The American Antecedents of the Trayvon Martin Tragedy

I don’t think there’s much I can add to what’s already been said on the terrible tragedy that occurred to Trayvon Martin in Florida, but there was a disturbing parallel that immediately came to mind when I heard about what had happened, and that his killer was still free.

As I have mentioned before, I am reading Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass with my students, and in Chapter IV, Douglass details the gruesome shooting of a man named Demby by (the aptly named) Mr. Gore, an overseer. According to Douglass:

His horrid crime was not even submitted to judicial investigation . . . the guilty perpetrator of one of the bloodiest and most foul murders goes unwhipped of justice, and uncensured by the community in which he lives. Mr. Gore lived in St. Michael’s, Talbot county, Maryland, when I left there; and if he is still alive, he very probably lives there now; and if so, he is now, as he was then, as highly esteemed and as much respected as though his guilty soul had not been stained with his brother’s blood.

I speak advisedly when I say this,—that killing a slave, or any colored person, in Talbot county, Maryland, is not treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community.”

Douglass then gives another gruesome example, of a slaveholder’s wife who beat a girl to death:

“Mrs. Hicks, finding the girl slow to move, jumped from her bed, seized an oak stick of wood by the fireplace, and with it broke the girl’s nose and breastbone, and thus ended her life. I will not say that this most horrid murder produced no sensation in the community. It did produce sensation, but not enough to bring the murderess to punishment. There was a warrant issued for her arrest, but it was never served. Thus she escaped not only punishment, but even the pain of being arraigned before a court for her horrid crime.”

Douglass spoke from a moment in our history over 150 years ago, but the profound wound of a societally accepted injustice and brutality still stings today.

The difference today is that the outcry that has been rightfully raised has been loud enough to prompt a federal investigation into the shooting. For more on how awareness on the case was raised, read deeper into the MotherJones article.

President Obama said “if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” demonstrating just how critically important it is to have a leader who can understand and speak directly to those long suffering under a history of oppression, and further demonstrating how today is different than Douglass’ day.

But rightwing punditry backlash against Obama’s commiseration with Martin’s parents demonstrates, on the other hand, just how mired in racial tension we remain.

To pretend that race has nothing to do with this case is to ignore our own history.

Some things have changed, but some things remain the same.

TED Talk on ‘Filter Bubbles’ in Internet Information

Why Teachers Like Me Support Unions

I meant to post this yesterday, in order to show my EDUSolidarity, but WordPress was having some issues and I couldn’t log on to finish it. Well, better late then never.

As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, when I first entered the field of education, I was skeptical of unions, but was coming to appreciate the protection from short-sighted policy and budgetary broadsides that a union affords. One of the benefits of the events in Wisconsin is that it has served as a clarifying point to many people like me who may have been on the fence or uncertain about their support for unions. It forced me to examine whether I really supported the collective bargaining rights of a union, as well as to consider more broadly whether I felt the field of education might even be better with the power of unions subverted. As I considered these issues, I realized that the tactic which Republicans and businessmen were calling for was not surprising, given the values of management and capitalists in general, but that it brought to the forefront a major issue with untrammeled access of private interests in public education. Education in our country is based on the ideals of a working democracy, and if we can’t handle the messy debates and political process that such democracy entails via a system of checks and balances, then we will be cutting out the legs from under the efforts of education reform, even as it might momentarily appear that we would be gaining greater efficiency.

Simply because our economy is suffering due to misguided policies that benefit the wealthy few does not mean that we should begin slicing away at the very foundations of our democracy. The Economist is heralding the demise of unions, and they sound so eminently reasonable, don’t they? Problem is, they’ve forgotten that they are discussing real human lives in their equations.

Unfortunately, our society likes to pay lip service to our soldiers, our teachers, our firemen, our policemen, etc. But if the issue is ever broached that we would have to raise taxes to pay for those essential services, everybody clams up. And they hide away in their protective ideologies and behind their pacifying Fox news blather and tantalizing talk show hate radio. I don’t care what the situation with the economy is. We should NEVER cut essential services such as education or social services in our budgets. Because those services are the cornerstone of a functioning democracy, and when we cut those services, we cut into the lives of those members of our society who need them the most. We can talk about accountability, sure! I’m all for it. I’ve seen too many of those federal and state dollars go to waste sitting in a closet. We need to invest that money smarter and track the effects of contracted programs in districts. Definitely! But should we be laying off teachers, subverting the roles of unions, and eliminating some of the few incentives and protections that teachers have in a highly challenging role that produces a product (competent students and citizens) that is of utmost value?

