MAN WHY YOU EVEN GOT TO DO A THING

http://manwhyyouevengottodoathing.blogspot.com/

For The Return

Can this be my theme song?



Coolokthanks.

Trees Outside the Academy

Listening a fair amount to Thurston Moore's solo record Trees Outside the Academy. I've floated in and out of Sonic Youth over the years and brought Daydream Nation and Murray St. with me. Moore's 2007 release isn't a huge stretch from his band's recent work, but he's replaced some of the pure shredding/noise for an acoustic guitar and violin. Which is not to say there is no shredding as J Mascis shows up on a fair bit of the songs. Anyway, it is a great album and it is also getting me back into Sonic Youth.

Here is a charming preview video of Thurston working on the record complete with Kim Gordon appearance for a hair cut.



I also just saw this video for the first time a few days ago. Was this Spike Jonze's first music video? And yes, that is a young Jason Lee skateboarding.

SPRING

The countdown is on...
-In three and a half weeks I'll be home. With Cate. In Seward.
-This is the last real week of class. Next week we have one class day and an overnight cabin retreat. It has been a fantastic and fulfilling semester, and I am ready for it to be over.
-It is full-on Spring here: leaves are out, flowers are blooming, the tourists and beggars have arrived, folks are wearing T-shirts, and I'm skating all the time. It is so beautiful!
-People have come and gone. Hana is gone. Weibtke and Isi visited and are gone. We had a great party! I was definitely sad to see them all leave again. I really did have a great time with them last fall, and I will miss them.
-May Day was rad but I was hungover and the weather sucked. I was disappointed at missing the rally on Youngstorget due to party and hungover-ness. Still, Veebs and I saw thousands of people marching down Karl Johans Gate in support of unions and causes.


My mom and sister are in Scandinavia! Right now they are in Stockholm, but over the weekend I welcomed them in Copenhagen. We had a great three days there together. It was my fifth visit to the city, and it ended up being almost like a 'best of' trip. The weather was just gorgeous for two of the days, a rarity in my visits. The weekend was fairly busy, and here are some highlights:
-Arriving early enough in the morning before my family to take a trip to Christiania. I had only slept a few hours on a bumpy bus and the fresh-air of the leafy-green community restored my soul. Coffee also helped.
-Surviving cold and wet weather through a walk of the main sites of the city and taking the fam to Riz Raz.
-Going to Christiania with the fam (and them loving it). It was a beautiful Saturday with kids and pups everywhere. We also had a delicious meal at Morgenstedet, one of my favorite restaurants in the world.
-A magical evening at Tivoli. In addition to its regular visual goodness we also saw a ballet of Thumbelina and a lightshow over the pond. That goof Cynthia liked feeding the fish.
-That goof Cynthia and I went out for a few beers in Vesterbro. I was aggressively hit on. When Søren finally realized I wasn't interested he exasperatedly said, "So you're not a pirate? Why do you have a beard if you're not a pirate?" Then he told Cynthia she was beautiful, kissed her on the cheek, and left. Jokes were definitely made about stealing booty.
-We took a walk along the lakes surrounding the inner city and through Nørrebro. We lounged in the charmingly overgrown neighborhood cemetery, then ate yummy sandwiches at Picnic and drank yummy Caffe Mochas.

Like I said they are in Stockholm now. They come to Oslo Thursday night, but we leave early the next morning for a weekend in Bergen.

The Wound-up Chronicle

1. Public Enemy - Welcome to the Terrordome
2. Dinosaur Jr. - Little Fury Things
3. Sonic Youth - Titanium Exposé
4. Joy Division - Warsaw
5. Black Lips - O Katrina!
6. Hüsker Dü - Dead Set on Destruction
7. Against Me! - Turn Those Clapping Hands Into
8. Iggy Pop - Neighborhood Threat
9. Atmosphere - Panic Attack
10. ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - Baudelaire
11. Billy Bragg and Wilco - Feed of Man
12. The Flaming Lips - Slow Nerve Action
13. TV On The Radio - Young Liars
14. The Cure - 10:15 Saturday Night
15. Crooked Fingers - Destroyer
16. Bob Dylan - One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)
17. Nina Simone - Sinnerman

Epilogue:
18. Elvis Presley - Heartbreak Hotel
19. The Pixies - Cactus
20. Brother Ali - Freedom Ain't Free
21. St. Vincent - Your Lips Are Red
22. The Beta Band - Human Being
23. The National - Murder Me Rachael
24. The Velvet Underground - European Son
25. Tom Waits - Innocent When You Dream (78)

Split Open

Mark this day in your calendar folks! Today is the first day I have ever been struck by Elivs Presley's music.

And a holy shit. This song will be a counterpoint to the rest of this post. Just a warning of shift in mood...

This week has been full of warm sunny weather. It has probably been the best stretch of weather I've had being here. Seriously. And it has made me enjoy this city much more! It changes so much when there are actually people out on the streets and in the parks!

I have been taking advantage of the nice weather by going out on two extended skate sessions which have left my muscles sore, my body bruised, and me happy. :)

Isi is here! She is visiting this week! It is great! And Weibtke is coming! This makes me happy! I miss her tons. VEEBS!

My mom and sister are visiting in a week! I will be in Copenhagen with them, then they will go to Stockholm solo. A short rest in Oslo followed by a trip to Bergen. Then lots of Oslo. I am very happy about this! It seems so soon and kinda unreal.

5 weeks left! Again, June 1st grill out. I want you there! All of you!

Belated notes on remainder of trip

-I went to a karaoke bar last night in Warsaw. It was nuts. Most songs in Polish, although there was a rendition of "Lovers in the night." I actually went out with two of the students, a first this semester, but left after only a couple and sadly missed joining a rendition of the Beatles' "A Little Help from my friends."

-Krakow was incredibly beautiful and now ranks fairly highly on my Euro cities list. There is a beautiful old town (the city was one of two large cities now destroyed in WWII) and a hip formerly-Jewish quarter. There were a ton of young folks everywhere and not too many tourists. Or at least, city residents outnumbered tourists even in the old town. I recommend this city!

-I had a gigantic room overlooking a beautiful part and beautiful theatre. And I had a patio. It was overwhelming actually.

-Visited Auschwitz. I became numb probably a quarter of the way through. It was a physically and emotionally exhausting experience. Birkenau can only be understood as a factory of death, which is just so frightening...

-We also met with the Judaica Foundation (a centre for jewish culture), had superb guided tours of Kazimierz (above mentioned formerly-jewish quarter) and Nowa Huta (a
Commie built workers utopia), and had a workshop with the All Different/All Equal campaign.

-I had many fine polish meals. I can not believe how much I enjoyed Polish cuisine, and it wasn't just the price. Tasty meats and delicious soups. Yum Yum.

-I was physically drained in Krakow from the continued sickness. I started taking some prescription strength meds and finally picked myself back up. Still, it was disappointing that I spent so much of this trip sick. The program required a level I couldn't always provide, and I missed out on some of the fun I could have had traveling.

-I had a lot of fun hanging out with the students and without any of the problems that arose last semester. This group is comfortable enough with themselves, the program, and me as TA that we can be together as human beings. Yay!

-I finished reading Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" and Cormac McCarthy's "All the Pretty Horses." They were both a bit heavy for travel reading. Faulkner was mind expanding. McCarthy caused reflection.

-I bought a new skateboard because my old one broke days before leaving. It was made by Habitat Skateboards and proceeds for it go to "educating the marginalized peoples of Guayaquil, Ecuador." That is a direct quote from the deck. I tried to find a photo of it to post, but no success yet. The deck graphic includes a map of South America highlighting Ecuador with a tree growing out of it, a funky bird, and numbers drawn in chalk (like in a a school, y'know?). It is a very HECUA TA skateboard.

These were the things that stand out now. Unfortunately this doesn't provide anything like a travel diary but it gives an idea of my experience. Perhaps that is all you want to read anyway.

