn't solo to save my life. Being self taught on your instrument in a department of performance majors is really intimidating and I never took the chance to stand up and take an improv class in front of them, something I almost regret. I suffer from a bit of performance anxiety - it used to take monumental courage to step up to the podium at a concert, and I still have trouble leaving the score behind and directing the ensemble even in rehearsal. As far as performance goes, as long as there is music in front of me, I had the confidence to keep up and even take a solo in the wind ensemble, but give me a lead sheet with chords and I'll fall apart.

Now however, that's all I have. I get to draw up parts for a rhythm section based off the lead sheet to Autumn Leaves and decide on which instrument I'd rather make a fool of myself - trombone or saxophone - when I solo in two weeks. We'll see how long my excitement holds out.

I'm now wrestling with a more pressing question: what else about a jazz program might be an even bigger hurdle for me when trying to build one.

This post is really about rehearsal techniques... I think.

2009-01-26T22:00:00.001-08:00

This post is part of a blog project on Student Teaching hosted at So You Want to Teach

DHS didn't have school today, and even if it did, I probably would have called in sick. I put in enough hours over the weekend to take a week off if my contract allowed for comp time - but of course, it was all volunteered.

Instead of working, I drove down to Stockton to sort out the rest of my life.

After interviewing with the faculty, (who are awesome) I was told that as long as I filled out the paperwork I was guaranteed tuition remission for 9 units of study per semester for two years. 9 units, with a 20 hour assistantship AND student teaching is a full load. If I get everything in and they have the money, they'll even toss in a 3,000 stipend per semester - which, considering I won't be able to hold down a job that doesn't require me to work during normal business hours (school), or nights (rehearsals), would be pretty much necessary. I'm in a far better state of mind now than 6 months ago when I got the acceptance letter. I know my parents read this, and they can breathe a little easier now.

So, buoyed by some promise of a future, I sat in on the rehearsal of Pacific's Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Dr. Eric Hammer (under whom I'll be working as my graduate advisor next year).

This is an auditioned ensemble of conservatory musicians, all of whom are miles beyond me in any aspect of performance (Shh! don't tell anyone). But, what impressed me the most was the balance and instrumentation of the group. Used to a high school or general college wind ensemble, this group surprised me by having each part in the score covered by one or two musicians. Instead of fifteen flutes or clarinets, there were six each - balanced by three oboes, three bassoons, a bass clarinetist, four horns and a sax quartet, 5 trumpets, 3 bones, euphonium and a tuba.

This was professional instrumentation, and they were sailing through pieces like John Barnes Chance's Blue Lake Overture (Track 6), and Copland's Lincoln Portrait (9:40 in the interview)- a piece that I've loved since I had to rip it apart for a ten page paper for an American Studies class on semiotics and images in society.

However great the ensemble was, it was due to its director, and I want to bring to light some observations of rehearsal techniques he used that I want to adopt for my own.

Ear training. - This is something I'm sure high school teachers wrestle with: how much time to spend rehearsing the music, and how much time to spend on things like theory when the class is designed to be little more than a performance opportunity. If I have the chance as a high school teacher, I'm going to remove all work required by a marching program during rehearsal in the students first year to focus on theory.

Dr. Hammer started rehearsal off by getting everyone to hum America the Beautiful off of the B flat they tuned from (casting it in the key of E flat), then play it, then sing it in Solfege and play it again, which fixed all the problems. It was impressive watching the student's theory brains kick as they figured it out. He does this with a new song every rehearsal.
"Sizzling" - Air control. I know how important it is, but it's something that I practice on my own, usually with buzzing, and definitely not in rehearsal. Dr. Hammer had the students "sssss-ing" their parts for part of the Blue Lake Overture, and while he conducted it, I could hear the phrasing and dynamics with just their air. I could focus on the melody bouncing around the room and afterwards, something clicked with the students and the entire piece had more substance behind it - it wasn't heavier, just more massive - if that makes sense.
Metronomic Abandonment - They are planning on including the Washington Post March in their concert just in time for President's day, and what surprised me was after all their work, they started falling apart on Sousa. They were stretching the time at the trio, and people weren't watching the director, it started to bounce along like an accordion, stretching out to compensate for speeding up, etc. In a response to this, Dr. Hammer placed his right hand behind his back after a preparatory beat and only gave artistic gestures and cues with his right and, leaving the band to fend for itself, and forcing them to listen to each other. This might end up in a trainwreck with younger groups, but the awareness sudden awareness of a lack of visual cues caused many to focus more on listening.

It cleaned up well.
Itinerary - Dr. Hammer conducted all business at the end of the rehearsal. At the top, he had a sheet with everything on it, and students picked it up as they walked in. It had a breakdown of every piece to be played during the 1.5 hour rehearsal, and a meticulously structured schedule on how much time was to be spent on each piece. This allowed the rehearsal to move swiftly and orderly, and end with reminders and motivation on the part of the director. Also included on the itinerary, which the students took home with them was everything for Wednesday's rehearsal, and what they needed to practice to be prepared. A little much, but the smoothness with which the rehearsal ran was testament to the order and discipline of the group.

To sum it up, I'm really excited and am chomping at the bit to work with someone whose conducting is as controlled and powerful as it is fluid and graceful, and am looking to get some real feedback on my own.

Is it August yet?

<3 Parents.

2009-01-25T15:33:00.000-08:00

This post is part of a blog project on student teaching, hosted at So you Want to Teach

Forgive typos, I haven't slept since Saturday morning and I'll edit this later.

Parents.

If there's one thing I'm going to drag away from my experiences working with the bands at Davis High, it's that parent involvement and support are probably some of the most important things in teaching any child. Whatever the subject, only a small amount of learning ever happens in the classroom and anything taught there is reinforced by learning at home. When it comes to a performing arts program, however, parental support is paramount due to all the effort required by a student outside of a classroom. Any performance program requires a regular practice regimen -akin to homework- but all the concerts, festivals, workshops, trips, everything done to make the students better musicians (and make the elective more appealing than art or yearbook), requires a substantial amount of time, effort and money on the part of the parents. Most of my students have their own instruments, many are in extra curricular performance groups and about 80% receive private lessons, and have since fourth grade. This is all a substantial financial investment on the part of the parents and reflects the affluence of the community, something I know I can't replicate when I step into my first job as a teacher.

Operational budgets for performance programs are generally barely enough to pay for routine maintenance on their instruments; let alone venues, festival fees, travel, and the ubiquitous annual "band trip." Fundraising is an integral part of every performance program I know. Those stupid candy bar scams are the first thing to come to mind but thankfully the students I work with have parents who are deeply involved in both the school and community, and the kids are able to do most of their fundraising with their instruments. The bands rent themselves out in small combos at winter time to play for christmas parties, the jazz band and choirs put on an annual Cabaret, the Madrigals hold a Madrigal dinner between thanksgiving and christmas, but the one big thing our band program does is something called a "Playathon."

I don't know whose idea this was, but it's akin to the "jog-a-thons" I did in elementary school. Kids beg for money, er collect pledges from close family and friends, either by hour or for the entire night - promising to attempt the amazing feet of playing for 12 hours, straight through the night without sleep.

This money doesn't go towards the band's operational budget, but towards the kids cost of the trips we take, some upwards of $600. Each student has their own account and the money is deposited and kept there for them, and any left over is carried over to next year's account. None of this would be possible without the Band Booster's program, and I am routinely surprised at the amount of organization and continuity in the program. They have an extensive charter and binders for each event throughout the year holding the lessons learned from the years previous and instructions on how things are done. The amount of parental involvement in this program is phenomenal and building a booster's program, or taking active involvement in an existing one will be a large priority of mine as a first year teacher.

Although too much parental involvement can lead to twitching, murderous glares from teachers, in building an amazing performing arts program, no matter how big of a pain they may be, parents are a teacher's greatest asset.

Playathon.

So.... anyways, our director is past 60, and three years ago he declared the last Playathon. The kids got so upset because they loved the program so much that alumni came in, and parents stepped up to make it happen the next year without the director, bringing in student teachers to help conduct instead. Both this year and last I was put in charge of the music, while parents put up the organizational front and provided chaperones for the entire night. This playathon went so well, I want to keep the schedule and music somewhere for next year, and this is as good a place as any.

19:00 - Kids show up, warm up, tune.

19:30 - Kids give a "Concert in progress," performing works that they've only seen since they returned from winter break. This year, the Concert Band played Longford Legend, Appalachian Morning, and ... (I'm honestly too tired to remember the other one). The Symphonic Band performed Masada, Three Dance Episodes from On the Town, The Whispering Tree, and a roaringly busy piece they got on Wednesday called "Applause," one they pulled off marvelously. With set changes, these two concerts take about an hour and a half.

21:00 - The Jazz Band steps in. They gave an hour long concert, after playing all day at the Folsom Jazz Festival today. They scored all Superiors, scores in the 90s, but our director was less than satisfied with their performance - the best part is, so were they. They're looking to place at Monterey in a couple of months and need to tighten up quite a bit to do so.

22:00 - Between ten and eleven, the pizza arrived, donated in small amounts from most of the pizza joints in Davis, a small college town with lots of pizza places. Before the kids got to chow down, we allowed guest conductors to jump in and direct the band. Mostly parents, some who have no idea what they're doing but a few are "regulars" and ham it up to the point where some of the kids are laughing so hard they can't even play right. This is another chance for fundraising, getting donations, or prizing this out at raffles.

N.B. Don't loan your baton out to someone who doesn't know how to use it. Mine was broken before I had the chance to direct.

23:00 - The fun begins. At this point we have 45 minutes of rehearsal every hour running through pieces the kids have never seen before, or at least haven't seen in a year. During the other fifteen minutes, the kids run off to a dark room with a strobe light, thumping techno music and enough sugar and caffeine to put several large animals into hyperglycemic shock. I, myself stuck to a diet of carrot sticks, wheat thins and chai tea, learning from last year that a steady diet of Mountain Dew inhibits my ability to direct and causes my hands to shake. I also brought in help, a few extra directors, the student director, manager and drum major of the Aggie Band, all current music majors at UCD. There's no way I could direct a band for 7 hours on my own. Working with a combined band of about 150 kids, I lost my voice as it is, and that was working with them only 15 minutes every hour.

Between 11 and 12 we started them off easy with "With Quiet Courage" "Three Ayers from Gloucster" and Holst's First Suite in Eb

00:00 - 01:00: WE decided to get the harder stuff out of the way while everyone was awake: Culloden III, El Camino Real (a beast to conduct on the fly), Holst's Second Suite in F (running the march as fast as we could).

01:00 - 02:00: Mars, Baroque Hoedown, and American Elegy

02:00 - 3:00: Here if the kids were dragging we made them sing instead, playing arrangements of Les Mis, Aladdin and the Lion King

03:00 - 04:00: Continuing in the same vein we did Phantom of the Opera, Beauty and the Beast and Hunchback of Notre Dame.

04:00 - 05:00: Rock Bottom. This was a bad time to pull out Vaughn William's Folk Song Suite. I think the flutes were about to cry when I called it up. Between that, Mary's boy child and an arrangement of Avenue Q, it was a disaster. We should have pulled up much easier music for this late in the game.

05:00 - 06:30: To rally the troops we played a bunch of their pep band music, (Black Saddles, Cortez) which with a full band, rivaled the Aggie Band in power and quality. We then set out to rehearse three pieces from the night to get them sounding decent for a concert at 7:00. - when their parents and people who threw money at them come to see them perform without any lips.

We chose Baroque Hoedown (The theme to the electric light parade in Disneyland), Beauty and the Beast and American Elegy as those pieces with the balance of "easy," "engaging," and "impressive."

06:30 - 0:700: Breakfast, keep everyone off their instruments to allow a bit of recovery.

07:00 - 07:30: Concert, a little flat here and there, with lips as droopy as their eyelids. But promising the kids that this is the last thing between them and sleep seems to rouse the spirits. And students always play better when their parents are watching.

I pushed the pace on American Elegy, but as I said, it was the only thing between me and sleep. If you look closely you can see the sun rising behind the curtains of the multipurpose room.

Why I love what I do.

2009-01-21T22:22:00.000-08:00

This post is part of a blog project on student teaching, hosted at So You Want To Teach

I know that I don't reflect back nearly enough on the amazing amount of opportunity upon which I've stumbled over the last two years. I know my situation is fairly unique and am continually grateful for it, except when I grumble about commuting from Sacramento to Davis 5 days a week. My job barely pays for the gas it takes to get there every day, but it's worth enough to me in experience that if they didn't pay me, I'd probably still come in every day. Having graduated in June, and deferred my enrollment in a master's program, I'm stuck between undergraduate and graduate studies and am currently taking music education courses that weren't offered in the UCD music department over at CSUS. There I'm lumped under "post baccalaureate studies" and am not currently in a credential program, or student teaching, but my work at Davis Senior High School in the position of "Paraeducator III - Music Specialist" hits very close to the mark. At the very least it's paid classroom observation and mentorship, and at its best it's hands on experience leading a class of kids in making awesome music.

Most of my job consists of doing whatever the director doesn't want to do, which is a lot. On paper, I'm little more than an aide, something his student T.A.'s could do: be more mobile than the director (he's post-polio) and facilitate an efficient rehearsal. I make copies, grab scores, part music or file it away, take attendance and enter everything into his grade sheets. Sometimes I get to re-arrange music or write out new parts with Sibelius, other times I work as a section coach with any particular section while the director works with the rest of the band. But the reason I show up every day, and would do so without being paid is the chance to conduct the DHS bands.

When I played with the UC Davis wind ensemble, we'd go to a gig every year called the "Festivity of Bands" it was the "Causeway Classic" for band nerds. CSUS and UCD give a joint concert, pitting the wind programs of each music department against the other. Well, for a few years now they've been inviting the audition ensemble from Davis High to come play with them, and I was always a bit bitter leaving knowing we were schooled by a bunch of high school kids. They played harder music than we did and sounded better doing it.

This of course is the result of an amazing amount of support from the school district and community in Davis and is completely not representative of any public school program I've ever seen. Last year, when the Governator decided to cut the budget 10% across the board, we were going to lose funding for all elementary band and orchestra programs, and the community promptly raised over $400,000 for the "Save our Music" Campaign, and then voted to implement a parcel tax to cover the expenses for the next 3 years, saving the programs and teachers who had been pink-slipped.

I get to work with kids who are musically literate and have a musical maturity greater than some college ensembles. They can sight read anything and sound decent doing it. They regularly play grade 5 and sometimes grade 6 music. The non-audition ensemble, with which I get to work, regularly starts the year at grade 4 and works their way up, auditioning on grade 5 stuff by the end of the year. Last year as an undergraduate and now working towards my credential, this is experience I can't get anywhere else. I'm allowed to peruse a huge catalogue of music and choose pieces that I get to rehearse with the band and conduct in concert, going through the whole process as a director from start to finish and perfecting my skills and confidence at the podium. Right now I'm walking around with about 30 scores in my backpack preparing for a fundraiser for the kids: an all night band-geek-a-thon where I'm responsible for keeping them playing music -all sight reading- from midnight until 7:00am at which point they are to pull together, rehearse three pieces and perform a concert for those parents picking them up - with whatever lips they have left.

Basically, I'm spoiled for the rest of my career and have a template from which to work and build my own band programs. One that starts with strong elementary and junior high programs.

Anyways, the Symphonic Band got their hands on a piece called Masada and have been working on it since January 5th - they're two and a half weeks in and still a little shaky. The piece is a programmatic work depicting a great siege of the Judean fortress, casting the Romans in sober, relentless 4/4 time and their Hebrew adversaries in complex dance rhythms (generally asymmetric meters that flop around i.e. 5/8 [7/8] changes from 3-2 [-2] to [2-] 2-3, mixed in with 2/4, 3/4 or 6/8 for good measure). I convinced the director to let me take the score home with me over the MLK weekend and obsessed over it for three days, trying to work out the rhythm patterns. The goal was to come in during their final period to put together some audition tapes for my meeting with faculty at UOP next Monday; hopefully to prove I'm a technically competent conductor when it comes to negotiating a teaching assistantship to support my graduate studies. I realize now that the video is not as impressive to look at when compared to the score (the composer or maybe publisher created his own meters to save on ink because the meter changes almost every bar). I had my head buried in the score, and couldn't think past the rhythms enough to do anything but mirror with my left hand, but it was a nice change from the slow, lyric pieces I normally get to work with (the ones the actual director would rather not conduct). In short, this is why I love what I do:

I get to work with exceptional musicians who bring energy and exuberance that only students can to a rehearsal. I get to engage both my creative muscle and theirs; they may know how to play their instruments, and well, but it's my job to teach and encourage them how to make music to the best of their abilities.

How Obama Can Fix Schools

2009-01-13T11:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I came a cross a newspost titled "How Obama can fix schools" it was a digest of a Wall Street Journal article by New York City School Chancellor Joel Klein and Reverend Al Sharpton titled "Charter Schools can Close the Education Gap" The article presents a sob story of America's youth, particularly minorities who are suffering under the current school system and in some cases are being left four grade levels behind. The article goes on to champion the Education Equality Project which, while tossing accusations at the current system of schools, tows the line of No Child Left Behind. The EEP offers advice to the President Elect on how to close the achievement gap between white and minority students and beyond expanding federal support for charter schools, their first idea is "more stringent standards."

First, the federal government, working with the governors, should develop national standards and assessments for student achievement. Our current state-by-state approach has spawned a race to the bottom, with many states dumbing down standards to make it easier for students to pass achievement tests. Even when students manage to graduate from today's inner-city high schools, they all too frequently are still wholly unprepared for college or gainful employment.

I read this and almost had an aneurism, the mental equivalent of screaming "Are you ephing kidding me Ref?" at the top of your lungs at someone who cant hear you. Stricter standards mean more "assessment" more "accountability" and more "Enforcement" Which means more tests for students (less time spent learning), less freedom for teachers to decide how best to educate their students, and stricter punishments for teachers who don't have the resources to bring some of their students scores up to grade level save by teaching to the test, which is a strategy that not only rarely works, but denies the students any useful education.

I immediately ran to my bookshelf and dug out a few old textbooks, and rifled through the boxes in my closet to find some old essays from my education courses. Here's the thing, I never had to experience NCLB first hand, I graduated high school in 2002, a private high school so we didn't even have exit exams or star testing or whatever. My first contact with this program was studying it in education courses, and it left a bad taste in my mouth. Now I work with, and am friends with many educators, all of whom have nothing but venomous words to spit about NCLB and how it's hindering the education of their students. It's not just the assessments and accountability that pressure teachers into teaching to the test and forgoing their duties to actually educate their students, it's the idea that these standards are doing more to hinder the education of their students than to help.

To make my point I'm going to lean heavily on a collection of essays both for and against standards, digest thirty pages into a few paragraphs and share them with you. The first of which is written by Deborah Meier titled "Educating a Democracy." This one essay had a lot to do with forming my own ideas of education. Meier states that the educational crisis facing our country is not the crisis presented in "A Nation at Risk," it is not based in economics and can not be solved with higher test scores, and our actions to improve education by implementing and enforcing standards in education have only caused a rift to widen within society.

"An understanding of this other crisis begins by noting that we have the lowest voter turnout by far of any modern industrial country; we are exceptional for the absence of responsible care for our most vulnerable citizens (we spend less on child welfare–baby care, medical care, family leave–than almost every competitor); we don’t come close to our competitors in income equity; and our high rate of (and investment in) incarceration places us in a class by ourselves."

"One important change has been in the nature of schooling. Our schools have grown too distant, too big, too standardized, too uniform, too divorced from their communities, too alienating of young from old and old from young."

"In such settings it’s hard to teach young people how to be responsible to others, or to concern themselves with their community."

"By shifting the locus of authority to outside bodies, it undermines the capacity of schools to instruct by example in the qualities of mind that schools in a democracy should be fostering in kids–responsibility for one’s own ideas, tolerance for the ideas of others, and a capacity to negotiate differences. "

"Because of the disconnection between the public and its schools, the power to protect or support them now lies increasingly in the hands of public or private bodies that have no immediate stake in the daily life of the students."

"We need to surround kids with adults who know and care for our children, who have opinions and are accustomed to expressing them publicly, and who know how to reach reasonable collective decisions in the face of disagreement. That means increasing local decision-making, and simultaneously decreasing the size and bureaucratic complexity of schools. Correspondingly, the worst thing we can do is to turn teachers and schools into the vehicles for implementing externally- imposed standards."

"A democracy in which less than half its members see themselves as "making enough difference" to bother to vote in any election is surely endangered–far more endangered, at risk, than our economy. It’s for the loss of belief in the capacity to influence the world, not our economic ups and downs, that we educators should accept some responsibility. What I have learned from thirty years in small powerful schools is that it is here above all that schools can make a difference, that they can alter the odds."

After six years of college there was one thing I learned that will be of more value to me in the real world than anything else; from calculus, stress (both personally and in structural geology) to composition of essays or symphonies, the one thing I learned that I value most was how to think critically and the ability to interact with and critique the society in which I live. It is this mindset, more than any skill that Meier is pushing, preparing and motivating students to go out into the real world and make a difference. Holding students and teachers accountable to scores on singular high stakes tests which don't go into any depth of studying a child's education beyond their ability to fill in bubbles has neither brought about a better America nor closed the achievement gap.

"Americans invented the modern, standardized, norm-referenced test. Our students have been taking more tests, more often, than any nation on the face of the earth, and schools and districts have been going public with test scores starting almost from the moment children enter school."

"We have test data for almost every grade thereafter in reading and math, and to some degree in all other subjects. This has been the case for nearly half a century."

"In short, we have been awash in accountability and standardization for a very long time. What we are missing is precisely the qualities that the last big wave of reform was intended to respond to: teachers, kids, and families who don’t know each other or each other’s work and don’t take responsibility for it. We are missing communities built around their own articulated and public standards and ready to show them off to others."

Meier finishes by bringing to light the problem of trying to tackle the achievement gap between students of differing socioeconomic standing with standardized testing.

"We can’t beat the statistical advantage on the next round of tests that being advantaged has over being disadvantaged; we can, however, substantially affect the gap between rich and poor where it will count, in the long haul of life."

In short, we can't begin to address the achievement gap that Sharpton and Klein are so worried about by enforcing more stringent standards and implementing more restrictions on the teachers of these kids. To tackle this problem, Educators need to be able to do their job and, prepare them for life outside of their classroom, to provide them with an education. I'm going to borrow the words of one of the President Elect's close personal domestic terrorist friends, William Ayers:

"The purpose of education in a democracy is to break down barriers, to overcome obstacles, to open doors, minds, and possibilities. Education is empowering and enabling; it points to strength, to critical capacity, to thoughtfulness and expanding capabilities. It aims at something deeper and richer than simply imbibing and accepting existing codes and conventions, acceding to whatever is before us. The larger goal of education is to assist people in seeing the world through their own eyes, interpreting and analyzing through their own experiences and thinking, feeling themselves capable of representing, manifesting, or even, if they choose, transforming all that is before them. Education, then, is linked to freedom, to the ability to see and also to alter, to understand and also to reinvent, to know and also to change to world as we find it."