We need unions to protect the interests not only of teachers, but of the children who are raised in poverty. When we cut services or diminish rights in the interest of efficiency or economic duress, we cut directly into those children’s lives. Unions serve to balance the power of government and private interests. That doesn’t mean unions are saints or that I agree with all their policies or organizational structure. It means that I believe unions are a necessary counterbalance to bring the interests of various stakeholders to the bargaining table.

Must See Daily Show Snippets on Education

Interview with Diane Ravitch

Jon Stewart on Teachers and Wall Street

Happy B-Day, Me!

Well, I’ve hit the big 3-2! I don’t feel old at all. I’m tired, but that’s just cuz I work my ass off. I’m pretty healthy (excepting the secret cancer I’m convinced is invisibly eating away at my soul), since I’ve kept any vices I’ve had so far in check. For example, I once became somewhat enamoured with cigarettes (Kamel Red Lights) when I was in college, really just because it was something to do at parties, but I would always get to this point where one day they would suddenly taste incredibly disgusting, and I would quit for a few weeks before I started up again (due to the desperate need to keep myself looking occupied even when having nothing interesting to say). This kept me from ever getting dependent on them. This is how it’s been for most things in my life. Before I ever become dependent on something, I have some innate need to reject it and switch things up.

The only thing I’ve become dependent upon is my fiancee. She is there for me, doing all kinds of things to ensure that I am on track physically and mentally, such that she really knows me better than I know myself in some ways. I’m notoriously absent minded, so she helps me take care of some of the things I need to take care of (God, I sincerely hope I’m not succumbing to early Alzheimer’s!) only becoming exasperated with me on a bi-daily basis. She puts up with my need to zone out on my computer when I crawl home to escape from the grind of my stressful work life, and she endures my proclivity towards moodiness and reclusiveness. She continually assumes the best in me and keeps trying to engage me in discussions of things I have not the slightest bit of interest in. She cooks amazing meals for me every week, which I happily shovel down my gullet without comment. She sort of endures my neverending supply of gaseous emissions. (But I would like to formally and publicly log the complaint that she steadfastedly refuses to fix me an alcoholic beverage, pack the nargile, or give me a back massage.)

I never would have foreseen myself making my living here in this vast and alien city of New York, not in a million years. But here I am, pushing myself beyond any expectations I would have once set for myself. I was once a shy, introverted, pimply-faced narcissistic simpleton with a tendency to write grandiose and bellicose ramblings. Well, the narcissism, the grandioseness, and the bellicose ramblings still continue, but otherwise this San Diegan native son has made some progress. I’m alright with my age, I’m alright with where I am in life spiritually, mentally, physically, and otherwise. As far as I’m concerned, life just keeps getting better.

My aim is to never get stale, to never be complacent, to always keep growing and pushing myself and developing. The good news is that no one has ever discovered my amazing talent and thus I’ve never become overexposed and drained by stardom and fame. Lucky me! And lucky you, dear reader! I’ll continue to jissom out random blog posts into the night with the absolute guarantee that not many people will ever read them (aside from all the folks that do searches for guns and stumble upon my most famous post of all time, on my grandfather’s gun collection). But that’s what makes people like you and me so special. We’re not verified and vindicated by the status quo. We’re deviant simply by the nature of our anonymity, by the fact that even though we are quite certain that we are geniuses in our own right, we will never be officially sanctioned and recognized and blessed by any archdeacons of societal norms and powers.

On this day, 32 years ago, I managed to get pulled out of my mother’s belly via C-section. Please, don’t congratulate me for this accomplishment. It really didn’t take much effort. Honestly, I should be sending a card and monetary gifts to the doctor that performed that operation, as well as to my mother, of course, for having nurtured and grown me to the point of my individual conception. Thanks mom. I should probably also send a card to the nurse whose face I pissed upon as I was cleansed of birthing blood.

In other words, I didn’t really do much to get to this point of time. I’ve just been coasting along via the pathways of the inevitable, headlong push of gravity, with some intervening forces of human benefaction along the way. Thanks, universe! Thanks, humanity!

Appreciating Social Media

Envision the following scenario: you’re sitting around the waterhole with fellow colleagues and someone mentions their Facebook account, and one person says, “Huh, Facebook! Why would I want to post a bunch of shit that no one needs to know” etcetera, and then another person says “Hear, hear!”, and then another person says they’ve deleted their Facebook/MySpace account because they are so over it, and everyone sits there shaking their head at what unknown tragic end this world is coming to . . .

This seems to be kind of a common theme with some people in general–even those who utilize social media–you know, this deep-seated urge to bitch about how evil social networking is. Some kind of strange shame or guilt about posting things about yourself online or looking at other people’s info online, or something. You’ll see it in the news: the deleterious effects of the internet and how you can’t trust what is posted on-line, and how someone has been fired from their job because of a comment made on Twitter, ad nauseam.