Ecoutez S'il Vous Plait

back "home"

Sorry no posts from Krakow. Things were a bit busy, and internet was not easily accessible. I am back in Oslo now. A small selection of photos up on Flickr. I didn't take many. I hope to get more from some of the students who took more.

Pretty much everything went very well, except for the sickness which spread through nearly the entire group and had me exhausted for nearly the entire trip. I'll write more at some point.

Warsaw Pt 2

Well, the time in Warsaw is nearing an end. Tomorrow afternoon all us folks will be taking the train to Krakow. Its been a long and tiring week, but it has also been rewarding and incredible. Sickness has also been a central theme. I'm still getting over whatever it is I have, Tim has been in rough shape, and two of the students have come down with similar symptoms over the last couple days.

On Wednesday we visited the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, the Polish Federation for Women and Family Planning, and Youth Social Democrats. Tim and I also dined on pirogies and had a couple beers while I got to take my first look at the re-built Old Town.

Thursday we visited Caritas (a Catholic social aid org), the Historical Museum of Warsaw, and the Campaign Against Homophobia. I had delicious Chicken Masala and disgusting Chicken Kebab.

Friday began with a three-hour session at the Committee for European Integration. Over an extended lunch break I took a trip to the top of Warsaw's most famous monument, the Palace of Culture and Science. Our group reconvened for a two hour chat with the Norwegian Ambassador to Poland. Pat Mulvihill, Director of Operations at HECUA, arrived. He'll be joining our course for the next two weeks or so. We finished the week with a visit to the intense Warsaw Uprising Museum. I brought the group, sans Tim, to the Indian restaurant I had enjoyed the evening before. My night ended fairly early, but I still had a drink with the students in our hostel.

Today was a day off and I've been getting some needed rest. An easy morning and just walking around different parts of the city: the city center, the new town, and a neighborhood across the river, Praga. I picked up a book: Murakami's "The Wind Up Bird Chronicle." I also had a delicious chocolate eclair from the famed pastry-shop Blilke. Don't know what tonight will hold...

Warsaw Pt 1

I'm in Warsaw, and wouldn't you know it I've come down with something. Nothing too bad, but its making me exhausted and stopping me from exploring and enjoying this place. Still, I've managed to have a hot cheap lunch at one of the traditional milk bars. Milk bars are thusly named because the don't serve booze, but they do serve Polish home cooking for super cheap. I had pirogies! They were good. I had hoped to explore the old town this evening, but I just didnt have it in me. There will be time though, we are here until Sunday.

Class wise we have visited the Sejm (the parliament) and the US embassy. The embassy was not so great, they just wanted to talk about the missile defense shield, aka star wars. Tomorrow should be an exciting day. We are visiting the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, the Coalition for Women and Families, and the Young Social Democrats.

I dont have too many first impressions. It is an ugly city since it was destroyed in the second world war and rebuilt by communists. There are huge billboards everywhere. There are huge boulevards dominated by car traffic. I smell car exhaust everywhere, dont know if its because Im more sensitive to it being sick or if the city is that much more polluted. Cars park half on the sidewalks here, so its hard to get away from the automobile domination. Not pedestrian friendly, from the bit Ive seen. But again, I havent gotten to explore too much yet.

Catholicism is fierce here and its tied up in a strange nationalistic thing. There are crucifixes and religious statues everywhere. That milk bar had a cross in it, for example. A church near our hostel had a big sign outside that said it was impossible to understand Poland without Christ. Here is a funny story*: In 1997 a right wing party was in government. Late one night they stealthily installed a crucifix in the front of parliamentary chamber, the Sejm. Since then, no one has dared to take it down.

Here is another fun fact about the Sejm: the final parliament of the second polish republic, in the interwar period, was made up of only 65% ethnic Poles. The remainder were Polish Jews and folks who were ethnicallz Germans, Lithuanians, Ukranians, Belarussians, etc. Today, all but 1 of the 565 members of the Polish Parliament are ethnically Polish.

*This story was not actually funny.

Black Lips

I'm totally gonna see these guys Saturday.

Solitaire

Not much going on around these parts. Over the weekend I went to a party held by a bunch of Spaniards, but otherwise it rained. I'm going to Poland next week, from the 7th to the 18th, for the big DSE field trip. We believe it will be an intense and rewarding two weeks. In other program news this morning I led a seminar on human rights that went pretty well. The program has been pretty fantastic, and the students have been a joy to teach and learn with. I'm home in two months which is difficult to understand and wonderful to look forward to.

Passion for the Possible

Corita Kent was an artist, teacher, philosopher, political activist, and possibly one of the most innovative and unusual pop artists of the 1960’s. However, what is perhaps even more incredible is that she was a catholic nun.

As the unorthodox leader of California's Immaculate Heart art department, her teachings and art making would become her career path for most of her life.

With a love of silkscreen printmaking, in 1962 Sister Corita began using popular culture images such as archetypal American consumerist products, grocery store signage and newspaper clippings alongside spiritual texts, song lyrics and literary writings as the textural focus of her work. She could be seen as the positive west-coast alternative to Warhol, possibly pre-dating him.

With fame, came the opportunity to bring her contemporaries to lecture at her teachings. Illustrious speakers including luminaries such as designers Charles and Ray Eames, musician John Cage, graphic designer Saul Bass and film director Alfred Hitchcock. During the countries significant change and unsettled political climate during the 1960's, Corita's representation of this unrest coupled with her rebellious and unconventional methodology infuriated certain conservative church leaders. She was dubbed a "guerilla with a paint brush” and left the order in 1969.

During the 1970's, living quietlty and devoted solely to making art, Corita was diagnosed with cancer and six months to live. She entered an immensely productive period creating several hundred serigraph designs for posters, book sleeves and murals as well as the “Love” postage stamp, reportedly the best-selling stamp in history. Corita eventually succumbed to cancer and died seven years later.

All of the above text was written by Aaron Rose, former curator of the Alleged Gallery in NYC and co-curator of the Beautiful Losers. I first saw the her work on Mumble Magazine online, and if you're interested in seeing more of Sister Corita's work you can check there. While I was in Berlin I stopped into the CircleCulture Gallery and this exhibit was being shown, to my surprise and happiness. Its pretty incredible stuff !

Flick Critique

Perhaps predictably, I liked this article and thought I'd pass it along.

Yeah Right: A Brief History of Skateploitation Cinema
Benjamin Strong
03.20.08


Detractors of the filmmaker Gus Van Sant often cite the prurient approach he takes to his pet subject, teen angst. And indeed in Van Sant’s new film, Paranoid Park, a high school skateboarder struggles with, among other things, his sexuality. But the flesh of newcomer Gabe Nevins (whom Van Sant cast via MySpace) isn’t the only thing being leered at. Van Sant also exploits skateboarding.

When Van Sant was interviewed recently by Blake Nelson, the author of the YA novel on which the film is based, Nelson asked the director whether he felt any kinship with the sport. “I had been a skateboarder in the ’60s, which was a long time ago, but I didn’t think that it was so much different,” he said, adding that in 1978 he worked on a movie where he “met the skaters of that time.”

Van Sant’s comments were doubly illuminating. First, few things will so readily invite derision from a skater as the old timer who brags about how he used to rip. More tellingly, the 1978 picture to which he refers—a PG-rated vehicle for Tiger Beat pin-up Leif Garrett called Skateboard: The Movie (That Defies Gravity)—was one of Hollywood’s pioneering attempts to turn a fast buck off what was then an emerging subculture. In a presumably unwitting ironic twist, the plot concerns a combovered codger manipulating a trio of skaters for profit.


In the decades since, the fortunes of skateploitation cinema have intermittently risen and fallen, much like the inconsistent popularity of the sport itself. The 1980s were the golden years, yielding a pair of fishtail classics in Thrashin’ and Gleaming the Cube (starring Josh Brolin and Christian Slater, respectively). That era also gave us Robert Zemeckis’s nostalgic Back to the Future trilogy, which smoothed over skating’s punk edges by casting a lead, Michael J. Fox, better known for playing a Republican on TV. In Zemeckis’s vision of 2015, presented in Back to the Future II and III, children ride floating “hoverboards”—eliminating the possibility that skaters will do grinds, the set of tricks that tends to cause the most property damage.