Father of Nations

2009-01-03T12:54:00.000-08:00

8 days ago I hopped in my car to go climbing and turned on the radio. Not commuting every day for over a week had created a void in my schedule for news absorbance. NPR was running a story that Israel had opened the border with Gaza and was allowing aid to reach the country after over a month of it being closed to all traffic and embargoed by sea. It was an olive branch offered in "good faith" to the leaders of Hamas to renegotiate the ceasefire that had ended recently. I thought to myself: "Oh wow, that's cool they didn't just start killing each other." Apparently there had been rocket fire launched from the strip over the past few days, no Israeli casualties, just terror and property damage, in fact the only casualties at that point had been two palestinian girls caught when a rocket fell short of it's intended target.

The next day I opened my browser to read: "200 dead in Israeli air strikes." We were told that Most of these were Hamas militants. Most. A Majority.

101.

By Wednesday the death toll had doubled, 400 dead, not to mention the thousands wounded. And today, that border that was opened for the first time in months is now being crossed by the Israeli military.

To put this into context, Israel is about 150% the size of New Jersey, invading a state that is maybe twice the size of Washington D.C. This is similar to an eight year old blooding his 4 year old brother's nose for poking him repeatedly after he had told him to stop.

I'll be the first to say that I know nothing about living in a hostile environment, surrounded on all sides by people who are resentful of my existence, and refuse to recognize my very right to exist. But to me, the idea of "Israeli Deterrence" is thuggish and is no better than tactics used in gang warfare. "If you fuck with us, we'll fuck you up harder."

Many ask: "Well, what would you have them do? These are terrorists who will not negotiate with Israel" I can't answer that, as they are following the example we have set, one that almost the entire world disagrees with in hindsight. (One of the dissenters to this opinion, of course being Israel where Bush approval ratings are still sky high).

Israel has turned out to be the aggressor here, and it's easy to wag fingers at them. However, when confronted about the excessive violence on his part, the older sibling's response is almost always "But, but... he started it!" No one has the moral high ground here. Everyone is culpable, everyone is responsible for the ongoing violence, including the U.S. and U.N. This goes back 60 years and generations. There are many who would even trace this back to Ishmael and Isaac.

Zionism, Terrorism, religious zealotry at it's best. I'm going to borrow from a debate I had a little while ago and lean on one of the brightest and most respected minds of the modern era, Albert Einstein.

"As long as there are Men, there will be War."

Human nature is rooted in tribalism, whether that's ethnic or religiously motivated, there will always be "the other," "the outsider." Religious fanaticism and Nationalism only serve to extend this further.

It's not social darwinism, it's not divinely inspired, it's not the prevailing of the righteous or strong, it is simply human nature.

What's simply hilarious (in the laugh-so-you-don't-cry sense) is that this conflict between Israel and Palestine, our "War on Terror" and in truth, some of the largest or cruelest of wars and atrocities of the past 1000 years have been committed by followers Abrahamic religions against each other.

Holocaust. Inquisition. Jihad. Crusade. Committed all by greedy or malicious men hiding behind religion or more often, and with far more tragic results, hiding behind piety.

What's worse? The "big three" all trace their lineages back to the same tribe.

I don't know how to play the cymbals correctly.

2008-11-20T23:10:00.001-08:00

I've just gone through and edited clips of video recorded from my last few rehearsals. I'm recording my conducting, it's necessary because I can't see how I look when I'm being me. Mirrors also don't work because the experience is so much different in front of a band. I'm pretty sure this isn't some illegal thing, I don't need waivers or anything since I capture any of my students, only their music. This is what I did all last year at DHS, and am continuing to do this year. I just figured I'd put a (short) segment up here as another installment of A Day in the Life. This life is free of busses and much more fun.

We were working on getting the third trumpets to acknowledge a triplet rhythm in the first few measures, which they got. I give the evil eye to the percussionists for a while... but really, who doesn't?

Warning: I set up my laptop next to the Oboe stand. My bad.

Olbermann was wrong.

2008-11-11T11:23:00.000-08:00

"Wha? John, say it ain't so."

Ok, calm down and (re)watch his special comment from Monday and think about it.

Well, I'm not saying I disagree with him on any point he made, but for all his eloquence and vehemence, he missed the issue in favor of warm fuzzies.

Sure, he made me feel all those warm fuzzies, and he made the religious right look hypocritical and anything but Christlike, but this issue, marriage, is not about love.

There is no need for love to be legitimized by any institution -church or state- only by those involved.

Marriage, the marriage the homosexual community is fighting for, is marriage as a legal right. The "Gay agenda" is not about getting their unions recognized by any religious institution, this is not about love or God, or dissolving the sanctity of a sacrament. This issue is about property, it's about kinship, it's about custody, insurance, taxes. Marriage in this instance is something created (appropriated) and recognized by the state, and is excluding a group people from sharing these rights based on a specific yet arbitrary characteristic.

This issue is about our government's failure in enforcing separation of church and state, and now it's gone further - a proposition passed with a simple majority with the intent to modify the state constitution to exclude a certain class of people from equal recognition under the law on very real issues (property, kinship, custody... etc.).

When James Madison introduced the amendments to the constitution that would become the bill of rights, he made specific mention of this problem.

"But I confess that I do conceive, that in a government modified like this of the United States, the great danger lies rather in the abuse of the community than in the legislative body. The prescriptions in favor of liberty, ought to be levelled against that quarter where the greatest danger lies, namely, that which possesses the highest prerogative of power: But this [is] not found in either the executive or legislative departments of government, but in the body of the people, operating by the majority against the minority."

I hear all the time about how the State Supreme Court overturned the "Will of the People" but the court's job is to use the constitution to serve as a watchdog against abuses of any and all in power, be they by the executive or legislative branches of government, or by the majority of the people. This is one such instance where we have witnessed the "tyranny of the majority" and when their initiative was overturned by the courts, they moved to change the state constitution to make their discrimination legal. It takes a supermajority of the legislature to make any changes to the constitution, but only a simple majority to use the constitution to deny the legal rights that only come with marriage to a class of citizens. That's 50% plus 1 vote.

The ACLU in northern California has since filed suit with the State Supreme Court, basing their claims that Proposition 8:

"...makes far reaching changes to the nature of our governmental plan by compromising the core constitutional principle of equal protection laws, depriving a vulnerable minority of fundamental rights, inscribing discrimination based on a suspect classification into the Constitution and destroying the courts' quintessential power and role of protection minorities and enforcing the guarantee of equal protection under the law."

Olbermann was wrong. This is not about permanence, or happiness, or legitimacy of love, it's about the legitimacy of a certain group of people as citizens of our government, legitimizing the homosexual community as a minority worthy of the same protections under our constitution as any other.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...."

2008-10-31T09:15:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine, after six years of school and obtaining degrees in music and engineering, is now pursuing a graduate degree in theology at Berkeley. He raised a discussion on Proposition 8 citing all sorts of things regarding the family as a sociological construct and raising questions about the various arguments for and against gay marriage. I wanted to share my response to his ideas, because it seems I've had this conversation all too often in the past month or so:

The issue here on proposition 8 is not a sociological or theological one. It's not about unions and procreation or family integrity with only one type of parent. Proposition 8 brings to light a serious issue of civil liberties guaranteed in the U.S. constitution.

What's happened to spawn this issue is our government has failed us at both the state an federal level. The establishment clause in the first amendment guarantees freedom of religion by all citizens by enforcing freedom from a state religion. Because our culture is one of monogamy, the state has appropriated the term "marriage" from religion for the civil and legally binding contracts into which people enter, and this is a big problem.

When Christians thump their bibles and decry "gay rights" citing the "sanctity of marriage" they are confusing the sacrament and the secular contract. These are two very different things.

The state supreme court found that a ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional, based on our state constitution. The very idea of denying a significant minority basic civil rights based on a single quality that separates them from other was found to be what is is: legislating bigotry.

Propositions allow initiatives to bypass the legislature and go straight to voters, and basically what's going on is a special interest doesn't like the rules and is trying to change the game.

The proposition that should be on the ballot is one that would remove the term "marriage" from our state laws and tax system, replacing it with "civil union," as that is what it is, a contract. We should be leaving the sacrament of marriage to the churches, and if they would rather discriminate based on sexual orientation, (a very Christlike behavior, I might add) that's their prerogative.

The state does not enjoy such a luxury.

Besides, on the issue of procreation: homosexual unions are pro life. Think about it. The pope should reach deep into that hat of his and pull out some good old fashioned pragmatism.

Red Scare 2.0

2008-10-27T16:23:00.000-07:00

Just hit play on the video and scroll down to read.

It seems that Senator McCain is continuing with his line of attacks that Senator Obama is a socialist. The Joe the Plumber fad is fading and the McCain camp is coiling back up, slithering through the neoconservative base and searching for anything that sits in line with their message to throw at his opponent. I could deal with Obama being an Elitist, a Muslim, a Sex Peddler, a Terrorist... but throwing around the term Socialist is bothersome.

It just brings out the feeling that the Neoconservatives that rule the right really do wish for the 1940's and '50s to return and remain in perpetuity. Think about it.

With Palin stumping about The Real America being the average the idealized Small Town America, something straight out of Maybury. Not to mention the fact that we have people lobbying to suppress the civil rights of a significant minority of the country, and trying to legislate christian values into our constitution.

Take a look into the Project for a New American Century (wikipedia)- the Neoconservative think tank that dreamt of World Dominance of the U.S. as an unchecked superpower. We've had our second Pearl Harbor in 9/11 - in "Global Terror" we have a new menace on the equal of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. With the Patriot Act, we have the beginnings of a new McCarthyism, and now in the race to succeed the administration that put all of this into effect, we have one candidate calling the other a Socialist, hoping the word holds enough of its former power to stir enough fear in the voting masses.

This is not progress, but regression to an era where the citizens of the U.S. lived in fear daily. The Cold War is over, it's time to move on.

Propositions and Controversy

2008-10-23T00:03:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a while, and it's really a tragedy because after the election, I'm going to have to look much harder to find stuff to write about. But, here's something to tide you over for a while. It turns out one of the channels I subscribe to on youtube is to a fellow who at least works in the sacramento area. The video is titled "Is gay marriage a two sided issue?"

What bothers me most is that this much attention is given to religious affiliation regarding a ballot measure, the focus of the news segment was on the PASTORS and their opinions.

Red Scare.

2008-10-09T09:42:00.000-07:00

I've been lazy. I'm behind in my posting, and I'm a bit behind the times with this topic.

Over the past couple months, I've heard people toss around the accusations that Obama is guilty of trying to incite class warfare. This, combined with anything that requires social responsibility labeled as "Communist" or "Socialist" is meant to scare people out of left leaning ideas.

I'm sorry, but what? Take a second and look at what's going on in the political scene right now. You have two parties, one made up of mainly middle class, with the majority of the party base being liberal, college educated adults. The second party consists of two very disparate groups, the "working class" who pride themselves as "values voters" and the rich who want to remain rich and not waste their money on social programs. I had originally intended to contrast the first group with fiscal conservatives, but it seems we're fresh out, seeing as our government has run our debt clock up to $10 trillion.

Wow, I'm not biased at all.

Then again, we've always had some disjunct in America - the terms blue collar and white collar go back quite a ways. The accusations of Obama trying to incite class warfare by pitting the lower and middle classes against the rich are made out of the fear that the richest maybe 5% of Americans won't benefit form outrageous tax cuts any longer.

My question is who orchestrated the giant schism between the middle and working classes?

Since when in this modern age has a college education made you an elitist? How did we arrive at the term "Elite Media?" and how does that exclude Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp and FOX news? How does the Republican Party survive an economic crisis when it is composed of two fundamentally different economic groups, and spouts economic policies that benefit the smaller at great cost to the larger?

Maybe I read too much Marx or Gramsci in college, but it seems like evidence of manipulation by a ruling class. Whenever something comes up that benefits the majority of Americans, like socialized healthcare, or higher taxes (less tax breaks for the wealthy) to fund social programs, it's labeled as wealth redistribution and slapped with a title we're conditioned to fear: Socialism. (about 1:20 in the video)

It seems Americans have a high tolerance for income disparity, preferring equality in opportunity versus equality in outcome like they have in Europe.

I've been doing some reading on economics to try and understand more of what's been going on. Generally, I've gotten by by listening to Roy go on and on while we climb and try and pick things up from NPR, but I recently found Robert Reich's blog and I'm going to lift something straight for that. The post is titled Are we headed for another Great Depression?

Probably not. But go back 75 years and you'll find eerie similarities. Marriner S. Eccles who served as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Chairman of the Federal Reserve from November, 1934 to February, 1948 gave his view of what caused the Depression in his memoirs, "Beckoning Frontiers" (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1951):

As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption, mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth -- not of existing wealth, but of wealth as it is currently produced -- to provide men with buying power equal to the amount of goods and services offered by the nation s economic machinery. Instead of achieving that kind of distribution, a giant suction pump had by 1929-30 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth. This served them as capital accumulations. But by taking purchasing power out of the hands of mass consumers, the savers denied to themselves the kind of effective demand for their products that would justify a reinvestment of their capital accumulations in new plants. In consequence, as in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped.

That is what happened to us in the twenties. We sustained high levels of employment in that period with the aid of an exceptional expansion of debt outside of the banking system. This debt was provided by the large growth of business savings as well as savings by individuals, particularly in the upper-income groups where taxes were relatively low. Private debt outside of the banking system increased about fifty per cent. This debt, which was at high interest rates, largely took the form of mortgage debt on housing, office, and hotel structures, consumer installment debt, brokers' loans, and foreign debt. The stimulation to spending by debt-creation of this sort was short-lived and could not be counted on to sustain high levels of employment for long periods of time. Had there been a better distribution of the current income from the national product -- in other words, had there been less savings by business and the higher-income groups and more income in the lower groups -- we should have had far greater stability in our economy. Had the six billion dollars, for instance, that were loaned by corporations and wealthy individuals for stock-market speculation been distributed to the public as lower prices or higher wages and with less profits to the corporations and the well-to-do, it would have prevented or greatly moderated the economic collapse that began at the end of 1929.

The time came when there were no more poker chips to be loaned on credit. Debtors thereupon were forced to curtail their consumption in an effort to create a margin that could be applied to the reduction of outstanding debts. This naturally reduced the demand for goods of all kinds and brought on what seemed to be overproduction, but was in reality underconsumption when judged in terms of the real world instead of the money world. This, in turn, brought about a fall in prices and employment.

Unemployment further decreased the consumption of goods, which further increased unemployment, thus closing the circle in a continuing decline of prices. Earnings began to disappear, requiring economies of all kinds in the wages, salaries, and time of those employed. And thus again the vicious circle of deflation was closed until one third of the entire working population was unemployed, with our national income reduced by fifty per cent, and with the aggregate debt burden greater than ever before, not in dollars, but measured by current values and income that represented the ability to pay. Fixed charges, such as taxes, railroad and other utility rates, insurance and interest charges, clung close to the 1929 level and required such a portion of the national income to meet them that the amount left for consumption of goods was not sufficient to support the population.

This then, was my reading of what brought on the depression.

Those in power should look at history much more closely, or at least pay some people to do it for them, it'd be good for the economy.

The Alpine Wordsmith

2008-10-06T12:43:00.001-07:00

Two weekends past, I made my sixth ascent up Pyramid Peak. It was an overnight backpacking trip with Mike and Mark, Roy and the Canns. John Allen Cann is Cody's "Poet Laureate" and I don't think I have to explain why. He wrote several poems on the way up, stopping to catch his breath and pulling out his notebook to sketch things down.

He sent me a poem titled "In the Aftermath of the Mountain." I couldn't resist sharing it with everyone.

What climbing

the tallest mountain around

means

only comes clear

after the soreness fades

and you’ve resumed

your participation

in the workaday world---

You forget somewhat

the grueling feat

of staring at your boots

& trudging

grudgingly

one step

after another---

the pack on your back

growing

inconsolably heavy

since no peak

in this part of the universe

is yours unless you sleep on it

gazing at the stars

sequestered from the wind

in a rockrimmed foxhole

so the slow dawnfire

can alchemize your memory forever.

All the grimaces

borne of the severe steepness

going up

followed by the harsh descent

of the last measure

on wobbly legs

relax

into an interior smile

doubtless shared

by those who fellowed you on the climb.

A mountain matters

most in the mind

only after the body

has been sacrificed

to its beautiful demands.

Playing ball.

2008-10-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

As a lobotomized member of the cult of Obama, I am doing my duty to post and spread this propaganda in a smear campaign against Senator McCain. Unfortunately the guilt by association isn't as strong as the wrong doing of his own actions in this one, but you know, we've got a long ways to go before we can catch up with the McCain Campaign and conjuring lies and smears out of thin air .

Veep.

2008-10-01T21:13:00.000-07:00

The VP debates are tomorrow. I've discovered something that I wanted to share, something from the VP debates of 1992, before Al Gore said "Let there be internet!"

"Harry Truman, it’s worth remembering, assumed the presidency when Franklin Roosevelt died here in Georgia--only one of many occasions when fate thrust a vice-president into the Oval Office in a time of crisis. It’s something to think about during the debate this evening. But our real discussion is going to be about change. Bill Clinton and I stand for change because we don’t believe our nation can stand four more years of what we’ve had under George Bush and Dan Quayle. When the recession came, they were like a deer caught in the headlights, paralysed into inaction, blinded to the suffering and pain of bankruptcies and people who are unemployed. We have an environmental crisis, a health-insurance crisis, substandard education. It is time for a change."

Senator Gore's remarks are rather familiar, aren't they? It seems that the only way to get a Bush out of office is to campaign on a platform of change. It's funny because Quayles remarks and warnings about a Clinton presidency are the same things the McCain camp is saying.

The Truman/Kennedy business struck me as odd, so I found out what they were referencing.

He may not be Jack Kennedy, but try that comparison on Palin. Quayle is looking like a champ these days.

I was 5 years old in 1988. That was 5 election cycles ago. Those debates in '92? I was in third grade. It's important to realize how much of history will repeat itself if we're not careful.

Free Market Blues

2008-10-01T00:46:00.000-07:00

This was too brilliant to pass up.

The End of Days.

2008-09-23T22:09:00.001-07:00

So, it's no news that Palin belongs to an apocalyptic church, Alaska's going to be a last refuge for people during the end of days and whatnot, and that's going to happen in our lifetime so why worry about global warming, or anything else for that matter. Ok. She's a nutjob.

But.

But it's been brought to my attention the end of days, at least for our nation may be closer than we thing. Article was published in the Washington Times today about constitutional scholars speculating on an electoral college doomsday, a tie at 269-269.

In a system even more unrepresentative than the electoral college, the president would be decided by the House (Democratically domintated, thankfully) each state only getting one vote , and the VP selected by the senate.

A deadlocked senate, if Li'l Joe sides with his friends in selecting Palin, and the current VP, Cheney breaks the tie, we immediately get Palin for VP.

So that's an Obama-Palin presidency. There have been a few speculations that the house might be dragged into a bitter fight, with Democrats serving in states that voted for McCain having crises of conscience (though I don't know how).

With the debate drawn out, we could have Palin serving as our acting president with McCain still breathing somewhere out in Arizona.

With the country so bitterly divided in this mess, it's only a matter of time before this ignites into something worse, and we watch our nation sink into oblivion.

If given a choice, I'd prefer Hawaii as my refuge state.

The choices we make and prices we must pay.

2008-09-23T11:19:00.000-07:00

The joke gets old 30 seconds into the clip, but don't let that stop you.

I'm waiting to hear on a few jobs, including my old position at Davis High School. Working with a band again would allow me to work with Dr. Halseth (director of bands at CSUS) and gain the benefit of his experience and master's program without the pesky requirement of 5 years conducting experience to work with his own bands.

So, yeah. Right now I have 5 and a half hours of class a week. Plus lessons, a few rehearsals and a good 10 or so hours of practice. I'm used to somewhere around 15-20 hours of class and 20-30 hours of work. Without too much to do, I decided to write more and now I've gotten caught up in writing a novel. 50,000 words is my goal for a first draft to be done in 10 weeks. Nothing fancy, no delusions, just something to feel productive and keep myself entertained. I hit 7500 words in my first week, not a bad start, but I'm slowing down. This draft is for concept - content and style will be focused on in later drafts.

That doesn't stop my brother or my friends from making the above reference though.

That's a negative Ghost rider, the pattern is full.

2008-09-19T14:50:00.000-07:00

I was catching up on my reading, and ran across this commentary on McCain and Obama and their "hawkish" attacks on wall street, both calling for regulatory reform.

Mixing metaphors is always bad, but I giggled uncontrollably when they called McCain a Goose.

I know, the whole point of the article is falconry, raptor metaphors and such, but they called the country's "Original Maverick" Goose.

This of course leaves Palin as the last "Maverick" standing.

And ferocious? I'm sorry governor, but your wingman may need more lipstick.

Someone beat me to it.

2008-09-18T22:09:00.000-07:00

Despite the McCain "Doesn't know who the 'president' of Spain is / considers a NATO ally to be a rogue state" stuff that's floating around everywhere, a good friend of mine brought something to my attention. There may be a better reason McCain doesn't want to talk about Spain.

As a pilot he was responsible for a blackout there.

That was after he'd crashed a few other places.

Also: I like the 20 hours of combat time, and 28 medals.

I caught a lot of flak for picking on McCain for being a poor student, a poor pilot. It looked like I was bashing the Naval Academy to some. Whatever the sink or swim atmosphere there may exist at Annapolis, I still believe the achievements of others may have been brought down when McCain was pushed through, buoyed by his father's admiralty.

Bush got through Yale, and we know that was a sham. I'm just saying.

Assigned Reading.

2008-09-17T00:33:00.000-07:00

I'm entertaining myself with a side project at the moment, and it's keeping me writing.

To keep you busy, I'll point you around.

On Economics and apocalypse, as if you haven't heard enough: here

If you hadn't read it yet, the NY times article that spells everything out about Palin. McCain denied the book banning deal, as mayor. But the charge comes at her from when she was on the city council.

And finally, it seems someone put some hard work into looking at McCain's commercials.

Sacred Music

2008-09-16T23:06:00.000-07:00

This semester I'm singing in two choirs, taking voice lessons and a course on K-12 Vocal Pedagogy. Vocal performance was my weakest point in studying music and I'm hoping to strengthen my voice, it's helped with score reading and playing brass instruments as well, anything where I need to hear pitches in my head.

The point of this post though, is I've run up against a huge amount of sacred music in this endeavor.