But stop. Just stop for a minute, and think about the big picture here. Scan your brain back to 10 years ago, if you’ve been around for that long. Remember how we used to base all of our understanding of the wider world solely on the newspapers and TV? Well now scan back to now. Now, if you are savvy and Twitterized and blog literate and Facebooked and Buzzed and what have you–well, you keep up with the news of your friends and sorta friends and remote acquaintances and people you went to high school with and so forth. You see that Belinda over in New Mexico has just betrothed and has a new collection of abstract art viewable on Flickr, and you see that Zachary from your workplace is blitzed in Puerto Rico and that your cousin has a hamster that is sick and that girl from across the street that you thought was kind of cute is having her third kid, and so on and so forth. In other words, we are slowly converting over to getting our news from where it should be gotten from: from our friends.

It may be trivial and superficial and irrelevant and narcissistic and voyeuristic and all that, but . . . well, that’s what it is if that’s who we are.

Because we can still get the serious stuff from the newspapers or Google news when we need it. For all the rest of it–it’s just human nature converted into modern technology, now, ain’t it?

Fighting Climate Change Through Prevention

In this article in the NY Times, analysts correctly ascertain that climate change could result in threats to national interest. What is sad about this form of analysis–which as, of course, the FOXNews reporting eagerly highlights (Climate Change Could Warrant U.S. Military Action)–is the reactive mentality that this lends to the debate about policy and strategy. Instead of talking about methods of combating climate change in terms of establishing carbon emission reducing policies, funding ‘green’ technologies, and mitigation of climate change in those areas most affected, war hawks eagerly begin anticipating increasing weapons cachets and military budgets. But what good will it do to send in troops to areas devastated by climate change? That’s like trying to staunch a wound with a toothpick. The only effective measures we can take to address the potential threats to U.S. interests and security from climate change will be preventative: through policy, funding, and diplomacy. And that must happen now, not later.

My $.02 On Health Care Reform

Health care reform. Does it need to happen?  Is it going to happen? Does it require an inclusive public health insurance option? God yes. Depends on your idea of reform. And yes.

This is a sticky issue that has been largely avoided by politicians who don’t want to tango with sticky issues. Props to Mrs. Clinton for even attempting it years ago, back when it should have been done. President Obama has elected to tackle it head on, and the issue has punctured his seeming political invincibility. But one cannot dock him points for giving it an honest effort. He could just sit back on his ranch and pretend that allowing the status quo to continue is the right thing for all Americans, not just the top 5%.

It’s amazing how much debate there even is revolving around the issue of public health coverage. Apparently the reality has been rendered so opaque to analysis that many a folk appears to have missed the obvious: that national health care coverage needs to be as universal as possible, or else all public health, both nationally and globally, is endangered. That’s the reality. Now the other reality at the moment, politically speaking, is how do we pay for it. But to me, at least, the answer to this is also clear: we need to tax the rich and use that money to cover public health insurance. The poor have never been able to afford health insurance. That’s why they go to the ER and make the public pay for it anyway. And the middle class can no longer afford health insurance either. Why? Because it’s big business. Health care is a luxury in this country. But public health can not be relegated to luxury/big business status. If we do not cover the majority of the population, then all of the population is put in grave danger due to outbreaks of disease. Evolved microbes do not recognize class distinctions.

A sidebar on “middle class”: apparently, the President seems to consider households that make below $250,000 a year to be “middle class”. I’m sorry, but if your household is making that much, then you are not middle class. You are doing just fine. You should be paying higher taxes so that the rest of us can get health care.

A Tribute to MJ

I made some offhand comments a few posts back which were disparaging about Mr. Jackson, and I want to temper them with positive stuff, because he is, after all, the figurehead of pop culture in a truly global sense. Let’s be honest: the dude was kind of weird. But so has been most every other pop cultural icon, and no other has been as big as Michael Jackson. The man was a live wire dancer, electrically consumed, filled with spectacular light and fizz and energy. His performances were his gift to the world.

He became an almost hermaphroditic figure, sphinx-like in his crumbling plastered facade. As strange as he may have been, though, there was always something remotely accessible about him, something tangibly innocent and pure. The child-like joy that he conveyed through his dancing and high-pitched squeals of singing glee resonates with us all. Whatever we may think about his personal existence, no one can deny the appeal of Michael Jackson the pop artist. Not even himself. He didn’t seem capable of creating an inner persona that could exist outside of his own legend.