Then studios lost interest in the genre in the early 1990s, when skating died out and went underground. The only skateploitation film of note to be released during the Clinton administration was the Van Sant-produced, Larry Clark-directed indie shocker, Kids (1995). As with Clark’s follow-up, Wassup Rockers (2005), Kids deserves credit for portraying its picked-off-the-streets skaters in their natural element—getting high, running their mouths, and above all studying skate videos.


Thirteen years after Kids, skateboarding’s popularity is at an all-time high, driven by hip-hop and by Tony Hawk, the veteran X-Games champion determined to extend his brand as indiscriminately as Martha Stewart and Oprah. Skateploitation, as a corollary effect, is also undergoing a renaissance. It is discernible in fashion (see the ubiquitous hoodie), the Avril Lavigne discography, and MTV’s Life of Ryan and Rob and Big—an odious pair of reality shows about pro skaters. Skateploitation is also apparent in Catherine Hardwicke’s critically acclaimed Lords of Dogtown (2005), a superfluous dramatization of Stacy Peralta’s 2001 documentary, Dogtown and Z-Boys, the definitive account of 1970s Southern California surf style.

Paranoid Park stands out in the midst of this skateploitation revival, thanks to a unique sound design and arthouse cinematography (shot by Christopher Doyle, among others). And yet the slow motion effects so many reviewers have praised are largely an anomaly in the traditional skate video, where the difficulty of a trick cannot be appreciated unless it is seen in real time. More significantly, Paranoid Park’s eponymous “Westside” is built on a heap of juvenile delinquency clichés—which are all the more grating because they’re at odds with the true story behind the construction of Burnside, the downtown Portland skate mecca where these sequences were shot. (Skaters designed and illegally poured the concrete bowls themselves underneath a highway overpass, and eventually, when the success of the park helped spur an economic revival in the neighborhood, the city legitimized it.)


The joke is that with untold skate videos readily available on the internet—both home made and professional—skateploitation movies such as Paranoid Park are more obsolete than ever. As far as skaters are concerned—and as more cinephiles ought to be—skate videos have been rendering their mainstream imitators artistically unnecessary since the mid 1980s. That was when Peralta, the ex Z-Boy, began directing his Bones Brigade series. “I don’t feel like I came into my own until I was behind the scenes,” said Peralta, who saw the medium’s potential to make converts. “Kids that weren’t into skateboarding could actually see a video rather than a magazine and go, wow, so that’s how they do it.”

The Peralta oeuvre was as instructive about attitude as it was about the finer technical points. The Bones videos often began with skits in which Peralta himself would destroy a television after listening to yet another newscaster buffoon inaccurately characterize his sport. In 1987’s The Search for Animal Chin—Peralta’s masterpiece for its oft-imitated San Francisco hill bombing passage—the Bones Brigade parodically reenacts one of skateploitation’s most nonsensical scenes, cutting off the roof of a car with a jigsaw. “Now we’re just like the guys in Thrashin’,” one them says. “Real great.” Peralta is the undisputed O.G. practitioner of the first generation, but his videos relied too heavily on traditional elements such as plot and character. It took 1989’s seminal Rubbish Heap (recently reissued as part of a deluxe box set) to liberate the genre from these conventions.

Rubbish Heap, made on what looks like the poorest quality VHS stock available, was directed by a then-unknown skate rat named Spike Jonze. Eschewing the egotistical personalities, glossy logos, new wave soundtracks, and narrative continuity that marked Peralta’s era, Jonze established the verité template on which most contemporary skateboard videos are based. As Kids would do five years later for the non-initiates, Rubbish Heap showed skaters being themselves—committing antics such as focusing their boards (breaking them in half by stomping on their middle). Rubbish Heap was also the first video to elevate the slam (the term for when a skater hits the ground after a failed maneuver), granting the spectacular wipeout as much respect as the gracefully executed trick, and thus paving the way for the Jackass movement.


Jonze has gone on to have an eccentric career in feature films with Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and the upcoming Where The Wild Things Are (not to mention his role as a Gulf War soldier in Three Kings). But in the shadow of these big productions he has continued to set the artistic standard for skate videos with Goldfish (1994), Mouse (1997), Yeah Right! (2003) and Hot Chocolate (2004). As part owner of Crailtap, the company that sponsors the Girl/Chocolate/Lakai teams who star in his videos, Jonze has a simple formula for success. He combines stylish skating with an imaginative sense of humor, as in this clip from Yeah Right!, in which actor Owen Wilson pretends to be a lazy, trash-talking pro (when Wilson appears to land a noseblunt slide on a rail, it’s actually Eric Koston in a blond wig). Fully Flared (2007), Jonze’s most recent four-wheeled opus—co-directed with long-time collaborators Ty Evans and Cory Weincheque—is widely considered the sickest skate video in a decade because it shows guys doing flip-in/flip-out tricks, done at improbable speeds, that the average skater couldn’t handle stationary on flat ground. One reason that Kids remains the least egregious of all skateploitation pictures is that director Larry Clark recognizes the preeminence of this parallel genre, and he acknowledges Jonze’s place within it. In a lengthy scene halfway through Kids, the skaters smoke up around a small TV that’s playing Jonze’s and Karol Winthrop’s revolutionary Video Days (1991).

It is hardly a coincidence that Video Days opens with Mark Gonzales slamming from an epic staircase (“Gonz is the bomb,” you can hear Kids’ protagonist utter in the background). Clark understands that overcoming fear is essential to skateboarding. This isn’t a matter of machismo so much as physics. As Ben Davidson wrote more than thirty years ago in The Skateboard Book, “Cuts, bruises, broken teeth, and concussions aren’t a rarity, and unless you’re just going to cruise slowly up and down your block in straight lines, a casual attitude toward the sport is self-destructive.” It is understandable that in Paranoid Park, Van Sant’s teenager feels paralyzed by the things that scare him—girls, boys, his parents, better skaters. But, repeatedly, he can’t summon the courage to drop in at the skatepark and risk the pain and humiliation of slamming. In this way he’s a lot like his director—someone from the outside looking in.

Copyright 2006 Fanzine Media (www.thefanzine.com) - All Rights Reserved.

A Simple Equation

Snow + sore foot + national holidays = movie time

Two Books

Reading Pride and Prejudice made me thankful of several things:
1. The United States has no aristocracy
2. The British aristocracy are no longer powerful
3. Gender equality has progressed tremendously
4. Contemporary notions of manners and morality are not the same as those of Victorian England
5. My friends and family do not act in the same bat-shit-crazy way as the majority of the book's characters

Perhaps I would have liked it better had I not just read Vonnegut and The Color Purple. That creates a pretty steep hill to climb for anything pompous and asinine. BTW, please read The Color Purple if you haven't yet! It should be essential reading for every American!


Klosterman's Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs was also disappointing by being ideologically incoherent and a bit offensive without being very funny. He attempts to pass off all of his subjective tastes as objectively cool while arguing that anyone else who does the same is a clueless narcissistic hipster. Perhaps I could have handled that better if his favorite TV shows didn't include "Saved By the Bell" and MTV's "The Real World," if he didn't worship at the alter of Pamela Anderson, and if he would stop arguing that all soccer players are sissies. After reading this pop culture critic, I am no closer to understanding pop culture but I do loathe it (and him) a bit more.

