ALL HAIL LE LOUP'S JIM THOMSON

http://www.spin.com/features/ithappenedlastnight/2007/12/071211_le_loup/

And this is the high school where I work:
http://www.dailybulletin.com/ci_7717174
http://cbs2.com/local/Fontana.High.School.2.610307.html

Nice!

Concerning USC football

The University of Southern California's football team, the Trojans, plays filthy football. Not really on offense, where they just send six receivers out to run around like ballerinas, but their defensive unit are a bunch of pricks. Every time I've seen USC play there are some really stupid, cheap shots taken on defense - most common are late hits on players that are already down on the ground and hitting opponent's receivers out-of-bounds. And nobody talks about it! Early in the game they posted a statistic about USC penalties: 68 yards / game, which is 105th worst in the nation - out of 119 teams! They are a bunch of overconfident, snotty players who are still hanging on to the idea that they are God's gift to football. Anyway. Happy Thanksgiving!

Stay Away From Supermarkets that are Bright as Day!!

I'm not even in the store and I'm squinting into the light that streams forth into the dark evening. I feel like I'm walking to Mexican heaven. Instead of harmonious chimes and an angelic chorus, I'm greeted by the atonal chittering of swarms of Mexican children (none older than 6) and the abrasive ululating of their parents as they suggest various fried goods and frozen pies to each other, paying no mind to their various broods.

Flying like a moth into that light, ushered in by a roaring WHOOSH! of bug-repelling wind, and right away I slip into business mode so I can avoid as many people as possible. More and more people down each aisle filling up larders with foods no one even dreamed of 50 years ago. You can buy crappy versions of everything at this grocery store - it's not the rich people's grocery but it's closer and all I need is eggs. Go go go and oh no! Dodge past the old ladies that ooze through aisles behind bulky shopping carts, looking like the tank division of the AARP. If I can break through to the meat department I could slip behind

You know I don't really know where this is going. I wanted to right another weird slanting view of a normal activity but I can't find it right now. What the hell is up with this Golden Compass movie? It's got weird declarations of war, Russian cossacks battling giant polar bears, and is that Nicole Kidman? I don't know what the hell this is supposed to be about. Hey if you're looking for a really good suspense movie, try out Mr. Brooks. I know, I know it's Kevin Costner - that's what I said at first too. But really, it's great. William Hurt is most excellent.

This is the entirety of an NFL commercial: "VOTE PROBOWL." They're not even trying anymore. The more I've "grown up" and spent time out among the population, I'm coming to loathe going outside. Just going to the grocery store requires a Zen state of mind so as to not be enraged at what's out there. I really, really hope that it's just this area. Go Broncos!

Bye bye poo poo

This has to be a joke.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFVoLz88hiU

Japanese culture is light years away (not behind, not ahead... just... away) from ours. A bit of a culture gap, no? And how are we expected to get along well in the Middle East?

World of Confusion

Enter the thick-walled building by pulling the doors open. The pressure change causes fresh air to whoosh past you, fresh air for the workers. Someone has to open the door every ten minutes or productivity declines as oxygen levels do. Gotta keep everyone fresh. They cycle you in, sometimes just once a week, but if its busy three or maybe four times in one week. Pass through the checkpoint, they scan your card for you, these are workers that are becoming integrated into the building, and they have begun down a path from which they can't turn back, so they just grow and grow into the building and then they're pulled into the network, relying on it to provide money and food and retirement benefits if they commit enough of themselves. That's one way to go - we're here to work!

There are speakers hidden in the ceiling, and right behind you in the locker room (especially there because the lockers are closer to the middle and the clanking and buzzing is louder) and music is always drifting through, loud enough to be heard but not overwhelming, mostly just loud enough to cover the thrum-thrum heartbeat in your ears. Step right into the stepper and enter your age, weight, and how many minutes you'll be working today, then you're off! One-two, left-right, the stepper tells you how many steps you've taken and how far you've traveled, but most importantly it displays how much energy you've been using. Images embedded in the walls around you show you the latest in physical love and violence, look up look down or side to side and after working out sex and violence are hardly distinguishable! Sex is violence! And you step all the harder on the stepper, the biological puddle in your head getting excited for no real reason, and the energy you're giving away is still metered, turning over steadily as you sweat, now passing triple digits. The noise of the machines and the speakers and the flashing televisions mask the throbbing in your ears that you always tell yourself is your heart beating hard while you ignore the walls that pulse with a "thrum-thrum" when you rest against them or the irregular tempo changes when the building needs to increase its output, tending to some other area in the network.

Whew! That was a good energy turnout, you're tired, certainly too tired to upset any part of the network. Towel your sweat off now, stretch your muscles. Rest easy in that you've contributed your energy to this building, which will pass it on where its needed. Pull the glass doors open again, let another stream of air into the building for the other workers, cycling in place or running or stepping like you. Behind those thick walls your energy is for the good and betterment of all, and if you look straight ahead while in your car you don't even notice the thick black columns of smoke rising from the west.

Richtenstein invades Sabanation

Yeah, that's really the title of an article Pat Forde wrote for ESPN.com, a website which currently boasts the UGA dogpile on its front page. What a great game.

Richtenstein... "With the stadium rocking, Georgia took the opening kickoff and served a 10-play, 70-yard cup of shut-up to the Tide faithful."