This is not surprising. If you look at the history of music, it's hard not to believe that about 90% of vocal music is sacred music, written for worship. This is 90% (if not more) of everything, all vocal music leading up to and including everything heard on broadway, on the radio, everything. In studying it, there's no escape. I don't have any particular problem with sacred music, in fact I enjoy listening to much of it. Baroque Cantatas, so many settings of Latin Masses. I recently joined a church, specifically for the purpose of singing in its choir. Yeah, I'm going to hell. Anyways. I sing through a mass twice a week, settings of psalms, everything, without blinking. The music director for Sacred Heart is a renown conductor and arranger and his music beautiful in its simplicity; clear, reverent and austere.

Sacred music is fine, it's great; faith inspires people to creativity beyond what they expect of themselves.

My problem is gospel music. For a few reasons.

A.) I find praise music deeply disconcerting.

B.) I feel completely out of place singing something like "Keep yo' hand on de gospel plow" But I feel even worse placing stress on the syllables of your and the when they're missing.

C.) I can't deal with people clapping while they're singing. It feels wrong.

D.) I desire a feeling of reverence when singing something like this, and despite the rich history of gospel music, it fails me in that respect.

People tell me I should feel joyful in my faith when singing this music and it just lays bare the fact that I don't know what I believe, question too many things to be enraptured.

Also, despite the syncopation and blues scales, I don't find it challenging or aesthetically pleasing. I'm a snob.

The CSUS university chorus is singing one piece of which I highly approve. It's called You Are the Music (you have to click the name again, twice). Give it a bit to get past the soprano and horn solo, there's no time stamp but starting halfway through is good enough. Without mentioning one biblical word, the piece inspires reverence, and makes one believe -just for a second- in divine inspiration.

Whereas this leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I've found that actually singing sacred music provides an incredible shift in perspective. However, thankfully, not nearly enough.

The pre-packaged Republican sound-bite machine.

2008-09-12T13:02:00.000-07:00

It seems everyone was really excited to finally see Sarah Palin sit down and be interviewed, to listen to her speak without a script written for her, like at the RNC. Unfortunately it seems many were disappointed.

[interview Part 1] [Interview Part 2]

Well, that's not to say she didn't meet or exceed the rather low expectations that were put out there for her. It's being tossed around that she "held her own" or "came off fierce" didn't freeze up with a "deer in the headlights" deal. That's great. She's running on the Republican ticket for the white house, I certainly hope she can handle an interview.

What was disappointing is that she didn't provide anything of real substance in her answers, something to demonstrate to everyone paying close attention to what she was saying that she actually knew what she was talking about and had an interest in what was going on in the world.

Over at the Economist's Democracy in America page, they said it best:

There was something very troubling about the whole affair. The reason why many voters have forgiven Barack Obama his lack of experience is because they have confidence in his ability to think critically about the major issues facing America. Did voters come away with the same confidence in Ms Palin last night? I don't see how they could have.

... Ms Palin came off as a pre-packaged Republican sound-bite machine—the predictable product of a week of cramming with John McCain's advisers. When pressed on specific questions about Russia, Israel, Iran and Pakistan, she seemed to rely on campaign talking points, oftentimes repeating similar phrases in her answers. When those didn't fit, her answers were vague. When, for example, she was asked about cross-border raids into Pakistan, she talked about "building new relationships" and "working with existing allies", but made no specific references to any country or policy.

Ever since her debut, Republicans have been successfully diverting attention from McCain to Palin, focusing the debate over experience to compare Palin and Obama, and saying the comparison is more valid than comparing Obama to McCain. An unfortunate derailment, but this interview has shown that even that comparison is invalid and Palin, even after serious coaching is unqualified to be Vice President of the United States of America.

Then again, I wouldn't mind watching a real life Disney tragedy unfold from a safe distance.

Yeah, I know. Matt Damon, an actor, is highly qualified to comment on the issue. Even if the dinosaur issue was made up by some blogger, he has a point. Palin is a creationist, and wants that "theory" taught in schools.

If she believes in a literal reading of Biblical creation, then she believes that the Earth was formed ten thousand years ago and that dinosaurs existed around that time.

And yes, she tried to ban books.

What could be worse?

I'm sorry lady, three strikes and you're out (read: a dangerous religious nutjob with no business in public office whatsoever)

Oh yeah. Here's the best part though, she supports her church in its endeavor to "save" homosexual people through the power of prayer.

Naive? Yes. Intolerant? Yes. Christlike? No.

Unity.

2008-09-11T06:31:00.000-07:00

Hey look, it's September eleventh. The subject is touchy, so I can't be too careful about being snarky. But! Here's something to think about.

Being shrewd politicians, both Obama and McCain are capitalizing on this sense of Unity. Seeing as the only statesmanlike thing to do today, is to not campaign, to throw aside the politics that are so divisive to our country, they've instead politicized the date and the remembrance of the tragedy, just as McCain did with Hurricane Gustav. No one can blame them, it's expected of them.

Great. That's fine. The problem? The media is pulling for a squabble. Playing on the controversy and mudslinging that has ramped up in the past week, Time is betting on trouble.

But on Thursday, Sept. 11, John McCain and Barack Obama will take a break. A brief moment of silence will descend on the presidential campaign. Call it a pause. Or maybe a cease-fire.
Above all, call it temporary — and there's still a chance that it won't happen at all. (In fact, if you're in a betting mood, you might want to throw some money at the won't-happen-at-all option.)

Unity and controversy aside, today is a good day to look back at the last seven years and think hard about what happened.

On September eleventh, 2001, I went to school. I don't really remember anything until walking into my A set civics class (we had rotating periods, but first period was always A set) and watching everyone huddled around the tv. My teacher was going to show a video, so we were lucky enough to have a T.V. that morning, tuned to the news. (Of course, every channel was the same). People were in shock, some were crying, all were afraid.

Irrational fear, borne out of tragedy, yes but completely irrational. The worse part is, it never subsided.

I'm going to quote Ze Frank again (the goofy fellow with the blonde hair who spoke to you earlier). You may think it strange that I should quote someone who doesn't blink, he's not an "expert on terrorism" and that's what makes him credible.

Apparently, the Brits caught some douchebags who were going to blow up some planes. Now, the way I see it, you can't have terrorism without terror. The strategy of terrorism is to use isolated acts of violence to instill fear and confusion into the population at large. A small number of people can incapacitate a society by leveraging our inability to understand risk.

Airline industry stocks plummetted today, while the industry braced for a rash of cancellations. This, despite the fact that even with the risk of airplane bombings it's still more dangerous to drive your car. Or smoke cigarettes.

As long as a small group of people can inflict mass panic across a large population, the tactic itself will remain viable. One way to deal a blow to the effectiveness of terrorism is to deal with the terror itself.

London's police deputy commissioner Paul Stevenson said that the plot was "intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale." No, it is imaginable: between three and ten flights out of thousands would have resulted in the terrible loss of human life.

Bush today said this country is safer today than it was prior to 9/11. Personally, I don't think he knows. Whether we like it or not, terrorist attacks on Americans are now part of the global reality. They will continue to happen. Many places around the globe have had to deal with a similar reality for years. India, Ireland, England, Spain, Russia, to name a few. In many cases, these societies have pulled together and not allowed isolated acts of violence to tear at their fiber. Like disease and the forces of nature, it's a risk that we have to rationally come to terms with. The government's responsibility is to make sure that fear and terror are not disproportionate to the reality of the situation. [Emphasis mine]

Today the President said, "This nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom to hurt our nation." Generalized statements like this which instill nebulous fear without specific information are exactly in line with the goals of terrorism. [8.10.06].

Bush declared war on Terror (complete with a blank check from the senate), but we had already lost.

The term 'Pre-9/11 mindset' has been slung around as an insult, but think about it. Today we live in a culture of fear. Remember the threat levels?

"What color of fear to we get to deal with today? Orange? That means terrorists could attack anywhere at any moment! I shouldn't fly/drive/go to work/feed my fish/mow my lawn today."

On September Eleventh, 2001, America suffered what can be argued as the greatest tragedy it has ever faced. This is true, but not only because it was the greatest single loss of civilian life. The greater tragedy is that America, our ideals, what our nation stands for and how we're perceived have been forever altered .

Bias and the Media.

2008-09-06T18:37:00.000-07:00

Don't worry, we'll get to that in a second.

On Thursday I sat around a table with several men I met through my involvement with the climbing program at Cody. Granted, two of them I've known for much, much longer, but that's irrelevant. The troop's current scoutmaster, his good friend the rangemaster, Mike's dad, the rifle merit badge counsellor, and of course Mike, the lead instructor of the climbing program.

We were drinking beer and grilling kabobs and catching up when suddenly someone started talking about Ms. Palin, well, more that there was a picture circulating the internet of her at a pool party in a stars-and-stripes bikini sporting a rifle and posing for the camera. Charming, and quite a talking point for middle aged men, but it soon digressed into politics. Mike and I were the only ones under 50, and I was surprised to learn, the only ones who voted for Kerry in 2004. The three older men had all been republicans, that is till this election.

All were fiscally conservative, one (a seasoned hunter) had let gun rights guide his politics, another had been raised on GOP doctrine and didn't think much of it before moving out to California. Some voted for McCain in 2000, the other reluctantly volunteered previous support for Bush.

What astounded me was we were all on the same page for this election. Our discussions went round in circles but no debate popped up to spoil our dinner. There's something to be said for surrounding yourself with like minded people, it keeps you from having to think too much for yourself, no one had to defend what they said as we all agreed.

That's why I'm thankful for this Trevor kid. I have to think for myself and support any claims I make to him, as he takes everything that comes from my mouth as liberal drivel and inherently untrue. My goal is to convince him, if not of my views, that his particular mindset is poisonous and unhelpful. The only way to do this is that as long as he keeps rehashing his political talking points straight from Fox News, to keep thumping him until he learns to ask his own questions.

Now we've been going back and forth on the issue of experience in the 2008 election. His argument that he would take Palin over Obama, saying the senator's experience is much closer to Palin's than it is to McCain's. I refuted his arguments, and made my own; that this experience issue was created by Obama's opponents when they couldn't attack him by discussing the issues.

Besides playing along and recounting all of the candidates experience as elected officials, foreign policy experience and everything else, I opened up a new scope to the experience issue, drawing things back into focus between Obama and McCain.

[He had called Obama's bid for the presidency "arrogant"] What may be arrogant (this is only my opinion) is that someone who was trained to fly a fighter jet and almost failed out of the naval academy (5th from the bottom of his class of 899) believes he is qualified for a position where he will be required to uphold and a defend the constitution. In fact he is arrogant enough to believe he is more qualified than a man who not only studied international politics, but wrote his senior thesis on disarming Russia's nuclear arsenal, earned a law degree from Harvard and is a professor of constitutional law.

McCain takes a stance that paralell's Mr. Bush (suprise!) that education is not an important issue and that the most powerful man in the free world should not be as learned as possible. In fact, many conservative pundits throw Obama's education in his face calling him an elitist. Unfortunately leading a government is about creating and upholding laws, not flying planes, or rather, getting shot down.

In arguing against comparing Obama with Palin, I posted an article from the economist to back my claims, and called it "unbiased." This is after Trevor had complained that ABC and NBC were woefully biased in their coverage of the RNC. He then came back and stomped me saying that the newspaper had a clear bias, the article being the opinion of a single journalist and that it was an opinion piece.

What I meant by unbiased (and what I should have said) was that the piece was based on sound investigative journalism, without the same bias held in the American media. The bias I speak of is not clearly ideological, left or right leaning (unless we're talking about FOX news) but rather a bias towards controversy, sensationalism, and superficiality in their coverage. News in America is a form of entertainment and rarely seems to cover what is important, only what will captivate its audiences. That which starts out on television news programming as entertainment finds its way eventually into print media as "news."

What's funny is that recently, the republican party has condemned the behavior of the news media for sensationalizing the story of Sarah Palin, her kid, her kid's kid, her CHOICE to keep the child etc. What's worse is that true journalism is being admonished along with the superficial tactics of the American media. However, the Republicans can't have it both ways. Often (again, thanks to FOX) they reap the benefits of having the masses contented on the circuses they create, but now that the lions are coming after them, they scream foul play.

I have to admit, it's fun to watch.

[Edit: I found the video that explains the propaganda campaign that's fed straight to FOX from the Bush administration]

Beware the Rhetorical Question...

2008-09-04T12:46:00.000-07:00

...as someone may answer it.

I've recently been engaging in a remote debate with a past student of mine on all the fun topics. I'm wasting my time, I know, but I have time to waste. I like to disagree with people, it makes me think harder about what I believe.

I'm going to repost a comment he made recently after joining the community NObama.com:

My mission for the next few months: help keep Obama out of office and get McCain elected. Since when did being a good speechmaker make you a good candidate for President? Since when did such ethereal values as hope and change become a winning platform and game plan? Since when did "reaching across the isle" manifest itself as being the most liberal senator in terms of voting records. Since when did several short trips overseas give a junior senator foreign policy knowhow? Since when did radical change become a substitute for experience and proven competency. Since when? It may be taboo in a liberal haven like Davis to speak truth to Obama's incompetency and inconsistency and to scorn his rock-star popularity and arrogance, but watch out my Facebook friends, because that is my mission for the next three months.

My pledge: To abstain from personal or unfounded attacks, to stick to the facts and disclose when I am relaying heresay, to remain faithful to a motivation of love of people.

After a comment he made recently about how the first amendment needed to be reigned in a bit, I had a small aneurism, compared with this though, my brain started leaking out my ears.

I respect this kid, he's rather intelligent, a competent writer and one of the best saxophonists I know, so I'm indulging him in debate.

Here goes:

Since when did being a good speechmaker make you a good candidate for President?

I’d like to concede the point that Obama’s skill as an orator doesn’t exclusively qualify him to be president, but I’d also like to point out that your political consciousness stretches back only over the past eight years, at most. At ten years old, you may not have had the vocabulary or linguistic ability to distinguish Nuke-ular from Nuclear, but as a man leading and representing a nation, public speaking, vocabulary and rhetorical skills are necessary. Any good leader must be able to speak competently for his people. A great leader must be able to comfort, inspire and rally his people with his oratory. Lincoln, Kennedy, Roosevelt; all were great leaders, and all great orators. Being a skilled speaker may not qualify you for the job, but it is a requirement, one on which we lowered the bar considerably in 2000 and 2004.

Since when did such ethereal values as hope and change become a winning platform and a game plan.

Please, sir, go read the declaration of independence and constitution of the United States. Hope for a better life, freedom from a repressive theocratic state. Oh yes, then go read the policies, platform and gameplan he clearly defines on his website.

Since when did several short trips overseas give a junior senator foreign policy knowhow?

Since when did governing a state in proximity to the outlying provincial local governments in Russia mean “foreign policy experience”. I'm sorry he suffered, but since when did rotting in a prison cell for five years qualify a man as a war hero. Since when does being a warrior for a nation qualify a man to broker peace deals and diplomacy? Sorry, that didn’t answer the question.

The answer to your question and all of mine? Never.

But how many trips abroad did Governor Bush or Governor Clinton take, acting on behalf of our nation to gain foreign policy experience before assuming the office of president? How much foreign policy experience did either have? The answer to both those questions is the same.

I have questions for you too, sir:

Since when did experience with the status quo in DC that both parties are blaming for the problems there equate to “proven competency.” And how, if the status quo is being labeled as the problem, is the idea “radical change” even considered an issue? Painting your pet elephant blue doesn’t mean you’re not still going to end up knee high in elephant shit.

Since when did running for the office of the president equate with pushing a religiously motivated conservative social agenda that is at odds with the constitution that the office is sworn to protect?

Since when did a “motivation for a love of people” mean advocating income disparity, not backing a universal health care plan, not spending government money to benefit those Americans living just above (or below) the poverty line and instead, waging exhaustively expensive wars on foreign soil, wars that promise no benefit for any involved.

Since when is it ok for a government to sow discord and fear amongst its people through mass media in order to frame foreign policy issues as it sees fit and draw our attention from our shrinking civil liberties so it can maintain its power and advocate hate and xenophobia against certain groups who make up its citizenry. (When's our next Hate Week?).

Since when has it been ok for the leader of our nation to let his foreign and domestic policy be dictated by his own personal religious beliefs?

How can you even convince yourself that pushing the conservative agenda on legislating Gay marriage is Christlike, when the agenda itself is aimed at making homosexual people “the other;” second class citizens, and unequal before the law when compared with yourself?

How is the agenda of teaching creationism and denying evolution as scientific fact helpful to the youth struggling to learn something accepted by the rest of the western world? How does this help them develop the critical thinking skills students need to survive in today's world if they are content in their faith and to never ask "Why"?

I know you are motivated to vote based on your religious beliefs. In order to actually answer these questions, I must ask you to step out of the ideology by which you’ve been interpellated. I ask you to look at the issues without your religion, so your answers can apply to all citizens of the United States, not just protestant evangelical Christians.

If anyone else reading this would like to answer these questions, please do.

Conspiracy to commit Riot.

2008-09-03T20:17:00.000-07:00

Those are delicious words. Conspiracy to Commit Riot.

I was looking around for what those words meant, and it turns out someone did my homework for me, a wonderful fellow by the name of Michael Gass at Docudharma.com

Take a second to read that. No really, please.

Ok, remember those people whose homes were raided. They were charged with Conspiracy to Commit Riot.

Those journalists who were arrested for trying to cover the protests, the ones from Democracy Now? They were charged with Felony Riot.

That includes this journalist, Nicole Salazar. One of those criminal anarchists armed with that deadly video camera:

For more of what happened, listen to this interview with Amy Goodman, describing what happened when she went down to discuss Nicole's Arrest and find out what happened.

My favorite quote is from another interview:

"I told them I had [press] credentials. A secret service agent came over and pulled them off and said 'Now you don't."

Man I love me some Federal Government.

Better off in Beijing.

2008-09-02T16:19:00.000-07:00

I spent my weekend with the mainstream media, instead of forwarding the propaganda of the Fascist left and now I must pay the price, writing this a day late and a dollar short.

This weekend, the news was marred with protests in St. Paul Minnesota. Rather, police raids on "suspected protesters." I don't understand how you can suspect someone of protesting, it's not that hard to figure it out. Either they are protesting, violently protesting, or gathered together in the privacy of their home and not protesting.

Dennis I think summed it up well.

I was outraged when I read this. Who trained these officers? Certainly not Oceania's finest. How do they not know the proper ways to arrest suspected protesters? Where's the tear gas, the dogs? Where are the fire hoses?

At least bring along your M-16 rifles so you can smack the hippies when they get smart and open their mouths about their first amendment rights.

You know, the first amendment, the one that says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Or that pesky fourteenth amendment that extends these restrictions of government to the state and local governments:

... No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

That's what the rifle butt is for. Just smash the god-hating commie's teeth in, that'll shut him up.

Update: It's not just the local law enforcement, it seems the Feds are getting in on the fun too.

On hangovers, stolen thunder, and air raids.

2008-08-29T11:03:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning on the most comfortable and familiar couch. This is the couch that would catch me as a I came home from 14 hour days on campus and after those endless hiring committees as the HRM. This is the couch on which I fell asleep reading by the fire for the past couple winters, and it was more or less exactly where I had left it... in Davis. I woke up in the most familiar of surroundings, my favorite couch, pool table, hearth... all the walls were right where I left them too, but something was odd. There was stuff everywhere, and when I left this place it was all but empty... wait... I don't live here! What am I doing h... ugh, maybe splitting two bottles of wine was a bad idea.

So this morning I made it back to my car, drove home and after taking a well deserved shower, I sat down to pick out stuff from the DNC that was impressive, and to find out who McCain was touting around as his new VeeP so he could try to steal Obama's thunder.

Then the church bells go off. I live right next to the Sacred Heart parish here in Sac, and the bells are usually background noise, but today they rang out, pounding out the hour loud and clear, eleven chimes. And then, like it was part of the clockwork, the air raid sirens came.

Yes. Air Raid sirens. Something I haven't heard since high school and consistently forgot about until they wailed again, the last Friday of every month precisely at 11:00.

I thought I was wincing, but I discovered it wasn't genuine until I started reading about McCain's new friend, Ms. Palin. The NY times, LA times, the Chronicle, Washington Post... even the BBC, she's right on top, and Obama and one of the better speeches he's given, is hidden in the news.

Of course, this was completely planned, and it should be expected, but considering what I wrote about last time, I think it's a serious problem. Politically intelligent, if not wise. Then again why would I expect wisdom from an "experienced" elder statesman?

I'm enjoying the irony of late as it plays out on me personally. Over the past couple of weeks, whenever I'd speak with someone, they'd say: "Hey, did you see the olympics? Man that was awesome!" to which I'd respond "Who, that swimmer kid? Has he won all the medals yet?" This past week, I'd be super charged about the convention, listening on the radio to the speeches given, wowing at how Bill Clinton could frame the issues of the election so completely and turn them around on the Republicans. Grinning as Joe Biden, painted by all as credible in foreign policy where Obama might not be, turns around and rips into McCain for being an idiot. Or saddened at the fact that we hadn't had John Kerry or Al Gore in the white house these past few years.

This seemed to be a blood-sport more entertaining than any athletic competition, and those same people who were so excited about Beijing would respond; "DNC? what's that?"

A Nation of Whiners.

2008-08-27T11:11:00.001-07:00

A little over a month ago, one of McCain's advisors got in trouble for calling America a "nation of whiners." Granted it seems that the economists that work for McCain don't actually know anything, this fellow may have been right, but for the wrong reasons.

It seems there are plenty of Americans who are spoiled, sore losers with no concept of politics, or the consequences of their actions. I'm speaking of a small subset of the democratic party, adorably labeled as Hillaryland. I'm not speaking about Senator Clinton, or her staff, to which the name referred some time ago, but rather her disillusioned (and deluded) supporters who will not let go, will not concede that they lost and that there is no second place in American Politics. This statement goes for presidential primaries as well as general elections, and that is why they need to suck it up; electing a democrat is more important than any individual agenda.

Last night was the first time I wasn't put off by Senator Clinton in a while. She said all the right things.

Most importantly: "We are on the same team, and none of us can afford to sit on the sidelines. This is a fight for the future, and it's a fight we must win together."

However there are plenty of people out there who seem to disagree and it kills me that people think like that. I don't know how many of those "die-hard" Hillary supporters even know what her political positions (vs. McCain's ) are but saying they're going to vote for McCain instead of Obama? Why? Because they're hurt she didn't win? Because of all the hard work and effort and emotional toil they went through that didn't pan out? I'm sorry, that's the nature of political campaigns; if your candidate loses, the staff closes up shop and goes home to lick their wounds. When the general election comes around I hope these people figure it out. A future as a nation of whiners looks rather dangerous, xenophobic and bleak.

God bless Jesusland, land that I love....