Berlin Pt. 2

To continue from the Kulturforum, I went shoe shopping. My last pair of shoes were literally falling apart. They'd had holes for a few months, but then the elastic laces broke on the left shoe and it was time. I checked out a few skateshops, but couldn't find a single pair that I really liked. They had to be usable as skateshoes but still nice enough for me to be able to wear to work, and I had to find them somewhat aesthetically pleasing. These seemingly simple requirements were more difficult to meet than I had imagined. I ended up at an Adidas store and settled for a one-size-too-small pair that I was a bit lukewarm about. This is why I hate shopping. I never find anything that I really like when I need it, never have money when I do find something I like, and nearly always end up regretting my purchase. And unfortunately, I do regret this purchase. The next day I came across some other stores with awesome shoes that I imagine would have fit me instead of causing the most painful blister of my life. This blister is covering half my pinky toe. I don't even know if I should refer to it as a single blister, as the original blister popped and a new one formed right on top. Last night I was in such pain that I couldn't walk or even think all that clearly. Today is a beautiful sunny day and I can't go out and enjoy it. Fuck.

So ANYWAY, after shoe shopping I spent a couple hours walking around Prenzlauer Berg. This neighborhood was clearly the current hotspot, there were hip boutiques, cafes, bars, and people everywhere. Later that night I ended up at a collectively run vegetarian cafe/bar in the neighborhood called Morgenroot. I had a couple beers and chilled out to the funky soul music they were piping through. This was one of the most awesome spots I've ever been too! It was a bit overwhelming, especially thinking about how perfect his place was for Cate.

On my last full day in town I began with a brunch buffet at Morenrot. The buffet cost 4 to 8 Euros and its up to the patron how much they want to pay "based on how rich they are." Well, I'm not much rich but I do love that place. The rest of the day I ended up doing more wandering around Kreuzberg and Prenzlauer Berg. I also walked around Mitte's gallery district. Mitte was the hotspot in East Berlin in early nineties, but now seems a bit corporate and commercial. I did stop into a really cool gallery called Circleculture that was exhibiting some silk screen graphics by Sister Corita Kent. Longer post about her to come?

I ended up having a final dinner at Morena, a cozy spot in Kreuzberg, and later that night I went back to Bais for a couple more cheap drinks. And that was pretty much the trip! A few touristy things but mostly just walking around and enjoying Berlin's atmosphere or reading in one of its fine cafes or bars. And I did a fair amount of reading, too. I finished The Color Purple on the trip down, sped through Pride and Prejudice as quick as I could, and bought Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs at an English language second-hand bookshop.

When I got back to Oslo yesterday it had snowed about four inches, which is causing me a great deal of psychological pain. I saw flowers here three weeks ago! There should not be this much snow right now! Its going to take a while to melt, I bet, and I don't want to deal with all the ice again. Hana, my Slovakian roommate from last semester, moved back into our flat! She's back in town for about a month and a half and around the tail end of April Isi and Weibtke will visit. So that's fun.

So that's the update. By the time you read this there should be photos posted up on Flickr.

Berlin Recap Pt. 1

Unlike so much of this past month this has been a tremendous week, and there is so much I could write about. Chances are then that I will write about nothing. But until I fall into the pit of procrastination and lethargy I will try to communicate just a little bit (just a wee bit) through this interweb log.

A list of potential topics to be ignored at will:
-Berlin: The Trip, the City, the Art (not necessarily separable categories)
-Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
-Chuck Klosterman
-Raymond Pettibon
-Sister Corita Kent
-The pains of walking

I will begin with Berlin though I doubt I will post on the other topics after a trip recap. First of all: I am not actually a berliner bun. I do not even know what a berliner bun is, although I do know and enjoy a good cold bottle of berliner pilsner. In fact upon a (flight-)delayed arrival to my lodgings I visited the hostel bar for several pint, and. I realized it was St. Patrick's Day when my beer was green. Yes, I did my Irish roots shame by forgetting the event, but thankfully was able to celebrate properly: by drinking green beer.

The morning of my first full day I spent in Kreuzberg. In fact, I spent a big chunk of the weekend walking around Kreuzberg or relaxing in one of its cafes. This neighborhood was most famous back in the 70's and 80's, as it was then surrounded on three sides by the East. The demographic population of the neighborhood hasn't changed much even if specific residents have cycled out. Over the last thirty years the neighborhood has been dominated by Turkish immigrants, their children, and young radicals. Like much of Berlin, today Kreuzberg is also covered in graffiiti including many incredible building-sized pieces. Photos will be posted.

I took a detour out of the neighborhood to check out the East Side Gallery, which is the longest remaining stretch of "the Wall." Soon after the wall came down folks began painting on this stretch. Although it has been continually covered up by new pieces, recently some of those original works from nearly twenty years ago were restored.

(RANT ALERT)
After walking back through Kreuzberg a bit I visited my second tourist spot: Checkpoint Charlie. Perhaps because I was too young for the fall of the soviet empire to affect me too much I find visiting a place like Checkpoint Charlie today to be a bit absurd. This is not to disparage history as I'm very interested in the human condition under Communism and I was, after all, a Poli Sci major. It just seems silly to me that visiting a place like Checkpoint Charlie is supposed to be profound or educational or anything other than a packaged photo op for tourists.

Perhaps what I am speaking of here goes to the root of why we travel and become tourists and the changing practices of my own travel experience. While I still visit a few museums or tourist spots if I come across them, when I travel now I am more interested in recognizing the distinct vibe of the place. Or maybe this is false as I usually end up in areas that can be summed up by two groups: immigrants and young radicals. Within our liberal democratic world order, no one should be faulted for pursuing what interests them (outside of interests that damage others, of course). While I find enjoyment relaxing in many cafes of East Berlin, others would find that a waste of time while the Zoological Gardens are available.

Still, I cannot escape the absurdity of a Checkpoint Charlie. Perhaps because the only enjoyment I imagine coming out of it relates to having a photo taken where everybody else has had their photo taken. It is proof of travel, proof that you could afford the time and money to be a tourist in Berlin. If Checkpoint Charlie represents the Cold War's tension between absolutism and democracy, then it is quite clear which system won. We had our eyes to the guns, ears to the tanks, and minds to the missiles, but our hearts are owned by consumption. Historically the system that provides the most goods at the cheapest prices wins. Is that wrong? Perhaps not, but it is fundamentally destructive of our relationships to ourselves, each other, our fellow living beings, and the Earth. Oh yeah, and its most likely simply unsustainable.

At Checkpoint Charlie I wasn't sure what was most representative of America: the stars and stripes, the unknown solider, or the fifty foot advertisement for Chanel. I do know that the greater symbol of our existence is the dominance of that advertisement over a bunch of photo happy tourists and my ranting about it on a low-readership blog.
(RANT OVER)

So ANYWAY, that evening I ended up at a crusty punk bar called Bais. It was described to me thusly: "Nonsense people discuss no-nonsense politics (or maybe the other way around)." I got into a confusing conversation with a local who complained about all the rich kids with rich granddaddies who had gentrified the East. He also spoke about visiting NYC soon after the wall came down to go into the music industry. He was shocked to discover that in meetings people wanted to get down to business. He also said some memorable things about fighting fascism, the Radical possibilities of emerging technology, and how Turkish immigrants, in addition to having absolutely nothing to teach Germans, really live in the middle ages. The description I received of the bar was accurate.

I began the second full day out and about in Berlin by walking from my hostel on the eastern edge of Mitte to Museumsinsel. I strolled down Unter Den Linden and passed through Brandenburg Gate. I visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which is superbly done and has been seared into my memory. I then continued my journey through Potsdamer Platz (still not to my liking) to the Neue Nationalgallerie for an retrospective exhibition of major trends within modern & contemporary art, or at least those trends/artists the museum deemed important enough to make purchases of. The exhibition was mostly of artists I was familiar with and all the explanatory texts were in German so after an hour I went to the nearby Kulturforum. While there I had my eye caught by Richard Pettibon's work, but I hope to write about that some other time.

Right now I'm going to have to quit this recap as I'm tired and dealing with a surprising amount of pain. You will hear more from me before this is over.

I am a berliner bun.

Whoop whoop!