But his struggle with identity is the struggle of any artist that has grown up with fame. It ruins and ravages people, and that is the sap and succor of the tabloid gossip hounds. I don’t believe that he ever molested children or that he had any interest in doing so. Number one, because he has never been convicted in a court of law, which in this country is supposed to mean that he is innocent of all charges. Number two, because I think he truly loved children, just as he loved the child within himself. His work with charities for children should speak for itself. He was a sensitive soul, and the tragedy of Michael Jackson was perhaps the tragedy of being surrounded by unscrupulous people who took advantage of him.

In any case, the man is gone, leaving behind a legacy that can no longer be tarnished or sullied by anyone anymore. His music will live on, just as he knew it would. And we will continue to listen to his best songs, over and over again, and they will never get old.

New Paradigm

You may have noted that I have been relatively quiet on the political/news front as of late, mostly because I don’t have any free time anymore, but furthermore because I think that most of the events, such as Obama’s inauguration, speak for themselves and we are all somewhat inspired and hopeful for the future, finally. But there are a few things that I want to say about the pressing economic and political events of our time.

First of all, former George W. Bush’s presidency was a complete and abject failure. Please, let’s not forget that. There have been a lot of interviews and articles before the switch-over that offered a somewhat benign retrospective of Bush’s reign, and it looks like reporters have been attempting to remain “objective” by entertaining the notion that Bush may have represented integrity because he never backed down from doing whatever the fuck he wanted, or something like that.

Bush was a terrible mistake, and a giant mar on the already besotted history of US politics. He stood as a representative not of personal integrity, but rather as the exact negative of what a leader should be. He didn’t listen to his opponents nor his own constituency. He didn’t utilize diplomacy in dealing with world bodies and foreign leaders. He took more vacations than any other president in history. His administration was peppered by yes-men, neo-cons, and nepotism. This is completely ignoring the myriad scandals that marred his administration. Basically, he didn’t do anything that he was supposed to do as a LEADER. The real “leadership” in the Bush presidency were the people who actually ran things, such as his vice-president and Karl Rove. Presidents in the past have oft been puppets on strings, such as Reagan, but at least Reagan had charisma and could instill some kind of false confidence, even when his actual policies resulted in terrible outcomes that we are still paying for today.

So yes, thank god we have closed that terrible chapter in our history. But we will be continuing to pay for those 8 years of bullshit for a long time hence, Obama or not. The Republican Party, as evidenced by their cold response to bipartisanship in the passing of the stimulus plan, are awaiting an eventual rebuttal to the centrism of the Obama presidency. They will do all they can do to ensure that his policies fail, so that they can renew their onslaught of the poor and middle class. Bear that in mind in the coming years: W. Bush was not an anomaly. He was the epitome of hard-line right-wing divisiveness. And again, let me be perfectly clear about the policies of such an administration: they failed. Period. They will never be effective. The myth of free market capitalism has been—with finality—debunked.

The history that Obama has made in his ascendance to the American presidency is not simply about a black man becoming a US President, nor reductively about simple “change”: it is about the forceful backing of an American public for a government that will utilize its policies for greater control and responsibility of economic tides. A government that does what it is supposed to do, rather than absolving itself of any and all responsibility beyond that of blatant militarism.

Now I want to discuss these “tough economic times,” as they like to say everyday on the news. This is indeed a time when the failed economic policies of the past are coming home to roost. This is also a time when “the American people” are beginning to pay for their years of living wantonly off of money that they never had and never will have. This is a time when issues of sustainability are no longer simply concerns of hippies, but of academic professors and Washington policy wonks. This is a time when America has to wake up to the fact that we have been sleeping, while the rest of the world has been quietly surpassing us in their investment in business and educational competitiveness.

Even though comparisons to the Great Depression can be fruitful simply for waking up people to the fact that this recession is real and its effects on people devastating, let’s also abstain from going too far. No one is jumping out of windows on Wall St. The lines for unemployment may be exceedingly long, but there’s no extensive lines for soup kitchens, at least, not yet. Retail chains that have stretched themselves too thin on the promise of endless sales have indeed been shutting their doors. Banks are decisively slimming their ranks with a butcher’s knife. And this impact cannot be understated on the economy nor on men and women now without salaries. But for many, it also doesn’t mean much of anything other than that they won’t waste their money like they might have before. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Because the fact is that transitioning into what they call a “green” economy can not be easy, nor even possible without the recognition that it is necessary. These “tough economic times” are not about a housing market bubble collapsing, nor about over-investment in bad securities and over-lending of easy credit: it is about the transition into a new economic and political and social paradigm. A paradigm in which we recognize our interdependence on each other and other nations, acknowledge the interconnectivity of mankind with that of the earth, and begin to take responsibility for the actions not only of ourselves, but of our governments and world bodies.