2008-08-24T12:16:00.000-07:00

My favorite belligerent Wookiee brought up his grievances that our politics were being hijacked by protestant evangelicalism, or faith on broader terms. This has been one of my biggest grievances with politics since I gained political consciousness, and I've always pointed fingers at the Right. Now the party that is supposed to represent the secular "wing" of our government, the party that wouldn't throw its weight around pretending it's leading a theocracy, is having an Interfaith Gathering at its national convention. I'm going to try to play devil's advocate to Dennis who blew his top at this, pointing fingers at being stabbed in the back by a party he follows.

Though I believe he's in the right, he's just another one of those rude atheists.

America is so much bigger than any of us in California can really conceptualize. What's worse, it seems those of us that live on the coasts and trumpet ourselves as free thinkers and rail against those in the interior of our country for being ignorant fools are in the minority. This is evident in the fact that the political direction in this country is alway pulled towards the center. Politicians know those on the left who believe in a secular government are going to vote democratic because if they withdraw their support, they secure victory for those on the right, those who draw their secure support from fundamentalists.

It seems that those of us who sit on the left place value in things like critical thinking and science and uppity progressive ideas like universal individual liberties, regardless of our personal beliefs. Those on the right have long drawn on the values of their personal beliefs, which in turn means their representatives must share those beliefs. They're not going to vote for someone who doesn't wear their God openly on his shoulder, like the goddamn flag pin on his lapel.

Here's the problem: this political spectrum of left to right has been terribly redshifted. The majority of Americans fit more on the right than they do the left. The center is more likely to vote with their bible, because for many, it is the tool by which they think (That's another post altogether). Inviting the culture war that sits bubbling underneath the surface will do nothing for the Democratic party. If you associate them with pragmatism and critical thinking, you can only applaud them that they've adopted a very old strategy: If you can't beat 'em join 'em.

That culture war is lost if we try to fight it right now. If asked to describe an American, an outsider would draw you a picture of a white man with a ten gallon hat on his head, a cross around his neck, a gun at his hip and a Mcdonald's hamburger in his hand. That's how we arugula-munching elitists look at our country standing on the fringes looking in. How much worse does it look from afar when the man sent to represent us looks no different? This is the current brand of American that the rest of the world sees and we need time to change it.

I can say Religion has hijacked my political spectrum. I can also say politics hijacked my religion and turned it into a tool. There's a tool for every job. When that job is forwarding a conservative agenda, using it to mask the huge sums of money that are being made by political insiders and defense contractors, that tool may even end up putting his feet up on the Resolute Desk.

What happens when one president isn't the moral champion, pitted against the godless ones' candidate? What happens when the idea of voting based on religion is negated by what seems to be over-saturation of the issue? Will other issues come to the fore and actually decide the election? What happens when bible thumpers back a progressive president, based not on who has "greater character," but who will solve the problems that last guy created?

You tell me.

That's Rich.

2008-08-21T08:51:00.000-07:00

So, I had a conversation with my neighbors a couple of days ago about the Saddleback Deal where both candidates fought for the vote of the faithful by answering questions in identical interviews with a reverend, in a church. Now, I didn't watch it as I don't think it's appropriate to have something equivalent to a national forum for both campaigns to be held in a church, but I was alerted to that fact the Sen. McCain ephed up when asked to define 'Rich.' After a bunch of bull about defining the term with happiness and comfort, he flippantly defined an annual income for the rich as: "How about 5 million." Then laughed that his comment might get distorted. My question is how?

I'm sorry, that's not funny.

Funny thing is, he screwed up again. Talking about mortgages and the economy, someone had the balls to ask the man how many houses he owned, and HE COULDN'T RECALL.

This of course is in contrast to Obama's answer to the same question:

I've been reading a lot of commentary that the Obama campaign needed to go on the offensive and run a few attack ads, as McCain is, and in doing so, is in control of Obama's image.

The idea that Democrats attack issues while Republicans attack character is absurd, though it may be true. I'm just happy to see something out there that finally pushes back after all the flak flying around about Mr. Obama:

Languid, Listless and Languorous...

2008-08-13T23:09:00.000-07:00

... are generally pleasant adjectives when coupled with idleness on a hot summer's day. Except when you're unemployed, as I am... in an upstairs apartment with no air conditioning.

I spent six consecutive hours at my computer today; searching the education and non-profit sections of cragislist and other job boards for employment opportunities and doctoring my resumé for each job. I wrote a five page response to questions regarding a part time position as a band director at Jesuit High School in Sacramento only to find that the position had been filled two weeks previous. I even applied to a few jobs in food service; I'm looking for anything that can hold me 'til I can prove I have a degree and can apply for my substitute teaching credential.

Ironically, the last time I can remember sitting at my computer for so long was when I should have been busier than all hell. I had two jobs, was taking classes at UCD and had a girlfriend. On this particular instance we spent a Saturday afternoon playing World of Warcraft together, a very long Saturday afternoon. Don't ever let a girl pull you off your wagon, it ends poorly. I'm very glad I cancelled my account (for the second time), typed "Warcraft" into spotlight and hit delete. It freed up about 17 gigs of space on my computer. I still play games (c'mon, I'm a guy), but right now they're limited to the SNES and Sega Genesis in my living room. My computer is for work. Well, right now it's for finding work.

I started my day reorganizing my library; that is, moving it from boxes into a bookshelf. In consolidating all my books into one place, I found many that I should read again. There a quite a few people I've met that can't re-read books, and I don't understand why. There's the story -it's the same story every time- but there's also the way it's told; the words the author chooses, the imagery and how it's visualized in my brain build a different experience every time. I've read Tolkein's works (at least those related to the war of the ring) at least five times and I find something new each time I read them.

Halfway through my day, a few liters of water later, I noticed how chronically dehydrated I was in Davis. Sacramento tap water is wonderful. It's delicious and tastes like... water. It's the water that I grew up drinking. There's something about it that makes it taste better than standard bottled water, and leagues ahead of the hardest water on earth, that which springs from the aquifers under Davis. Coupled with the exercise regime I've been forcing myself to follow (I have the time, so why not?) I may just end up giving up soda. Well, if I can get a handle on my caffeine addiction.

The backdrop for my afternoon of job searching was The Show with Ze Frank. Yes, I know it's two years old, but I started from the beginning again anyways. I can actually draw the comparison to rereading those old books, as I found some of it funnier this time around. For example, in this episode he draws parallels between Argentina and the U.S. and this time 'round I understand that he means our government is a few steps away from tossing people out of planes.

Once I'd had my fill of reminding myself I was unemployed, I headed over to Davis for dinner with Sus and Dave. I hadn't seen the good doctor in weeks and it was good to sit around sipping Gin and playing some Ken Griffey Jr. Presents... on his SNES, me playing the Dodgers of course to make sure they lose.

I think it's finally cool enough to go for a run around McKinley park. The best part of my lifestyle? I don't have to wake up until I want to. Too bad I'll still be getting up at 8:00 to sit back down and churn out more applications.

Fallout.

2008-08-12T22:11:00.000-07:00

The following isn't my writing, but taken from a story written in 1997. It's the standard setup for any story taking place in a post-nuclear-holocaust frame, but it resonates a bit more. When reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road I was left without any back story, the author forcing me to focus only on the present. My brain filled in the details with this backdrop.

War.

War never changes.

The Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth. Spain built an empire from its lust for gold and territory. Hitler shaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower.

But war never changes.....

In the 21st Century war was still waged over the resources that could be acquired. Only this time, the spoils of war were also its weapons: Petroleum and Uranium.

For these resources China would invade Alaska. The U.S. would annex Canada. And the European Commonwealth would dissolve into quarreling, bickering, nation states bent on controlling the last remaining resources on Earth.

The end of the world occurred pretty much as we had predicted: too many humans, not enough space or resources to go around. The details are trivial and pointless, the reasons, as always, purely human ones.

In 2077, the earth was nearly wiped clean of human life; A great cleansing, an atomic spark struck by human hands, quickly raged out of control.

Spears of nuclear fire rained from the skies. Continents were swallowed in flames and fell beneath the boiling oceans. Humanity was almost extinguished, their spirits becoming part of the background radiation that blanketed the earth.

A quiet darkness fell across the planet, lasting many years...

The author recognizes both the Marxist concept of the economic nature of warfare throughout history and the Maoist idea where militarism and capitalism are leading humanity. Does this portend our future or is it just an awesome narrative?

Smokey knows his shit.

2008-08-10T17:11:00.000-07:00

At 2:30 this afternoon my father, Mike and I collapsed into a booth in the Jimboy's in Placerville and ravenously fell upon our food without saying much to each other. We were covered in dust, mud, ash and soot, washing my hands hadn't seemed to make a difference. The evening previous, Mike and I had set our alarms for 4:30, expecting to get up before the sun (and most everyone else at camp) and get ready to lead about 120 people in the elaborate, maddening exercise that is putting away camp.

We had spent the majority of the last evening of camp working while all the families came up to watch their kids get awards at a very long campfire. We did an inventory of our gear and then prepped Silvius lodge for the cleanup on Sunday. Wearing large dust masks we reorganized the loft, and the main area of the lodge, sweeping it out and clearing it of everything that didn't belong. On Sunday, every thing that makes camp camp is packed up and put away into three lodges, each not much larger than an old one room schoolhouse. We're put in charge of Silvius because Mike and I are a little anal retentive and we've done exemplary jobs in packing it before. It's like the biggest game of tetris ever, as everything that needs to be packed in is orthogonal and when everything is planned out, it all fits together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. We have to get up earlier than everyone else and get a jump on it though, or we cause a hang-up and slow down the progress of the cleanup.

About 6 hours after we woke up, the lodges were packed completely, locked up and camp was concluded. Everyone headed out except a few of us who chose to stay behind as to not eat the dust of a train of 100 people, or fight the traffic with everyone trying to turn left onto Hwy 50. The Junior Camp director, his immediate predecessor, my dad, his program director, the scoutmaster, myself and Mike were standing around idly for a while, when I said "Why are we just standing here?" and turned around to retrieve my pack. Mike and I were headed down past the lake from the lodges when we saw a plume of smoke rising from the a campsite on some flats just above the volleyball court. Expletives came streaming out of our mouths along with shouts of "FIRE!" as we sprinted up the hill.

I don't think I've ever ran so hard in my life.

Now, here's a look into the brain of a couple of college educated eagle scouts:

We've just locked everything away in the lodges; all our fire equipment, hoses, pumps, shovels, rakes and implements of destruction. We have no tools, no containers to carry water on hand, no means at all to fight a forest fire. What do we do? We run TOWARDS it.

Smart guys, real smart. We were so focused on getting to the fire that Mike even got tangled up in a manzanita thicket on his way up the hill. I had pulled off a nylon/acryllic sweater and I had thought to use it as a tool to beat out some flames, as that was all I had.

We were lucky, the fire was small enough that we could stomp out the flames and throw some dirt on it to keep from spreading. Upon further investigation, we found the the fire had travelled through the root system of a manzanita bush. When we dug into the soil it was scalding to the touch, some of it was even ash. We pulled out charred roots and cut lines around the torched brush to contain the embers. Others carried nalgenes and camelback bladders to and from the lake filled with water to douse what remained so it didn't spread. We kept digging in the hot mud with our hands and someone's tiny spade to find an extensive scorched root system - this fire had been smoldering underground for hours, from either early in the morning or the night before. We found no butts but were pretty sure that it was started by a smoker, who, even if he took his butts with him, left ash enough to start a fire.

When we were finally satisfied that the fire was out, we called in the forest service to double check and make sure it wasn't going to start up again and then walked out of camp in a mildly catatonic stupor. Now I'm home and can't really sit still, wound up about the idea of what could have happened if we had left with everyone else.

We had driven...

2008-08-07T23:20:00.000-07:00

I was once told that nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: one finds the present tense, but the past perfect. Today I found myself living an adventure that seemed all too familiar.

Back in high school, my life was rather boring. I read alot, I did my homework, I spent my weekends with my girlfriend (she lived a busy life in another city, far enough away that we only saw each other when we had nothing else to do), I schemed with, played or fought with my little brother and hung out with Mike. I had other friends, but I'd known Mikey the longest. He lived down my street a ways and around the corner. We had the same friends, carpooled to the same high school, were part of the same scout troop... I'd go on but it gets rather sickening. My parents both hold him up as their favorite son - and of course he would be. For the price of a meal (he had free reign of our fridge) he'd show up and cart me off and out of their hair.

The key to all this was my truck. In high school I drove my father's 1971 Chevy C10 long bed. It was red with a white cab top, and Mike in his infinitely strange system for naming things thought it appropriate to name this truck "Truck." Sometimes, I think he'd come by not to hang out with me, but with it. As I said, we were boring, so we had to make our own fun. With an old Chevy engine we had our fill.

The quintessential memory of this was during my junior year after our 'Red and Blue Scrimmage,' the showcase for all of our fall sports teams at Brothers. The football team would play itself and the cross country team would run a very boring 5k around the entirety of the school... a couple of times. Other teams did stuff, but I had developed tunnel vision to keep from going insane. After the race was over, I walked out to my truck and couldn't get it to start. It was still early in the morning and it was cold, I had tried to choke it with the accelerator, but ended up flooding it. I called Mike up, and woke him with the words "Dude, Truck's being a bitch." He came out to school and said a few hellos to the varsity football team, which by this time had finished the game and was clacking across the parking lot in their cleats. We had to open up the carburetor and rev the engine to get some air in and it took two hands in the engine and someone inside with a foot on the accelerator. Not a rough fix, but it was better to have him there. After this, he rechristened Truck to Bitch and we headed off with our oh-so-refined palates to the Taco Bell down MLK boulevard so I could buy him breakfast.

When the vehicle worked, we'd load up the bed with junk and head out to the dump. Sacramento county has a landfill at Kiefer blvd and Grant Line road, and with the bed full of crap (the kind hoarded by our mothers) we'd tune the AM radio to one of its only two stations that played music (country), roll down the windows, and drive 65 mph down Hwy 16 to pass the afternoon. The most memorable trip comes to mind with Mike sweeping out the bed after we'd tossed everything saying: "Wouldn't it be fitting if this thing wouldn't start and we had to leave it here?" Of course to spite him, when he got in the damned thing gave him hell; the starter clicking and straining, insolent and hurt at such allegations that it belonged with the hideous antiques we had just junked. We got out in one piece -without burning out the starter- and headed back to town singing along to Alabama's If you're gonna play in Texas.

My dad sold the truck while I was in Germany, between my Senior and Freshman years, and began his trooper fetish. In the past 6 years he's gone through an equal number of troopers. A 1986 Red (engine subsequently scrapped for the blue one) a 1989 Red (my current ride), a 1986 Blue (restored and sold, then wrecked two weeks later), an '87 Silver (blew it's engine), a '91 White (totaled) and his shiny, "new" 1996 green one. Me dad was a mechanic for the Air Force and hasn't quite gotten it out of his system. It was easy to learn the new engines (mine is actually a Chevy engine) but it wasn't quite the same as the lumbering, 10 mpg V8.

Never content with only one engine to play with, my dad recently went out and found a junker of a yellow 1979 Chevy Custom Deluxe and restored it. I'd never driven it before tonight; it's his baby. Tonight however, Petey cooked up a meal for us all, invited our father over (he brought the beer), and we dragged Mike in as he got home from work (Maria's in Denver for the week). After dinner, he took my trooper home and Mike and I headed off to Davis with the truck to move our desks.

It was like nothing had changed over the past 6 years. We hit the freeway, rolled down the windows and turned up the only station we could tune in, it was country of course.

Dynamic Camerawork

2008-08-07T08:23:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, 8.5.2008

WARNING: Do not watch if you suffer from motion sickness, vertigo, are pregnant or nursing or dislike uncomfortable closeups. I swear I'll get the hang of that camera one day.

This is our rock. I sit at the top and Mike's at the bottom. He's the champion of the Safety Dance and I'm the maestro belayer. Most of the campers know me as the guy who sits up on the rock and screams "Belay on!" "Climb on!" or "ROPE!" all day.

The reason I can say that this is the safest climbing program (possibly ever) is almost completely due to Mike's hard work. Where any serious climber not affiliated with the BSA could look at us and write us off as a bunch of neurotic, paranoid, chumps who don't know the strength and security of our equipment, Mike takes every measure to meet the standards of the BSA with unwavering attention to detail. We have a four inch thick binder with records of all our equipment, its purchase dates, receipts and individual uses as well as a novel's worth of pages relating how our program meets each one of the hundreds of mandatory standards the program requires for it to be certified and not shut down.

The camp as a whole is inspected every year, but the climbing program gets its own inspector. Each year we're told something different and no one is on the same page back at the council or regional level. This year they had a problem with our bolts. Each climb has three bolts to anchor it to the rock. In the past there have only been two, but when we couldn't verify their date of installation, we drilled in a third, which we could document. Previously we were told this was ok, but this year it wasn't. We were instructed to sling natural anchors (giant boulders) instead because it wasn't safe. Nevermind that climbing societies in the Alps have been climbing on the same bolts for the past 90 years, because we couldn't verify the date of the installation of these bolts besides "mid-nineties," installed by people who ran the climbing program at camp before there were hoops to jump through, we couldn't use them.

Thankfully institutional knowledge at this camp runs deep; people flock to this place like swallows and we were able to track down who put the bolts in and get a date. After the inspectors left, of course.

A three year old photo album of our program is available here

Home.

2008-08-07T08:05:00.000-07:00

Friday, 8.1.2008

When I returned to my house in Davis, I didn’t receive the overwhelming feeling of relief I had expected upon returning home. Davis had been my home for the last six years, but upon setting down my suitcase and flopping onto the couch, something was missing. Generally I define home as where my bed is. I grew up in Sacramento, but it hasn’t been my home since I moved out and my mom started using my room for storage. When I got to back from Buenos Aires, my bed was missing. My brother had moved it, and had been sleeping on it for the past month. My room was missing all furniture that didn’t require the bed of a truck to move, which was everything but my desk. My clothes were gone, either packed in my suitcase or moved by my brother and Mike, my house-mate (now neighbor) while I was away. Enough had changed that this wasn’t the place I had left, and it was no longer my home. Our apartment in Sacramento was no different.

My brother had been living in our apartment since the beginning of July, while I was away. I walked in the door and I had to question his standard of living. The living room furniture consisted of a television, two chairs (one a desk chair) and the top half of our grandfather’s recliner, on which Peter sat crossed legged doing his homework at an old coffee table. My room was filled with boxes and a few bits of furniture piled in the middle of the room, mattress and box spring stacked against the wall. My brother’s room was austere, lacking any furniture besides his bed. I came back out to the living room and asked him how he had been living all this time, if he even had dishes, how he could eat.
He replied: “Yeah, I’ve got dishes… well, dish. I had two but broke one…” I threw my palm up to my forehead and dragged my hand down over my face. I spent the last week furnishing the apartment, dragging things one load of my Trooper at a time, each day heading back to Davis and bringing one more piece to turn the place into a home. A dining room table, a coffee table that’s more than six inches from the ground, chairs, a media stand, stereo, dishes, cookware, spices. The place is looking more and more like someone lives there.

I have had to take a ten-day vacation from being a homemaker, however, as Mike and I are back in the Sierra honoring our annual commitment to our old scout camp, Camp Cody. This is our fifth year together running their climbing program; something no one else is qualified to do, so it guarantees us a spot at camp every year. This place is absolutely amazing, not just for the natural beauty that inspires reverence in anyone introduced to the area, but for the people who volunteer their time and allow the camp to exist for two weeks every year. The majority of the adult staff is made up of men whose boys once attended camp, but have now long graduated and moved on and away. Something special keeps these people coming back, and many are staples of the camp. Most of the adults were staff here when I was an eleven year old scout, caked in dirt and whistling idly by the campfire. I can’t really imagine this camp without them. From George Morrow, the septuagenarian cook who has returned every year to camp since before world war two, to Bob Hearst, the aged story teller and keeper of “Cody lore,” who introduced me to the constellations for the first time. I still can’t look at a summer’s night sky without envisioning it from the dock on the lake here at Cody. There’s Gene Domek, my cub scout den leader, role model, mentor and assistant scout master; this is the man who convinced me that I should run cross country in high school and has consistently pushed me to become an educator. There’s Jon Brozek, my old scoutmaster and four-time companion up to Pyramid Peak and John Allen Cann, the camp’s poet laureate, and finally, of the men who stand out, there’s the senior camp director, my father. When I was a scout, my dad was invited to camp to be a geology merit badge counselor. I graduated, moved on to college and my little brother had to deal with him all on his own. A year before Peter’s last year of camp my dad volunteered to go to National Camp School (or rather, camp camp) to become certified as our camp director. Maybe it’s because he’s a glutton for pain and project management (two things I consider synonymous) or maybe it’s just because he’s loud and can get people to listen to him, but he loves it and continues to be active in the camp long after both my brother and I have moved on from scouting.

Preparing for camp was an exhausting and stressful experience for both Mike and myself, and the closer camp gets, the less we look forward to it; that is, until we actually hit the road and head up here. We pulled off highway 50 at mile tract 42 and rolled down the windows. We could smell it. The pine and cedar, the clean mountain air, the traces of woodsmoke, they all roll together and the smells caused a flood of memories and smiles to cross our faces. We had left Sacramento at 6:30 or so, reached camp closer to 8:30 and hiked the three quarters of a mile from the parking lot to camp (Cody’s a backwoods camp, it’s not connected to any exterior plumbing or power grid, all the food, propane, sailboats, gear, everything needed by the camp and campers is hiked in down this 3/4 mile long trail). We found our tent, dropped our gear and joined the folks around the fire. After saying my hellos, I broke away from the group and walked out onto the dock. The sun had set, it was 9:30 or so, and the sky was full of stars. I don’t know if I can convey the sky at Cody, but I’ll try. We’re at 7,250 feet to start, no lights for miles, the closest being the light dome at south Lake Tahoe. The air is clear and calm, and this week there’s no moon. The darkness is total, but flashlights aren’t necessary because the stars envelope you completely.

Standing on the dock, focused on Polaris, just north east of Pyramid Peak, I just stood and stared. I let my eyes drift in and out of focus and the constellations seemed to draw a circle around the north star. I don’t know how many people understand why our galaxy is called the Milky Way, but here it’s obvious, there’s a band of stars running across the sky, so thick that they’re almost indistinguishable from each other. Other old friends that I haven’t seen in a year rose as the sun set; Cassiopea, and Cepheus, Delphinis, Boötes, Aquila, all constellations that can’t be seen from the valley floor. I sat there with the soft blue light slowly fading in the west, listening to the water of the lake lap at the shores and I smiled, sighing with relief.

It was good to be home.

Travelogue

2008-07-30T12:21:00.000-07:00

Or should I say travel-logged? On my way down to Argentina I wrote excitedly on how amazing my traveling experience was. My way back was no less fun, but it seemed frustratingly prolonged.