I'm in Berlin and you're not. In fact, if you're reading this then you haven't even been in Germany today unless your name is Tory or I have secret readers among my German friends.

I like Berlin and you should too. It is incredible! I will write more about this diamond of a city when my tour is over. For now, know that I am exploring to hearts content and feets tired. And I'm taking in some of those pesky tourist sites I missed on my visit two years ago with Anne.

I will have many photos, though most of them will be of things on the street that have captured my attention rather than the regular slide show full of poor imitations of postcards.

Dear Readers

Dear Readers,

It is my pleasure to have the opportunity to write to you today as a representative of J.L. Phil Rooney, esq. You have been carefully selected as the handful of people who give enough of a damn to read his blog. For this time only, you will be able to read a limited account of his adventures over the weekend comprising March 15th through 17th in the year of someone's lord, 2008.

On March 15th my employer awoke in mid-morning. He made pancakes and began reading Kurt Vonnegut's novel Breakfast of Champions. In the recent past he had finished Fyodor Dostoevsky's classic work, The Brothers Karamazov. He thoroughly agrees with the French philosopher Albert Camus's statement that Dostoevsky is "the great prophet of the 20th-century." Even more thoroughly does he agree with the statement, "It is a damn good thing and a relief to finish a long-ass book you've been reading for over a month." Unfortunately it is not known to whom to attribute this declaration, thus it remains anonymous.

My employer also enjoyed reading the aforementioned Breakfast. He found it was a short, easy and pleasurable read. Nonetheless it was difficult to comprehend that it was one of his father's favorite books, or so his uncle David had once wrote him. He is currently going through the emotionally difficult (and rewarding) process of reading Alice Walker's The Color Purple.

This weekend held more pleasures than those found in texts. Mr. Rooney had the opportunity of Friday evening to join his friend Charloette and several of her associates for an evening of drinking and dancing. The evening included a small party, the club known as The Villa, and a what is known in Norway as a nachspiel.

The rest of the weekend was spent enjoying the fine sunny and warm weather that enveloped the Oslo metropolitan area. This enjoyment including what he would refer to as "chillin'" on the porch of his flat as well as trips into downtown Oslo to perform creative acts on a plank with wheels, also known as a skateboard. He was assailed by grannies and security, a pattern that within his experiences is fairly common.

As of this writing, he is hastily preparing for a trip to Berlin. Unfortunately, he is unable to write to you further at this time as he must "Hurry the fuck up."

Regards,
XXXX*


*Name withheld for legal reasons

Women Are Heroes Project

From Médecins Sans Frontières and the artist JR. Learn more here.

Blog Archives

After midnight looking through old blog archives. "PHIL," the plaque read, "MONSTER."

A couple things stand out:
-My writing was more interesting.
-Possibly influenced by my life being more interesting. Seriously, my life from 2006 is looking pretty sweet right about now. Like hella better.
-Over the Top is still a ridiculous movie. And this song (AND VIDEO!) is too much. It is...over the top!

Jens

Mo asked a question about Jens Lekman, so I thought I'd post this up. I've been listening to some "Night falls over Kortedella" while I've been here, I think I heard of him on some hipster music blog. Some of his songs are a bit too disco-pop-ish for me. But the song "Opposite of Hallelujua" is just great. It was cool to go to Malmo and see tram cars that ran to Kortedella. If he crosses the border I'll definitely try to see him.
Here he is a solo & acoustic. Very strongly reminiscent of Andrew Bird. Or maybe its just the whistling.


This is the ABBA influence:


This video is pretty fun.

Sunday Boring Sunday

If you have followed the presidential primaries for even 15 seconds then you should read this article. That's my kind of analysis: cutting through all the b.s.

Its been a pretty slow weekend in these here parts. I was supposed to go out to Skien (a city about 2 hours away) to chill with Char and her husband and hear his band, but it fell through. It also caused me to miss a rally for International Women's Day :(

Anyway, today I went to Bar Boca for some joe and then I checked out the Astrup Fearnley Museum for Modern Art. Its a privately owned art museum that is free to the public, and it is much better than its state-owned rival. The Fearnely had an exhibit showcasing new trends in Norwegian contemporary. I approved.

Because of the slowness I also had the opportunity to watch a couple flicks. I watched Robert Altman's classic, MASH, revisited Indiana Jones with Raiders of the Lost Ark, and got around to the Twin Peaks prequel movie, Fire Walk With Me. It was nice to see the Twin Peaks gang back together but I don't recommend it unless you've seen the entire series and are dying for more.

More youtubery

Sorry for all the videos, but this could not be any cooler and must be shared.

Making the rounds at the ISS

Show time in Minnesota's smoke-easies
Associated Press
Friday March 7 2008
guardian.co.uk


All the world's a stage at some of Minnesota's bars.

A new state ban on smoking in restaurants and other nightspots contains an exception for performers in theatrical productions. So some bars are printing up playbills, encouraging customers to come in costume and pronouncing them "actors".

The customers are playing along, merrily puffing away and sometimes speaking in funny accents and doing a little improvisation, too.

The state health department is threatening to bring the curtain down on these sham productions. But for now, it's on with the show.

At The Rock, a hard rock and heavy-metal bar in suburban St Paul, the "actors" during "theatre night" do little more than sit around, drink, smoke and listen to the earsplitting music.

"They're playing themselves before October 1. You know, before there was a smoking ban," the bar's owner, Brian Bauman, explained. Shaping the words in the air with his hands, like a producer envisioning the marquee, he said: "We call the production, Before the Ban!"

The smoking ban, passed by the legislature last year, allows actors to light up in character during theatrical performances as long as patrons are notified in advance.

About 30 bars in Minnesota have been exploiting the loophole by staging the faux theatre productions and pronouncing cigarettes props, according to an anti-smoking group.

"It's too bad they didn't put as much effort into protecting their employees from smoking," grumbled Jeanne Weigum, executive director of the Association for Nonsmokers.

The health department this week vowed to begin cracking down on theatre nights with fines as high as $10,000 (£5,000).

"The law was enacted to protect Minnesotans from the serious health effects of secondhand smoke," the Minnesota health commissioner, Sanne Magnan, said. "It is time for the curtain to fall on these theatrics." 

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008

Epic

Things have been kinda weird here lately, like a bizarro world. Its funny how I've gotten so used to a routine that when things deviate a bit it throws off my mental state completely. Most of the strange stuff has been class scheduling related. But it has also gotten cold again, and today it snowed! I was so happy about the spring too!

I am also very excited about my trip to Berlin in two weeks. I'm ever more pumped after seeing an article up on the NY Times on the city's graffiti.

I'm also finally working on making another music mix. In December I threw together a couple of epic three hour mixes for Cate's arrival, but I haven't touched the Itunes playlists since then.

For The Record

I love this band!!!

We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands,
To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!

On we sweep with threshing oar, Our only goal will be the western shore.

Ah, ah,
We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
How soft your fields so green, can whisper tales of gore,
Of how we calmed the tides of war. We are your overlords.

On we sweep with threshing oar, Our only goal will be the western shore.

So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
For peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing.


Leaves are falling all around, It's time I was on my way.
Thanks to you, I'm much obliged for such a pleasant stay.
But now it's time for me to go. The autumn moon lights my way.
For now I smell the rain, and with it pain, and it's headed my way.
Sometimes I grow so tired, but I know I've got one thing I got to do...

[Chorus]
Ramble On, And now's the time, the time is now, to sing my song.
I'm goin' 'round the world, I got to find my girl, on my way.
I've been this way ten years to the day, Ramble On,
Gotta find the queen of all my dreams.

Got no time to for spreadin' roots, The time has come to be gone.
And to' our health we drank a thousand times, it's time to Ramble On.

[Chorus]

Mine's a tale that can't be told, my freedom I hold dear.
How years ago in days of old, when magic filled the air.
T'was in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair.
But Gollum, and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her, her, her....yeah.