Game recap... "A game like this makes it all worthwhile. Rings and trophies are nice but the memories we made tonight are going to last a lifetime"

In other news, teaching is fun but takes up so, so much of my time. Add in that I've got to finish out my contracts with SAT tutoring kids (almost done - Oct. 6th) and have university classes Monday and Wednesday evening, I am just getting totally beaten down. It's draining, I don't take but thirty seconds - literally - to fall asleep, which is where I'm headed right now. What a fucking amazing game. It's unfortunate that I had to spend it here, the armpit of civilization. I hope that sooner rather than later I can write about the experience - there is a drunk old guy involved - but for now let's say that a few dozen Applebee's patrons are aware of this guy's enjoyment of UGA. Wooooo o dawgs sic 'em

Post #8

Beer Consumptio: lemme tell you something about Sierra Nevada, Stone Pale Ale, and Newcastle: they are the same fucking beer. That could very well be a result of my drinking 14 pints so far, but more likely it is due to the fact that these three beers rely on overpowering one with "hops" and other fun things Sam Adams commercials have taught me about. With six pints to go I'm holding pretty steady; I'm definitely walking the thick line between drunk and just plain buzzed. Since the UGA game ended in a pretty non-crazy way my beer drinking has slowed somewhat, and also I am a pussy, apparently (at least so says the Ohio State graduate). The next rest of the night is going to be throwing back a few pints and enjoying my last night of irresponsibility! Anybody in the Inland Empire, feel free to stop by Buffalo Wild Wings in Murrieta, just off the 215/15 intersection! Go Dawgs! Auburn is winning 18-13 with 1:53 to go: go SEC!!

Post #7

7:30 pm

UGA won handily! I think that next year we could go undefeated, easily. Tenn is down a few scores but I don't think that they are out of the game... yet. They are in Strawberry Canyon! Updating is hard to do now, there are too many beers on the table. So far I have accomplished 12 (maybe 13) of 20 beers... weather or not I finish is up to fate now. Go Dawgs!

Post #6

6:07 pm

UGA is basically sticking it to OSU. The game is close - 2 scores - but UGA is controlling for the most part. I don't recognize a lot of players on the defense -SHIT they're on our 50 - but for the most part we are owning. KNOWSHON is doing great, recieving and running. Thomas Brown has been a great role player so far, and I haven't seen too much of Lumpkin.

This update is brought to you by the word CAPITALIZATION. 11 beers down

Post #5

I think it's really Hour # 6.5

UCLA v. Stanford = fluffy, tiddly-winks game in which one team or the other one, it doesn't really matter.

Everyone is winning as they are supposed to, except GaTech who slammed ND 33-3, and UGA is playing a great game with OSU, 21-14 at the half. The bar is slowly filling up; USC starts at 7:15pm and Cal/Tenn started half an hour ago.

I lost track of time because my laptop battery died and the only outlet was taken by some stupid non-SEC fans. In fact, I'm the only SEC guy here - my sympathizers from the Big ZTen have run off because their conference is very effeminate and they are frightened of real football. The UGA/OK State game is probably going to be the closest and most exciting game. Our defense is doing really well, considering I have no idea who they are!

I'm on my 11th beer - Dos Equis - and I think I've finally passed the drunk barrier. I can't guarantee regular updates from here on out, or at least until after the UGA game. There has really been a poor turnout for the bar. Right now we're about 85% full but I think maybe half of the people actually are paying attention. I'm off to drink more beers - school starts in three days!

And then she said, "You can use a straw", followed by some scientific information that supposedly backs this information up. LIES.

Hour #4

2:23 pm

UCLA and Stanford are duking it out in a fierce, yard-for-yard battle. Oh wait, no they're not. It's 14-0 UCLA over Stanford, a team that went 1-11 last year. THE PAC-10 IS CLEARLY THE GREATEST CONFERENCE IN THE LAND! WHO NEEDS A CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP?

Fags.

Tech is owning Notre Dame, even though the score is only 9-0. I had a friend show up to keep me company and drink beer with me so I feel less like an alcoholic and more like a UGA fan. Onto beer #6, Miller Light (shit!). Where does Cal play football? Strawberry Canyon. How the hell do you get pumped up about playing in a place named after fruit?

UGA is coming up! But I'm going to have to compete with the end of the Nebraska the game (vs. Nevada??) and the beginning of the Cal/Tenn game... I'm hoping that since nobody around here went went to college we can keep it on UGA for as long as possible. Tech is now up 16-0. Shame, Notre Dame, shame. Also my cell phone is dead, so email me! Or leave a comment. Go Beer/Dawgs!

Hour #3

1:10 pm

Woo Appalachian State! What a great finish, especially after Michigan made that completely stoppable deep pass. How did App. State let that happen? What the hell else was Michigan going to do, a QB sneak? But that blocker burst through the line on a mission from God and saved the day. The bar right now is about 1/3 full of a wide variety of colleges, from Nebraska to Ohio State to Wisconsin to, yes, Michigan. What fun we all had mocking his team's, and by extension his, last-ditch attempt at saving face by beating a team of hard-nosed potheads from Boone, NC.

Georgia Tech and Notre Dame are underway. Alex + wifey + fratties rented a Winnebago and drove up to South Bend for this game, and right now it looks as if Tech is going to win because ND can't find its offense. Nebraska is playing Nevada (blah), Washington State is up a TD on #7 Wisconsin, Wake is up on BC... Nothing much going except the beer drinking. I'm on pint 4 of 20 (Blue Moon), with Coors Light up next. Two pints an hour isn't going to cut it, but I anticipate an increase in beer consumption once the UGA game starts.

Oh yeah, UCLA and Stanford are playing the season's first pillow fight. UCLA just pranced into the end zone while Stanford danced around a maypole. The Pac-10 sucks.

Hour #2

12:13 pm

App. State just intercepted the stupidest pass ever made in Michigan football history, keeping my (and the other four people in the bar) dream alive that Michigan eats turf on their season opener in front of 107,000 blue-clad dorks.

Ways to disappoint your alumni on national television: Shake your car keys at the opposing team. This "goodbye" action is pretty stupid. It's up there with singing "Hey Hey Hey, Good Bye" as far as completely misguided attempts at trash-talking. Even more embarrassing is when the student body is shaking their car keys at the opposing team IN THE THIRD QUARTER. WHEN YOU'RE ONLY LEADING BY 3. AND IT'S EASTERN CAROLINA. Survey says: no.