So as tough as these times are—and yes, these times are tough for me personally, thank you very much—they are also a necessary time for buckling down and gaining a clearer vision of what we need to achieve.

Look at how far we’ve come

I don’t really like saying “I told you so,” but. . . just re-read this past post of mine to see how far we’ve come as a nation. Now do you still think all Americans are stupid?

It’s Obama Time

Well, I’m staying up past my bed time, which means 5 hours 4 hours of sleep or so tonight, but what the hell. I feel the need to post something; what was once only oft a means of circumventing loneliness or merely a form of mental masturbation has now become a luxury in my life.

First of all, what can I say about Obama getting elected? It has turned from hope beyond hope into reality. It is a paradigm changing event. I went to bed once he took Ohio, but couldn’t sleep anyhow because everyone in my neighborhood proceeded to uncork champagne bottles, scream, and set off firecrackers once he had reached the necessary amount of electoral votes. I went to sleep happy.

I then attended some management training classes for 2 days, which were useful even if only for ascertaining that I’ve learned much of the right stuff mostly on my own already. I think the Tao Te Ching is ultimately the best piece of literature on effective management techniques.

Obama seems to have taken to heart the Tao Te Ching. He is able to influence vast and sweeping change without appearing to break a sweat. He knows how to let others act and speak for him, how to maintain constant discretion, discipline and restraint. He is indeed a capable leader.

If ever there was a “mandate” behind an election, I think this has been it. Regulation and the curtailing of unrestrained markets have been given a clear green light, which sets the stage, finally, for a possible regenerative economy and environmentally sound agenda.

To be perfectly honest, I think electing Obama came down to a matter of our children’s survival. We would have been fucked otherwise. Free market capitalism and individual rights to do whatever they damn well please is apparent as no longer viable in an age when the failure of an emerging nation to develop its economy and to sustain its natural resources is recognized as critically important to the success of rich nations. An interdependent globe is only as strong as its weakest link.

So thank god Obama is our president. The world and the sane members of the United States can collectively breathe a sigh of relief. Now it’s time, finally, to get to the real work of dealing with the mess we are in. Let’s get to it.

In other news, I am now engaged. You heard it here first.

Death of laissez faire?

The Economist posted an interesting article defending free-market capitalism. What surprised me about this article is how unusually defensive, clear and one-sided its perspective is. While I agree in principle with the premise that what we need is “not bigger government, but better government”, I think the author mistakes the movement in general towards greater regulation and government oversight. No one wants a communist government nor to refute capitalism (other than for fringe idealists who don’t understand economics), nor, for that matter, to overly constrain the market economy. We simply want government to do what it is supposed to do—formulate responsible policies and regulations—rather than sit idly by and allow the market to run wanton (and destroy the environment in the process).

Part of this is making government policy and electoral processes more transparent and efficient, which entails utilizing internet and software technology. That means streamlining government, not adding to its bureaucracy. I don’t think that the way to the future lies in more overtly “Great Society” type of programs, but rather in simply attempting to bring the government back up into the present age, to keep up with businesses and civil society.

I would like to say much more on this timely and interesting topic, but I have to dash out the door to work right now. Talk amongst yourselves.

The Bigger Picture, Based on Our Current State of Affairs

Well, it’s ’bout time for me to post some thoughts about the current state of the world. I sometimes wish that I had a column in a major newspaper, so that I could generate national debate and establish talking points for The View. But, alas, my blog is just too random, too all-over-the-place, too largely mundane and only intermittently insightful, too much me, to ever hold such a place in the pantheon of established punditry. I wouldn’t have it any other way, of course. I will hold forth, in any case, as if the entire world listens attentively to my every last quest for meaning.

To the point: the major news item on our collective plate is the economy. We all know that the “bailout” plan, as it is called, is pretty much a bunch of hogwash, but we also all know that we need to do something, and not many of us are economically minded enough to know quite what that is. We just know that we want our retirement funds to stop being depleted, etc. First of all, I recommend checking in with Paul Krugman’s blog from time to time for some academic economic insight parsed down, relatively speaking, for the average Joe. He has written a short paper explaining what he thinks is going down right now, and to parse it even more simply into my own think-speak, it basically has to do with the global interdependence of financial markets. Which is why shortly after our economy started nose diving, the European economy has started feeling the effects of free-fall gravity as well.

If you follow my random output of thought consistently, then you’ve noted that I have a certain fascination with the concept of interdependence (go ahead and check out my posts filed under the topic of ‘interconnectivity‘ if you don’t believe me). I see interdependence, interconnectivity, the intwinement of multiple beings into one collective entity, as a source of greater strength. An individual vulnerability that establishes greater collective depth and power. This is the strength of the artist, the strength of the family, the strength of the nation. It makes us more open to superficial attack, but better resilient to sustained barrages.

