A Korean Opinion on Obama

This is long. Really long. My main point ends in the paragraph after the story of Sai. Feel free to stop there. :)

So Mr. Obama's the President-Elect.

I'm sure some of you are elated. And some of you are hiding your face in your hands, convinced you've witnessed the end of an age.

The reaction among the people I interact with in Korea is favorable to Mr. Obama. My fellow teachers like him, though one mentioned worries about Mr. Obama's negative stance towards Free Trade Agreements (in the end we both agreed Fair Trade is better for everyone).

My students love him. They don't really know much about issues, but they have an interesting insight: When I asked them why they prefer Mr. Obama to Mr. McCain, they universally replied, "Because he's kind."

Hm. Kindness. It is an attractive trait. Unkindness is exactly what dissuaded me from respecting Ms. Palin (and now that McCain's aides are talking, it turns out the unkindness is one among many disagreeable symptoms). Kindness seems a great platform to run on, and a great reason to elect a human as president. Mr. Obama did run the gentler campaign, although Mr. McCain and Lieberman both generally showed themselves to be gentlemen. Ms. Palin was the pitbull chewing on the childs arm, a strong contrast to Mr. Obama who showed himself respectful, even-tempered and, well, kind.

My students and co-teachers have wanted to know what I think. I've told them the same thing every time, and it's not a short answer.

The pundits' extreme approval or abhorrence of the President-Elect reminds me of an old story about hasty conclusions (and it turns out the story has it's own name in Korean, which I can't spell). There are many versions, but here's one:

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An old man named Sai lived near the border of China. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit.

"Such bad luck," they said sympathetically.

"We'll see," Sai replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses.
"How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed.
"We'll see," replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

"We'll see," answered Sai.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated Sai on how well things had turned out.

"We'll see" said Sai.

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Some of you are mourning Mr. Obama's election. Some of you are cheering. I say, wait -- we will see.

He's inherited the toughest set of issues since and perhaps even surpassing FDR's: two wars; a volatile economy; a country with no remaining diplomatic or international political capital; a nation divided into two camps which don't understand each other and won't, because they shun each other; an abused earth full of abused people -- often at the hands of United State's interests; the weight of an immediate 46% disapproval rating.

Mr. Obama can't fix everything. He's not a messiah or anything the conspiracy theorists have accused him of. He's a human who just got hired to the most stressful job available. And just like the rest of us humans, he needs needs people showing up at the game, needs rest and kindness and applause. He faces every emotional need the rest of us do, but he has to do it with 46% of the voting populace telling him they don't like him for various reasons, most of which have nothing to do with him as a person.

The guy's under a lot of pressure, and the problems seem to be growing, at the moment.

Which is where you and everyone you know come in.

This is our country (well, if you live here or can claim citizenship), and it's our responsibility to fix it.

Your opinion of Mr. Obama, or of any of his policies, is irrelevant, completely. Any crumbling of the United States during his administration will be your fault, not his. The president of the United States is not responsible for the health of the United States. The president is the chief diplomat and signatory. The legislature is responsible for the health of the nation. They represent you, the people. The president represents the states. That's why they're chosen through the electoral college, a group of electors chosen by the states. You choose the legislature, and they, not the president, speak for you. You and the States balance the power of the nation, both limited by the courts.

Mr. Obama has been placed in a role that can't legislate. He has executive orders, but most presidents avoid using them (except at the very beginning or end of their terms, to fortify their party's positions or to start with a clean slate). His administration will pass policy ideas to the house and senate, and sometimes even write the laws, but you, via your representatives, pass the laws.

Yes, you. You can influence your congresspeople to vote against policies you don't like, or to vote for policies you do like. If you live in a district controlled by the party you don't belong to, you still have a say in what gets passed.

Voting is not democracy. (Most dictatorships vote too.) Democracy is direct decision making by the people with no intermediary government. Of course, we have representatives, because we're not a democracy. We're a republic. A federation of states. But we hold to democratic ideals, and our congresspeople want to get reelected, so they do what we want them to. Or I should say, they do the will of those who talk the most and loudest.

Your responsibility for your country goes beyond November 4th. You also are in charge of what laws pass, what taxes are levied, what wars are fought. What happens in this country is up to you.

Beyond your responsibility to country, and to yourself, you are responsible to your fellow humans. We are all members of a social contract: wishing to avoid a lonely, exposed and miserable existence, we group with other people and each give up a little freedom so that we can all have a bit of security. Government is one means to that security. Another means to that security, perhaps the one most dependent on you, is altruism.

Our kind actions towards each other will benefit our country more than legislation, for two reasons: first, we're divided on the proper type of legislation, but likely agree on kindness. Second, legislation is general. It's vague imparticularity prevents it from precisely treating the needs of individuals. Your altruism, on the other hand, can directly address pertinent immediate and perpetual needs. Enough small changes can have huge, exponential effects.

Altruism is a more important democratic action than voting. By doing good you positively alter the course of our country and society. Perhaps you cannot specifically dictate whether or not Mexican immigrants will be offered citizenship, but that likely will be because other people influenced their legislators, or were altruistic enough to eliminate the problem in another manner (for example, ending Free Trade Agreements that devestate Mexican farmers, thus reducing the necesity of their emigration).

But you can make the United States more inhabitable by making it a safer place, a place where people trust each other, support each other and like each other, all by being kind to other people. By improving the environment we live in, we will improve our lives and our country.

What Mr. Obama can do is remind us citizens and sojourners who we are and what principles we agree to live by in our social contract. Principles in which I agree that another human may have liberty to non-violently act however they wish in exchange for my liberty to do the same. In which I agree no one is guilty until they're proved thus univocally. In which I agree we're in this together, and not in this seperately. We rise and fall as one; we are E pluribus unum.

We are the change we need, not Mr. Obama. He's just there to point the way and to tell other countries where we're going and how much they're going to like the way we remodeled and how they're welcome here, all of them, anyone, so long as they're willing to work for the common good.