Another glaring difference between the glorious South and the wasteland called the West: some pastel-blue golf shirt-wearing wiener comments to his over-tanned wife and miserably disillusioned as to her own beauty daughter, "I gotta find out what time my UCLA Bruins are playing!". True fans here.

The long snapper for App. State face-masked the Michigan returner (this is before the interception) in the biggest game of the school's history when they're winning and adds 15 yards to Michigan's return. When you're the long snapper, you don't have a lot of room for error on the team. When you cost your team 15 yards against the number 5 team, you're basically gonna be walking bow-legged out of the showers.

All games are pretty much done right now: VaTech's offense accidentally scored a TD and they're up 10 with 1:36 left, and the other games are playing out as the AD's wanted them to (with an average margin of victory of 45 points). 7:45 left in the Michigan game, and Mike Hart is one crafty bastard.

Beer update: 3rd of 20 (Bud Light, Bud, Mich Ultra)

Hour #1

11:10 am

It's 11 a.m. and I have a beer. Twenty beers on tap, and the first one of the day is Bud Light. Woo. (Just so you know, yes, I am using a laptop in a sports bar. I know, I know. Sorry.). The only other guy in the bar is an Alabama fan, which goes to show how nobody around these parts has gone to college or cares about sports. Not for me, no sir. Appalachian State is beating the crap out of Michigan. I never liked Michigan - not for any good reason, there are some teams I just don't like. In that same vein, there are some teams I like for reason, like the Denver Broncos and Bobby Knight-coached basketball teams.

I am so happy right now, I'm watching ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPNU on giant big screens with a beer. It's the little things.

VaTech is NOT honoring the memories of those who were killed in the worst shooting in American history. Go Pirates!

As much as I want Tennessee to whomp Cal because I hate this state, I don't think they have the offensive power. Cal returns all of its offense, UT lost its top 3 receivers. Ainge is lukewarm at his best, the players around him make him any good.

WE WILL PREVAIL. WE ARE VIRGINIA TECH.

Saturday Morning

Two words: COLLEGE GAMEDAY.

I have to go to my school and diddle around my room for a while, get familiar with the area, and then I'm off to the sports bar. Last night it occurred to me that sitting in a sports bar with a lap top is kinda really dorky, I don't think that'll hold me back. So I'm up at 6:45 a.m., watching COLLEGE GAMEDAY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 8 MONTHS, before a full day of hootin' and hollerin'. I'm doing this for you.

"$11.50 for a hamburger? Y'all must be crazy!" You get 'em, sassy black Miller High Life representative.

Rece Davis: "Will Erik Ainge's pinky hold up?" Thrilling. They did say that the UGA / OK. State will probably the be the most fun game to watch because of Oklahoma State's no-huddle, spread offense. I did know that OK State scored many points per game last year, but playing at Athens? That's an automatic minus-35 to your points-per-game, unless your Tennessee.

"What do you think about playing easy games in the beginning of the season?" "Not so fast my friend!" What? Corso must have a quota on that phrase.

When ESPN is on commercial, ESPN2 is asking Herbstriet some more football questions. ESPN BRINGS YOU NONSTOP, ENDLESS, MOSTLY POINTLESS COVERAGE!

Mark Richt on the upcoming game against an opponant that averaged 200 yards passing AND 200 yards rushing per game: "I will say this: We ought to improve quite a bit as time goes on," Richt said. "Three or four games into the season I would think we would be a whole lot better." Way to inspire confidence there, guy.

Avast!

Well, I got hired. Tuesday morning Fontana Unified School District gave me a ring a ling ding doo and I accepted before they got past the word "offer". This is sort of validating the last 8 months of my life. No more poorness for me! It'll be nice to actually be doing something with myself too, instead of slinging chicken wings until 2 a.m. However they didn't want to hire me when I first sent my application in, back in August. They had to wait until SEVEN DAYS before the first day of class, including Labor Day. They did this because I'm basically the lowest turtle in the tower and must have been pretty desperate. Because of the short notice I will most likely miss the first few days of class - so I'll have a class, I just can't teach it. There are a multitude of reasons for this: I have to go to some new teacher seminars (tomorrow from 8a - 3p), sign some contracts, blah blah, but most importantly I have to have be tested for tuberculosis - for the second time - and be fingerprinted - electronically - for the THIRD time. Because districts cannot share ANY information, there is this insane redundancy, which is why the tower's collapsed on 9/11, I informed the unfortunate receptionist who scheduled my fingerprinting for 7:50 a.m. on Wednesday Sept. 4th, the day AFTER my class starts. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I hate California.

September first is football day. Check this out: the first games kickoff at noon ET, or 9 a.m. PT. The sports bar I work (soon to be worked) at is opening at 9 a.m. to accommodate the socially inept such as myself. Now here's the great/sad part: Hawaii, a top 25 team, kicks off at midnight ET, or 9 p.m. PT. I could conceivably open and close this restaurant while watching nothing but college football. Hold it - genius idea - the place has free wireless internet! I could do a running update of my day drinking six dollar beers and eating dozens of chicken wings! I AM MIGHTY. David, recent GA transplant, has said he will watch some football with me. I don't know if he's up for the sort of quest I'm talking about, but shit, I'm actually starting to get behind this idea. I'll justify it as my last irresponsible act before becoming a teacher. Sweet.

Remember when playing football was all you thought about?

Roddy White still sucks.