Our economy—and hence, the global economy—is undeniably, at this point, in for some hard times. For how long, of course, no one can say. I have discussed elsewhere about how the economy is inevitably headed towards seeming disaster, but also about how what appears as tragic at the moment could potentially turn into a deeper manifestation of something necessary and redemptive i.e. the movement towards a more sustainable society. However, this transformation can only occur if we are willing to make some changes, such as move towards more Democratic—even *gasp* Socialist—notions of political governance as opposed to continuously giving in to Republican “small-government, big business” ideals. Obviously, putting Barack Obama into office is a great first step on this path. But beyond the presidential campaign, we need to push much harder for a move towards responsible government policy and regulation.

It’s sort of ridiculous that it takes a crisis or tragedy for people to awaken to the importance of individual sacrifice for collective betterment. It’s what we do in hard times, and it’s what people who live in poverty always do: help each other out. It’s about time that we start taxing the rich, taxing or putting caps on destructive and wasteful practices (such as lawns, SUVs, and plastic product packaging), and investing back into our society as a whole.

We all know that Communism and/or Fascism has failed. We all know that we believe in freedom and democracy for all. But it’s time that we grew up and recognized, as mature adults, that firm regulation, investments, and incentives must be established for people and businesses to do the right thing. And we must further recognize that we can’t go this alone. We need Government, with a capital ‘G’, and that means ‘G’ as in Global in addition to national. The US, for far too long, has been able to get away with insouciant and unconsidered behavior because we once were a superpower. We will henceforth be known as the last of the world’s superpowers. There will be no more superpowers, just as there will be no more Picassos. There will always be nations that have greater power, just as there will always be individuals who have greater influence. But no longer will there be a singular entity that can completely dominate and determine the direction of world commerce or culture.

What does this mean for us as a nation, and as individuals, then? It means that we have to become a team player. It means that we have to know our place in the world. It means that we have to not only compete, but cooperate. That’s what it means, at an extremely basic and fundamental level.

This ultimately ties back into deeper issues such as environmental stewardship, spirituality as opposed to religious fundamentalism, scientific advancement and technological development coupled with social progress, etc. But I’m not going to get into any of those wonderful issues at the moment because I’m beginning to get sleepy, and I’ve got another long week looming ahead of me. Due to my inability to post as frequently as I would like to, I’m going to begin utilizing WordPress’ nifty new function of sticking old posts up on my front page, so that you can see some selections of my old shit that I feel is worth perusing. Til next time, piiiiigs iiiin spaaaaaaace. . .

A Splash of Liquor to the Earth for David Foster Wallace

I just randomly came across a piece in NY Times that seemed to be an obituary for David Foster Wallace. I didn’t understand how this could be, as he was still a young (relatively speaking) author full of potential. I was saddened to discover that he had hanged himself 2 days ago.

I had just picked up a book of his in the library, Oblivion, a collection of short stories published in 2004. I stopped reading it after a couple of stories because the author seemed disconnected from his subjects and just a little too clever for his own good. But I had loved Infinite Jest when I read it in my senior year of high school. It is a postmodern tour de force: indulgent, discursive, wordy, subversive, parodic, witty, and just plain intelligent and well-written fun.

I also loved his collection of essays and articles in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, most especially the one on his acerbic take on the culture of cruise ships. David Foster Wallace (it seems impossible to state just his last name) possessed an intelligence and irony so penetrating that it seemed almost to turn in on itself, wrapping his writing in a blanket of disassociative tangents and footnotes that were all the more entertaining for their self-conscious stylization, ridiculousness, and biting wit.

It is truly a loss to the literary world that he chose to take his own life rather than stoop down to bestow the rest of us with another work of cynical genius. We will cherish Infinite Jest all the more for its singular—now, tragic—majesty.

American Change (Outside of the Box of Media)

Inevitability: this is the crushing weapon that the Republican party so effectively wields, bludgeoning the American public with such a banality of lies, misinformation, and bluntness of political manipulation—all oriented around sidestepping deeper issues of actual policy—that people talk wearily of the inevitability of McCain being elected president. Here are the arguments for this position:

The American vote is skewed towards the middle American states, where most Americans are so brainwashed that they would vote for a melon if they thought it stood for fundamentalist Christian values and gun rights.

Americans are simply stupid in general.

George W. Bush was elected for 2 terms. Enough said. Americans are hopeless.