Love to all of you, and peace, hopefully.

Context, Details, Teaching English

Let me give you some context.

Korea is like a neck and Gyeongsangnam-do is like the necklace, from which three pendants hang. Tongyeong is those diamonds laid on a bed of mother of pearl, which is the sea. The necklace and the neck are emerald mountains speckled with vermillion and amber sapphires: tufts of turning leaves.

You can see chocolate stones jutting from the oyster sand beneath the clear seas. The coves are shallow, but the channels are deep. Ships weave between islets. This land the fantasy writers dreamed to design. I walk through close streets, neon-lit. My eyes are light; now every turn brings something new. Foreign words for foreign concepts, hastily beloved. Shillbe, choding hakkyo, noribong.

Here I'm a celebrity. Here I have three arms. My tongue makes two statements: what I meant, and "aberration". Here I am "handsome teacher", like Quasimodo.

Here people I've never met pay for my food, secretly. I go to pay and the owner says, "Anyo, anyo." No, no. It's paid.

I've had the chance to test my philosophy. And it's strong. I'm happy.

To be specific:
Over the weekend the sixth graders went on a fieldtrip to Seoul. I spent the day coaxing them towards English explanations. They saw parliment, the money museum and science museum (it sounds like New York's Museum of Natural History plus robots), the President's house (named the "Blue House" for its roof), and the largest amusement park in Korea. Their favorite part of the trip? I'll give you one guess.

They adored the 50m tall, 60mph, 77 degree decline on what is perhaps the scariest looking wooden roller coaster I've ever seen. I would not board that thing unless my family and friends' lives depended on it. They liked staying up late and eating snacks and talking and watching TV. Ah, at least some things never change. Not that I mind change, but really, I think we had more fun on bus trips. I asked them what they did on the drive to Seoul. They said, in order of frequency: MP3s! Cellphone Games! Nintendo DS! Sleep! Talk!

WHAT? What happened to SONGS? Summer camp songs!? Not that I can remember any of them. And the Alphabet game? License Plates? Slugbug? Books!? I'm not sure if I was easily entertained or if childhood has been irreversibly dislodged from the human experience. Ah-gup-dah, to say the least. Ahgupdah means disappointed. I'm not going to hazard a guess at the Korean spelling. Ok I am: 아급다

I'm learning Hangul as quick as I can. Today was my day to learn words and promptly forget them, but yesterday went better. I don't have a Hangul course or textbook or anything so I'm picking it up randomly where I can, from fellow teachers, friends, street signs, wherever. I learned ahgupdah from playing Billiards.

Oh right, billiards. You're not going to believe people do this to themselves. In Korea, men, for pure amusement (and possibly for camaraderie) play billiards. I'm not talking about pocket ball, commonly known as "pool" in the States. Billiards has no pockets, though otherwise the table is traditional. I played two different but connected games: 4 ball and 3 cushion. 4 ball is relatively easy: hit you cue ball so that it hits both red balls on the table without hitting the other team's cue ball. Easy easy. Not. Once you've done that maybe 25 times, you're done warming up. Now it's time for 3 cushion. In three cushion there are multiple levels. The first involves hitting your cue ball so that it hits a red ball, hits exactly three cushions and then hits the other red ball. Which is easier than the second level in which you have to hit three cushions and then BOTH red balls.

Oriupdah. Difficult. Said difficulty meant I said ahgupdah all night long. I scored 2 points. My partner scored at least 30. These guys are amazing. They examine the table, muse for two or maybe three seconds, lean over, aim and bam, cue ball hits both reds.

Me? Oh I examine the table. I note that the table is green. I note that red ball #2 is not conveniently placed. I muse for 10 maybe 20 seconds. No timely typhoon or earthquake distracts my companions, so I leave red ball #2 where it is. I lean over, say the rosary and bam, my cue ball hits red ball #1, then gravitates towards wherever red ball #2 isn't -- usually the other cue ball. I stand up, say ahgupdah with some conviction, accept condolences and pretend I have faith I'll figure this game out.

But don't tell anyone.

Teaching English
The second round with the third graders went well. If you keep them distracted and repeating everything you say, they don't have time to form coalitions and impeach you. They absolutely love learning and I absolutely love the way they call me "Mr. Sample".

Back to the 6th graders and today's lesson and my philosophy: When I mentioned the songs we'd sing on bus trips, one of the male students called me the Korean equivalent of "baby", an epithet which incited the other male students to my defense. They insisted I guard my honor and fight the student on the spot. I politely declined and proceeded to explain I'd rather shake his hand and make a friend than punch his lights out and make an enemy. To which one of the nicer students called me "Gandhi". At which point I realized I was breaking Epictetus' maxim of never explaining your philosophy, but rather living it. So I shook the kid's hand and moved on.

Crisis averted.

On a(n even) funnier note: today at lunch some of my 4th graders came to visit me after they finished eating. Their homeroom teacher is one of my friends here so I asked them if he was a good teacher. To which the smartest kid in school (a 4th grader!) replied, "No! He's bad! He's very bad!" She proceeded to explain that the teacher tells them to "Sit down and to shut up," a teaching style she disapproves of. She asked me if I knew her teacher. I said, "Oh yes. He's my friend." She blanched and covered her mouth and said, "Please don't tell him!"

Of course I did. I turned to the table behind me, where he happened to be sitting, and asked him if it could be true. He denied everything. Which was to be expected.

I returned to the prosecutor for more details. She repeated her accusation, so I drove to the root of the issue: I asked if kids stood up in class. She said yes. I asked if students talked a lot in class, if they were very loud. She answered in the affirmative again.

The solution stood plainly before me: "You know," I said, "if all the students sat down and didn't talk, he wouldn't say 'Sit down' or 'Shut up'." Then she sunk me with a truth too obvious to refute: "Yes," she said, "But we're children and children need to run around and talk."

That's what a Whitworth education gets you: swift defeat in a debate with a 10 year old.