"A Duke University study that appeared in the Archives of Internal Medicine found 184 lost workdays per 100 obese full-time employees versus 14 lost workdays per 100 normal-weight full-time employees." - CNN article

The article mentions that the CDC would like to see an "obesity czar" appointed... I don't think that's the right solution. Why are people fat? Why are so many - 1 out of every 3 people in Mississippi, for example - obese? People don't see a need not to be fat. Shame on you, fatties! Shame on you, fat Americans! I do not find overweight or obesity acceptable. If I am stuck in Iraq with several fat people and I come under attack from Islamo-fascists who want to kill us because we are Americans and love freedom, I will, without hesitation, throw the fat people in the way of any incoming gunfire, IEDs, RPGs, or rocks and immediately grab one of the many guns laying about the place and start shooting the fatties too, hoping to both fool the terrorists into thinking I am one of them and also slaughtering enough long-pig to feed the Middle East for six weeks.

Final argument: LivingXL.
Check and mate.

Hilarious sendup of previous website: here

I'm a Graduate, Again, Sorta

Monday I had my first two graduate level courses. I was nervous going to class, because I was thinking two things: one, I've never been to a graduate course before, I'll have no idea what is expected of me!; two, Finally I'll be taking classes at UC Riverside that are challenging and will learn much about myself and the world!

Now my astute readers will note the huge, glaring cancerous tumor of a problem with the above sentence, and that tumor is commonly diagnosed as "Riverside" with side effects that include "false optimism" and "naive expectation".

Each class proceeded in exactly the same way: 35 students each introduce themselves, where they are in the program, and an interesting fact about themselves. This took about 40 minutes. Then the instructors read their respective syllabi to us (I was going to make a sarcastic joke about the necessity of this, being illiterate graduate students and all, but then I thought of the caliber of student enrolled here and decided it was a wise move by the instructors), and then in one class we watched clips of the Andy Griffith show (I'm not shitting you) and the other was dismissed.

As far as I can tell, these graduate level courses are no different than regular classes (at UC Riverside) with the exception of a lot of assigned reading of trade journals and such. One class requires two 2-page essays and a 5-page essay; the other requires two 2-page essays. I hate Riverside. Quickly: had a discussion two weeks ago with a professor who noticed how bored/angry/disgruntled I was in class. Turns out we were on the same page. His exact words: "the students here are fucking morons", and on the subject of the College of Education: "the whole place is awful, but don't let them wear you down!". I hate Riverside.

A Post For Drunkards

I used to be a stereotype
Half alive with half open eyes
With a one track mind
And a flawed design
Feeling like I was lost at sea
At only the age of 19
Floating around in alcohol and apathy
Taking in too much caffeine and nicotine

If we make it outta here alive
Just say you won't look back to see
Just who we left behind (there might not be a next time)

With all the ups and downs and turn arounds
To the breaking up to breaking down
Yeah we were the ones to say (there might not be a next time)

I used to be a stereotype
Someone you'd never recognize
With fingers so yellow
That they matched the yellow skies
And there was a few things I memorized
From all those blurry times
Like bottles clinking under blinking signs
And a few last words from long lost friends of mine

If we make it out of here alive
Just say you won't look back to see
Just who we left behind (there might not be a next time)

With all the ups and downs and turn arounds
To the breaking up to breaking down
Yeah we were the ones to say (there might not be a next time)

After all the fuck ups and fallouts
With all the ups and downs and turn arounds
Through all the breaking up to breaking down
Yeah we were the ones to say
There might not be a next time (might not be a next time)

Words to live by:
we're all doing just fine

---AND---

i might as well just sleep it off
wishful thinking's got my wires crossed
when i am desperate and alone
i know i know i know how low i go

so i'll drive and disappear
and maybe if i'm luck by this time next year
no one i know will know my name
it's either change or go or i'll explode today
i'll leave a note on my machine
unplug the phone and finish packing all my things
i found a photograph of me
its been such a slow decay
day to day i don't even recognize my own face

i had another breakdown
and i'm floating face down
i might as well just sleep it off
wishful thinking's got my wires crossed
when i am desperate and alone
i know i know i know how low i go

i'm going to sleep it off
this sinking feeling of always feeling lost
hasn't been that long
six years worth of always being wrong
i met an old friend out on the street
trade stories and out of date memories
and she has a photograph of me it's been such a slow decay day to day
did we seem much happier in those days

its been a slow decay
day to day i don't even recognize my face

Multicultural Education

Of course Western thought and teachings is what dominates American schools. This is the Western hemisphere, we were founded on a Western philosophy, and we have been growing as a Western nation for centuries. But now we have a global community and borders are fading. Students have rapid access to ideas and materials that would have taken years to obtain in the past. So, should we teach non-Western ideas in schools?

My first response is yes, absolutely. By teaching students about different philosophies, governments, literature, and histories you create a more well-rounded person. The counter-argument is the basis for our entire educational system: What's the point? Why? Will students need to know about Genghis Kahn's conquest and unification of Asia? When will they ever use such information? This viewing lens is called "Essentialism", and is how we dictate what is and isn't taught in public schools. The problem with this is it creates unfinished machines, not an educated populace. In Essentialism, there is no need for art, music, dance, or physical education - and guess where those school programs have gone?

And now look at what we have in our schools: hours upon hours devoted to cramming English, Math, History (whose?), and Science into kids' often uncaring skulls. Schools are not about obtaining an education anymore, they have become institutions that promote the status quo. In the deformed spirit of Essentialism, which prunes down school work to just what students will need to survive in the real world, a huge piece of humanity is missing: the creative, the desire for self-directed learning, the growth of the inner self, the ability to understand the world in different ways and experience different points of view.

The other side of the coin is, where's the time? There is only so much learning that can occur, or that students will be able to sit through, in a day, week, month, and year. Also there is the whole state testing thing, but I'm going to leave that clusterfuck alone. The most tangible benefit of teaching a wide spectrum of ideas and cultures is the creation of an intrinsic motivation to learn. I feel that once students see the breadth of the world's knowledge consists not of the tripe mandated by government officials, they will desire to know about the world on their own terms. This is what Mr. Jefferson refers to when he desires an educated population, the only kind that can support a true democracy. Otherwise you have a nation of people who will simply believe whatever they are told, because that's how they've been taught their whole lives.