These are perhaps convincing arguments if you tend towards fatalism. However, it disregards and slanders the majority of the American people. Yes, many Americans are extremely misinformed and formulate their political ideas based on petty and irrelevant issues. Yes, the vote is heavily skewed towards Americans who think red meat, rifles, and religion are the defining issues of our day. However, these Americans, known colloquially as rednecks, are the ones most affected by bad policy in Washington. They will be the ones losing the most jobs, they will be the ones most affected by environmental degradation, they will be the ones continuing to have their working wages taxed by a government they distrust and loathe.

Were they fooled by W. Bush? To a certain extent. But they understood, more fundamentally, that he stood for status quo. He would give us exactly what they thought America stood for: individualism, small government, and big business. Now McCain is playing the status quo card once again, while pretending to give just enough of a hip “maverick”-ness to the situation to win over those on the fence.

Many Americans, while the economy was still apparently riding high, didn’t want change. They called for status quo. They called for continuing to do just what America had been doing. It seemed to work, sort of.

Now it’s not working. It’s failing terribly. And the prospect before us is harrowing. Even while official analysts shrug and dismiss the current economic downfall and refuse to call it a recession, Americans who are most affected by the downturn know exactly what it is: hard times. Unemployment is high, the divide between rich and poor is untenable, health care consists of ER visits, basic food item costs are increasing, and SUVs no longer make much sense to working folk who can’t pay off their mortgages or credit card bills.

This has not much to do with failed foreign policy that has led to neverending warfare, or a regressive position against contemporary science. It doesn’t even have to do with the impending and disastrous consequences of climate change, nor with the depletion of topsoils and overall degradation of our earth.

It has to do with a fundamental flaw in the American conception of what has been working in the past, and what will work in the future.

We fought ferociously against the concepts and institutions of communism and socialism, and we relished the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union. It was the triumph of capitalism. It was the triumph of individual choice, freedom of markets, competition between all for the benefit of the common good.

We’ve been so knee-jerk allergic to ideas of government involvement in economics that we’ve failed (officially) to recognize that the times have changed. A little dose of government intervention is necessary in times of crisis. And therefore, the Democratic vision of politics is no longer quite as unsavory as it once was. The idea of “change” (in the sense of a non-Republican dominated government) has begun to make sense. The status quo is driving America to its knees before the world. The dollar is falling, our imperialist foreign policies are antiquated, and our fierce individualism is costing the entire world the possibility of dealing effectively with united stances against climate change.

I don’t think Americans are as stupid as the media and the Republican party assumes it is. I think that the majority of Americans simply allow themselves to be led when they see no reason to change the way things are, when it seems to benefit them. It is becoming quite apparent that change—real change—must occur for America to remain a viable force in our world. Our businesses will fail if they cannot innovate. They cannot innovate if the government does not provide incentives for them to innovate. The government cannot provide incentives if the people do not call for policy change.

The time has come for Americans to unite, truly unite, not in the sense of warfare, not in the sense of blind following of political deceit and big money, not in the sense of willful ignorance and bigoted small-mindedness. Americans will unite because the only path to a hopeful future is clear. And it is not the status quo.

The Teetering Unifocalism of the Republican Party

Well, so the question in the presidential campaign of the moment is: will the blatant strategic political maneuvering of the Republican party, which has worked so well for Bush/Cheney, still work its deceitful magic and captivate big media and its captive conservative audience? I think another phrasing of this question is: are Americans as a nation still too easily manipulated and gullible to put 2 and 2 together?

The media has been blabbering ecstatically about the strategic “daring” of McCain’s pick of an almost neolithically conservative Alaskan woman, but let’s recognize it for what it is: an act of both cynicism and desperation. The strategy behind it is obvious: pick a woman to appeal to women voters, as well as to pretend that suddenly McCain is a progressive (simply because he’s picked a woman), while at the same time, conversely, appealing to their essential Christian Coalition base of voters, because Palin may be a nice looking woman, but she’s also a Christian fundamentalist.

To the Republican strategists, who are always eager to harness the most unsavory aspects of fundamentalist religion (whether Christian or Islamic) to garner power, such an act of political theater is hardly daring. It is right in line with the type of cynical PR strategy that’s been used for Bush and his administration time after time. To the rest of the nation, however, I hope that this act of desperation is seen through for what it is: a demonstration of what McCain and his backers are really about: a blind grab for power at all costs, utilizing any means and political posing that will take them there. Please note that Obama chose his VP carefully, picking someone who not only would aid him strategically in winning the bid for presidency, but would more importantly serve as a strong addition to the White House in the role of Vice President.