I got to Ezeiza International Airport at 17:00 (13:00 PDT), hung out with Sus, got her situated and checked into the American terminal, and then began my search for United. They didn’t exist quite yet. I searched over the entirety of the terminal until upon asking a lady at the info desk, I found that their terminal didn’t open until 5:30. I found the United kiosk (one where American had 6) checked in for my flight a good 3 hours early (Sus’s flight was two hours before mine) and paid my airport tax. Yes, you have to pay to leave the country, no matter who you are. This, along with the 21% sales tax on goods and a few other taxes make for a means of supporting the leftist social programs throughout the country at the expense of the middle class. Security was minimal, customs was a joke. (Though the tones to let one know where to go next played the first three notes of the Sesame Street theme, which of course got me whistling the entire rest of the evening.) This led me to the best part of International Airports: Duty Free shopping.

I was walking through all the chocolate, cigarettes, expensive clothes and wine when I got to the Scotch. I’ve had an… unhealthy relationship with whiskey for a while. I love it and hate it at the same time. I’m infatuated with Scotch, but I couldn’t tell you why. I had promised myself some Johnny Walker Blue upon my retirement as HRM with Unitrans, but my partner in crime, the Operations Manager decided to go sober as soon as he gave up the position and I couldn’t justify buying a 750ml bottle of Blue by myself.

I walked past bottles of Red, Black, Green and Gold, and didn’t see a single bottle of Blue. That is, until I picked up a bottle of Gold and behind it was the smallest most adorable thing I’d ever seen: a 250 ml bottle of Blue, priced Duty Free at $55. I scooped it up and strutted over to the check out, settling in behind a gentleman who seemed to be the sole reason for the lack of any Blue in the whole shop. He was walking out with several bottles, more than 10 times in volume what I was planning to purchse. He was debating in Castellano with a friend or acquaintance, equally well dressed and advanced in years, about the merits of single malt vs blended scotch. This acquaintance was wondering why he was throwing all his money away on expensive blended scotch, when he should be drinking single malt. They traded insults and laughs for a while, until I was noticed with my tiny bottle. Apparently nobody drinks scotch in their early twenties because they seemed rather surprised. They laughed at my miniature portion, comparing it to the dragons hoard of scotch already on the conveyor belt, and naming mine el hijo pequeño. I asked the gentleman not standing in line if he had a recommendation for single malt scotch, having spent the last few minutes piecing together what Spanish I knew and concentrating furiously to ask the question. He pointed to my lapel pin and asked me which language I preferred, I answered with Ingles and he led me around giving me a dissertation on the merits of different scotches in perfect English.

I walked out with a bottle of The Glenlivet 18 year for only slightly more than I had planned on spending on my tiny bottle of Blue, though this was much to the disappointment of the other Caballero.

I met up with Sus in the Airport and I fretted on how I was going to find the BART station in SFO, she responded with “ask someone.” I almost fell back in my chair. I had been so used to planning and plotting and thinking ahead because, though I could comprehend about 45% of what everyone said and generally get the gist of what I as being told, I had a much harder time speaking than listening comprehension. I had forgotten that I could talk to people I didn’t know in English once again. Granted, I found that once back in the States I was still responding to waiters or other people with things like “si” or “esta bien.”

My flight to Washington was incredibly interesting. I was seated in the very back row, between the window and a 250 pound marine sergeant. We met as I was idly complaining to myself that airlines should load from the back to the front, as everyone stops and loads their carry-ons in the overhead bins and slows the whole loading process down. He wholeheartedly agreed with me and then we followed each other to the back of the plane serendipitously sitting next to each other. I learned he was the senior staff sergeant of his platoon. (so, senior NCO that rides around with his LT in a nifty Hummer while keeping tabs on the 8 or so squads). He’d been down in Argentina teaching their marines how to swim. I laughed, starting with, “well if any branch needs to know how to swim outside of the…” he cut me off with “don’t say navy.” I was actually going to mention the PJs or SEALs, but I guess any special forces needs to be in the best condition. Anyways, we talked about deployment, active duty, military families, the Argentinean military and its history, and then he was bumped up to business class. He mentioned he knew the flight crew from the way down there, they had chatted and some of them knew he was a serviceman. I’d like to think they bumped him into an empty seat because of that.

I had plenty of room to stretch out until about an hour or so into the flight. An elderly gentleman complained to the stewardess that some punk in front of him was jamming the seat into his legs, and wouldn’t compromise or stop. She seated him next to me and we started empathizing about being tall (he was 6’4). This gentleman was very opinionated and very ready to debate. I was reading a four week old copy of the Economist (it was either that or skymall) and he started talking to me about all sorts of issues. My favorites were music and Islam.

I told him I had been studying music in Argentina, and had just graduated with a music degree. He was curious of the music that I listened to, being a youngster and all that jazz. I told him I was open to al sorts of music, that on my ipod I had everything from classical, to jazz, to punk, classic rock, Funk, techno, broadway music, Irish traditional music, Mexican hip-hop...

He scoffed a bit.

I asked him what he listened to, and he mumbled a bit and then returned with what my favorite bit of music I saw in Argentina was. I told him I couldn’t decide, I saw a few concerts, an avant garde opera, contemporary music accompanying a modern dance show, and of course tons of street musicians and tango everywhere. Oh yeah, and the musical Rent in Spanish, which I had never seen in English.

He responded “I bet you like that one, Rent.” He spat out the name of the play, as if it left a bitter taste in his mouth. I responded that I did and he chuckled, content that he had sized me up correctly. I asked him why he didn’t, he said the musical style was terrible and that it was the beginning of the end for Broadway. I could only respond that my interpretation of music is that its purpose is to evoke emotion, and I’ve never really found an other form that is so successful at this task than Broadway musicals. The combination of a story and the style of music, interweaving lines, layering different songs on top of each other and all the harmony just draws something out of me that other music is unable to do. I asked him if he liked the show Man of La Mancha, my favorite musical, and he responded that he did. I argued that there was little to no difference in style between the music of the two shows, only in the story and instrumentation. He decided he had had enough and left me to my ipod while he dragged out a book; a treatise on Islamic Jihad.

The cover claimed it to be an unbiased study done by an Islamic center, but when the gentleman showed it to me, it seemed rather anti-Islamic to me. I was told that he had read a good ten books on the religion and this was by far the best one. He asked me if I had studied Islam, I told him that outside of a comparative religion class in high school, I hadn’t really devoted too much time to it. He made the claim that I shouldn’t believe anyone who would tell me that Islam is a religion of peace. That Islamist apologists were full of bull. He said that the basis of the religion was absolute faith, fundamentalist devotion. Without devoting yourself completely to Allah you were nothing. He told me that our Jeffersonian principles of debate and reason had made us weak, (apparently American and Christian were synonymous terms in his eyes) and that there was no compromise with the unyielding faith of Islam.

I was taken aback but he proceeded to find passages in his book, to illustrate his point. Each chapter started with a passage from the Koran, and then its interpretation and the implementation of this interpretation by fundamentalist Muslims throughout history. There was a trend that the interpretations of the Prophet's words became less and less tolerant of other religions or people, but it was like taking passages from the old testament and applying them to Christianity today. The last pages of the book looked at the death toll taken by Islam on every continent throughout the ages. I shook my head in disgust, as a study like this taken without context seemed only to be hate propaganda, especially when put in the hands of a christian who was already convinced that Islam was the enemy. After reading things to me about buying the protection of Islam, the right for Muslims to take Jews as slaves and destroy Christian art, he told me that he "could only admire Mohammed, certainly a clever man to be the architect of the greatest sham in history."

That’s where I lost it.

I asked him where I could find a comparable study of Christianity, because now I was thoroughly interested in what that had to say. The death tolls taken by Christians on every continent. How many lives destroyed by slavery by citing that these men were created inferior. How much greed and corruption in his church, buying salvation throughout the dark ages, repression of women, Crusades, Inquisition, Witch Hunts, Bookburnings, Willful ignorance, repression of science, using Latin to keep the lower classes illiterate and away from all forms of learning.

I only stopped when I realized he was watching the in flight movie. I smiled and plugged my headphones in and watched Flawless. He was asleep when the movie was over.

In the morning we discussed coffee, skiing in Patagonia and the humidity of the east coast before he shook my hand and left the airplane.

My flight from Dulles to SFO was uneventful. I gave up my seat so a married couple could sit next to each other and sat again in the last row of the plane, though by myself this time. I watched Definitely Maybe and Be Kind Rewind and napped a bit before stepping off the plane at 11:00 am Pacific time, 22 hours since I set foot in the airport in Buenos Aires. I got my luggage, climbed the escalator to the top to a monorail to BART and got on the Pittsburg / Bay point train.

I overheard two women from New York confused over where they needed to go to get to Powell Street; they were worried they were on the wrong line (there’s only one that goes to the Airport). I thought that people from New York would be accustomed to trains and subways and the like, but I just took one over to the map and pointed out Powell Street, at which every line that goes through SF stops. I got off at the Embarcadero station, walked up and out, and down the street for some cool air. It was colder in San Francisco than it had been in Buenos Aires when I left. I then got on the Richmond train, took it to Amtrak, Amtrak to Davis, walked to Campus, caught the G line and walked the final half a block to my house. I traveled thousands of miles and right to my door without using an automobile and without relying on anyone else. It was a good feeling, though it was overpowered eventually by the grody feeling of not having showered in over 40 hours, after lugging about 70lbs around the city of Davis in July. By 16:00 PDT I was home, 27 hours after I left Buenos Aires.

This is our lives on Holiday

2008-07-27T11:41:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I titled the post after a Green Day song. Sorry. When I was 12 or 13, my buddy James introduced me to the band with the album Dookie. I traded ipods with my little cousin (she's 8 years younger, my cousin's daughter, so second cousin) over 4th of July a year or two ago, and was surprised her 'top 25 most played' playlist included a whole bunch of Green Day, but I guess that's just what you do when you're 14. She was confused to find the band on my ipod as well, especially cause she didn't know any of the songs from Dookie, Nimrod or even Warning (which was popular when my little brother was 14).

People criticize the band as sell outs and whatnot, but you have to admire them: I couldn't play the same chords for over ten years. Somehow, somewhere in my brain it seemed appropriate to listen to the album American Idiot while going through all the pictures on my computer and soaking up the last of the cold weather by hiding in a cafe drinking café con leche and reminiscing about everything with Sus.

Anyhoo, I'm headed home today, and have to spend the next 4 hours in the airport writing a paper for my independent study portion of the course instead of blogging, but I put up my favorites of the pictures I stole from everyone on the trip.

4 albums worth: The Many Colors of Buenos Aires (one at a time)
Food Friends Fun... and Wine
Food Friends Fun... and Wine (Dos)
La Argentinidad

I have so much to write about, so many stories, inside jokes, specific memories, but they'll all have to wait 'til this damned paper's done. It's funny, the entire month felt like a vacation, even though I attended class 4 days a week. The courses held my interest, I was excited to go to class, and I was never bothered with the workload. Now, the vacation's over and I have a paper hanging over my head, made even harder to write knowing it's the last thing between me and the end of the shortest month of my life.

Making Jesus Mad and Bubbling Liquids

2008-07-24T14:04:00.001-07:00

I knew there were reasons for my desire to be a scientist, I just didn't know what they were.

I wrote a while back about my cousins and I've found something that may not be worth your while, but the internet is about wasting time, right? My cousin Tad (Edward) is an actor, legitimately I'd say, having graduated from the Boston Conservatory. Anyways, between shows and working theatre camps he spends his time doing improv comedy. This may not be his best work, but it made me laugh and it's available on Youtube. The improv bit is rather important, as otherwise you'll note that the following video is less than scripted. Armed with a labcoat and a rather snide soundtrack, the Landed Gentry put out a PSA about safety, For SCIENCE.

Absolutely Nothing.

2008-07-23T13:39:00.000-07:00

It's rare you find someone writing about the things war is good for. Today though, I was pointed to an article from 1999 that suggested the merits of war, or at least letting small wars burn themselves out.

An unpleasant truth often overlooked is that although war is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflicts and lead to peace. This can happen when all belligerents become exhausted or when one wins decisively. Either way the key is that the fighting must continue until a resolution is reached. War brings peace only after passing a culminating phase of violence. Hopes of military success must fade for accommodation to become more attractive than further combat.

This is all in conversation over the war in Iraq, and the fools dancing around each other claiming their strategies are different from their rivals, or the incumbent. The big hooplah is that Obama won't attribute the decreased violence in Iraq to the surge. His stance being that throwing more troops and money at the problem didn't solve it. Of course this is turned around on his lack of patriotism (ugh, see below). McCain made a big deal of this, taking his chance to tout the merits of our military, though making himself out to be even less of a student of history.

The point of the discussion is that because of some Sunni uprising which predated, but coincided with our attempt to smother the problems in Iraq with American lives, there's been enough ethnic cleansing in the region that the violence is subsiding, and we want to take credit for it. This coming the same week the EU is celebrating the capture (over 10 years late) of the wonderful fellow who organized the crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing of muslims in Serbia back in 1995.

Patriotism: Ur doing it wrong

2008-07-21T14:27:00.001-07:00

I mentioned a while back that on my way down here I read an article on Patriotism in a Time magazine I picked up in the Airport. The cover of the magazine was simple, white with the standard, red, time border and a flag pin sitting in the middle of the cover. The article was an expository argument on the differing views of Patriotism between the two parties and how they're both valid.

This coupled with Obama's speech on Patriotism the following week got me thinking about the subject and how absurd it is. Specifically, the side of patriotism that many see as a true love of their country strikes me as absurd, the "Republican" version in the Times article, the unwavering faith that our country is the greates on the planet. I'm going to take a quote from Thomas J. Scheff's theory of Runaway Nationalism, it's a little more current than Orwell:

The infatuation-trance of blind patriotism is like the naked trust that small children have for their parents. After 911, some of my colleagues were asking "Why do they hate us?" But if I answered by pointing to the machinations of our government over the last fifty years in the Middle East and the slaughter and mayhem that resulted, they rapidly lost interest. They didn’t want to hear, with no concern even with whether what I said was true or not.

I bought a flag pin the other day, and I'm wearing it on the lapel of my jacket. It might just stay there through the rest of winter, er... summer and into our winter. It's an Argentine flag crossed with Ireland's. I take it as an indication of my liberal form of patriotism: how much I believe in what our government could achieve, what it stands for, and the countries to which I plan to emigrate as an expatriate when it falls apart from corruption.

Something Majestic

2008-07-21T13:35:00.000-07:00

I've been pirating internet wherever I can find it recently, and it's worked out quite well. Sus and I found our way into the network at UADE, which we weren't supposed to, and although access is never guaranteed, we've found internet in our hotel's lounge from time to time. Combined with cafes sporting wi-fi connections, it really makes my post about the closed Locutorios slightly disingenuous.

Now that that's out of the way, I spent my weekend at Iguazu Falls.

We took a bus with seats comparable to Business class on an airplane, fully reclining and plenty of space. This was a good thing as the bus ride was 17 hours each way. Upon our arrival, we were whisked away to a native village for a tour and then spent the evening on a catamaran on the river. Saturday we walked all over the national park, seeing waterfall after waterfall, then taking a boat and riding into them. I don't think I've ever been more wet, even when swimming or bathing. As we approached the spray, it was like being tortured by someone who is tickling you: you can't do anything about it but laugh. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

Saturday night we went into town for helado and drinking. Several went to a club, but I already stank of cigarette smoke (I thoroughly appreciate California now) and was exhausted from all that walking. Sus, Ryan and Rae and a few others all agreed with me, heading back in a couple of cabs. After a brief bout of snuggling, Ryan and I were kicked out of the girls' room, the twin beds conducive to snuggling but not for sleeping two. Ryan (who had enjoyed some absinthe) went and passed out while I went down to the pool area and stared at the stars.

Buenos Aires has a light dome probably the size of L.A. The light pollution is horrible, even though many of the old lamps point down instead of up. This hotel was in the middle of no where and it showed. Stars filled the sky, each one twinkling in the humid jungle air. Every one of them was unfamiliar though; I'm in a completely different hemisphere. I had planned to study star charts before I left, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I had a conversation with a friend a while back about astronomy. I told her I loved sharing the sky with people, pointing out constellations and enjoying the stars with someone else as company. She told me it was the most humbling thing to walk out to the ocean on a clear night and sit silently in conversation with the stars. I'd never tried it, so I sat on one of those long beach chairs and stared out at the unfamiliar face of the universe.

I'd never felt farther from home, but it was an experience I hope I'll never forget.

On the way home the bus played an "in-flight" movie, The Bucket List subtitled in Spanish. Two things stuck with me from the movie (besides reaffirming my love for movies with Morgan Freeman in them): First was the Egyptian mythology bit about finding joy in your life and bringing joy to others. The second was the idea of witnessing Something Majestic.

Out of Africa

2008-07-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

So, I've recently reconnected with a friend of mine who's been in the peace corps for the last two years. She's coming home by thanksgiving, but since she was in South Africa I prompted her for some news on Zimbabwe. The news got bored with Mugabe rather quickly after the election and I haven't been able to keep up. Here was her incisive political analysis:

Mugabe is still being a jerk-face, and people are still getting eaten by crocodiles and lions trying to bail (no joke, one of the borders SA and Zimbabwe share is in Kruger park -- people are really getting eaten). Last I heard the UN tried to pass sanctions, but China and Russia vetoed, SA also voted no, because Mbeki (SA's president) is sort of a weenie. But Tutu recently said knock it off, and Zuma (the next president of SA) is getting pissed. And the president of, um, Liberia, who happens to be a harvard educated woman, is also getting in on the action. Mostly it's a lot of "the western world must stand up to tyrrany! (but, you know, not too much because they're still just African and they don't have anything terribly useful)" vs. "We want to come up with an African solution, let us talk it out you imperialist bastards! (and by talking we mean sitting around not offending anyone while Zimbabwe turns into an orwellian crap-hole.)" So, you know, standard.

La Presidente vs. La gente

2008-07-21T08:44:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday I wrote about the huge demonstrations leading up to a congressional vote on Wednesday. All day on Wednesday los Senadores sat in session. When I checked, somewhere around 7:30 pm, they'd been sitting around for 9 hours, many abstaining, leaving a 36-35 vote in favor of the Peronists, with one fellow left over deliberating, being lobbied on all sides. When he cast his vote, it lent its weight to the farmers, leaving the senate tied, locked 36-36 and the vice president having to break it. People were sitting around televisions everywhere we could find one, it was like the Superbowl was on. Every shop we passed, every cafe, even the TV in our lounge attracted everyone wandering the hotel. I didn't know how it turned out until Thursday morning when we attacked Pablo for the answer. It's really fun how even though our class is about music, we spend half our time talking about Argentine politics and history, catching up on the news every morning before settling into our routine of lecture, discussing our readings while waiting for Youtube videos to load, listening to tons of music and then discussing it.

The economist finally picked up on the vote and the chaos down here. I'd been waiting for a while, but I finally found the article.

Here's one from the Chronicle as well

It's really nice to see democracy functioning so clearly in a country that hasn't actually had a democratic government in years and is faced with a dynasty of presidential power. The judiciary, while packed with Peronists by the previous president, struck down the taxes and tariffs in spite of political affiliation. The legislature now has power, instead of being controlled by funding from the executive branch. Democracy is coming back, the authoritarian executive branch is being neutered and everyone is participating, watching it happen, and doing so with more passion than I've ever seen in my own country.

The interwebs are closed? Oh Noes!

2008-07-15T14:18:00.000-07:00

If someone told me a year ago I'd be writing in a blog, I'd have scoffed at them. I don't enjoy writing, or so I thought. I never kept a journal, never developed a taste for writing poetry, or descriptive or creative writing. In High school I wrote what I was told. In college, I wrote a whole slough of dry, boring research papers, followed by a whole bunch of equally dry and boring analyses of music; reducing wonderful works of art to numbers and symbols.

Now I just write. Persuasive or expository arguments, narratives of my adventures, (they're more fun when you call them that, try it). I've even tried my hand at descriptive writing, once properly motivated. It's interesting how addicting this has become. There's something significant differentiating writing here than just writing into a word document. Something about being plugged in.

If someone reads this, it means they have internet access. Something I've taken for granted since I started college. It's frustrating having my computer with me and not being able to call up video or reference when talking with my friends. I've become so dependent on having so much information at my fingertips, it's frustrating when I can't just open up my macbook and find out what I want to know.

I'm addicted to the internet.

Here, the Locutorios hold varying hours and there are times when they just close. That's it. The internet is closed. That's a thought that's just incomprehensible. "So?" you say, "What are you whining about, you're in another ephing country, go out and enjoy it!" I am and I do. The problem is, there's nowhere to go at some times. The whole city freezes at some points, and everything opens much later than I can work around. My afternoons are spent doing homework and trying to connect to life back at home, while waiting for dinner (10:00) or to head out with the gang (try 12:00 or later). I usually open my computer for music while I'm reading or doing homework, in the afternoons when everyone else is asleep (they're planning on being out til 4:00 or even 6:00 am). Grappling with my internet addiction has been a larger ordeal than kicking my caffeine habit. Actually, that hasn't happened either, soda down here is made with sugar instead of corn syrup and the coffee is just plain amazing.

Just think about how much effort you put into maintaing a persona on the internet. Between Facebook (or myspace), instant messaging, email, and, for me, now this blog; it's become something more than just an idle hobby or strictly a means of communication.

Now imagine what happens if you are severed from this connection, your only connection to everything comfortable and familiar, by a stupid sign that says "Cerrado."

It's everywhere. Listen. Listen. Here come the drums... here come... the drums...

2008-07-15T12:03:00.000-07:00

So every so often, we've awoken in the morning to another demonstration marching from the Casa Rosada, down Avenida de Mayo to the Congresso. We're lucky enough to live on the street that connects the executive and legislative branches of Argentina. Today however, was the march to end all marches. Avenida Nueve de Julio, the biggest street in the city was closed, clogged with tour busses that brought in demonstrators from all over the country. Tomorrow the senate is voting on a bill that would tax the brains out of farmers and their increasingly profitable crops of soy, which are bringing a ton of wealth (relatively) into the country. The leftist Peronista dominated government is planning on reallocating the wealth through a variety of social programs.

All month the farmers have been marching in protest, and today they are holding a Rally on plaza Italia. The government has sponsored a rally of its own and it seems like half the population of the country has come to the city to participate in one or the other. Hopefully I can grab some pictures or a video or two an put them up here. It's amazing how intense people feel about the issue, and how involved everyone is. It's down to something like a 50.5 percent majority of the Peronists in the senate vote tomorrow and the demonstrations are supposedly going to determine how some of los senadores will vote.

By the way the title of the post is from a particular episode of Dr. Who, chosen specifically because some of the drummers were beating out the same cadence that motivates the Master. Creepy.

Tango skillz: I has them

2008-07-15T07:51:00.000-07:00

Well, that may be an exaggeration. I did however spend two hours dancing today, in an antiquated building that seemed to be a shrine to Carlos Gardel. Four of use decided to go try and learn while the majority of the group went out for Mexican food. According to my experiences, burritos get less and less tasty the further you get from Mexico. Maybe that only works going North, but I wouldn’t count on that. I plan on waiting til I’m at least in California again.