More, eventually. Don't wait up nights.
Well, it's bedtime here, 7:00 in Seattle, 10:00 in New York and 16:00 in Paris and you're all going about your days. I hope they're grand. Miss you my loves, but not enough to call or come home. Be in touch. I'll be too.

3rd Graders, Yoga

Today I had five classes of third graders. How to put this nicely... today I encountered 150 reasons for abstinence. The governments of the world should investigate compulsory shifts teaching third graders as a win-win approach to birth control. What monsters! What savages! What sycophants! What cretins!

I pretty much lost my voice. I spent almost an entire class trying to explicate increasingly lucidly my intended denotation of the word "quiet". When I was 9, grown-ups constantly told me to respect my elders. I figured when I became an elder kids would have to respect me. Now I realize those adults were on a power trip and I let myself be conned. And now I realize if I want respect, I'm going to have to wring it from the students' small bony... grades.

But I survived. I made it to the afternoon. Only to learn tomorrow I teach my normal four classes of 6th graders (they're not so bad -- at least they're semi-sentient!) and then I also get to teach an English class for teachers. I'll be up to 27 lessons a week at that point. Whoa.

Tomorrow I've decided to cop out at the first English for Teachers' class and spend 40-50 minutes focusing on introductions and question and answer sessions. It'll be the 23rd time I've formally introduced myself to a class of Korean students. You won't believe me, I'm sure, but I mean this with my whole heart, if you want to know the truth: I'm sick of talking about myself.

That's why I'm blogging. Because this isn't talking about... ahem... myself... oh look at the cute ironies flitting about the room! Darling aren't they.

Teaching really isn't that bad. I don't mind it. Relatively at least. Relative to what, you ask? Relative to my newest recreation. Yoga.

Yoga was created by Buddhists to hammer home the point that life is suffering. However, many people misinterpreted the message and realized life is gloriously pleasurable, compared to death by sustained awkward pose. And so the cycle continues. People complain, decide to improve their lives, begin yoga and run smack into the epiphany that life is easy -- Yoga is suffering.

Ok get up. Stand with your feet together. Put your right hand on the ground, in line with your feet. Your upper body should form a perpendicular line, a beam across the two posts of your feet and hand. Now lift your left foot off the ground till it is parallel and in line with your body. Lift your left hand to the ceiling; extend as far as you can. You should look like you're half way through a cartwheel. Well done. Now just hold that position for three minutes. That's it! Super easy. Super fun. Feels super good. Straight out of Guantanamo.

No really. As I walk to Yoga I really feel like an insane prisoner of war. Like a detainee with a cell phone. "Hello? Hey Mr. Cheney. Oh, you and Rummy want to waterboard me? Great! I'll be right over."

I'm not trying to trivialize the plight of the accused (and yet-to-be-accused) in various prisons around the world. They can't escape. I can. So why do I keep making that walk of pain? American culture taught me No Pain No Gain. So I figure, a lot of pain, a lot of gain. Which of course is denying the antecedent but hey, ho, here I go!

Korea

Lau and I made it to Tongyeong. We've been here a week now. Of course I apologize for the lack of updates.

I've got internet now, but I'm not using it tonight. Tonight, I'm in downtown Tongyeong, a short walk from where I had my first non-spicy food in days: sushi. I'm in what the Koreans call a PC-봉 - pronounced PC /bong/ and translated internet cafe. Except I may be the only person here actually using the internet. All around me high school and maybe college age kids command vast armies in a game I played when I was 12. Starcraft, the best seller from 1996 or 97, has yet to fade in popularity here. Apparently there's three Korean cable channels devoted to broadcasting computer game tournaments and Starcraft players have a shot at celebrity: one champion has a fan base of 500,000 and another named earnings in 2005 of US$200,000 (according to the Wikipedia article on StarCraft).

Speaking of TV, now that I have a "real" job, I feel far less guilt when I crash for a day and just watch reruns. On Sunday I watched almost the entire second season of Prison Break, nearly commercial free. Now I understand the hoopla, and now I'm about ready to put my TV back in the box.

I would actually, but for two reasons: 1) I put the box on the trash pile across the street. The box disappeared; however, the trash remains for the succor of a growing population of flies. How homey. 2) CNN. Yep, CNN. The liberal rag that relies on sensationalism in lieu of accurate, thorough reporting. I can explain: CNN in the US is geared towards the popuation (of course it is -- that's how they profit). CNN for the rest of the world also targets its audience. It's simple business logic. And the most obvious deduction is that US Citizens have the IQ of your average turtle. CNN in the rest of the world employs reporters to cover the news. They expose. Oh, they're still liberal, but a pet rock could detect their bias, so we can forgive them for having one. We all do, anyway. I take that back: BBC might not have a bias. They're reassuringly balanced. They're like the hyper intellectual you danced with in high school who apologized every time they sort of stepped off beat. I split my news-time between the two triliterate stations and I'm feeling pretty well informed.

I meant to say something more about bugs. If you've ever seen a spider and shuddered, don't even consider crossing the ocean to this land. First of all, the mosquitoes are brutal, persistent and thirsty. I kill them willingly, apologizing to Gandhi and Buddha each time. I'm not sure they'd disapprove, All Men Are Brothers aside. I might even be improving my karma by killing those dark agents for malaria. Plus, there's enough of them to go around. The spiders clearly aren't doing their job. Speaking of #@%^*@# spiders. Have you ever taken a forked stick and gathered spider webs to catch dragonflies? Me either. Our spider webs aren't that strong. Our spiders aren't that big.

Yep. In Korea the spiders are so large and so evil, you can recycle their web to make a net strong enough to catch dragonflies. ... They're big. And black. And metallic. Neon green, red and yellow mark them. I'm pretty sure that means, "Poisonous, hah! We're not poisonous. We're chemical warfare."

And my vice principal picked one up like they were cuddly kittens. Yes, they're that large.