It’s no secret that Palin has absolutely none of the qualities (she’s currently got a scandal brewing in Alaska) nor experience (they say that Obama is inexperienced? Give me a break.) to serve our nation as an effective Vice President. She’s just there to fill a symbolic strategic role. Seen for what it is, this purpose is actually quite demeaning to women. McCain’s pick for VP is not daring at all; it’s a pathetic excuse to try to gather in a hypothetical mass of voters who would judge only on shallow appearance. The Republicans are hoping that with enough of the media (we all know that Fox will be doing the cheerleading) in their pocketbooks, they can manage to mockingly sweep aside the obvious implications of their strategy.

So the question is: does this approach of putting voters into one-dimensional boxes really work? They have looked at the power of the votes of women, they have noted the power Hillary Clinton generated amongst women voters, and they have single-mindedly decided that women will vote for women. How incredibly reductionist of the plurality of identities that women can occupy beyond their gender designation. Did they stop to consider that women may have supported Hillary not simply because she is a woman who champions women’s rights, but furthermore because she is an incredibly intelligent and adept public representative?

This ploy is desperate because it demonstrates that however strategic and cynical this maneuver was, ultimately, it means that McCain’s puppet-masters are responding to the tone that Obama has set in the campaign, rather than calling the shots. Obama has struck the chord in America that finally, we have a politician with integrity, someone with energy, populist agendas, and the diplomacy and intelligence to work across partisan divides. Obama has run his campaign stressing the importance of change and a new direction in American politics. McCain has been turning against his own record in Washington by now pretending to be a “maverick” and “progressive.” He has positioned himself as a decoy of change by simulating seemingly progressive stances, such as picking a woman as VP and verbally denouncing our dependence on foreign oil. Wow, how progressive of him. Good thing his VP strongly supports big oil, has already demonstrated political abuse of power in her home state, and is fiercely anti-abortion.

So will the desperate and cynical strategems of the Republican party work this time around, even when Bush and his party’s popularity is at an all-time low, both within the nation and around the globe? Will the farce of Republican progressive change win over the true progressive agenda of Obama? Will the decoy win over the real thing? Superficiality over integrity?

I think not. There was a lot of true positive energy generated at the Democratic National Convention. There was a palpable force felt in that stadium that reached out across the dry and drab news network television coverage. The hunger for real change stirs somewhere in America, and I don’t think it’s just in liberal enclaves. People are waking up to the cynical, power and money hungry political maneuvering that operated the Bush administration, and hopefully, they have learned to navigate past the bland relativism presented by the media, where somehow truth seems to have no meaning until it’s already too late.

I believe the one-dimensional, unifocal political strategies of McCain’s puppet-masters will fall over on themselves. They have built the fantasies up a little too high this time around. Casting Bush Jr. as a born-again working rural man with divine conviction may have worked for a little while, but casting McCain as a simultaneous agent of progressive change AND conservative fundamentalism is just too much of a stretch. It can readily be seen through to what it is: a blind and misguided and desperate fumbling for power by a Republican party riddled with cronyism, corruption, scandals, and neo-conservative simple mindedness.

I will enjoy watching their politics of deceit finally topple over and fail in the public eye. Like Obama said in his speech at the convention: “they just don’t get it.”

Think Politics Are Tired? Think Again.

I don’t care if you are Republican, Green Party, or Anarchist: watch Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. This is what we all have been aching for. It is graceful, eloquent, emotional, direct, forceful, filled to the brim with conviction, politically adept, aggressive, embracing, beautiful, and intelligent enough to wow all the politicos and policy whonks.

And watch the Obama biography video that came directly before his speech as well. It’s truly powerful, and it answers the questions that people on the fence that don’t know much about Obama might have. He is the candidate that America so desperately needs.

Do I sound captivated? Don’t take my word for it. Don’t listen to the talking heads on television. Go see this shit for yourself. It’s wonderful, and it will make you not only believe in politics, it will make you believe in the promise of America again. Really.

Heath Ledger’s Joker = Marlon Brando

I just watched The Dark Night, and I’m not going to comment on the lengthy and vivid content, as I’m still a bit wide-eyed and overwhelmed at the moment, and I’m sure there’s little I can add that hasn’t been already widely discussed and ingested by the body politic. However, I did want to make an observation on Heath Ledger’s performance as Joker: did anyone else notice just how uncannily similar his performance is to Marlon Brando in The Last Tango In Paris? Similarities listed below:

1) The kind of wild, almost shoulder length hair

2) The crinkled forehead

3) The frequent licking of the lips

4) The discursive, high pitched voice

5) The crazed, yet intelligent, yet brutal manners

Obama’s Speech on Racial Issues

Rather than heed the media’s endless spinning and soundbytes of Barack Obama’s amazing speech, read the full transcript for yourself and make your own decisions.