Lets see… oh yeah! Tango. It’s awesome, the music is amazing, and the dancing is even more fun than just listening. The steps are simple enough, the hard part is leading. She gets to do all the fancy stuff, all you have to do is worry about getting her to do what you’re hoping you can pull off – that and not sending her home with broken toes. I’m pretty sure I need pointier shoes like the fancy old folks have, mine can only be described as “clompy.” After spending the evening dancing with Rae, and trading off with Daniela a few times to make sure I was doing things correctly, I got paired with my old room-mate, Derek. He had spent some time learning the ladies’ part (while I spent time teaching Daniela the guys’ part) so I got to be re-united with my Panda Bear again.

Hmm… maybe I better explain that. Derek is quiet and indecisive, the type of fellow who upon meeting, forces you to question how he ever survived his freshman year away from home. He’s a wonderful guy and we became fast friends, but it seemed I had to take care of him at almost every turn because he didn’t know how to fend for himself. He’s the youngest of his siblings and I’m the oldest of mine, so it worked out to big-brother him a bit. The first week or so, I did everything I could to get him to a place where he could figure things out on his own, and he’s getting there. Due to some drama in another room, he had to change places with my new roomie, Joel. Anyway due to his quiet, contemplative and gentle nature, we all agreed he reminded of us of a Panda somehow, that and he’s just plain adorable.

The videos are up on my last two posts, finally. Music abounds.

Musicos de la Calle

2008-07-14T12:11:00.001-07:00

Warning: This post is even more Media Heavy

[Which means the video will come later when I'm on a hard line and have lots of time to waste]

I’m aware that every major cosmopolitan city has amazing street musicians, but I’m taking a course in which we’re studying the music and culture of Latin America so it’s hard not to go out and look for music to capture. This music however, is relatively easy to find. Because we’re in Buenos Aires, there’s always someone singing tango in the streets where they think they can find tourists. There are entire street Orchestras, rather Orquestras Típicas. The biggest I found was comprised of a (string) cuartetto, 4 bandoneones, double bass and a piano; one they roll down the cobblestone streets and tune on the spot. There’s a huge reggae movement down here, I’ve seen dreadlocks in every color of hair. But as far as music: Sunday walking down Defensa street in San Telmo, we caught a whole bunch of different groups, all playing something different. An amazing Klezmer Trio, a small mestizo group, including a charango, that Tango Orchestra, a jazz combo, and even a drunken Samba Parade bright and early on Sunday morning.

Tango y Rock Chabón

2008-07-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

I’ve seen three live performances in actual venues in the last two weeks. The first was a band called ¡Los Fabulosos Cadillacs! A Latin rock group that does whatever it wants and doesn’t really fit into a single genre. They had horns, Latin percussion, electric guitars… you know, the same old stuff. The concert was free, in the giant park in Palermo. It was a teaser for a “comeback tour” that would return to Buenos Aires in December. The second group I saw was called the Babasonicos, a group which was further out there than I could appreciate. They had the standard garage band set-up lead, rhythm, bass, keys, drums, and a singer who pranced around and didn’t do his job all that well. What was more exciting was the venue, Luna Park. It was an indoor stadium with “Prohibido Fumar” written all over the walls, but the smoke was so thick inside you’d think we were at a Tom Petty concert. Pablo, who got his doctorate at Columbia and spent a good chunk of his life in New York, told us it was the equivalent to Madison Square Garden but I couldn’t make the comparison. I didn’t bother recording the Babsonicos, but here’s a bit of Los Cadillacs. You can’t see it but their tenor player has the most amazing crazy hair ever. I thought it’d be important to mention that.

The best show I’ve seen yet was this last Friday; a sextet of Tango musicians playing in a discreet club, hiding deep in San Telmo. The place looked like it just ignored the rest of the world since the forties. From the outside it looked like another brick building, but inside the doors were two sets of purple velvet curtains, between which sat a ticket booth. Yeah, a ticket booth. We were worried because we were told that without reservations they couldn’t seat 11 of us, but it turned out they couldn’t turn down 550 pesos. We got dropped at the bar in the back, looking around aimlessly until someone marched us upstairs to our own private balcony. The place wasn’t a restaurant with a show, it was a club with a kitchen. Art decorated the grey blue walls, each painting with its own lighting that dimmed just enough when the house lights went down. Each table had candles and all faced the stage. The club was about the size of your standard elementary school cafeteria cut in half lengthwise, or I guess in this context it would be safe to return to your memories of fourth grade and say “hot dog style.” We were seated at a long table with high-backed armchairs and had an unobstructed view of the show. Granted, a few of us were shorted chairs and had to sit on the floor. When Ryan ordered some food though, the waiter placed a candle right next to him so he could eat his meal seated on the concrete in style. The table was meant for the performers to sit at before the show, we figured this out because we were separated from the “green room” by only a curtain.

I can’t describe the music and do it justice, but I have plenty of it stored on my computer when I get back (a few of us bought Cds). Until I do, here’s something to hold you over:

Hopeless...

2008-07-13T13:04:00.000-07:00

I'm waiting on some media for my next few posts, about my trips to see the most amazing Tango music, the street musicians on Avenida Florida and Defensa Street and Colonia, Uruguay. This is just something I wrote in my head walking home from a concert in Luna Park on Thursday (yes, I haven't seen the internet for three days. Amazing, no?):

Hopeless.

In the evenings, walking down the street with her, I found that I drift in and out of reality, our conversations only taking up a thin film of my conscious thought. The rest of me only dreams of holding her…

…Standing on the antiquated sidewalks under the once gas-lit lamps, surrounded by the old facades of European architecture and a fine, coiling mist. Her arms wrapped around me underneath my coat, her face buried into my scarf, my cap tipped back on my head as my own face is enveloped by her hair - shining bright copper in the lamplight, my cold glasses slightly fogging as my breath is reflected upwards.

That’s it, that’s all I can think about. No careful plots or intrigue, no schemata for building a closer friendship that has so often been my course in these matters. I can’t think when I’m around her, let alone try to impress her or hold an intelligent conversation; all that comes to mind is the scene above…

It’s been long enough since I’ve felt trapped and hopeless like this, so long that I’ve forgotten how miserable this sort of existence is, and how much I love it all the same.

Oh Reginald… I disagree!

2008-07-10T11:00:00.000-07:00

I enjoy the idea of the blogosphere being a series of drive-by arguments. I can read something, then write a post on it. Someone can read that, it can inform their post, people comment and discussion starts to happen.

Shane’s blog has lain dormant for the past week or so, but the comments keep flowing in on his post questioning Catholicism. The last poster brought up something that sent me off in its complete hypocrisy:

“But be careful you don’t pick and choose what you want in your religion”

I’m sorry, what? Isn’t that exactly what Christianity is? Throughout the ages, right from its founding that’s been the basis of the entire religion. To Paraphrase a bit…

“Hey, Jesus, this Judaism thing isn’t working out for us, how about a new covenant?”

“You know what, pork’s pretty tasty, and our dietary habits are causing a bit of trouble with the Gentiles, I bet it’s not that unclean, go ahead and eat anything from the meat market.” – Paul

“Hey guys, lets all get together and decide what’s going to be in the Bible and what to throw out” - The Council of Nicea

“Just hang on a minute, (Ein minuten, bitte) you know what, we don’t need all these sacraments, the Church is pretty corrupt. Also, mass in the vernacular would be a good idea, here’s a few other theses and I’ll just nail them up here” – Martin Luther

“Hey you know what, that guy has some good points, we should evaluate ourselves a bit” – The counter-reformation

And so on.

A previous poster mentioned Papal infallibility. Just cause he’s got the biggest hat and a suped up golf cart doesn’t mean the Pope is a conduit to God. The church can be wrong. Remember, the church is made of men, all of whom are human, and therefore imperfect. Dissent is part of the free will that was mentioned earlier as divinely given, and should be encouraged, not looked upon with disdain and fear. Defending arguments with “Because it’s God’s will” means you’re not thinking for yourself, or maybe even at all. You’re taking what one person said as gospel. Something that’s not written in any gospel you can read to verify (written gospels that may have been “divinely inspired” were later edited by men).

Who are you to tell anyone that they can’t support the rights of people to have an abortion, or the freedom to love each other regardless of gender and call themselves Catholic? By trying to litigate these things based on religion, making them illegal in the eyes of a secular government you are suppressing their religious freedom, the free will given to these people by your God and imposing your own. How can anyone do that and call themselves Christian?

Cutest. Movie. Ever.

2008-07-10T10:54:00.000-07:00

If I was to see a movie that was dubbed entirely in Spanish, it was good that I saw one where the main protagonist had a vocabulary only slightly larger than mine; that is, one that included the word Directivo but not much more. Down here, they held off on the release of WALL-E until their independence day (July 9). I have to repeat the title of this post, it was the cutest and probably best movie I’ve seen in a long while. An adorable love story with adorable characters - it had to be though, as it was stuffing warning after warning down the viewer’s throat through allegory. Don’t get me wrong; it was refreshing to see something enter the mainstream media offering warnings against the current path America has taken. Warning against consumerism, complacency and apathy, corporate interests overshadowing individual, or even government interests, even against being so wired in that you don’t even notice your real life around you.

The problem is, I think people either missed them entirely or if they saw them, got turned off by sheer volume. I certainly appreciated the allusion to 2001, and HAL in the glowing red eye of the autopilot. Just remember, artificial intelligence wasn’t the antagonizing force in the plot, it was the blind following of the directives of a Corporatocracy and the apathy of the obese and complacent consumers (read: Americans), allowing machines to run their world. I have to hand it to my buddy Roy for jumping on the bandwagon before everyone else. With a college degree and such, I’m sure he’ll have plenty of stock in B&L before it takes over the world.

Best part of the movie though was Apple’s subtle product placement. I went home and immediately turned my laptop off, just so I could turn it back on. From now on, every time I hear that sound I’ll smile.

See you again yesterday...

2008-07-09T12:21:00.000-07:00

Two years ago at Christmas, I was curled up in a cabin in Arnold, California (think Sonora) celebrating with my father’s family. I have six cousins living on the west coast, all are siblings and together they comprise some of the smartest, wittiest and most talented people I know. My generation of my Aunt’s family includes, from oldest to youngest, a master sommelier, a blues guitarist, a writer, an actor, a geologist (this is considered somewhat of a genetic disease in the Cargile clan) and finally a singer. Sitting around their table for any holiday brings about a profound sense of family that I’ve never had growing up. With dinner, wit flows like wine, and the wine flows well… like wine, bottle after bottle. It was a mistake I now realize to put off reading the copy of Barrel Fever, given to me by one of my cousins that year.

Here in Buenos Aires, I’m surrounded by David Sedaris’ books. My room-mate has two, Sus has one, one which I’m currently reading, Me Talk Pretty One Day. I think my current situation provides an extra emphasis on the hilarity of the second half of this book. Part one is a collection of stories surrounding Sedaris’ life growing up in South Carolina, Chicago and New York. Part Deux (Two) is dominated (so far) by the author’s experiences surviving in France without really knowing the language. From the broken and useless vocabulary he acquires in his trips to Normandy, to his French classes where he only understands about thirty percent of what is said, I’ve found myself laughing at myself, imposing this lens on my own experiences here.

I spend the majority of my time carefully crafting sentences with correct grammar, and precise nouns gleaned from my friends, only to have the Porteños come back at me with strings of words that zip past me without any recognition. As long as the response to my query or order is “machina diez y ses” or “bueno” I walk away feeling some sense of accomplishment surviving in a country where I honesty can’t speak the language.

I do much better with written Spanish, as I’m a word nerd and can figure things out from Latin roots. Most of the time I’m ok, but plenty often I translate things completely wrong. My survival Spanish class is in Spanish, I think I mentioned that, but I really mean it. It’s in Spanish, a language I don’t speak, and I have to learn by interacting with someone who only speaks a language that I can barely comprehend. I now have much more empathy for ESL students. I’m motivated and can figure enough out in context so I only need my friends to translate a few words, but to ask any complicated questions, I end up having to talk through someone else.

Also, google.com.ar is celebrating Nueve de julio like everyone else here. That makes me happy.

Only in Buenos Aires…

2008-07-08T12:45:00.000-07:00

My expectations of Irish pubs were lowered a bit after this weekend. We went to a Pub titled Mathias’ which advertised live Irish music on Fridays, squished between Highland Pipes on Thursdays and Karaoke on Saturdays. I went in expecting a Session, based on my previous experiences in Irish pubs in the states. However, we walked in and there was no sign of a fiddle, nor flute, bohdrahn, or tin whistle. The corner was set up with electric guitars, bass and drums.

Here in Buenos Aires, “live Irish music” means a U2 cover band. At least that’s what it looks like now, we plan on trying again next week. However, live music was pretty damn awesome to drink to, and it was English, with lyrics we new. Some of us got more excited than others. Sus captured some of Ryan’s antics.

We had dinner tonight at a restaurant titled Estilo Criollo which translates roughly to “Fucking Fantastic.” Regardless of the truth of that last statement in a linguistic sense, the meaning remains. It was probably the best food, wine and desert I’ve eaten yet. Sus and I split a bottle of Malbec, a red wine made from grapes grown down here. I can’t describe it and do it justice, but it was dark, and thick and rich. I had Medallones de lomo con pancetta, beef medallions wrapped in Italian bacon, there were potatoes, but I didn’t notice them. Then there was mousse. We all agreed that had this been a milkshake, regardless of who you were or your sexual orientation, this would have brought you to the yard. The desserts went flying around the table, thirteen people sharing and critiquing each, there was bread pudding, flan, some sort of chocolate volcano was popular, though it was more of a chocolate caldera. This was a meal that has surpassed my fading memories of the dinner I had on top of the Stratosphere in Las Vegas in 2005.

Good Grief

2008-07-06T14:26:00.000-07:00

I don’t know how many people read Peanuts anymore, seeing as the strip is just reprinted weekly from ages long past, but that right there is a testament to the strip and Charles Schultz. I hold a certain empathy for Charlie Brown - growing up it was really easy to identify with the character. No uncoordinated adolescent can deny ties to a character who can never for the life of him kick the damn football (though maybe to no fault of his own). More importantly I’ve found that the two of us share something more significant than athletic skill, that being taste in women. One of the prevalent story arcs in Peanuts is Charlie Brown’s inability to cope with his adoration of the Little Red Haired Girl. She’s never shown in the strip, and only worshiped from afar - reminding me of Quixote’s Dulcinea. The problem is, there are certain girls that I’ve found, and fallen for, that completely strip me of my ability to cope and flirt, around them I almost feel stripped of myself. If I catch ones eye across the room I can’t even smile to dissolve the tension, only bashfully look at my feet, caught red handed doing something I know I shouldn’t have done. What’s worse? They’ve all been amazing, fun, intelligent and gorgeous red-heads.

Two things started this post – first I found a document on my computer dated from October of 2004, it was a depository of quotes. Between quotes from H.L. Mencken, Benjamin Disraeli and Douglas Adams, I found a scene from a Peanuts movie or strip, I forget which:

It's stupid to just sit here and admire that little red haired girl from a
distance. It's stupid not to get up and go over and talk to her.
[stands up]
It's really stupid! It's just plain stupid; so why I don't I go over and
talk to her?!
[sits down]
Because I'm stupid.
~Charlie Brown

This ailment plagued me my freshman year and my sophomore year, with two different women, and thus the quote made it into my depository. I thought I had kicked the habit when I moved on to brunettes and the like, but I was wrong: she’s studying here in Buenos Aires with me, regretfully strawberry blonde. Yup, that’s reason number two.

I’m being good. I have to be mindful of how much attention I pay to her, purposefully ignoring her so as not to fawn. The fact that when I talk to her I feel witless and slow helps. Sometimes my thought process just freezes around her, sometimes this is a little less helpful... but something happened that threw me for a loop. Something frustratingly meaningless, but it sent me flying nonetheless.

Last night a group of us went to go see Rent in Spanish. The show was amazing, and the music was the same and as awesome as ever. Whoever translated did an amazing job keeping the lyrics in line, and relevant. For me it was an exercise in figuring out what was going on, but it was much like watching an italian opera (la Bohéme) with a loose idea of the plot and just going aloing for the ride. The fun part was watching them try and fit 525,600 minutos into the same space of time. Regardless, the girls I went with decided it’d be nice to dress up and I threw on a tie.

After the show we were trying to flag down a cab and walking to a bigger intersection for better results. Standing on the corner, she began to yawn and I hit her with my program in admonishment, telling her she couldn’t be tired as she had a long night of clubbing ahead of her. Our conversation fell into inanity and slowly died away as the others tried to grab a cab. This one has a bit of ADD and she absent-mindedly grabbed my tie to better inspect it for the better part of 15 seconds (Jerry Garcia = shiny). When she looked up at me she saw a dopey smile behind which raged a battle between elation and sheer terror. I don’t know if she realized it, but she certainly realized how close she had drawn herself towards me and had to awkwardly take a step back.

This sort of vignette is reserved for some romantic comedy and I’ve had to distance myself from it and come back to reality. I don’t need to be keeping a checklist to determine whether my life is comedy or tragedy as I’m not living in a narrative. My problem however, is that my brain is still buzzing about it behind my conscious thoughts, especially when it comes across other quotes from that repository. Specifically this one from Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 (and aptly so, considering how trapped I feel in this situation):

"His response to women was one of worship and idolatry. They were lovely, satisfying, maddening manifestations of the miraculous... too powerful to be measured, too keen to be endured, and too exquisite for employment by base, unworthy man. He could interpret their presence in his hands only as a cosmic oversight destined to be rectified speedily."

¡Deferred-ed!

2008-07-05T10:28:00.000-07:00

Sus, Rae and I were sitting in a Café tonight, around 7:30 sipping on coffee con leche when Sus asked me what my application to UOP entailed and I realized I hadn’t provided an update here as to what my plans were: I’m deferring my enrollment for a year. I drove to Stockton the day before I left and searched for answers to all my questions. I didn’t really find many. The director of my department was available but nobody from the conservatory was even in Stockton. I got enough information to get me decided but not the information that was important: what was required of me as a music student and how I could pay for school. By deferring I can continue with my life as I had planned before June 25^th and still have the security of some future in a master’s program when I finally figure everything out. Please pay no mind to the fact that it’ll be nine years between my graduation from high school and my graduation from a masters program…

It was really difficult to answer the question “what do you play” to the people at the conservatory. I was sitting in an extremely competitive music school, swelled with money and prestige and I had to dance around the fact that I don’t consider myself an accomplished musician. When faced with a direct question, I had to answer directly:

Well, I played the violin for 8 years, but haven’t touched one in six. I’ve had a few years of lessons on the classical guitar. I’ve played the trombone, and am learning the trumpet. I’m self-taught on Saxophone, but haven’t really played it in 2 years. I played with the Cal Aggie Marching Band-uh and the University Wind Ensemble, but finshed my performance units with Javanese Gamelan Ensemble and special study on the Viola de Gamba. I rounded off my education with a few quarters of lessons with the department’s Harpsichord teacher...

My degree is in Musicology - I’m a music scholar not a musician.

It’s hard to describe the look of disdain on the lady’s face as she said, “well… I’m sure you’ll need to audition before you can pursue a credential in music education…” That’s the main reason for my attendance at CSUS this next year, not only to get a hand on some music education courses, but to bone up on my performance that I slacked off on the past two years, focusing instead on working at Unitrans and my geology coursework… or at least using them as an excuse to neglect my performance units.

When I sat outlining my application process for UOP, I detailed that I needed to write a 500 word essay to accompany my application. When applying to the UC it was something like 3000 words, and for Grad school it was 500... seems a little backwards. This got me thinking however, and I dug the essay out of my computer and re-read it. Despite my apprehension concerning my abilities, reading this certainly reignited my desire to pursue this path. I’m going to included it to end this post:

There have been two moments over the last calendar year in which my passion for music became completely focused, making clear the direction I should pursue with my career. The first of these moments came during my final exam for a conducting course. I was to conduct a chamber orchestra in the first two movement of Copeland’s ‘Appalachian Spring.’ I had done everything expected of me in preparation for the performance, but had never gotten to rehearse with the ensemble. I was conducting fellow students, all performance majors and essentially professionals and standing at the podium before the first movement I realized that this was my first experience conducting a live performance. I was fighting the feeling in the pit of my stomach and determined to stop my baton from quivering in my hand as I prepared for the first beat, drawing in a deep breath… and then the music began. All of my preparation for this moment then came to the forefront of my thoughts as the first note sounded, I didn’t have time to be nervous. It may have helped that the music was calm and serene, but there was something else to it. When I looked over at the first violinist to cue him for his solo, I found him staring at me waiting to make eye contact. Something clicked and I felt the music wash over me. I don’t really know how to describe the feeling, it was like a wave of relief, but more than that, I had let go of everything else and was only aware of the music. This performance was no longer my conducting final, it was unearthing a passion for music I didn’t know existed. Although this was a defining experience in my musical development, it pales when compared to my first concert conducting a youth ensemble.

My conducting final was a concert without a single rehearsal with the chamber orchestra: all the effort (both mine and theirs) was put in before I ever had the chance to work with them. I had missed out on what I would find to be the more rewarding side of a performance: rehearsing and watching the improvement of the musicians with whom I work. This past December I was fortunate enough to conduct a high school band in a concert after rehearsing with them for the ten weeks previous. The result at the concert seemed to be an extension of our rehearsals - but there was something else present. There was a sense of excitement and enthusiasm buzzing behind the students black and white exterior and it made itself known through their music. My experience in conducting this concert was similar to conducting Appalachian Spring, but the time I spent with the students put a filter on the feeling, sharpening a sense of pride as I watched the students perform exactly as I expected from rehearsal, but with a new sense of energy. This experience, more than anything has directed me towards my goal of becoming a music educator. I am at a disadvantage, however as the music department at UC Davis does not include a music education program. To develop the tools I will need to continue growing as a music educator, I need to find my way into graduate studies (as well as earn a California teaching credential) and I feel the best place to provide me with the education and tools I will need is the University of the Pacific.

Subways and Wine

2008-07-02T14:31:00.000-07:00

<3>

I can get anywhere in the city through Buenos Aire’s extensive subway system for the cost of 90 centavos, equivalent to 30 cents. We played around after class today navigating the system and it’s wonderfully simple. A bunch of us went up to see a free concert in Palermo, a neighborhood Pablo compared to Manhattan, with its own version of Central Park, what the locals call “the forest of Palermo.” The concert was a teaser concert for a band called Los Fabulosos Cadillacs who are acting like any other older rock band and getting back together. Their tour starts in December but they held a free concert last night to get everyone excited and publicize their return. Pablo left early to pick up his daughters and he left us with the direction back to the subway being “follow everyone else.” When we got down to the platform the place was packed with people, and when the first train came, these Argentines put the students of Davis to shame. That car was packed so full of people I don’t think there was room for many to even breathe. We wisely waited for the next train, but watched as two men fought with the doors trying to push their way into the mass of people, they were barely successful.