Short Post

I was writing a much longer post, but stopped and saved it because I ran into a mental brick wall. So in brief:

Shark Week is starting at the end of July with the story of the "worst shark attack ever", which apparently occur ed when the U.S.S. Indianapolis sunk, leaving the survivors to the mercy of the sea. That scares the shit out of me. Imagine floating in the middle of the ocean, hundreds of miles from any coast, suspended miles above the ocean floor by an infinite amount of cold water and miles below the infinite blackness of cold space. Jesus, that sends chills down my spine.

I had back surgery, sort of. In the never-ending quest to stop my lower back/hip/leg from hurting, I've tried physical therapy, stretching, yoga, prescription anti-inflammatory medications, MRIs, X-rays, and now injections. It all started on New Years 2004/05, when Jeff accidentally broke my left leg. Being stubborn, I refused to use the campus handicap vans and still drove to campus, rode the bus, and hopped everywhere on crutches. Now I have all sorts of problems with my right leg - the MRI seems to have ruled out a slipped disk, so they're telling me it's a ligament problem. Anyway, they shot me full of steroids Thursday and so far I think I feel a little improvement. Luckily I'm in the middle of three straight night shifts at work, giving my back no time whatsoever to recover. Go me!

Hmm... got turned down by another high school - that makes four! I have to be hired by a school as a teacher before the Fall Quarter starts, as per my retarded-as-fuck university requirements (retardation stems from many, many different points; this requirement is in fact one of the least retarded things about the program). I've been called to interview by four high schools, so I don't think it's a problem with how I look on paper. I just may be giving really crap interviews, which seems unlikely since that's usually where I excel. But maybe I'm not saying the right things, or don't know how to say them. It's all very regimented. Every school asks me more or less the same questions off a printout that I'm sure comes standardized by the board of education. If I don't get hired as a teacher, chances are I'm going to stop wasting my time and money with the fucking UC system and drop out, work full time and save enough to get the fuck out of this shithole state.

In other news, I hate southern california. Peace love toast crunch!

Farting in the Desert

Man it is hot as a bastard round these parts. I start a month's worth of summer classes today. Judging from the current academic rigor of the FREAKING UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, THE PEOPLE IN CHARGE OF THE NATION'S NUCLEAR WEAPONRY, this should be even more of a joke than the regular term. I felt like I had enrolled at Auburn during the Spring quarter. How much lower can you get? Maybe if I just call in to each class from bed they'll give me an A for demonstrating my ability to both remember what day it is and accurately use a phone. Jeez. I had an interview this morning at a high school of 4,200 students - holy crap. Bit different from personal experience of a high school of about 350 students.

Not much else is going on - working a lot and staying inside during daytime. Freaking desert. I miss the East Coast. God, people here are such gigantic douchebags! Every single day I am confronted with some new way to be a douchebag that simply astounds me. Here's something awesome that happened yesterday: Tiffany was sitting on the porch watching a bunch of kids jumping into the pool. There were a few parents, including the star of this story: a 300-pound hambeast in an orange one-piece. She looked like an English lad and his talking insect friends were going to bust out of her any minute. Well someone must have been drunker than the entire Irish nation a few years back because she had a four-year-old kid. Like most Californians, the kid cannot swim, so he is bouncing around the shallow end with floaties on his arms. Because he isn't old enough to have absorbed fully the douchebag culture, the child wishes to play with his mother-creature, flapping his little arms and trying to grab ahold of mommy. Mommy/giant inflatable gorilla responds thusly: "WHY DO YOU KEEP HITTING ME?!?!" and then shoves her fat palm into the kids face, giving her four-year-old son a bloody nose. The dad/zookeeper takes the kid to the shower and washes him and off staunches his nose until the bleeding stops. And what does the mother/fairy-tale pumpkin coach do? Stays in the pool and stares at Tiffany, as if daring my girlfriend to call her out for bludgeoning her own child. I came out at this point, and the woman/overstuffed sofa is giving us the evil eye as hard as she can, but it came out like a potato winking at us.

That's the sort of mindset every single worthless sack of shit around here carries. Each person, no matter who they are, what they do, and how they look, believe themself to be the end-all be-all of human achievement. I'm sorry, that's not how that works. Life here is a fashion statement, and there is so little substance involved it makes me sick. It shows in every facet, from co-workers complaining because they have to work more than a five hour shift, to the complete lack of effort put forth by the university, to the total lack of pride in one's own work found in business owners (including the apartment management, which hasn't fixed out hot water in six months!). Here, actually doing something doesn't win you any respect. It's how well you act like you did something that gets you by. When I meet people from the East who have moved to California, I ask them how they like it. When they respond that they do like living here, I think to myself: Great! One less asshole to deal with when I move back. Where did this sense of privilege come from? Dear Californians: Fuck off.

On a positive note, check out Jim's awesome band Le Loup. They were just signed to a record label, Hardly Art, and are working out an East Coast tour. Congratulations Jim!

Rules of the Road

1. Thou shalt not tailgate while driving 80 mph

This bugs the shit out of me. You're driving a 1500-pound block of steel filled with explosive liquid, and some people feel that they have superhuman reaction times and are able to stop on a dime. This occurs at least five times on the way to and from work. I know this is southern California and everything is at least 20 miles away, but holy crap, what the hell is wrong with you? The "thing" out here is to drive a jacked up, gigantic truck (despite nonexistent gas mileage and the highest prices in the contiguous United States) and on top of that you're going to run others off the road? And how is tailgating going to get you to your destination any faster? Just relax, keep at least a car length off my ass.