"He mentioned his vice principal!" you're thinking to yourself. That's what you're really interested in. My school. Ok, fine. I teach English at a school full of adorable, raucous monsters and gregarious, conniving angels. In every single class someone has asked me if I have a girlfriend. In one class they tried to marry me off to my co-teacher. I told her I was ineligible for a green card seeing as I ask too many questions and that persuaded her to peel her arms from around my neck. No I didn't really say that. Have more faith in me than that.

Mom, I'm engaged. Kidding. Relax.

I teach at two schools in the area. One's rural and fairly poor. The other is fairly urban and rich. Both are populated by the nicest people in the world. Come to think of it, this entire country is nice.

My days consist of four classes in the mornings, lunch and then a few "office hours" in which I flip coins and try to learn Korean. Or watch the dollar regain its former strength. The dollar is stronger now against the Korean Won than it's been in 5 and a half years. Did I tell you when I was in Poland, the Zloty was stronger against the dollar than it had been in years?

Money hates me.

Oh the cockroaches here are huge. And mosquitoes are devouring me as I type, even though I'm inside and surrounded by very distracted prey.

Before class my co-teacher gives me a run through. She leads the first class so I can see what we're aiming for. I lead the next three. She told me today that one of her worst behaved classes has calmed down and learned since I arrived. I'm glad to have such clear feedback that I'm making a positive impact. I've taken advice from Clinton's escapade in Newark and decided to be difficult to please, to instill discipline and respect first, and then to be nice later, once I have them whipped. Hah. Always the idealist.

Our apartments are nice but poorly constructed. Can't wait for the first earthquake. We're a three minute walk to the water, but we're on an inlet, so we're protected from the main bay by a mountain. That means pleasant weather and no tsunamis. I can walk to school in about three minutes. Lau's co-teacher gives her a ride everymorning. We're both pretty happy here, I think.

Time's up. I don't feel like spending another 80 cents to tell you more.

How Palin convinced me to vote for the Democrats

Until a few days ago I remained ambivalent towards the two presidential nominees and their selections for Vice President.

Sarah Palin changed that with her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention.

She seemed like the sort of normal citizen I've met all over this country. She felt like she's one of us. (I acknowledge, of course, the argument that the figurehead of the US should possess more sense and poise than your average U.S. Citizen.)

Intrigued, I researched some of her more interesting claims to measure her veracity.

For example, she said Barack Obama has not "authored" a "single major law or reform -- not even in the state senate."

The word "major" is open to interpretation, but I found that Mr. Obama has his name on at least two bills -- one to reduce the number of weapons in the world and the other to increase the transparency of government spending and to ban gifts from lobbyists. In the US Senate he has sponsored 136 bills and cosponsored 659 pieces of legislation. If you want to know about his state senate experience, look at this summary at the New York Times.

Ms. Palin does make an interesting point: Mr. Obama cannot claim complete authorship of the two bills bearing his name. My research showed senators don't really "author" legislation: rather, the Senate writes bills collectively.

Here's the process: Senators introduce legislation. Committees then edit and amend it. Senators debate the bill on the floor and modify it further. A vote determines if the bill is rejected, returned to committee for amending or sent to the president for veto or approval. No one senator deserves credit for the passing of a bill.

Next: Ms. Palin said, "Our opponent is against producing [energy]." It didn't take very much digging to identify her exaggeration. It seems Mr. Obama intends to implement immense new renewable energy sources -- 10 percent of our demand by 2012. That's a lot of new energy. And clean energy.

Ms. Palin lauded "clean coal" as part of her energy plan. She meant technology that reduces Co2, sulfur dioxide, and mercury emissions from coal burning power plants.

However, my research showed that however you burn it, coal itself remains dirty. Look up "mountain-top removal" and you'll see what I mean. Further, it seems that mercury from coal burning will still make it into our water supply and our oceans, continuing to poison our food supply.

Clean coal -- what an oxymoron!

Last, I researched Ms. Palin's statement that she "championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress." I found an article in the September 2nd Seattle Times stating Ms. Palin had requested 197 million dollars in earmarks from the federal government, just this year. What makes that number remarkable is that on September 4th, the Los Angeles Times reported that next year Alaska's estimate budget surplus will total between $5billion and $9billion.

If you have that much money available, why bother asking taxpayers in other states to pay for your state's projects? And if you want other states' taxpayers to fund your initiatives, why say you're against earmarks?

Ms. Palin almost won my approval tonight. If I hadn't researched her claims she might have convinced me. But I won't vote for a candidate for Vice President who obscures facts, whether due to ignorance or willful deceit.

Now to investigate Senator Biden.

Positivity

You know what I like a lot right now? I like the Discovery Channel commercial -- the boom-de-yada one. I just can't get it out of my head.

What I like about it is it's nice to hear what someone likes for once. It's great to see some realistic positivity.

It's something I'm not all that good at. For whatever reason I tend to vocalize things I don't like a lot more than I praise things I do like. Sometimes I scare myself. I remind myself of Holden Caulfield quite a lot. There's this warning Mr. Antolini gives Holden, near the end of Catcher in the Rye, where Mr. Antolini says, "It may be the kind where, at the age of thirty, you sit in some bar hating everyody who comes in looking as if he might have played football in college. Then again, you may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, 'It's a secret between he and I.' Or you may end up in some business office, throwing paper clips at the nearest stenographer. I just don't know. But do you know what I'm driving at, at all?"

I differ from Holden in that he tells Mr. Antolini that he only hates people for a short while and then he misses them. I'd have told Mr. Antolini that he's right and I'm terrified of turning thirty and only running into people I don't like, because there's no kind of people left that I do like.

One of my friends once called me "cynically optimistic" and I like that because it seems accurate -- I'm actually pretty idealistic about things, but then I have this cynical streak on the other side of the teeter totter, except that it's a portly little tyke and when he sits down my idealism falls off. The good thing is that the idealistic kid doesn't get flustered all that much. He just gets up and dusts himself off... I'm losing myself in this analogy.