I also discovered the awesome wine available here. Sus and I split a bottle of a white wine, I forget the vineyard, but the grape was Torrontes I think. It was really light and barely sweet and probably the best wine I’ve tasted outside of the few glasses poured for me in my cousins’ cabin (one of whom is a master sommelier, the director of wine of the Bellagio in Las Vegas, and our family’s hook-up for amazing wines). The best part is after splitting a 3/4 liter bottle (four glasses), a glass of this amazing stuff costs the same a bottle of soda.

I ran into a post that a buddy of mine made a while ago in response to mine, figures he´d wait til I was out of the country, starving for high-speed internet. Shane raises some good questions about religion and I think it´s worth thinking about them.

Stranger in a Strange Land

2008-07-02T14:27:00.000-07:00

So, I’ve been in Buenos Aires for four days and haven’t written anything about the city yet. This is mostly because I’ve been too busy/exhausted to do so. This city is absolutely amazing. I don’t know where to start besides that it feels like I’m in Europe, but looks like I’m in the 1920s. The architecture of the buildings surrounding my hotel and in most of the Centro is old and seems artisan in some ways. My hotel is a fine example, the ground floor is only the front desk and a stairwell which spirals up around an elevator. The staircase is marble and beautiful. The rooms are small and the furniture is as antique as the buildings - but worn and used to the point where I’m sure it’s not part of a gimmick but actually has been here longer than I’ve been alive.

The café culture is amazing here too. In a country where the middle class seems to have been decimated in an economic crisis, the city’s center and upscale districts still feel otherworldly in their food service. The dress and actions of waiters here is reminiscent of that which I’ve only seen in black and white movies.

Oh yeah, one small problem: I don’t speak Spanish! Even the “survival Spanish” class offered with my program is taught completely in Spanish, and the instructor only speaks Spanish and Portuguese. (The music and culture course is taught by Pablo and in English). Susanna and I are the only ones in the program who have never taken Spanish before. We’re treading water when it comes to the class but out on the streets we’re having a blast. Though I am slowly learning the language - very slowly - the majority of interaction I have with the portenos is me recognizing the prices they quote and doling out cash. There’s plenty of non-verbal communication too, and it seems they’re used to American idiots like myself expecting them to deal with me without speaking their language. I sometimes feel really stupid, and apologetic, but most of the time it’s exciting at the least.

One of the native Spanish speakers in the program had a pen pal in Buenos Aires growing up and she looked him up about six months ago. Esteban has been showing us around the city like a mother hen followed by 12 little chicks. This guy is awesome. I got to sit across from him at dinner and had a conversation that was all Spanish on his end and all English on mine, and it worked out just fine, we both ended up understanding each other (once we slowed our speech patterns down a bit). The places he’s taken us to were in the Recoleta, (our hotel is in the Centro) and the subway was closed last night (on strike). The distances I’ve been walking around the city remind me of the “Walking distances” cited in John Green’s Gatorade and Gasoline essay.

The strikes have something to do with the government trying to tax soy products coming out of the hinterlands. Apparently la presidente is trying to redistribute wealth amongst the country by means of an export tax on soy products and there’s a huge permanent demonstration on the plaza de Congresso between a pro and con camp (they had a futbol match a while a go and it drew quite a crowd. Our walk downtown last night ran parallel to a huge march in demonstration from the plaza de Mayo to the Congresso.

We’re studying at UADE, el Universidad Argentina de la Empressa, a private university smack dab in the middle of town. It’s on Avenida Neuve de Julio, about nine blocks from the hotel. The place is pretty nifty, it’s a vertical campus. They have 5 or six buildings all that go deep into the ground (3 floors or so) and about 9 floors up. It’s a bit of a contrast to Davis where everything is so spread out.

Hey, I’ve got nothing to do today but smile.

2008-06-28T15:44:00.000-07:00

People in Airports don’t smile. Everyone seemed to be in a state of extra stress, and granted traveling with family can be exacerbate the experience of traveling, I found my trip went by without anything to gripe about. Maybe it’s because my trip started well and that carried over throughout the rest of my travels.

SFO is a nice place. I got there three hours before my flight left, and without any reason to hurry. I made it a point to enjoy myself even while standing in line for security. Once through, I got to eat breakfast at a franchise of the Buena Vista Café (no Irish Coffee though) and then wait for another hour and a half sitting in a food court reading and listening to a combo of trombone, bass and keys. Apparently SFO employs live musicians on Fridays. I watched a young fellow scan the packed court in distress as he couldn’t find a table until I waved him over to sit at mine. I haven’t shared a table with a stranger since I was in Germany, but it was a rather fun experience, the first of about 15 new people I made friends with in almost as many hours.

My flight from SFO to Dulles in DC was better than expected as well. I got seated in an exit row, and next to a fellow who slept the entire time. I was worried by the end of the flight because I had gone through all of my reading material pretty thoroughly and didn’t have time to find more. My plane arrived 25 minutes late, at 9:15. Boarding for my next flight started at nine, and of course the gate was placed according to those laws buried deep in nature that state that the gate you come from and the gate you’re headed to in an airport are on absolute opposite ends. I was triumphant and made it to my flight, just behind another fellow traveling from the same gate. What’s more, we were seated right next to each other.

This guy’s name was Dan. He was an Australian. I had no need to worry about entertaining myself with reading material as we had more to talk about than any two strangers should. He was an amateur musician and worked for EA games. He was once a programmer and designer but he was placed as head of a project that involves him outsourcing labor to Argentina. We ended up talking more about politics (Australian and American), globalization and economics more than music and video games. He told me to look up a documentary titled “The Century of the Self” when I found the internet again.

I found that much of my anxiety towards not speaking Spanish here was unfounded. I managed to get on a bus and take a taxi that dropped me off at my hotel instead of a remise straight from the airport, paying something like 47 pesos rather than 120, the exchange is almost 3 to $1. I can read menus and order in Spanish ( who knew) and am learning phrases like “I’m sorry, the ATM only gives $100s” and “My Spanish is terrible”

The group of students I’ve found at the hotel are awesome. The hotel is amazing too. It rises off of a storefront and looks like it’s straight out of the 1930s. The street I’m on is in the exact center of town, Avenida de Mayo. I’d link you there but Google Maps doesn’t do Argentina.
Anyways, time for a nap. I’ll be updating this rather regularly because the internet is right down the street from me… literally.

Unusually Over-stressful Problems

2008-06-26T07:26:00.000-07:00

On soap and boxes.

2008-06-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

I had a lengthy conversation with two of my former students last night. One approached me for advice on how to structure her first semester at Berkeley so as not to overload herself, and I, having taken 6 years to finish college, had some input and experience as to how not to overload ones self on class. The other was dragged into the conversation because she was headed to UCD and I could provide even more detailed "advice" as to my opinions on classes, and how to go about enjoying the first fall quarter. The problem is, one conversation turned to politics, the other religion. Both opened up rather large cans of worms, as they had forgotten I keep a pretty big soapbox under my desk. The problem was, I found an underlying theme to both conversations, something rather troubling.

The first of these conversations went south when I linked a year old video I had been watching to interrupt our conversation. When she responded with "I don't think he [Obama] is that well spoken" I sorta scoffed. I then linked her to plenty of eloquent and inspiring speeches that make one warm and happy inside from listening to them. She then consented that he was pretty well spoken, but she still didn't know what he was going to do to change America. She was rather doubtful that many Americans would change, and somehow the conversation got hooked on the tragedy of September Eleventh, 2001 (I hate the term 9/11). She insinuated the hope Obama was pushing smacked of the false hope Bush forced down our throats in his attempts to fight a War on Terrorism. I explained to her that, at the time, the American people needed something to lash out at. In times of chaos, economic turmoil and pain, a country needs an enemy. I then linked her to a few quotes to make my point. The first was this:

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

This was followed by:

"To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve.

Anyhoo, the first quote is attributed to Herman Goering, the second John Ashcroft, a key supporter of the patriot act. Both were the right-hand men of their respective leaders. It's a parallel many have seen, but these kids hadn't been subjected to liberal brain-washing yet. I told her that this is why we have history majors. But the point I made in this tangent was that a state in turmoil needs an enemy for its people to focus on so as not to be distracted with domestic matters. What better outsider for a god fearing people to hate than those who don't share their religion?

My second debate/rant of the evening was over homosexuality, marriage and sin. I was alerted to the Mormon church's support being thrown behind amending the California State constitution. Now, I don't have television, and sadly don't get to watch the Daily Show, but I'm sure many late night comedians jumped on this. It's too easy to say: "Sanctity of Marriage?Sorry buddy, I know things change, but Hypocritical much?" However, as the laughter died down, we returned to the issues of religion, sexuality and eventually race. I then turned things on their ear by ranting that slavery only existed because people used religion to rationalize it being ok: GOD created the negro inferior to the white man. This then led back to our topic of homosexuality with GOD saying that homosexuality is a sin. I was told by a very bright and open minded young lady that, though she disagrees with homosexuality, she has nothing against homosexuals being that they are people like everyone else. I had to step back up on my box to correct her, saying that yes, homosexuals were people, in fact they weren't homosexuals, but rather homosexual people. The word homosexual shouldn't be a noun, but an adjective. We went in circles for a while debating whether or not homosexuality is a sin, and I'd like to re-state my argument against it being a sin.

There's a site out there that details passages from the bible which explicitly state that homosexuality is a sin. Fair enough, the bible is the word of God and is infallible, right? These passages are from the book of Leviticus and from the Epistles of Paul (1st Corinthians and Romans). A book of the old testament and letters of an evangelical, albeit one of the most influential evangelicals, still a man with his own agenda. Now, my take on Christianity is that the whole idea, the reason why it's not just Judaism 2.0 is that in Christ folks were offered a new covenant. One not with a vengeful and overbearing god, but with a forgiving and loving one (ok, same god, He just had a change of heart I guess). This means we continue to learn from the old testament, but it is not taken literally. in fact most of the old testaments laws and rules were thrown out. It's not the place of anyone to pick and choose what's right and what's wrong. It is in the Gospels that the "good news" is spread and that's where Christians find their slalvation.

Here though, we have a disconnect between the prophet and the church. Nowhere in the words of Christ can you find him condemning homosexuality, only those who come after him. Neither God, nor Christ, but man. Paul. The church. The majority of the new testament is made up of the epistles, and they mention sin more than any other portion of the bible. It's kinda ridiculous. I think it's from these letters that all the catholic guilt is derived.

Regardless, the whole idea of labeling a type of people as sinful seems to me to be an amazing idea. Condemning a lifestyle that is part of what people are condemns the people themselves as sinful. No matter what sins you can accomplish, you can be absolved of them... but those people, those ones over there? They ARE sin. What you can do is nothing compared to that. Think about it. The whole idea behind the teachings of "let you who is without sin cast the first stone" and how that meshes up with condemning other people who have nothing to do with your life, and obstructing them from the same rights that you enjoy. All this based on the rantings of one terribly homophobic man who was influential in building the christian church. Not the religion mind you, the Church. The idea behind it comes back to the outsider, the enemy. "Look at them, see them live in sin, see them BE sin. Just don't look too hard at me" - my hatred, my malice, my warmongering, and my greed.

Sushii.

2008-06-24T20:51:00.000-07:00

I am full. I am full of Sushi.

Very full.

I just got back from dinner with one of my room mates and her boyfriend, a designer for Pronto Games. We had a very long conversation about his work on Wii-ware and the games he's working on - most of which I probably can't post here. But... we got to talking about how to program for a six-axis controller, and by the way, anything that uses Yaw is just cool. Yaw. Heehee. Ok, so it's easiest to program for actions that use only one direction, but people always want to do the lightsaber thing with the controller. So the idea is to trick them into only using one axis, maybe two. We discussed a whole bunch of game ideas that could only use one axis... there weren't many good ones, but we came up with at least a couple:

Wii Curling

Wii Wheelchair Racing (for which you'd need two controllers)

But I think the best one he mentioned was actually pitched to Lucas Arts by one of his bosses who had an amazing affinity for: Wii Kite. A game about Kite flying. There was a story told about two of this guys' coworkers honestly talking about the project in a bar, and causing Lucas Arts guys to literally fall off of their stools. I however still think that Wii curling has some serious potential, there's bowling motions AND sweeping motions, what could be more fun?

Superannuated.

2008-06-20T14:16:00.000-07:00

I discovered something today: University keys are really heavy.

I turned in the last of my Unitrans keys today and found that the weight of those keys left on my carabiner felt foreign - funny how that works. I know a lot of what I throw up here has dealt with Unitrans, and I promise this will be the last of it.

A second discovery weighed a little heavier on me than even the missing keys: I was the oldest employee in operations, and the only one with any sense of continuity in the company. I had been driving since the spring of 2003. There were many employees who had come before me, and at least 800 hired since I was given the employee number 1386. What is unsettling is I'm not talking about only student employees. By the time our new General Manager was hired I had already been driving for a year. I sat on the new Assistant General Manager of Operations' hiring panel as the company's Human Resources Manager, and I have been working longer than the recently graduated student they hired to replace the Safety and Training Supervisor.

I was hired as a driver during the picnic day season of 2003. I missed my interview because I was busy being yelled at by the Band. I got hired anyways, thanks to the diligent and observant HRM. I drove for a year and when I reached the requisite lifetime hours for doubledeck training (500) I applied to Shop instead of route supervisor or ADT to avoid competition with many of my friends. I spent a year as a maintenance mechanic and learned plenty. I also learned that though I loved the people in shop, I hated my job. So, I applied for Supe. Got the job finally in the fall of '05. By the time spring came around I found that I had applied for the HRM position and gotten it. Oops.

I've seen 6 HRMs go by - Wilson '02-'03, Art '03-'04, Art (again) '04-'05, Roy '05-'06, Myself '06-'07, Christy '07-'08, and finally Bob '08-09. During my last few years, I surrounded myself with "old people" those who had been around too long, and we swam in a cloud of negativity. Those who stuck around for more than two years suddenly became a rare breed. They became those who had witnessed the company for all its triumphs and faults and saw the same things come and go, the same mistakes made by the student managers year after year and no one learning from it all. It was described as a slow-motion-train-wreck that many observed silently. Those who cared and tried to make changes, tried to help a company they loved met with walls and immovable career staff, leaving only bitterness for their efforts. See? Negativity. Wow. The problem is, we all loved our jobs and what we did. There were many who stuck around past their graduation for the security and comfort of the job, though it was against university policy. People always find loopholes.

Here's the thing: The actions taken by the student management aren't felt immediately, this is especially the case in HR. The time it takes to recruit, hire and train new drivers is about 4 months from start to finish with each training class before the effect is seen in service. For any noticeable effect to show up, it takes at least a year. Roy dealt with Art's mess, and delivered to me something that passed for a company, I walked into the office with high hopes and trusting my career staff, which was admittedly naive. As I dealt with driver shortages learning from my own mistakes (as there was nothing to glean wisdom from, and certainly no one to give it), I passed the torch to my replacement hopeful that my policies and hiring frenzies would support her in the role to fix what Roy's predecessor had let the company become over his two years of... well it was something even if it wasn't management. No one student manager can claim any particular achievement, and no one can point fingers at any of the student staff and say that Unitrans' failings lie on their shoulders (Even with Art, the career staff is responsible for protecting him and not holding him accountable for doing his job). The system is long standing and its progress is a long, slow, continuous affair. It is short sighted for anyone to claim otherwise. (e.g. the "creator" of a three hour Mandatory)

The problem continues, though: no one who has has the means to do anything about the smaller problems faced by student management cares enough to do it. Those who are responsible for the oversight and guidance of the students who run the whole damn thing lack the knowledge requisite of the positions they supervise. The career staff can't step out of the system and look at it objectively to pose solutions. As is evident in me being the oldest employee -career or student- on the books, they also lack the framework of continuity to see recurring problems in the system or recommend solutions that were once in place and were lost in the changeover of student staff.

I know there may be some people out there who read this and roll their eyes because this is an old issue they heard before. This is really an old symptom: "Blame the career staff because the system doesn't work properly." Much of the old career staff retired during my tenure with the company and has since been replaced. The key word there being symptom. Though there are many who don't see any problems with the way the company is currently run, the problems persist. I am writing this down so that I hopefully never have to deal with this again: I will no longer need to complain, as I will be free.

But... it's always nice to have one last rant.

A Day in the Life... Part Deux

2008-06-19T21:07:00.000-07:00

I've decided that I need to work on my attempts at subtlety. I also decided that I need to take a break from all the socio-political commentary that I'm not quite qualified to do (Then again, who out there is?). So, here's a look at what it's like to be the other part of the Awesome Route Supervisor Duo so important to the smooth, cool runnings of Unitrans.

I'm using a nifty little hand-held camera about the size of a regular digital camera, but I can't see what I'm filming when I'm filming it (hence the close ups, sorry) and it gets a little shaky sometimes. Also, I still have that problem with the word "Exciting."

70 hours of shadowing condensed into 8 minutes

War is Peace...

2008-06-18T12:50:00.000-07:00

I'm an Obama supporter and this means I'm guilty of hero worship. This is not my fist offense however, my genuflections towards George Orwell are long standing. This post stems not just from my rereading of his Notes on Nationalism cited in yesterday's post, but also from watching Terry Gilliam's amazing movie Brazil yesterday. It went sorta like this:

I had downloaded a newer version of Quicktime and was testing it out on the videos on the apple website. My roomies caught onto this and we began to watch trailers, specifically for the new movie Wall-E. The music used in the trailer is a reiteration of Michael Kamen's music written for Brazil, which of course led us right into watching the movie. Brazil is a vision of the future in an ->Orwellian Society<- encumbered by bureaucracy and technology just extended from 1984. (The year, not the novel. Though the movie is in conversation with Orwell's ideas, Brazil was released in 1985). It takes Orwell's version of the dystopian future to absurdity and confounds it with technology making for quite an enjoyable time. It made me want to read 1984 again.

So, here we are back at Orwell. My first exposure to Mr. Orwell was Animal Farm in the ninth grade. A great little allegory of historical events I hadn't studied and didn't care about. At the time I even confused the author with Orson Welles -- I was 15, I didn't know any better. Then I got the chance to read 1984 in 11th grade. Again, I didn't really care about the warnings presented against totalitarian government and it wasn't until I got to college that I reflected back on the choices of my teachers in these books to be part of my curriculum. I picked up a collection of Orwell's essays and I got caught up in his work. Not only was his political outlook on life helpful in defining my personal politics, his writing style was truly a joy to read and extremely helpful when I was trying to develop my own (I still am).

The first few essays that got me hooked on his writing were Why I Write and Politics and the English Language. The latter of which is felt heavily in 1984. A few others that I can recommend would be Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun and The Lion and the Unicorn.

Then there's the perennial favorite: A Nice Cup of Tea.

Now, Orwell was a democratic socialist, but even if you don't agree with his politics, his essays contain well crafted and convincing arguments. These arguments can provide you with a cause to think, and who doesn't need to do more of that?

RE: the Illusion of Control

2008-06-17T16:14:00.000-07:00

Bear with me, I'm new at this. Oh yeah, this is going to be a long post.

I first wanted to acknowledge something a friend said to me about my writing here. That my new favorite topic was forcing me to generalize and perpetuate stereotypes and my ranting wasn't fostering debate, it was just one sided and heavy handed. I couldn't say a whole lot in response. This whole thing is like falling off my bike as a 6 year old: I don't know that my knee is scraped until I look closely at it, and then it starts to hurt like hell. It didn't help that when I was tutoring my little brother yesterday, trying to stay one step ahead of him with polynomials (it's been a while) I looked up to see a clip my mom was watching on the 6:00 news involving marriage licenses given out to same sex couples at the Sacramento County Courthouse and featured a fellow in a black shirt with "Jesus Saves" on it screaming and yelling at people lining up to get married. The whole thing is between two types of people interpellated by two completely separate and mutually exclusive ideologies and there really can't be a debate between the two sides. I say it doesn't affect him if these two people get married, but I'm sure he believes he's held accountable for every soul he meets and doesn't save when he gets to heaven. And I thought Catholics lived with guilt...

Anyhoo, to Brillo. This guy didn't go off trying to prove a big point today, but opened the door for a lot of thought on another very touchy subject with a lot of people. Basically it boils down to the fact that gun control as a social issue should be flopped based on the lines of ideology that make up the two parties. Liberals should want more freedom, whereas the conservatives should be looking for more governmental control. He draws the issue in parallel with the war on drugs and when put in that perspective, we all look a little silly.

However, my opinion is that this parallel becomes weak when you look at the uses of these two "controlled substances" if you will, Drugs and Firearms. Narcotics and the like, hell, any drug considered a controlled substance by the government has a primary purpose of self destruction, at least when used in the capacity that it has been outlawed for. Firearms, however, are integral in the destruction of others. Firearms are often used in the infraction of the non-aggression principles so basic to Libertarian beliefs. I'm not saying all guns should be banned, I'm just saying that access to weapons seems to provide a means for people to transgress on each other's sovereign rights.

This is a big deal.

It's my opinion that the government's job is to protect its citizens, sometimes the purpose of the law is to protect citizens from themselves, well not themselves, each other. "No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him." That's our good friend Mr. Thomas Jefferson, a core tenet of libertarianism, I'm sure. Where we differ is that I think it's necessary to go an extra step to provide safety and security, not just in our nation but throughout the world.

The other side of arms control is arms proliferation, a crime our country is guilty of. I've got plenty to say on the matter, and instead of re-write it, I'm going to include a paper I wrote last year some time, on small arms proliferation and the U.S. (Remember, I have degrees in music and geology, not poli-sci or philosophy) Bear with me though this has relevance to the issue... at least I'm convinced it does.

Shooting Ourselves in the Foot: Weapons Proliferation and the United States

The United States currently leads a wide range of international efforts addressing many aspects of small arms proliferation and control. The U. S. government works closely with the United Nations to regulate and control exports of small arms, as well as combat illegal trafficking of small arms and light weapons. Government officials however, walk a fine diplomatic line when dealing with weapons proliferation and control in foreign policy, making sure that it is not confused with domestic policy. As assistant secretary of state Lincoln P. Bloomfield Jr. stated in a foreword to the state department’s policy and views on small arms proliferation: “The U.S. approach focuses on practical, effective measures to address the problem of illicit small arms and light weapons trafficking in conflict regions where it is most urgent, while acknowledging the legitimacy of legal trade, manufacture, and ownership of arms.”