2. Thou shalt pay attention to the traffic light.

Huge truck + cell phone + cd player + dvd player = total lack of awareness. In this same vein, please try and understand how traffic signals work. If the cross street is turning right/left on a green arrow, and you're waiting to turn right at a red light, then for fuck's sake get on with it. Obviously the turning traffic is "blocking" the straight-ahead traffic, so you're in the clear to turn.

3. Thou shalt be aware of others.

If you're driving 60 mph on the freeway side-by-side with another slow car, you're blocking any and all traffic from bypassing you. Not everyone wishes to take in the lovely desert scenery. Try and understand that, no, you are not the only person with a car and in fact the world does not revolve around you, although many people are fat enough for it to. Same applies to sitting in the left lane and going slow. The signs/driving manual/driving test/law states SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT. This means you, minivans.

4. Red doth mean red.

This hasn't changed since 1917 and the installation of the first traffic light. A red light does not mean "one or two more cars may pass; three if you're in a hurry." That's what yellow lights are for. Red = stop. Not stopping at red = death by own arrogance.

5. When thou mergest on thy mighty interstate, geteth on with it in a timely fashion!

This is what totaled my car. When you're merging, then FUCKING MERGE! You do NOT slow down to get onto an interstate! You do NOT wait until the last possible second to do so! You do NOT try and get in front of as many cars as possible by riding the merging lane into oblivion and merging from the shoulder! I see this last one occur daily.

5a. One when lane hath been shut, enter the open lane ere the first doth end.

This ties into the last rule - when signs are posted MILES in advance, with flashing lights, flares, cones, and a guy waving a big flag at you, go ahead and get the fuck over! By waiting until the last possible second to move into the open lane, you are creating a bottleneck that has a much larger effect on traffic flow then you may think. Think about it like this: what moves quicker, sand pouring through a single spout (like an hourglass) or sand pouring through a dozen spouts (like a sifter used for panning riverbeds)? It's just common sense! The best example of this is in Georgia, where 316 West merges with I-85. The two-lane road becomes one, with signs posted literally two miles before the merge. Yet nobody feels the need to get into the continuing lane until the last possible second, backing up traffic for 45 minutes. I'll even coast down the continuing lane leaving four or five car lengths of open space in front of me, yet not a single person will move over. Traffic in this case is caused by the bottleneck; wouldn't you rather be speeding along with no delay? Then no bottleneck!

6. Witnessing other's misfortunes is not tolerated on the road.

Rubbernecking: retarded. Someone changing their tire on the side of the road does not merit slowing to 10 mph and staring like you've just seen the holy grail. Even worse, an accident (that has been cleared from the road): would you want someone staring at your wrecked car, bloody nose, and/or dead friend? Yeah, me either you voyeurs, so put your blinders on and get a move on!

Definition

A buddy and I were discussing the differences in our musical tastes, and we boiled the whole thing down to this: what's more important, lyrics or music? What they are saying or how they're saying it? For him it's the latter; jam bands fill out the majority of his top ten favorite bands. Myself, I prefer a story to go with the music. Lyrical content plays a large role in whether or not I like a band. For example, my friend would enjoy a band like Phish, a band that may be musically competent but lyrically are on the same level as Koko the Magic Gorilla. I do not enjoy a band like Phish because songs that last longer than six minutes bore the shit out of me, and I don't enjoy spending my time listening to some bearded dude twiddle around the twelfth fret for half an hour. So I've decided to share a few bands who I feel are particularly excellent at writing lyrically-based songs. I've also decided to share a few choice lyrics from bands at the other end of the spectrum, and I'm not talking about just jam bands! So let's get this adventure started!

Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
We make our days as they make us,
As I must, as Odysseus,
Make myself my own Telemachus.
"Bous Stephanos, Stephanoumenos Dedalus!"

And if it hasn't been a bust,
Then "land-ho, Ulysseus!"
And all of us like Dedalus:
Dead, dead all of us.
-"My Vein Ilin"

If you didn't catch all the references in these two verses, it's the literary equivalent of stopping a Mike Tyson uppercut with your groin. Often you see the sacrifice of musicianship for lyrical content: a band may write fantastic lyrics but the music is very simple and plain. Ted Leo is a guitar virtuoso and incorporates some serious punk and rock influences into his songs. He graduated Notre Dame with an English major, and can turn a phrase into a catchy lyric better than anyone else. He's also a very liberal, renegade songwriter and can write some very combative lyrics. Here's a quick example:

And when the crying starts, you won't have to see their bloodshot eyes turn red.
And when the dying starts, you won't have to know a thing about who's dead.
This is your mission - like television - where the good guys always win.
-"Bomb.Repeat.Bomb"

Combative lyrics are one thing, and they can be very impressive, but they really lack any impact without a strong voice behind them. If you've seen Eddie Izzard's "Dress to Kill" you know exactly how important the right voice is (...yeah, a small pony). Ted Leo can push a lot of passion through the microphone, but this often tempers the anger with pure emotion. A more directed, focused voice can be found in the throat of Zach de la Rocha, lead singer of

Rage Against the Machine
revolutionary rhetoric. But the combination of There doesn't need to be a lot of introduction here, as almost everyone is familiar with RATM'sde la Rocha's screaming/rapping and Tom Morello's heavy metal fiddling can overshadow the actual lyrics

The present curriculum, I put my fist in 'em
Eurocentric every last one of 'em
See right through the red white and blue disguise
With lecture I puncture the structure of lies
-"Take the Power Back"

That last line is just fun to say, the way your lips have to clip out each syllable. Of course the idea behind the lyric is valid as well: American history and social studies focus almost exclusively on Europe, ignoring African, Latin American, and Asian ideas. That's a whole other debate however. Let's switch gears and look at what sort of lyrical contribution Phish makes.