The point is that even though I'm philosophically cynical -- by that I mean I really like to get to the root of things and pretty much ridicule anything that's veneer or superfluous or hyperbole -- even though I'm cynical in an optimistic manner, trusting the good in people and not locking my car doors, I hate myself when I disregard a person because they aren't as cynical as I am.

To tell the truth, I'm really bored by all sorts of scripted speech and I'll say obnoxious things just to say something original. Like Holden, I really can't stand what he calls "phonies" and I sort of say the exact opposite of small talk to avoid acting like a pretentious phony myself. And see there's the catch: when I disregard the phony, I'm being pretentious and phony, just at a higher level. I'm creating my own clique the phony can't join. It's like magnitudes of infinity. Even if somone's entirely exclusive, I can be more exclusive.

I really generally get along with me and like being around me, but the cynic in me sees no reason to exclude people or to waste energy deriding people.

I'd rather talk about what I like. And what I like a lot right now is this video. Watch it. You might like it too.

Old hat

Oh, and, yesterday marks my 5th year of blogging. I've left huge gaps in the narrative a newcomer might infer. Those omissions I store in my head, in my black books, in story, poetry, and some I let slip into the void, since holding onto all my memories leaves me burdened.

As Bertrand Russell said, "It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly." Our culture treats the past like a possession, and that preoccupation with the past distracts us from the life we encounter.

My 2007th year of Western Culture

Inspired by Kyle, I offer a brief sketch of my past year to serve as a sort of Christmas letter and a reminder to myself of just how much I live.

In January I moved out on my own for the first time. I joined two roommates unlike any friends I'd known before. Casey sketched beautiful art on canvases littered about the room and taped emptied beer boxes to the wall in the shape of a palm tree, and bats swooping. Miles interned for the public defenders office and echoed the grandest music against my wall.

For Jan term I studied Chaos Theory applied to leadership, permanently changing the way I perceive individuals in groups. An example: when fish swim in those pulsating schools, veering from dolphins while never losing cohesion, they do not do so by any complex communication network or ordered steps like a marching band. Each fish acts as an individual guided by a few simple principles: go the same direction as the other fish, at the same speed, and don't bump into any other fish.

In Spring I undertook a pesca-ovo-vegetarian diet. I only eat meat if a host serves it, or if it would be rude to refuse it. My body had more health than ever. I also studied and accepted philosophies of community and pacifism. The philosophies' complexity befuddles me; even now I wrestle with conflicting desires for sustenance and mobility without harming others' with my food and fuel needs.

I continued my transformation into a proletariat by helping design a protest at Whitworth. It occurred on the 8th of May and its effects are continually visible. I interned at the Center for Justice. I didn't get much done, but I learned more about me (don't give me paperwork. It bewilders me).

I totaled my car. USAA, the insurance company, didn't pay for the whole car, so I'm still paying for a car I don't own.

In Summer I moved to New York City. I lived in Washington Heights and worked three food jobs. Clinton and Mike showed up the first week of August, but Mike left after three days. Clinton and I spent the rest of the month bumming around (I quit my jobs) and exploring. I left for a week on August 7th to visit Emily in Maine. I got to volunteer on an Island through Ripple Effect. I hitchhiked in four states when I left Maine, traveling through New Hampshire and Vermont and back into New York.

Fall I took a number of required courses, but did the bulk of my learning through blogs, outside readings and thinking. I wrote for the Whitworthian again.

I attended two conferences on sustainability and eucology on November 1, and November 2-5. The latter, Powershift '07, occurred outside D.C.. After panels and workshops on various topics like eco-pedagogy, green investing, mountain-top-removal and faith-based environmentalism, 3000 of the conference attendees proceeded to lobby meetings with most of the representatives and senators in congress. I met with aides from Maria Cantwell, Jim Reichart and Patty Murray's offices. I presented my learnings to Whitworth's Sustainability Committee.

On to 2008!

Fortune Telling Goes Mainstream

Sometime in the past few years, the news-media picked a new favorite word: "tomorrow". Headlines read, "President to veto Children's Health Care tomorrow," or "Company expected to announce bid for contract tomorrow." The news-media practices a dual art: journalism and divination.

They're not the only entity eagerly foretelling the future. Bush favors the word "pre-emptive"; business analysts use "forecast"; weeklies like Newsweek and Time extrapolate "trends" decades into the future.

We, their audience, encourage them. We check the weather forecast as if a human or computer could actually predict a sunny day. They might guess correctly, but we can't call them accurate until we feel the deep warmth of the afternoon sun on our necks.

We increasingly trust these modern day diviners, repeating the news as if the anchor surely knows what will happen tomorrow. We accept their guesses like the ill wishing for a cure.

We are, like Dave Bazan sang in his "Priests and Paramedics", the hemmoraging wounded on the stretcher screaming to the paramedic, "Am I going to die?" We're happy to hear, "Buddy just calm down, you'll be alright."

Not that they, or anyone else, knows for sure.

I can only hypothesize why we're willing to trust people who clearly know as little about the future as we. Perhaps we've accelerated the availability of information so much that we now demand the news before it happens. Perhaps we want to know what will happen to us so intensely that we'll trust anyone who appears confident. Regardless of our reasons, we trust too much.

We live too dependently on our diviners. When some soothsayer predicts a housing bubble, we act as if they know certainly, thus fermenting a self-fulfilling prophesy. When our Presidents promise us we'll suffer if we don't invade weaker nations we acknowledge we can't know the future and thus can't prove them wrong; so we trust their vision for the future more than ours.

We abort potential works of art because they might not succeed. We scrap potential children because they might mature into criminals.

We have empirical data to support our predictions. Of course, our data occurred in the past and Hume among many others have shown that no past empirical data proves future causality. Every time you toss a ball into the air a miniscule probability increases that the ball will not descend. Just because an action caused an effect once, or a million times, does not mean it will the next time.