[Chorus]

Gonna ramble on, sing my song. Gotta keep-a-searchin' for my baby...
Gonna work my way, round the world. I can't stop this feelin' in my heart
Gotta keep searchin' for my baby. I can't find my bluebird!


And as an extra goodie the above poster was designed by Mr. Shepard Fairey, whose work I've posted up here before.

Blind Opportunity

Less than three months left folks! Is it too soon for the countdown to begin? Cate and I have already talked about what we're gonna do when I get back. A Sunday evening grill out is in the plans so mark those calendars!

I'm feeling good here! Been out skateboarding again, just cruisin the city and feeling out different spots I've seen over the past year. I tried to go up to a miniramp near another student village, but the ramp was still iced over. Yikes!

I was completely broke over the weekend, but I still managed a few drinks and a few smokes with the help of some friends. Friday night I kicked it with the roommates Jan and Ulla, as well as a few of Jan's friends from out of town. Saturday night went to Knut Erik's for some homemade wine and a couple games of chess. I used to play chess a fair amount when I was a kid, but its been a few years since I played even semi-regularly. So I was quite pleased and surprised when I actually won a game. yahoo

Over the weekend I also watched an excellent polish film, Blind Chance. It was originally made in 1981, but censorship delayed its widespread release until 1986. It presents three scenarios of the same young medical student, all depending on the circumstances around catching a train to Warsaw. If he catches the train he becomes a Communist party member. The second scenario has him missing the train, then getting into a scuffle with a police officer. During his subsequent jail time he becomes connected with the dissident movement. In the final scenario he misses the train, and returns to his studies and his girlfriend who he soon marries. He becomes a successful doctor who is apolitical. The film was shot beautifully and the acting is excellent. I highly recommend this flick!

We are planning on showing it in class next week. I was initially reluctant actually. It creates an excellent picture of Poland under communism in the late 1970's-early 1980's, but I was worried that the random chance of the main character's vocation would rob our students of a sense of agency over their own lives and their own ability to create change. Still this was precisely representative of life in Poland during that period, and it could be a perfect reminder of the opportunities our students have in their own lives. It was under that reasoning that I'm quite excited for the class to watch it.

But that is next week! Right now we are covering Norwegian political parties and institutions and the Norwegian relationship with the EU. This afternoon we visited Stortinget for a guided tour and discussion. Stortinget literally translates as "The Big Thing," but is also known as the parliament. Oh those Norwegians...they are so cute and silly.

Eastern Exposure Zero

In honor of my first time out street skating in 7 months I give you this:

Hello World

I have much news, and I realize it has been quite some time since you had a substantive update from me. To begin simply, I am doing well. I am comfortable with my job, with Norwegian, and with living in Oslo. I don't have many friends or any truly close friends, but I've accepted it. The general loneliness is not stopping me from enjoying this place, even if I end up spending too many hours in my room on my laptop. The DSE program is going very well, and I know that I am doing an excellent job as Teaching Assistant. Tim and I have also developed a very good working relationship. My Norwegian class is going fairly well, and I'm confident that if it continues in this direction I will receive marks I can be satisfied with. Spring is finally in the air, which has brought me many smiles already and lifted my general mood. I'm already spending more time exploring Oslo, and I'm looking forward to getting my skateboard under my feet and rolling around.


Major recent events:
-A student from last semester, Charloette, got married to her Norwegian boyfriend last Friday. I had the pleasure to take part in the festivities. It was great fun, and I had several excellent conversations while drinking plenty of whiskey. Charloette and I are very much enjoying a relationship based on mutual friendship, rather than a student-TA dynamic.

-I spent Valentine's Weekend in Gothenburg, the second largest city in Sweden. I absolutely loved the city! It is an architecturally fascinating city, as it is a blend of industrial/working class and university town. The city also had a fine design museum and a truly superb Museum of World Culture. The latter museum had an exhibition titled "83 Ways to Change the World" that highlighted all of the different ways to challenge domination. This included alternative methods of producing media (such as 'zines and pirate radio), the radical greening of public spaces known as guerrilla gardening, publicly demonstrating in support of Ungdomshuset (a radical youth centre which was torn down last year in Copenhagen), and more well known forms of disobedience such as the American civil rights movement and the fight against apartheid in South Africa. I traveled to Gothenburg with Jule, an acquaintance from Germany, but I don't believe our budding friendship has survived the trip. 'nough said.

-A recent post of mine commented on the somewhat absurd number of roommate I've had. Well, one of those old roommates is getting hitched. I lived with Janice for nearly two years at "The Terrace," though we had lost touch with each other and I hadn't heard news of her in about a year and half. We used to sit on our stoop, have a few smokes and beers, and complain about classes, love, and the weird smells coming from our landlord. Since those days of yore she has found a Frenchman, and they plan to marry this summer. Here is a photo from the epic summer 2006 party, the Love In. Shockingly, it is the only photo I have of the two of us. Otherwise I would have chosen one that was more flattering...


-I watched Twin Peaks in its entirety, all twenty-nine episodes. I suggest you all go out and do the same if you haven't seen them yet. I suggest a snack of black coffee and donuts.


-I've also been doing a little bit of reading lately, but not much. As I alluded to in my travel re-cap I've been reading Dostoevski: The Brothers Karamazov. I've been reading it in bits and pieces for about a month and I'm still not even half way through. It is long and dense, but interesting enough that I won't quit. I also read Teaching Community by bell hooks. It has helped me to positively reflect on and heal from the failures of last semester. Already I can tell it has influenced the methods and goals of my teaching.

Recent class highlights:
-Attending a conference with the President of the European Commission and the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs. The conference was specifically about cooperation between the EU and Norway on climate change, but an undercurrent was the bizarre relationship between the EU and Norway.
-Attending a seminar at the U.S. Ambassador's Residence on the legacy of Martin Luther King, including presentations from representatives of the Oslo City Council, the Organization against Public Discrimination, Pan-African Women's Alliance, and the Norwegian Center for Human Rights. It was superb and allowed students to reflect on the acceptance of diverse populations in Norway and America. It especially challenged them on some of their preconceptions of Norway being a progressive utopia and America being a global bogeyman with insurmountable racism.

Finally, I've posted a few dozen photos from the last couple months up on the flickr site. There are shots from the Gothenburg trip, the wedding celebration, and a couple trips into the woods.

Evan Hecox

I promise a longer post will be coming, including tales of Sweden, Twin Peaks, class updates, and a wedding. In the mean time, enjoy the work of Evan Hecox.






Hecox has done some graphic design for the Girl/Chocolate Skateboarding Family ads, but my eye was really caught by these urban scenes. The first is NYC, the next two are LA, and the last is Mexico City. He has also worked with the arts magazine Arkitip quite a bit, and he has a new book out that is a retrospective on his career: Urban Abstract.

I CANNOT GET OVER THIS SONG

God, what a mess, on the ladder of success
When you take one step and miss the whole first rung
Dreams unfulfilled, graduate unskilled
It beats pickin' cotton and waitin' to be forgotten

We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
The daughters and the sons

Clean your baby womb, trash that baby boom
Elvis in the ground, there'll ain't no beer tonight
Income tax deduction, what a hell of a function
It beats pickin' cotton and waitin' to be forgotten

We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
The daughters and the sons

Unwillingness to claim us, ya got no warrant to name us

The ones who love us best are the ones we'll lay to rest
And visit their graves on holidays at best
The ones who love us least are the ones we'll die to please
If it's any consolation, I don't begin to understand them

We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
The daughters and the sons

Young...take it, it's yours...

A Valentine's Post?

I'm a day early, so I'll give you two posts for the price of none.

The intellectual is always showing off,
the lover is always getting lost.
The intellectual runs away.
afraid of drowning;
the whole business of love
is to drown in the sea.
Intellectuals plan their repose;
lovers are ashamed to rest.
The lover is always alone.
even surrounded by people;
like water and oil, he remains apart.
The man who goes to the trouble
of giving advice to a lover
get nothing. He's mocked by passion.
Love is like musk. It attracts attention.
Love is a tree, and the lovers are its shade.

