Ray Charles - "Ring of Fire"

Bob Dylan - "Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie"

 My beloved high school drama teacher Vanette Vedder made it a point to introduce each of her students to this Bob Dylan poem, which has been dear to my heart ever since—mostly because there is so much of her in it. It's the kindof thing every high school student needs to hear, an honest and poetic ode to hope. The difficulty of hope. The beauty of hope. The necessity of hope. The importance of hope. The godliness of hope. The elusiveness of hope. The authenticity of hope. And yes, even the audacity of hope.

Don't be put of by it's Seuss-like (Seussian? Seussesque?) cadence. There's a lot here—a lot more than I understood when I was 17. I remember writing a response to the poem which chose to focus on a pluralist (gasp!) statement in one single line—"you'll find God in the church of your choice"— rather than the heart of the piece or anything else that actually mattered. I've done a lot of growing up since then—or at least I hope I have.

Here is the text.

Quotes: War

"Naturally, the common people don’t want war. But after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. 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 in every country." Hermann Goering, president of Reichstag, Nazi Parliament, 1934

"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in." George McGovern

"With all the talk of war, the Administration has not explicitly acknowledged, let alone explained to the American people, the immense post-war commitment that will be required to create a stable Iraq." Ted Kennedy, 2003

*Disclaimer: Please take these quotes at face-value, I do not intend for this to be an indictment of the complicated decision to go to war with Iraq per se. I just found Goering's linking of questioning government to a lack of patriotism, McGovern's restatement of "war is hell," and Kennedy's prescient beliefs about the difficulties of post-war Iraq insightful in our current context.

Gnarls Barkley - "Going On"

The only thing as cool as this song is this video.

The Bridges - "Pieces"

Erin and I saw the Bridges open for the Modern Skirts at a fantastic New Year's Eve show a few years ago. Turns out they provided some bgv's for my friend Harrison Hudson's first album as well. I can't get this tune out of my head and I don't mind. The Rickenbacker bass alone is enough reason to give them a listen.

Same-sex marriage will be legalized in my lifetime

I'm not going to discuss my views on this issue at this point, but yesterday I read a fascinating NY Times article about how the famous conservative lawyer Ted Olson, who won Bush v. Gore and 43 other cases out of the 55 he has argued before the Supreme Court, has begun a federal court battle to declare California's Prop 8 unconstitutional. If he manages to bring this case before the Supreme Court and win, same-sex marriage will legalized in the United States. It will be legally declared a civil right.

This quote from the article struck me in particular:

"I was really impressed and struck by how important the issue was to him," Mr. Frum said [regarding Olson]. "The majority view at the table was on the other side, but his view was, 'You have to make peace with this because it is sure to happen, and you will see it in your lifetime.' "

I have many friends and family on both sides of this issue, but I can't help but feel that regardless of what they or I believe, Olson is right. We will see same-sex marriage legalized throughout the U.S. in our lifetime. And we need to make peace with this, whatever that means for each of us.

Image: Steve Rhodes

Quotes: Atticus Finch

"They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."

"So it took an eight-year-old child to bring 'em to their senses.... That proves something - that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they're still human. Hmp, maybe we need a police force of children."

"The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash."

"It's not okay to hate anybody."

"When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness' sake. But don't make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles 'em."

Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.

Scout, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

Quotes: Democracy

"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter." Winston Churchill

"Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population—the intelligent ones or the fools?" Henrik Ibsen

"Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers." Aristotle

Ok ok, you know I love democracy. I just thought these were interesting. Here is a great response:

"Freedom has many difficulties, and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put up a wall to keep our people in—to prevent them from leaving us." John F. Kennedy

And the old standby...

"No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Winston Churchill

Amusing Ourselves to Death

In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.

Herbert Simon, 1971 as quoted in Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson

You probably heard that last week Twitter, Livejournal, Blogger, YouTube, and Faceboook were attacked. Twitter and Livejournal actually went down for a while as a result, while Blogger and Facebook suffered some hiccups. Fascinatingly, the attack was launched by some mysterious hackers attempting to target one single user of all these services -- a Georgian separatist activist blogger.

I couldn't help laughing the next day at these quotes from a CNN article which of course chose to focus on Twitter being down rather than the actual attack:

The Daily Show: Reform Madness

Speaking of being afraid...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Reform Madness
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

The Daily Show: Reform Madness

A Rule for My Unborn Son

You may have heard of the fantastic blog 1001 rules for my unborn son, where a father-to-be catalogues pieces of advice for his unborn son, ranging from "stand up to bullies - you'll only have to do it once (#270)" to "if you have to make more than one substitution, order something else (#385)." It's a beautifully simple, exceptionally unique, and uncharacteristically meaningful concept for a blog. It's the kind of thing that makes you want to write your own.

Obviously I love cataloguing ideas - it was the original concept for this blog, now gone astray. But I'm not planning on having a son anytime in the near future (Mom, if you're reading, please read that last sentence again). Still, it's very much within the realm of possibility. So "1001 rules" got me thinking about what I might tell him. What immediately popped into my head was "there is no good reason to grow a mustache" - but that was pretty much already taken.

So here's another one I hope I teach my (theoretical) future son well:

#1 Be skeptical of anyone who tells you to be afraid.

It seems so obvious all typed out like that. But I think I've spent a lot of time listening to agents of fear. People who tell us we must go to war to prevent nuclear destruction. People who forecast economic collapse and the second coming of the Great Depression. People who claim killer bees or Swine Flu will kill us all. People who say the president's healthcare program's death panel will kill your grandmother. People who promise us hell and claim moral decadence will soon bring about societal collapse. People who tell us the liberals, the Muslims, the Christians, the Religious Right, the fundamentalists, the government, the corporations, the media, the evolutionists, the creationists, the pluralists, the minority races, the immigrants, the homosexuals, the non-believers, etc. are out to get us, our freedom, and our way of life.