Further, I'm increasingly certain nothing is certain. So, if we have no certainty about the past or present, which we have seen and now see, how do we justify making certainty claims about the future? I don't think we can justify our modern divination. We make the future, but "we" contains 6.5 billion people each exerting their own influence, besides the influence of non-human forces. So many inputs make forecasting 99.99999% impossible. Of course, one may predict accurately, especially in controlled situations with far fewer inputs.

Yet, the risk of pre-emption -- of anticipating and then changing the future -- far outweighs the risk of letting que sera, sera.

Or does it? Does potential predicate a right or obligation to opportunity? Must a mother birth the fetus in their womb if they expect the potential child to suffer? Or may the artist discard that incomplete artwork because it may potentially fail? If no mind exists with a precise knowledge of what will happen, than does modifying the future pre-emptively make any difference -- if no one has a plan, then how can you wreck the plan?

It seems there is a general, universal plan infered from universal human rights. The plan entails in every case humans continuing to live. So we do wreck the plan when we trust the soothsaying media, analysts, presidents and economists so much that we will invade and murder other humans in reaction to the "experts'" predictions.

Can we call pre-emptive action "just"? If in hindsight we see certainly a diviner predicted accurately, can we justify our belief and our actions based on those predictions, especially if those actions harmed another in order to protect ourselves?

(I hereby predict someone will bring up Minority Report :P).

Mini-Jesuses thrive, even with their discredited name

Reading on Revolution in Jesus Land and Thom Stark's Semper Reformanda I find hope that Christians do not take lightly the hijacking of their name. Even when poison calls itself dessert, the dessert makes itself unmistakable.

Though some congregations shoot those who assail them, others choose Jesus' way. I'm specifically considering the Amish who last October suffered five deaths in their community. I'm sure they considered their response with excruciating care -- the public relations and news-media megaphone crouched over their shoulders, poised to trumpet the actions of the Amish to perhaps a large portion of the world. What a crucible in which that community chose.

The leadership at New Life Church in Colorado Springs certainly faced a similar gravity in their deliberations. Yet the two congregations chose divergent paths.

New Life Church shored up their defenses and then shot the single assailant who fired on them.

The Amish -- they stepped onto the world stage and forgave. Pardoned. Jesused. "Forgive them father," Jesus said of his assailants, "for they don't know what they do."

Wolves in Jesus' clothing

I'm a ballerina. No, I've never taken dance lessons, but I'm a ballerina. True, I've never danced in the Nutcracker or Swan Lake or any other ballet, but I'm a ballerina.

In English, as in many languages, entities are defined by what they do or what practical purpose they perform. Would you call a phonebook a knife? Of course not! If you did, you'd ask your friend for a knife and she'd hand you a phonebook (if she patronized your silly semantics). You'd have trouble making your sandwich.

We want our language as precise as possible for efficiency. Philosophers have spent the past century striving for a language refined enough to convey both the simple and the sublime. One, Wittgenstein, devised a method for ensuring each word in a language had only one meaning. He failed miserably, but we accuse ourselves if we fault him for trying.

It's clear, if I don't do ballet, I'm not a ballerina. In the same way, I'm not a Muslim, because I don't practice Islam. Nor am I a Christian, since I don't do what Christians do.

Now to my point: it is constantly apparent a number of people call themselves Christians who do not perform the actions of Christians (and a similar argument could be made for Muslims and Conservatives -- i.e. Bush). Perhaps I should rephrase that: maybe these "Christians" act just like "Christians" but they don't act like Jesus. Christian, I learned in my class on Shalom this fall, means in Greek, "little Christ". So it seems we may agree on a standard: that those who call themselves by the word "Christian" should fulfill the same role Jesus did. Maybe I'm asking too much.

Yet, the recent actions of "Christians" do not even closely approach in likeness to Jesus' admonitions, much less his acts. "Christians" ignore guidelines like 'Turn the other cheek' and 'Lay down his life for his friends' and 'Care for the sojourner in your land'. Instead, "Christians" shoot assailants in their churches. They obfuscate Jesus' clear teachings into complex, borderline gnostic doctrines, Melissa Scott-esque non-sequiturs, and prosperity "gospels" -- for profit! -- and they whip earnest humans into harnessed oxen by which they power political ideologies.

I feel sick to write of it. Oftentimes the conspiracy theories about the Masons and Knights Templar seem so credible -- they hover like locusts demonstrating irrefutably the devised nature of this monotheism -- and so tangible -- I know I can touch their modern day counterparts by dialing ten numbers on my phone -- that such obvious hogwash appears more plausible than a virgin birth and a resurrection.

I'm not in a place to make any predictions about these "Christians" and their relation to any God they claim to serve. Jesus said he himself did not come to judge. Wiser learners than I have argued to me any imperative extrapolated from Jesus' assertion applies only to eternal judgment. Their advice allows me the freedom to say I do not approve of those "Christians" who do the opposite of what Jesus did. I feel they discredit those who strive so intensely to live up to all the
responsibility associated with Jesus' name, just as I discredit all ballerinas when I claim a likeness to their grace.

Stranger to Oneself

I finished reading Camus' The Stranger a couple of days ago. He makes this eeriest point clear: whether you die at 30 or 70, you die. Which leaves a thoughtful person (such as myself) utterly confused. If death is the end, then there's little point in prolonging life. Nor do we feel compelled to act, whether murderously or altruistically. Yet, we do act altruistically and murderously. It seems clear why humans developed murder -- to defeat a threat to their lives. But why altruism? A recent article in the Atlantic argued altruism developed through typical adaptive cycles where communal, selfless species survived, thus reproducing philanthropic genes. Which seems to say, scientifically at least (and most religions would argue the same), we act kindly because we prioritize existence over non-existence.