Although the U.S has taken great strides to control proliferation of small arms and explosives, our efforts have remained largely ineffective. Warlords still reign over developing nations, armed with weapons caches left over from the cold war. Regimes rise in third world countries and commit genocide because generals can arm their soldiers with weapons bought and sold on the black market. Terrorist organizations wreak havoc in the industrialized world using arms and explosives, without which, their actions would remain unnoticed. There is no doubt that the proliferation of small arms and light weapons plagues society on a global scale. If the developed western world is going to focus on halting weapons proliferation in developing nations, “in conflict regions where it is most urgent,” the United States needs to be the first in line. To do so with any means of effectiveness, however, we need to first control weapons proliferation sanctioned by our own government and within our own borders; otherwise our actions can spawn resentment and create a backlash among those who would see us as hypocritical.

The U.S. efforts at halting proliferation of small arms and explosives remain ineffective, not because our efforts are under funded, but because the United States is responsible, both directly and indirectly, for weapons proliferation on many different levels. Our domestic politics and policies on gun control, or lack thereof, force us to hinder the U.N. in any conference in which we are involved. Our foreign policies have even greater consequences: the U.S. has a history of providing arms to countries for political purposes only to have those arms redistributed into conflict zones. This, combined with the fundamental failure to control weapons proliferation within our own borders contradicts every step the United Nations take to stop weapons proliferation. In order for the United States to become an upstanding citizen of the international community, we need to address these problems, set an example in policy and action focused on stopping small arms proliferation.

Since the inception of the United Nations, the United States has had an enormous amount of clout with global policy as a permanent member of the Security Council. Where weapons proliferation is concerned, however, our great influence is less than ideal. In July, 2001, the U.N. met in a conference which was to serve as a launching point for agreements on regulations in weapons tracing, arms brokerage, small arms export criteria as well as humanitarian consequences of unregulated small arms proliferation. The U.S. delegation to this conference, though add odds with our allies and the majority in attendance, succeeded in weakening the outcome of the conference, placing the agenda of the Bush administration over international arms control. The administration wanted to avoid perception that the U.N. and other countries could influence U.S. policies and laws on weapons possessions and transfers, and worked to placate gun lobbyists in Washington, arguing adamantly against proposals for international standards for civilian gun ownership (Stohl, 2001). In fact, the U.S. was at odds with many African States in the conference, refusing to admit any language involving “restrictions on civilian weapons possession and sales to non-state actors.” This topic was of greatest importance to stopping arms trafficking in many sub-Saharan conflict regions. Those African nations involved were bullied by the U.S. into leaving out any controls, and were cowed in an effort to agree on and conclude the conference. (Stohl, 2001).

Even when the United States and the United Nation’s interests align, U.S. involvement can prove counterproductive. As recently as this last year, in contradiction to the sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council –sanctions made at the request of the U.S.- the U.S. assisted Ethiopia in purchasing military equipment from embargoed North Korea (Gordon and Mazzetti, 2007). The U.S. allowed the arms delivery due to the fact that Ethiopia is in the midst of a conflict with Islamic extremists in Somalia. The Bush administration’s compromise in the arms deal resulted from a clash of foreign policy: an unyielding commitment to fight Islamic radicalism vs. keeping North Korea from any means to develop a nuclear weapons program. The U.S. allowed more weapons into an already beleaguered conflict zone even at the cost of providing resources to a state known to be developing weapons of mass destruction. The Security Council was never even officially notified of the deal and the U.N. took no action (Gordon and Mazzetti, 2007). This incident is not the first time the U.S. has compromised its goals and those of the U.N.. In 2002, a Spanish vessel intercepted a shipment of North Korean weapons bound for Yemen. The Bush administration was working with the Yemen government at the time to out members of Al Qaeda within the country, and asked for the shipment to be released (Gordon and Mazzetti, 2007).

In the past, U.S. foreign policy has had a great deal to do with weapons proliferation in the Middle East and Africa, but very little to do with arms control. During the cold war, the U.S. poured millions of dollars of arms and equipment in third world countries using them as proxy battlefields with communism. The most successful of these was considered to be the Afghan war with the Soviet Union in which the CIA dumped millions into arming and training militias of guerillas in how to fight a global superpower on their doorstep. The U.S. was also involved in the military buildup of Iraq, as declassified in the Iraq Weapons Declaration of December 2002. The U.S. dealt not only in a key role of building Iraq’s weapons program but also flooded the country with small arms and support for its war against Iran. The details behind U.S. foreign policy and its recent “blowback” is beyond the scope of this paper, a country will reap what it sows. What is more concerning is the U.S.’s complicity in the human cost of arms proliferation. There is no better stage to demonstrate this than the Horn of Africa.

Throughout recent history the U.S. has had its hand in the conflicts involving the countries on the North-eastern coast of Africa, most importantly Ethiopia and Somalia. During the cold war, much like in Iraq and Afghanistan, the horn of Africa was a battlefield for the U.S. interests. Ethiopia developed a pro-soviet regime, known as the Dergue, which was backed with Cuban military support. This forced the U.S. to back the Somali Dictator, Siad Barre who was at war with Ethiopia to protect the Red sea shipping lanes and keep them free for capitalist interests. Control of Red Sea meant political power in the region. Between 1983 and 1988 the U.S. backed the Somali government, pouring weapons and resources into the demolished and impoverished country (Rockwell 2003). Siad Barre’s regime grew more repressive and corrupt and finally the United States had to withdraw its support due to his deplorable record for violating human rights. Barre was soon deposed in 1991 and replaced with a band of lawless warlords. All of the weapons, ammunition and resources the U.S. had donated to the conflict were now being used to repress the people of Somalia who had no government to turn to. Military intervention in the country, in the form of a peacekeeping mission in 1992 turned into disaster and resulted in the deaths of 18 special forces and ended with the U.S. turning it’s back on the country. That is, Bush administration officials found Somalia was becoming a foothold for Islamist extremists. Recently the CIA came under fire providing arms and support to the warlords of Somalia in an effort to oust jihadist militias loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts. The United States, regardless of secrecy, was fueling further conflict in the region, by backing the some of same warlords it fought in 1993. (Motlagh, 2006). Somalia is a country depleted of its resources and broken by warfare, but it is still saturated with U.S. weaponry.

Though the U.S. government is responsible for direct distribution of small arms and light weapons to the third world, the country as a whole is indirectly responsible for the impotency of arms control policies in the U.S. and abroad. The U.S. has not only a political interest invested in global proliferation of small arms; economically we are both the largest single importer and exporter of small arms in the world (Gabelnick et al. 2006). In fact, the U.S. exports more weapons than all other countries combined (Rockwell, 2003). Just as a pesticide company is economically invested indirectly in spreading poisons into irrigation systems, so to is America invested in the arms trade. Arms traffic may be profitable for weapons manufacturers and exporters in the U.S, such as Lockheed Martin, but produce financial burden on third world nations. As opposed to loans for genuine capital investment, which may help to improve a country and its economy and pay back a loan, loans for military investments deplete local resources and generate debts and inflation, regardless of low interest rates. The U.S.’s economic investment in the arms trade throws us in opposition with any effort at halting weapons proliferation as long as there is a demand for the weapons industry, and the industry itself isn’t held accountable for their products by our government.

The United States is invested ideologically in weapons as well. Americans love guns. We do, no matter the cost. [I can't link The Economist article because it's premium content (subscription required) so I'm going to quote it] :

The tragedies of Virginia Tech—and Columbine, and Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, where five girls were shot at an Amish school last year—are not the full measure of the curse of guns. More bleakly terrible is America's annual harvest of gun deaths that are not mass murders: some 14,000 routine killings committed in 2005 with guns, to which must be added 16,000 suicides by firearm and 650 fatal accidents (2004 figures). Many of these, especially the suicides, would have happened anyway: but guns make them much easier. Since the killing of John Kennedy in 1963, more Americans have died by American gunfire than perished on foreign battlefields in the whole of the 20th century.

Grater restrictions and gun laws are made impassable because of the gun lobbyists and the National Rifle Association enshrining our “god-given rights” to bear arms. The gun culture in the U.S. plays an incredible role in politics and keeps politicians worried about the “gun vote.” Universal gun control policies, like those that have developed in Britain and other countries may not be necessary to stop weapons proliferation, though any step towards domestic gun control is seen as infringing on our rights. Our god given rights to manufacture arms and distribute them to people who can’t wait to kill each other? Under the current administration, the Assault Weapon ban put in place by the previous president has been allowed to lapse. Politicians are afraid to take a firm stance on controlling the sales and distribution of arms, even at a domestic level for fear of falling from grace with a specific constituency. Without domestic control of our own weapons, attempting to fight arms proliferation on a global scale can be likened to treating a head wound while ignoring a severed artery, both can be lethal but one is much more certain than the other. The problem of global arms proliferation starts in America.

The connection between these problems with weapons proliferation is the unifying problem of accountability. The United States government cannot be held accountable for the atrocity of its actions by any standard of international law. The U.N., and any resolution it makes requires enforcement by the Security Council, on which the U.S. holds the power to veto any measure it finds unsuitable. Weapons manufacturers and exporters will not be held accountable for their actions by a government that relies on them to fuel proxy conflicts around the globe, and the U.S. populace cannot be held accountable for its apathy towards global issues of murder and genocide when yearly gun related deaths within our own country rival those of any conflict zone. The United States government, however fearless of judicial retaliation for disregarding international law, is still accountable to its citizens. The educated electorate of America is the party accountable for U.S. foreign policy, economic entrenchment in weapons trade, and lack of domestic gun control policies. It is our responsibility to hold our government to its own standards and the morals it champions, and we cannot turn a blind eye to its actions. I will lean on Orwell’s argument from his essay Notes on Nationalism: “Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage – torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians – which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by “our” side.” Ignorance of the issue is no excuse, Orwell goes on to say: “The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.” Any change that is to come about in global politics regarding arms control must start with the United States changing its stance on arms proliferation, so as not to acknowledge “the legitimacy of legal trade, manufacture, and ownership of arms.” If any change is going to be made on the matter, our government must be held accountable to its citizens for the actions taken in their names.

Whew. Ok, you still with me after all of that? Wow. Anyways, I think the paradox that Brillo brought up about guns being a social issue between the two parties, and their positions being swapped, isn't really a social issue. It's an economic one, a regulation of an industry. That's why the right (read: gun lobby) is so adamant against gun control, there's money to be made. They've just dragged the issue through the mud and dragged every shotgun toting fellow on that famed "beer track" along for the ride, citing inalienable rights and that guns are part of our culture, as much as apple pie and Tennessee whiskey. If you read through my liberal drivel and pleas for conscience and morality, you'll see an amazing source of revenue available. Money always makes politics more interesting.

What about the Barleywine-track?

2008-06-16T15:52:00.000-07:00

Forgive me father, for I'm an elitist.

I can't shake the feeling that I'm fitting into some stereotype or another that has negative connotations to much of society. I don't have cable television in my house, or network television for that matter, our T.V. isn't hooked up to any outside source. I'm convinced television news programs are meant to sow despair and fear, and play on ignorance. Granted, there is PBS, but it doesn't quite make up for Fox News. To continue with public broadcasting, I think the only time the radio in my car has left NPR over the last two or three years is when my room-mate drives it and leaves it on a country station. I get my news from various sources published on the internet, independently verified between them all so I can take as much bias off of what I'm fed, and get as many facets to the story as possible. Thanks to some well informed friends, I now read The Economist to get the 'how and why' to compliment the 'what, when, where' I get from news sources.

My studies in college have left me with a taste for classical music as well as Jazz. I've worked as a band director so I listen to music with 'composer' listed with it instead of 'artist' I don't listen to pop radio anymore, though I'm continually discovering new music.

I'm a complete snob about beer and drink microbrew. I started my life after high school in Deutschland for a few months and it had irreparable effects on my taste in beer and in, well, political outlook and standard of living.

Oh yeah, I have a Mac.

I don't hold those who don't share my views in contempt, but I feel that there's been a stigma associated with the way I live and the way I think. When the media started going off about the "Beer track" and the "wine track" to describe different types of voters I didn't think too much about it, but the more I did, the more upset I got. The terms are completely divisive, especially when coupled with the ideas that those on the "wine track" are aloof, or labeled "brainy liberals." Labeled brainy to be viewed as a derogatory term. Are we in high school? Is not-thinking really an activity Americans prefer? Are the 'kitchen-table-beer-drinking-voters' relieved of their civic duty to make informed decisions as to how their country is to be run? This comes back to my gripe that what's 'American' is shifted very far to the right of center. Very little separates the 'beer track' of the democratic party from the "solid south" of the Roosevelt era, except that region is no longer held by Democrats and is now motivated to vote based on religion. (I swear I'll come up with something else to write about, really). Anyhoo, watch out for those crazy liberals, they might start doing things like thinking, and lord knows what trouble that might stir up.

I'd like to think of something witty to end this post, but I have to go help my brother with his math homework, and take my dad to dinner. Mostly cause I'm a bad son and didn't do so yesterday. No, wait, I think I've got it. I'll take a quote I've heard spouted by my favorite Wookiee a time or two before. One by the historian Charles Beard:

"It is sobering to reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence."

Prost!

Credo in...

2008-06-15T13:18:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's the catholic education I received and all the masses and liturgies I was forced to attend, maybe it was the canon of sacred music I was required to study as a musicology student, but the word Credo holds a certain weight for me. I wanted to take the time to clarify what I meant by believe on Friday's post. I would have done it yesterday but I was a bit too busy graduating from college.

What I meant to say is that Evangelical Christians, those who make up the majority of the Religious Right, are defined by their beliefs. They believe in the inerrancy of the bible and allow their religious beliefs to dictate their outlook on life. Their beliefs leave no room for doubt or inquisition as to how or why they should believe what they do and go forth zealously secure in their truths.

What I did not mean to insinuate is that I don't believe, though the title of my blog lends an Atheistic tint to my writing. There's plenty that I believe in:

I believe in gravity. I take great comfort in the idea that there's an invisible force that is keeping me from flying off of the surface of the Earth, an earth that I don't know is round. I've never actually seen it from space, only pictures and what people tell me, but I take it on faith that they're telling me the truth and that all this is real.I can test this when I jump up and come right back down.

I believe in the power of faith and what it can do for a community. I've seen people come together based on religious beliefs and do great humanistic things. Charity, community service, great artistic works devoted to their faith and their God. People are capable of amazingly creative and altruistic feats when they put their minds to it and are motivated by their religious beliefs.

I also believe in the danger and destructive power of organized religion. As creative and altruistic as people can be, they possess the same capacity for malice and destruction, especially when allowed to do so in the name of religion. Instead of professing tolerance and the need for humane treatment of our neighbors, organized religion has been responsible for using the cover of 'god's will' to excuse spreading fear and xenophobia, horrendous acts and countless wars.

Because of the above, I believe in a secular state, a government that is free of religion, though not amoral. A state that bases its actions on humanistic principles. I believe that our government should do everything in its power to alleviate poverty and use taxed monies to provide education to all of its citizens; an education that provides the means for citizens to think for themselves and freely critique society. I believe in a government for the people, funny, where have I heard that before?

I believe in many things strongly, but my own religious faith is weak. I'm closer to those nanzi-panzy agnostics than I am to a true christian. Then again, the idea of a "true christian" is so foreign to this country that I really couldn't give you an example. I can try: one who follows the teachings of Christ to the best of his ability and is tolerant of any and all other ways of life, one who is charitable and does good works for the betterment of society. Then again, this definition runs contrary to many Christians that I've butted heads with over the years, so maybe I'm wrong.

I also believe it's time to wrap this up, and to do so I'll tie this all back to science, the new religion sweeping the land. One based on proof, and not on faith. I'll take out one of my favorite quotes, from the father of modern science, Galileo Galilei:

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."

Puritans and Patriots

2008-06-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

I found an answer to the question I asked in the last post as to how the Religious Right has come to affect our political discourse as a country so completely. I'm going to lift a story directly from the comments section of the Crises of Faith article I linked in the last post. This was written by a commenter going by the witty handle of Prophet Aftertax:

Anyone who asserts that the colonists comprised people who wished to escape persecution is envisioning only half of them.

There have always been two ideological strands in America. In the beginning were Puritans and Patriots. The Puritans, who arrived first, didn't want to break with the mother country so much as establish Christian colonies of it there. The Patriots sought to leave the homeland and establish a new government based on Enlightenment principles.

The Puritans were adverse to the idea of establishing government, especially self-government: as strict Christians their worldview was based on a monarchical, theocratic model. Politically, they weren't seeking to change things, and hence were "conservatives". The Patriots, on the other hand, sought to end tyranny and establish self-rule on the basis of the principles of human dignity and equality. Focused on liberty, they were radical "liberals".

Neither of these strands has ever gone away; rather, they have evolved. Each of them has endured periods of relative strength and dormancy in the ensuing decades. Clearly, for example, the liberal Enlightenment Patriot strand was dominant from FDR's administration through Carter's and the conservative Christian Puritan strand has been dominant since the Reagan administration.

Today, the followers of the Puritans are our "religious right conservatives" and the followers of the Patriots our "left-leaning liberals". Generally, those with Puritannical orientation favor religion and don't trust government, and those of a Patriotic bent trust government and don't favor religion. This follows from their roots. You can see where present-day Puritans instinctively want to return to those roots (faith-based initiatives, the unitary executive idea, inserting Creationism into schools, keeping the size of government to an absolute minimum, home schooling), as well as present day Patriots (separation of church and state, enforcing balance of power, supporting science over religion, public programs and common causes).

The recent right-wing religious fervor has been widely noted as "the New Puritanism". The Puritans were not, and are not, seeking to escape religious persecution. They are the religious persecutors. It was the Patriots and their modern-day counterparts that sought and seek to evade and eliminate religious persecution--including by inclusion of Creationist materials in public school textbooks.

The genius of the Founders lies in the way they constructed a system of compromise, checks and balances that allows each side expression, and virtually guarantes that neither side can hold a permanent advantage. The present danger is that political ideologues have been attempting dismantle the Founders' system (the "permanent Republican majority", and idea which would be just as dangerous if it was the "permanent Democratic majority").

This is a gross oversimplification of the situation, intended only to put things in perspective. The main point is that we have a healthy, dynamic, yin-yang situation that, despite challenges, is not likely to go away.

American Theocracy and the rise of a "Christian Nation"

2008-06-13T08:32:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try something that may be a bit hackneyed, the idea of discussing politics or religion in a blog... actually both at the same time. I don't claim to know a goddamned thing about political theory, or economics, I went to school for six years to earn degrees in Music and Geology and had little time to explore other classes. But... there's always a but... I still have opinions that I want to express and some questions that could do with a few answers.

I was first drawn into this when I came across Brillo's posts about McCain's video interviews with Beliefnet and I got a little sad. Well, more than a little. I don't often put much thought into politics, seeing as I'm too wrapped up in my life to figure out how any of it affects me. However, this is an executive election year, so politics are at the forefront of the national consciousness. The problem is, I don't understand the huge differences in social politics and the disjunction between social and economic politics in the republican party. I don't understand the 'Religious Right' and how it has come to affect our political spectrum so incredibly. I mean to say that a large enough portion of our nation's electorate identifies in some way with this group that our politics are skewed heavily in that direction.

Social politics seem to be the only issues for most people I've run into who claim to be republicans. People will say "I'm conservative" and that's that. They don't mean they're fiscally conservative, or for smaller government, the traditional sense of the 'Right.' In fact they're really in it for the opposite: a government that dictates what we do in our lives and how we do it. This is because these types of conservatives believe. That's what they do best. They believe themselves to be the "values voters" of America. They believe that the government's role is to cultivate virtue. What's more, they believe that there are moral absolutes, binary issues that are either right or wrong. Because of this, litigating things like school curriculum (I.D. and prayer), overturning Roe v. Wade and amending the constitution to ban gay marriage come to the forefront of social politics where in any other democratic country (Western Europe) bringing up the idea of limiting social liberties based on the beliefs of a "moral majority" would get you laughed out of parliament.

I don't know how this happened, how our political system was hijacked and the spectrum of political discourse was shifted so far to the right. My only postulation is that those who engineered this amazing political ploy found a way to tie their values to those of simple, small town America. Mayberry, Middleton, whatever you want to call it. I read a book recently called The Averaged American, by Sarah Igo. It wasn't a particularly amazing read but it did bring plenty to light on how Americans perceive themselves. She posits that there's the public, and "the public," the latter being something created in the minds of Americans: an image of the normal, average, everyday "American." The Right capitalizes on this idea, citing American values and telling people that some actions are "un-American"

So, this post was started by a statement that "America is a Christian Nation." Here's an edited video of the entirety of beliefnet's interview with McCain, the link with context is mentioned above.

Here's the other side of the issue, which makes me feel a little better, and provides me with a little faith in Humanity.

Just think a little harder as to what a real Christian nation could look like: something a little more like this.

A Day in the Life...

2008-06-09T22:27:00.000-07:00

I got to work for 10.4 hours today. During finals service. With nothing going on. At all. Nothing.

I knew this was coming, so I brought my computer and decided to record my day, as it was my last string of DS shifts ever. I work as a Route Supervisor for Unitrans, when I'm not working at the high school, that is. There's a lot of jargon in the video, sorry, comes with the territory. I certainly entertained myself with this project, hopefully it's a little more entertaining to watch than the life sized portion of it. Also, I apologize for my vocabulary, apparently my available adjectives are reduced to "exciting," "fun," and "awesome," whenever the damned camera is on.

With special appearances by:

Zach Padilla - RS

Shane Park - Shane

City Map - My best friend

Bob Snyder - Column 28

Nick Werner - Column 22

Feliz Esguerra - Column 4

Kayla Krause - Column 5

Cynthia Tolentino - Col 37

J. Gardenhoser - Col 23

Doanne Nguyen - Col 25

Tape Measurer - Life Saving Distraction

Stephanie Bush - Steph

Nova Maldonado - Human contact

You can't drink beer from a gold watch...

2008-06-06T10:48:00.000-07:00

Sunday, I received a longevity award for putting 6000 hours in at Unitrans.

6000 hours is 8.5 months of straight 24 hour days.

It's also just over 3 years working full time (40 hours a week).

6000 hours @ $8.75 -my base driving wage in 2006, without any longevity increases, and not including any of the other supervisory positions- is about $52,500 (most likely it's closer to 60k, and I don't know where it all went)

It's also about 1/10th of all my life since coming to Davis,

10% of all my time since Fall, 2002; eating, sleeping, playing with the band, goofing off, going to class... 10% is on the books at Unitrans.

To recognize this, they gave me a 6 pint pitcher with a Uni Logo on it.

Cheers!

Slippery precipice, not even a slope.

2008-06-05T22:53:00.000-07:00

This is a bit embarrassing. I might start uploading videos here.

Wouldn't that be a little silly, with my goals of improving my writing and all. But there's some pull... some terrible attraction and I may be approaching the event horizon.

I'm trying out the features of the site to see if they work. If I do this again, it will have content I deem important, and I won't be all mumbly and stuff.