Rumi said that. Bell Biv DeVoe say this:
Never trust a big butt and a smile

a post for lovers

Okay, for real this time. This post goes out to all the lovers, especially the ones who ain't got someone to love with them right now.




Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

A Lebanese poet I like said that.

Obama-Lieberman and Polling/Electability

A friend last night called me on the Obama-Lieberman connection. I did some investigating to make sure I wasn't bat shit crazy. Its happened before...

So. All freshman Senators enter into a mentorship program with another more senior Senator. I do not know how the mentorships are normally assigned or precisely what the mentorship entails.

As a freshman Senator Barak Obama requested having Joe Lieberman as his mentor. I believe this lasted approximately two years, until the next election cycle.

Obama being mentored by "Holy Joe" is in the NYTimes. MinnPost and CounterPunch have published pieces that refer to a Hartford Courant article in which Joe bragged Obama requested him. The Courant charges to view articles in its archives.

In the 2006 Senatorial campaign Lieberman battled with an anti-war lefty, Ned Lamont, and a progressive movement for the Democratic nomination. Lieberman lost the nomination, ran as an independent, and won the general election. While Lieberman was still going for the Dem Nom, Obama flew to Conneticut for a high profile fundraiser. "I am absolutely certain that Connecticut's going to have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the United States Senate." Reported in the Times and the Courant.
Once Lamont won the nomination Obama endorsed him. Hillary also made the Joe to Ned switch. A few months ago Lieberman endorsed McCain.

Its not exactly steamy stuff but there you go. Also, I was on pollingreport.com earlier to check up on the head-to-heads. It is an excellent website if you want to keep up with national polls on just about any issue. I wanted to check up on some of the electability stuff.
National polls are for likely voters. I am deliberately vague on numbers because every poll has lists different numbers and poll results should be understood as a range anyways.
In McCain v. Clinton: McCain looks to have a slight lead currently although less than a month ago they were neck and neck.
In McCain v. Obama: Obama leads by a few points, up from neck and neck.
The following poll result is for Dems and folks who lean Dem.
In Obama v. Clinton: The polls are a bit all over the place, although the majority have Clinton with a few point spread.

I still don't think McCain's base will turn out in huge numbers unless Huckabee is the VP (but don't forget we could have T-Paw!). Clinton's recent hit against McCain is likely a result of Obama's surge and subtle attacks on her political character. Obama's support is probably higher than these results due to polling issues (such as problems in polling young adults and folks with cell phones).

But then, I don't support politicians on the basis of their electability. Judging electability often stems from uncertain impressions and vague emotions. It is something which can shift drastically in a day, let alone the 9 months until the general election. Furthermore, I believe using it as a basis can cause us to lose our values and make us forget why we care in the first place. Sometimes it is a giving in when we need to stand up. While every person needs to be pragmatic and suppress certain ideals in order to live in society/in community/engage in politics, there are ways to do this in which we respect our values and each other. Choosing my endorsements based on electability is not my way. Perhaps my way is wrong.

I wonder whether my understandings of the candidates and the election fight would be different if I were home. Would I be swept up in the Obama movement most of my friends are in? I certainly expected as much before...

Man! When did I get on my high horse and when did this become a politics blog? I promise no more politics posts for a while, and I will try to get the quality of my other posts back up. Both of those are things we can all vote for.

Roomies

A conversation yesterday about the housing situation for this summer caused me to reflect on how many people I've lived with. There are many. Part of this blog post is to see if I still remember all their names.

I've defined lived with someone as sharing a flat, house, or similar residence for at least one month while having common household chores like cleaning. That excludes most of the folks from Philosophy Camp but includes my cooking and cleaning team. Since turning 18, I've lived:

-With folks from 11 different countries: Canada, the U.S., Norway, China, Bangladesh, Nepal, Malaysia, Iceland, Germany, Slovakia, and the Sierra Leone.

-And 12 different states: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Illinois, Idaho, Maryland, Texas, Kansas, California, Washington, and Florida.
-In eight different cities, four different states, and two different countries.

-With four people whose names I can't remember.

For a total of fourty four people in six and a half years. That seems ridiculous. Is it more ridiculous that I don't remember the names of some of them? Of course, many people in their younger years have similar experiences of change in living situations. Somehow mine seems extreme to me, although I know many folks have gone through more.

I think part of the reason I miss home and chillin with Cate so much is because of all this transition. Its worn me down a bit. While others are chomping to travel and meet new folks, I kinda want to relax with folks I know and who know me. But alas, I am here for some time yet. I try to experience what I can even if I'm not as enthusiastic as I should be.

Speaking of: I'm going to Gothenburg next weekend. And I have a friend coming now, Jule from Germany is going with. Oh the germans...

Metamorphises

I just read a wonderful little joke I wanted to share. Months ago I said I'd post about Kafka, and here is that post.
"THE SASAS HAS HAD A HEATED DISCUSSION ON WHAT KAFKA WAS TRYING TO SAY THROUGH GREGOR'S FAMILY'S REACTION TO HIS TRANSFORMATION. SOME OF US BELIEVE THAT IT'S EXPRESSING A FATALIST VIEWPOINT OF A WORLD WHEREIN EVERYTHING IS ULTIMATELY MEANINGLESS BECAUSE ALL PEOPLE WILL MOVE ON AND FORGET YOU ANYWAY, AND OTHERS OF US BELIEVE THAT KAFKA THINKS BUGS ARE ICKY. YOUR THOUGHTS?"

Why Hil

I suppose I should explain why I went Hillary. Again, I should have done this before that big ol' Tuesday. Oh well, better late than never? This may not be terribly well organized. My reasons are cumulative. I also want to hear your reasons for choosing. Write them in the comments or e-mail me.

First of all: Hillary is to the left of Obama. This comes as a surprise to most Obama supporters, but when you get into the grit of the policies its true. In addition, Obama discusses the need to work together across party lines. This means as President he would be more willing to compromise an already centrist position. In truth, if you take away the charisma and Iraq then as a politician Obama closely resembles Joe Lieberman. I don't want a President like that.

There is another reason I will mention Lieberman. I remember when Obama had his keynote address at the 2004 DNC. It blew me away! I was so so excited and started envisioning Obama in 2012 or 2016. I went out and read his first book and fell in love with him, more or less. And then I started following his career in the Senate. What a disappointment...

He played it so safe! He wasn't the progressive ideal I envisioned him to be. He kept quiet for the most part and worked a bit on congressional ethics issues. He did nothing to set himself apart except for one thing: Joe Lieberman became his mentor. Yup. The two worked closely together for years and Obama was a strong supporter of his in the 2006 Senatorial campaign that saw Joe run as an independent versus a progressive left movement to oust him.

It is understandable when many folks argue that there are no significant differences in the policies of Hillary and Obama. But thats not entirely true. There are differences and I support HRC in most of them.

The most significant difference that is sited is in health care. Obama's health care plan would cover about 20 million less people that Hillary's. If that is not significant than I don't know what is. Hillary's ensures everyone is covered. It is not truly a universal single payer system that I'd like to see, but it does provide for universal coverage.

There are other differences as well. Education is incredibly important to me and a huge issue for me is getting rid of No Child Left Behind. NCLB is one of the most poorly crafted pieces of legislation I've ever seen. It is an absolutely terrible law, even if it is "fully funded." I don't agree with its goals or methods. I want it off the damn books. Hillary agrees. Obama does not.

Another issue I care deeply about is immigration reform. Last year at Jane Addams School I did some work on the USCIS fee changes. Obama was co-author of a bill to change the structuring of the fee increases. This was incredibly important to me and was the most important thing he did as Senator, in my eyes. However, Hillary goes further by supporting the DREAM Act. For the future of immigrants and accepting immigrants into our society as equals, the DREAM Act is a far more important piece of legislation.