So, if we murder and assist both in accordance to our belief that we prefer to exist, what do we do when life becomes entirely absurd, meaningless and death seems no different than life (for life and death mean the same)? Do we go on living? And if we live, in what manner do we live if we may die in another moment? As Pascal wrote: "Between us, and Hell or Heaven, there is only life between the two, which is the most fragile thing in the world."

Sartre posited an answer to the questioning of Camus' era (and ours): there's no compulsion to do anything, yet we're not dead, so we must choose. Even suicide is a choice. Even standing still, inactive, is choosing. There is no imperative to choose one way of life, say serial-killer, over any other, say philanthropist.

However, Sartre notes that when we choose, we choose for all people -- we demonstrate our preferred course of action and others may choose to follow it if it produces the sort of life they desire. So, Sartre essentially appeals to Kant's categorical imperative: Act as if all humans will be forced to act as you do. Another philosopher said similarly, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

I give away my disposition by setting murder and altruism in opposition. Clearly I pose a dichotomy that prefers generosity and service to totem-murder, incest and patricide -- Freud's three universal taboos.

As long as I recall, I have been biased towards altruism. Only recently have I learned words to describe my reasoning. John Rawls, another philosopher, proposed a thought experiment to help us decide how to act. He suggested when faced with a decision, we imagine a veil separates us from the situation, so we do not know what party we will play in the situation. We may be the king; we may be the pauper (there is equal chance). Since we may be the pauper, naturally we will ensure that should we be the pauper, we will be well respected, protected and happy. We want the most benefit for ourselves in the case we should be the least of the society. Rawls called his principle MiniMax: the maximum benefit for the minimum person.

My selfishness masquerades as altruism. I only act to provide an example I hope others will choose to follow. I want the least to be cared for in case I one day am the least. It's why I pick up hitchhikers: to build up my hitchhikers' Karma so I'll get picked up next time I'm thumbing.

I've laid out a couple of viable ways to a satisfying, altruistic life. However, I do not know if I live them, though I try.

Countless questions bother me. Here are two: first, if life is absurd and we evolved, why do we create? There seems no point in striving to make sculpture, music, epic photo montages, poetry and novels. Friendship and altruism are explained by the Atlantic article, but creativity has yet to receive much treatment in philosophy (please, if I overstate, direct me to a place to read).

Second, why does music affect some people so much? Past a philosophy of aesthetics (proportion is related to health and health to survival, so it seems explainable by Darwin's theories), music seems to have little evolutionary value. From my reading in philosophy of music so far today, it seems that music in recent years (enlightenment on) was intentionally developed to express emotions which words and other visual symbols could not, due to a veil of language and bias which separates us from what Kant called "das Ding an sich" and Wallace Stevens called the The -- reality.

But music precedes these theories, and even after these theories, practitioners adapted music to match the human ear, rather than modifying humans to appreciate the music. There are exceptions: it seems it took the human ear time to understand the meaning of compositions like Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" -- people didn't understand innately. In the normal cases, when music was orchestrated to excite pre-existing biases in humans towards certain meanings for certain timbres of sound, where did those interpretations in humans develop?

I wish I could word this more simply but it's very complicated in my head and, of course, language is an ill-fitted tool to expressing deep pathos.

Oh. No.

I think I may be failing two classes. If I do fail them -- the two most detested classes I've taken at Whitworth -- I'll likely go to Poland and not return to graduate.

My friend Daniel noted tonight, Colleges are accreditation systems. I'm tired of vying for accreditation.

Increasingly I feel I've learned little academically here, though I have learned much socially and euecoicly. That's partly my fault, as I've not pursued my studies as rigorously as I could. But I was busy elsewhere, learning.

At it again

I'm blogging again, but over here.

I will likely begin writing on this blog again once I move to Poland. This and a travel blog? I don't know.

My interests right now: ecosophy, Herman Hesse, human collaboration.

As I finish at Whitworth, I feel ill-prepared to continue onto grad school. However, I feel ready to go.

Home again

I'd meant to write more about the interesting things I saw and experienced in New York, but
New York just wasn't that interesting.

The interesting was astonishing beyond categorization and thus birthed poems. Essays would have been muddled. You wouldn't have understood the tastes.

My stories will emerge gradually, I'm sure.

flashes in pans

A bit of an interesting day in New York. A steam pipe exploded near Grand Central. The initial steam geyser rose higher than the Chrysler tower (77 stories). At my restaurant we turned on the news for a few minutes to figure out what happened before we switched to the Yankees game. No one was paying attention to the news.

After I got off work I was walking to the Village Ma for music when there was a shooting in Washington Square Park. I was on MacDougal street, about half a block away. It sounded like two fire crackers. A couple of people and I stopped to watch two chubby NYPD pant up the sidewalk to the park. People poured out of the park, which is a pretty popular, very safe spot next to NYU. Four of five patrol cars drove into the park, but by that time we had all moved on.

Spectacular events in New York are like boats. They leave a wake: a couple people get hurt, a few people will talk about it; but, as soon as the initial disturbance passes, the event and the affected people are absorbed into the sea.

missing misanthropy

I narrowly avoided misanthropy today.

I surely hold a kind view of humanity in general and I've been enjoying myself thoroughly as a still "innocent and wide eyed" optimist. Just last night my friend Adina explained how New York builds a cynicism into people over time. I shrugged: I haven't been calloused much at all. She explained that every time I talk to a girl, the girl will inevitably assume I'm picking her up.

That's set up. Today I was at my friend Emily's cafe. I noticed a girl reading a book on Heroes and Tombs. Having just come from the Mythical creatures exhibit at the Museum of Natural History I was curious as to whether the book was non-fiction or a novel. I asked another question, which was again politely answered. The third question received no answer and a disdainful look. I went back to sketching poems. Later I realized what I must have appeared to her as: just another guy trying to pick her up. That's when I nearly slipped into pessimism.


It fucking bugs me that this girl assumed the worst of me, considered me merely another man to fend off. And here I was, apparently one of the few guys in New York willing to take each person as a person and not a sex object. I took an interest in her because she was interesting, not because she was beautiful. And so she dehumanized me even as I attempted to humanize her. I hurl my broadsword through swaths of people, severing them with my wit. No, I have no scathing wit. To be so endowed.