A lot of people in my life have told me to be scared (of everything from dating to Democrats), and I've found the vast majority of them were uninformed, trying to sell something, or scared themselves. If I have a kid one day, I want there be a red flag that goes up in his mind anytime he hears one of these people even even hinting towards fear.

Now certainly fear has its place, in its own way. I would want my son to have a healthy fear of the Lord. A fear of what will happen if he disobeys me. But this type of fear is a failure of language, I think. It is more about love, respect, honor, obedience, integrity, and character than fear of Swine Flu or illegal immigrants could ever hope to be.

So there it is -- rule number 1. Rule number 2 is probably "Cut your old man some slack, he doesn't know what the hell he's doing."

Please choose my next post

At any given time I have a running list of about 15 blog post ideas. Trouble is I often can't choose which one to write. So I thought I'd just throw it out to you, the reader. Here is a list of 11 post ideas I've been considering for a long time. If you would be interested in reading one of them, leave me a comment and let me know!

+ End all youth groups NOW update: posted

+ I freaking love America

+ The National Archives social experiment update: posted

+ Social Security: The nationwide Ponzi scheme? update: posted

+ A pluralist under every rock update: posted

+ Movie Review: Expelled

+ Living the simple Christian life is HARD update:posted

+ Movie Review: IOUSA update: posted

+ Getting better all the time - Part II update: posted

+ Community Church and the Dunbar Number update: posted

+ A rule for my unborn son updated: posted

Image: kruemi

Free Tom Conlon Concert Recording!

On February 22nd, 2009, Robert Boyd, Ed Bynum, Michael Sawyer and I recorded Tom Conlon's show at dcf. Robert took the recording home and did a little home cooking on it, and I got Tom's permission to post it for free on his fan site, TCfans.com.

If you're unfamiliar with Tom, well here's a free concert to listen to! If you're a Tom fan, this concert features some unreleased material (including "Sweetheart," my personal favorite Tom song) you will definitely want to grab.

So, without further ado...

The Concert | TCfans.com | Support Tom

*Note: the concert is a 120Mb zip file. If you cannot open zip files, install Zipgenius.

Mad about bailouts? The Pentagon misplaced $2.3 Trillion in 2001

So for almost a year now this country has been undergoing non-stop hatred of Wall Street CEO's who have allegedly wrecked our financial system by taking on too much risk and cutting themselves fat paychecks. In turn, many of the American people have decried the massive bailouts which have been extended to these companies and the stimulus packages which hoped to help our struggling economy turn itself around.

What I can't help thinking is where were these people when in 2002, when CBS News reported that the Pentagon could not account for 25% of its budget - 2.3 trillion dollars - more than any bailout, stimulus package, or round of bonuses could hope to be?

Newsflash: Racism Still Exists

I don't know about you, but I've been following (or followed, since it seems to be over for now) the Gates arrest story pretty closely.

I couldn't help but laugh at this line from one of the first articles I read:

The incident renewed a debate over "racial profiling" and whether police in the United States treat blacks and other minorities differently than whites -- even after the election of the first black U.S. president in Barack Obama.

What?! Racism still exists even after the election of Barack Obama? You mean to tell me the presidential election of a black man six months ago did not magically end the fallout of a centuries-long history of racism and slavery in the US? You mean white men still do more illegal drugs than black men, but more black men still go to jail for it?

Incredible. You gotta love the mythical quotes surrounding "racial profiling" as well. The fact that many people consider this a legitimate question astounds me.

Nick Drake - "Pink Moon"

This is one of my favorite songs (and albums, and artists) of all time, probably in my top 5 if I had to make one. Below is a brilliant VW commercial featuring it. The argument that the commercial diminishes the song can definitely be made, but I can't help loving watching it, remembering the nights I've spent driving with friends, talking about life, love, and why.

Here's the full song if you don't know it:

Please Stop Watching Fox News

After my last post I have been thinking a good deal about the pounding conservatism takes from today's conservatives. It's hard in today's political climate (where a moderate republican is 73% more conservative than 70's-era a moderate republican) for a center-right guy like me to feel he has much in common with major GOP figures. Worse yet, at times I feel confessing that I am a conservative lumps me in with a host of politicians and pundits whose beliefs I disagree with and whose actions I believe are hurting our country.

Case in point: Fox News. I have come to a point where I now believe there is absolutely no good that can come from watching Fox News. As a conservative, the representation of conservatism that is presented on this channel offends me. It is laden with fear, hate, racism, spin, and often just a general lack of facts. Fox's journalism is so poor that it's often laughable, which is why I usually try to keep myself from getting worked up about it - thinking that no reasonable person really buys the crap they dish out. But I know that's not the case. I know there are hundreds of people in this country, probably thousands, who rely on Fox as their primary, if not only news source.

I'll present just three examples here for your consideration. Please note none of these include the usual pundits (Hannity/O'Reilly/Coulter/etc.) which I've been known to decry.

1. Ignoring the fact that the man's own mother is white, Glenn Beck (the best-selling author and #3 radio host in the nation) says on the air that Obama is a racist with a deep-seated hatred for white people.

2. A commentator claims that if the U.S. were to adopt a national healthcare plan, it would be a breeding ground for terrorism. A spokesperson from the National Review (another conservative news source I can't stand) claims that under national healthcare, the U.S. government would bring in Muslim doctors, and patients would not be able to tell whether their doctor was a terrorist or not because U.S. doctors would be more diverse (read: you couldn't racially profile your doctor anymore).

3. You've probably heard about this one, but a year ago host E. D. Hill called the Obamas' celebratory fist-bump a "terrorist fist jab," as if someone in their right mind actually might have thought that's what it was.