Phish
Welcome this is a farmhouse, we have cluster flies alas
And this time of year is bad, we are so very sorry
There is little we can do but swat them
-"Farmhouse"

This is just a fantastic example of the interplay between metaphor and alliteration. Notice how the writer conveys the crushing depression of enclosure, surrounded by the biting "flies", which are a clear reference to the structure of American government and wait, no it's not, it's something he wrote on the back of his hand while waiting for the mushrooms to take effect. I don't expect too much from these guys, but I'm not going to pay money and listen to cross-dressers tell me about their fucking insect problems because they're too stoned and forgot to close the door last night. Now, I know that no one goes to a Phish concert for the lyrics. They go because the music is funky and they can smoke metric tons of marijuana for hours. But you shouldn't have to sacrifice lyrical content for groovy riffs! Here, take some of this and call me in the morning:

Mos Def
Wear those pretty clothes, drive them pretty cars
You a super hero, you a super star
You a super man, go head fly yo cape
Blowin' in the wind, let them touch the hem
Stand and fight and win, snatch the crown again
Wit' yo mighty swing, and yo flashy smile
Let them see the light
You so black and bright
You so bright you black
Shinin' you cryin' to fight them back.
-"Blue Black Jack"

This is part of a six-and-a-half minute blues/rock song during which Mos Def works his way along an ex-Parliament Funkadelic guitarist's trippy version of an old blues standard. The song slowly loses form throughout, ending up in a loud howling, chant of "yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah" as the guitarist goes to town. Added bonus: the song is about Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion, who won the title in 1910 after going fifteen rounds with the previously undefeated, white champion. Race riots followed. But now we can delve into the world of hip-hop without mentioning

Talib Kweli
People thinkin MC is short hand for Mis Conception
Let me meditate, set it straight, came to the conclusion
that most of these cats is featherweight, let me demonstrate
Walkin the streets is like battlin, be careful with your body
You must know karate or think your soul is bulletproof like Sade
Stop actin like a bitch already, be a visionary
And maybe you can see your name in the column of obituary
-"Definition"

Talib Kweli and Mos Def both spring forth from a place where rap isn't about ho's and ho-related things like benjamins and yachts. They actually have something to say in their songs and express it creatively in a way that most cannot hold a candle to. Lastly, let's look at two more artists, one who sucks at writing lyrics and the other who doesn't.

Jason Mraz
I’m just a curbside prophet
with my hand in my pocket
and I’m waiting for my rocket y'all
-"Curbside Prophet"

Jesus Christ shut the fuck up.

Bruce Springsteen
Now Tom said, 'Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Ma, I'll be there.
Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand
Or a decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes Mom - you'll see me'
-"The Ghost of Tom Joad"

I mean, come on, it's no contest.

Now don't think I don't enjoy lyrical nonsense. I mean, I have a song about a guy throwing an awesome pool party in my regular rotation. Anyway, I've been doing this for an hour and a half now so I'm leaving for dinner. Welcome back to me!

Sorry

It's been a pretty intense last few weeks, hence the lack of awesome writing for your face. I've had two interviews with schools, a full week of training in addition to an MRI, five days of teaching class in the morning, an appointment to determine where I'll receive an epidural, and something else I'm sure I'm forgetting. So, briefly:

Finally got a job. Sports bar 30 miles south of my apartment. Good money though, $7.50/hour plus tips. Take that, Georgia and your low cost of living. Made $100 in three hours, bank.

There's a stupid, wannabe punk-poser half-assed revolutionary bitch in my biology class. She's an 11th grader (by default, not academically) taking a 9th grade class. She's Hispanic. And she draws swastikas on everything. Of course she has a crappy jacket that she safety-pins different patches on advertising punk bands that haven't played together since before she was born. Swastikas on her notes, on her stupid jacket... I'm wondering when I get to say something to her. I doubt it's racially or religiously motivated, I don't think she's smart enough to hate effectively. Most likely someone "underground" from Spin magazine or MTV told her to do it.

I'm about to kill everyone in the education department/school district. How did all these stupid people come into being? I think they spawn from that faceless beast known as Bureaucracy, or as some ancient texts refer to it, The Uglyness of Man.

Speaking of half-assed revolutions, if my riot were going to have a soundtrack, it would have to be Rage Against the Machine. There is no other option. Witness Exhibits A- :
Sleep Now in the Fire music video
Testify music video

And lastly, ask yourself this - what exactly are the benchmarks everyone keeps bitching about?

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/22389

Read the five benchmarks. These are Fearless Leader's own benchmarks, but he will not approve them if Congress passes the bill. First, the benchmarks are pretty sick - giving foreign corporations first call on Iraqi oil contracts, for starters. Anyway I gotta run and pretend like a give a shit about this class. It's costing me thousands of dollars, I might as well.

Evilution

A study released this week states that since chimpanzees and humans diverged genetically 6 million years ago, chimpanzees have evolved more than humans. Scientists (those evil, godless heretics) found a greater ratio of positive mutations in DNA to silent (non-expressed) or negative mutations than in humans. The article I linked does point out a great number of mitigating factors that may nullify the results, such as there being a much larger population of chimps than humans over the time period since the split. However, the conclusion reached brings up an interesting point, that humans have removed themselves from the evolutionary chain.

To put it simply, humans have stopped evolving at a rate consistent with the rest of the natural world. First, what causes evolution? As I understand it, evolution is the result of many factors, but primarily it is the selection of beneficial genetic mutations over time resulting in genetic and physical changes in a population. Those changes that are advantageous are kept in the population via the carrier not dying. Usually these changes go unnoticed (silent) or are quickly eliminated by the death of the new mutation. However, as the environment changes, a genotype that once worked may not be as efficient as before, and a new genotype arises that is more efficient and outcompetes the older type, resulting in a change in population or even extinction. The key word here is "environment". Environment does impact genetic change, but almost always indirectly (weeding out the ineffective genotype/rewarding the more effective type). So with that in mind, I would postulate that humans have removed themselves from the environment that they have ceased to evolve. If the environment remains static, there is no need for adaptation, and diversity in the population goes to zilch. This is of course bad, because when there is a shift in environment (and because of how we live that shift will most likely be swift and dramatic, as opposed to the long and drawn-out time frame needed for evolutionary change), then humans will be left in the dust, as it were.