The rescue: still hating every person I encountered I purchased Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray. Then I watched Ratatouille, perhaps one of the lightest, charmingest movies I've recently seen, much less endured. I'd give it 5 stars for success on all counts. So that cheered me up a bit. I went to sushi, blah sushi, but still sushi, which cheered me up more. On the subway ride home I ended up in a car full of bibliofiles, discussing literature. There were at least 5 different parties, all interacting. As I got off the subway with two of my new found neighbors, one of the girls said "Goodnight subway friends."

That's this city. The friendliest people in the world, all of them misanthropes.

Staying in

The Bronx is a ten minute walk from where I live. I've yet to go there. I haven't visited the park near my apartment. I haven't eaten at the highly rated restaurants in my neighborhood.

Mostly I work or sleep. I'm a bit of an insomniac, so when exhaustion eventually drags me prostrate, I remain there as long as possible. Often I find myself waking up at noon or one. The only thing that lifts me from bed is work or outings with friends. The outings with friends are rare, so I get up for work.

Not to say I'm unproductive: during my sleepless nights I read good books and write.

Literature. I went to the Nuyorican Poetry Cafe on Friday night. I basked in the movement of people back and forth -- the men tended to slam about politics and the women about social injustice. I've just flipped through my music collection, looking for an artist with the passion or honest eloquence I saw on the Nuyorican stage. Bright Eyes may be the only comparison; but for his whiny scrawl, substitute the cursive rhythms of east coast rap.

Here's the poem I sketched the next night about one of the poets:

this is the persuasive
sermon ... this diatribe
from the bottle of this
Atlanta acreage, bared
like this woman's chest -- with
that honesty of address.

this is the finally
ill invalid facing
her demise with shocking
regard for these invalids.

her upheld hand cups a
lucent mantel ... and a
white knife she drives through her
leather coat. Her black-skinned
blood salves bored cancers -- red
coughs do not enrage by
vague triviality.
Her blood punctually
succors small kids and plants goats.

not for the lack of tithe
in her other hand, not
for the lack of glory
in blueprints and plans, not
even for my poems of
her anonymity
she slides to her knees, casts
the mantel of light -- she
crescendos. We, all and
I, hear as she bares her
palms righteously, holies
the mic. Her eyes beg. Her
tongue heaves. She breathes -- to old
tenements and invalids.

Random collisions

The day after I visited the Pig and Whistle Pub in midtown I explored an entirely different part of the island. A door opened in front of me and one of the bartenders from the pub walked right in front of me. I was so shocked to see him that I didn't even say hello.

With the vast, anonymous movement of people throughout this city, for strangers to chance upon each other twice requires serendipity. One kind girl I met on the subway rides the same train I do every day, but the chance of us actually crossing paths is very low odds. Our train runs every ten minutes, most of the day. Our schedules differ daily. Even if we happened to end up on the same train, each train has maybe twenty cars. Each car holds maybe 60 people during off-peak and upwards of a hundred during rush hour. We could be on the same car and never see each other.

But even with the improbability of accidently happening upon the same person twice, it's happened to me twice already. There is a social network that links people. Besides running into the bartender two days in a row, I met one of my roommate's old coworkers when Andrew and I went bar hopping. Then, when I started work today at the place Andrew manages, the old coworker came in to eat. Even that occurance required chance, as I could have worked a different shift and it may have been weeks before the coworker came in again. Yet, it's clear our connection through Andrew made it more likely we'd meet again.

My friend Emily explained New York as a big city made up of small communities. Likewise, one of the bartenders at my new job mentioned she liked working there because the community was full of locals who were regulars. Perhaps people go to the same places repeatedly for the familiar faces. Perhaps it's the way to make friends.

I tried out the local bar on my own tonight, which was blocks away. I felt so uncomfortable walking into what was obviously a close knit community that I left immediately. Bar hopping on my own was not a success. I couldn't get up the nerve to actually sit and wait and order drinks alone. I forgot how draining it is to make friends.

digame

On my first night in New York my roommate Andrew took me bar hopping.

On the way down I noticed talking on the subway is like watching silent movies: you can see their lips move, but you can't hear the syllables. It's an eerie disconnect. You have to shout, even face to face. If you don't, your words are garbled by the clunk and gimbling of the car. I dart my eyes between eyes and lips to try to read what I can't hear.

Sociology students should be required to take trips on subways. I rode the A train from JFK to my stop. At the last Brooklyn stop a young Chinese man hopped aboard. As he silently took a seat, I noticed he was the only non-black person on my car, besides me. However, the first stop in Manhattan, a few Slavic whites got on. By midtown the car was evenly mixed. By my stop, the car was predominantly Hispanic and Irish white. It wasn't the race that through me off, but the progression. Is the city ghettoed? Or was it the time of day? In a city so diverse, the delineations seemed too stark.

Not that race dehumanizes much in New York. Here, the divider between people (and there seems there's always a divider) is language. In my neighborhood you'll see very dark skinned people speaking Spanish to very light skinned people. The same will happen between those speaking English. There are white people dressed in the same attire as black people, and Hispanics dressed in the same attire as Irish or Jewish people. But it seems that two people speaking a Slavic language are set apart from the three speaking French and the two chatting away in Hindi or Swahili. Race doesn't make people inaccessible, but it seems language might.

Speaking of language, I went to the UN today. Not interesting at all. I imagine it would be fascinating if you could do more than stand in the lobby or examine the gift shop.

It's a lonely city, this city is. I walked for six hours today, yet I only spoke once briefly to passers-by and once to a girl on a subway to ask for directions. When she found out this was my second day in the city, she said, "Oh that's why you look wide eyed and innocent." We chatted for a bit and her advice to me was Don't tell people where you live. You don't know who you can trust, here in New York.