I care deeply about human rights, and not just in matters of foreign policy but in how we live in the United States. I've never heard Obama mention HR and he does not mention it in his FP platform. Clinton doesn't note it on her website either, but in the mid-90s she gave that incredible and important speech in China about women's rights being human rights. It was big.

In all of the above issues that are very imporant to me Hillary is to the left of Obama.

Obama speaks significantly about service, and I really like how it is a central piece of his campaign. He would increase the size of Americorps, Peacecorps, and like organizations. Yet there is a problem here: currently not all Americorps positions can be filled. This is primarily because the positions don't pay enough. Increasingly it is only middle and upper class individuals can participate in these programs, thereby reinforcing twisted notions of charitable volunteerism rather than folks working together to solve their collective problems. Clinton provides the material opportunity for all to participate in Americorps by doubling the size of the college scholarship.

There is one significant matter that Obama speaks of that I haven't heard Clinton on as much. That is poverty (and naming it as such), especially combatting concentrated poverty. Yet Clinton's plans on health care and education will have a more significant impact on the daily life and future of families living with poverty.

With this issue, Obama's appears more to the Left but when you closely examine the overall thrust of their policies and would they would impact American life, it is clear that Hillary Clinton's policies are more progressive and lefty.

There is an elephant in the room. Iraq.

Now, I don't have the solution to Iraq. You'd have to ask the Iraqi people that, and I haven't spoken to many Iraqis (though I have spoken with some). I've never supported the war in Iraq, just as Obama has not and unlike Hillary. When I look at their two plans on the future in Iraq, the only significant difference I see is that Hillary would work with the UN. This is something I have been advocating for several years.

There are other significant pieces that are central to both campaigns: the movement for Obama, political culture, and Hillary's experience.

I understand and support the excitement for Obama. It is an excitement that I have felt, and then lost when I saw through the rhetoric to the practice and policies. This is the first time that many folks, especially young adults, have felt excited and passionate for politics. It is a powerful feeling to be a part of a movement. I respect that. Yet I am surprised when those inside a movement which calls for unity, dialogue, and reaching across party lines cannot understand why I would not agree with their choice for the Democratic nomination and would choose rather to attack my choice rather than learn why I would make it. I would ask: What is the movement for? If it is only a movement for one person, than it is meaningless.

Visions of change are everywhere. Yet, what is the change? I live change everyday in my work and approach to the world, this is the true way to change society. Obama is one person, the problems in our society are much deeper than that. There are structural issues that need be changed that would require most of society, both parties and some constitutional amendments. Obama as president would not revolutionize our way of doing politics, indeed the election of any one person is not enough. I support the creation of a consensus based democratic culture, it is a culture that exists in Scandinavia and I find it refreshing and incredible. Yet the reason it exists here is not because of one politician, it is because it is built into the structure of politics here. This is not the case in the the structure of American politics. Until this structure is changed, we are limited in our capacity to build consensus politics.

I will admit the above section is the weakest of my arguments. After all, no one gets exited about Hillary and changing society in the way they do for Obama. He motivates people in an incredible way. It is just that his vision doesn't do it for me.

However, I believe Hillary's pragmatic approach to doing politics within the American system would do more to positively change the everyday living conditions of Americans. I imagine Obama would more readily jettison his proposals in order to reach an agreement. I need someone to stand up and fight for change, and it is the only way change has been achieved in the United States. Hillary has an incredibly record of work and concrete achievements, much more so than Obama. I cannot disregard this proven record of experience.

There are charges of cronyism within the Clinton camp. It is likely that many of the folks that were part of the 1990's Bill Clinton team would be back again. Personally, I only hope this happens. The Bill Clinton Administration is the second greatest of the 20th century, behind only FDR's. We would all be better off if a good chunk of that group came back again. I'll admit two mistakes of that era: the 1995 welfare reform was terrible for working families and NAFTA should have included provisions for protection of the environment, labour rights, and re-education programs. As for welfare reform, it can be argued that we should be thankful the reform wasn't worse than it was considering a strongly Republican Congress. The NAFTA concerns largely came into the national consciousness post-NAFTA, so perhaps we shouldn't be too critical for it not being included then.

Hillary's team, including these 90s holdovers, have the experience and power to deal with the incredible challenges of society today. Iraq is fucked. Our economy is not as strong or healthy as it could be, and there is increasing inequality. Don't even get me started on environmental challenges. I want nose-to-the-grindstone to get these things taken care of, and it will not be pretty it will be ugly. But I trust an HRC admin to achieve more that I can support than an Obama admin.

Part of this is due to his lack of experience. And yes, he does lack experience. The only things he has run (that I am aware of) have been the Harvard Law Review, a small community organizing operation in Chicago, and a congressional ethics committee. He lacks significant national and international political experience, and I don't know if he can handle (or more significantly HOW he would handle) today's challenges. I always imagined him running in 2012 or 2016 once he was more seasoned.

It is argued that JFK also lacked experience. This isn't true to the same extent as Obama. Indeed, JFK had been a leading figure in congress for over a decade and grew up in politics. I would also note, that I am not inspired by JFK's presidency as thus comparisons to him do not impress me. JFK fucked up with the Bay of Pigs, he started the war in Vietnam, and didn't do anything for civil rights (unlike his brother). The only thing he did (that I am aware of) that I support was start the Peace Corps (an institution which has been critiqued for neo-colonialist aspects but that I still support). LBJ was the Dem. president who brought forth the great Lefty victories of the 1960s (although his great failure was getting us further involved in 'Nam).


It is argued that Hillary is less electable than Obama. I argue this is believed by those who listen to a right-wing smear campaign more than anything else. Hillary achieved incredible electoral victories in New York in 2000 and 2006. These victories were large and were achieved through capturing the left, independents, AND moderate Republicans. Indeed she even had upstate New York voting for her, a well known bastion of Republicanism. She has proved that she can win over everyone. So has Obama, who won a ridiculous margin in 2004 to get into the Senate. He also faced no significant opposition from the Right.

McCain appears to have solidified the Republican nomination. I believe an Clinton ticket, with Obama as VP, has the strongest chance of beating him. For a long time I have maintained that anyone that the Dems put up can beat anyone the GOP puts up in 2008. The only matchup which concerns me is Obama v. McCain. McCain does EXTREMELY well with independents, which is Obama's target voter. It is possible that Obama will be able to motivate enough voters to the polls, especially as McCain will find it difficult to get the conservative and evangelical bases out, but I would bet McCain wins more independents than Obama. Head to head I think Obama would more or less be schooled. Hillary stands a stronger chance head to head through the support of more women, Hispanics, and Bill's popularity among Black Americans. Most charges of Hillary being such a polarizing figure are not accurate and once folks take an good look at her many support her (or at least aren't freaked out). The polarizing stuff has been a line of the far-right for years and seems to now be a self-fulfilling prophecy. A dream ticket of mine is Clinton-Obama. With Obama's movement Clinton would be a shoo in. And I am convinced that she would make a better president than Obama.


On the more disturbing side that should cause us to pause and reflect, I've heard several folks compare Obama to the left's or middle's GWB. There are similarities in political stylings. GWB won the White House through a similar popular movement supported by evangelicals (compared to Obama's "progressives"). GWB, if you remember, came to office with little experience but much discussion of the need for unity and compassionate conservatism. "I'm a uniter, not a divider." Obama is compassionate neo-liberalism with similar discussion of the need for unity. Also note that many during the 2000 campaign argued there were little differences between the policies of Gore and Bush, similar to today and Obama v. Clinton. W also campaigned vigorously against the Clinton political machinations and 90's politics culture while arguing that he would bring ethics back into politics so we could have a white house and president we could be proud of. This paragraph is inarguably the most upsetting I've written. Feel free to give me hell, but consider what I wrote.

So. Those are the reasons why I put a photo of Hillary on this blog. Again, I want to be in dialogue with those who want to discuss. E-mail me or write a comment about YOUR reasons!