Now I'm absolutely talking theory here, with very little evidence to support my claim. It's mostly an exercise in thought - I was originally going to write about how bad California drivers are (again) but heard this story on the radio as I was coming home. Or better yet, what if humans began adapting to our current sheltered environment of plenty? Would we see a decrease in brain size or cerebral folding as we rely more and more on technology, a body more suited to metabolizing fat and artificial chemicals as we ruin the natural food supply, less muscle mass as we continue to use and abuse transportation systems? Whatever the answer, it's still an interesting and frightening idea with a whole lot of pride wrapped up in it - how come we, as a species, are exempt from the natural order? We have been living outside of the natural order for thousands of years, ever since we began creating unnecessary surpluses and warring against the environment rather than living within it. Ah, so. Time for homework.

Controlling the Present

Today I went questing for a new car. My old one actually still runs and runs well, but the insurance company has already laid their demon eyes on it and are trying to reclaim it quickly so they can cut me a wholly inadequate check and wash themselves of me. Well, screw them, I liked that car and don't have another one yet. So, I find myself traveling thirty miles south to the lovely town of Hemet, a place whose look matches exactly the quality of the name. Hemet follows in the great tradition of shitty places given equally shitty names, and I'm not sure which one determines the other. Were places like Gary, Indiana, Twiggs County, Georgia, or East St. Louis awful places to begin with, or did they mutate along the aesthetic lines of their names?

Hemet is, surprisingly, in the desert. It is just a poorer city than Riverside and cannot afford to import and steal as much water as we can, so the place is rather dryer, dustier, drabber (?), and other similar-meaning d-words. Despite being located in the blasted wasteland between two other blasted wastelands, Los Angeles and Arizona, people here (and I'm sure elsewhere) are crazy enough to insist on maintaining some sort of lawn. Despite the fact that the closest body of water is the Pacific Ocean, residents of this little burg have created gravel front yards, lined with fences. The classier homeowners in fact lay down Astro-Turf, complete with a brick-lined walkway to their front door. Some of you may have read that and thought it was a typo, or that you haven't had your bran muffin this morning and are hallucinating, so let me repeat that: Astro-Turf yards. With brick-lined walkways, to keep the plastic weeds out. Ten-to-one they actually landscape that shit with a Pop-Pop toy mower.

Why do these people insist the world must change to fit their needs? All around Riverside there are fountains and lush lawns, as if people are flaunting the water in the face of four billion years of geology. "Haha, desert!", they seem to say, "we're such opulent persons and such engineering geniuses that we pipe in water from hundreds of miles away just to gush it up in the air for no reason at all!" It reminds me of the opening scene in the novel Dune where the ruler of the desert planet pours out a glass of water onto the ground before a state dinner, displaying his elevation above the natural state of things.

Well bad news human beings! You are not exempt from the natural state of things (see Global Warming). Stop trying to terraform an already abundant planet. Any good argument of course must offer a solution, so mine is this: stop moving to the fucking desert. Who the fuck walks 100 miles in the scorching sun and plants his flag right next to an ocean of sand-blasted rock and a sun-bleached cow skull and says, "Let's put a city right here! And you know what, let's call it Riverside just to fuck with people!". So in protest I've decided to stop drinking water altogether and imbibe nothing but bottled spirits and beer. It's for your own good I'm doing this, you know.

I didn't buy the car.

Education, then LONG rambling rant

Originally I was going to harp on about the No Child Left Behind and state of education in America today, but there's nothing new I can really say. It seems I missed the golden age of teaching, where the educator more or less ruled the classroom and taught whatever they deemed necessary for a proper education. Today, as no doubt everyone is at least peripherally aware, educators are handcuffed to a strict code of standards in the government's effort to make education uniform and identical in every classroom across the nation. One of my professors is also a high school English teacher, and even she has very little flexibility in what novels are taught in her classes. You would think a more liberal arts subject such as literature would have some leeway in what is taught - as long as it's appropriate, you can teach it, right? But she told me that she can only work in one or two novels of her choosing a year, and the rest is regimented by the school board/district/state/federal government.

(Note: please ignore opening sentence.)

The standardizing movement is doing more harm than good. This strict formalization of education across America is rooted in an educational philosophy termed "Essentialism", which is exactly what it sounds like: students should be taught the fundamentals in the basic subjects, such as Math, English, History, and Science. This philosophy pushes other pursuits such as Drama, Visual Arts, Physical Education, and Music to the very fringes of a curriculum. The reason the government is pushing this philosophy more intensely than before can be blamed on any number of causes: America's continual middling placement among global Math and Reading scores, President Bush's attempt at having something positive associated with his term in office, or a reaction and fail-safe against the overall lack of talent found in educators. No matter what the reason, it boils down to the homogenization of education in the nation, just like our housing, shopping, and culinary options have. This is to the detriment of our students and will further scare talented teachers away from the field of public education (as low salaries, little respect, and handicapping from parents and legal systems already do.)

(Now for something different.)

I haven't been able to write anything funny or make any jokes recently because for the past month or so I've been in a pretty bad place and it looks like it'll get worse before it gets better. I did finally get a job - in a restaurant that doesn't open until April 29th. The job market around here is so stagnant that the only job I could get was in a brand new restaurant 30 miles south of my apartment. Getting there will be a real hoot too, since my car was totaled last week by a fucking AAA driver who's so old his claim number was "00000-2" and by a gigantic Suburban driven by a tiny Hispanic woman. I'm sure I've mentioned that construction is rampant in these parts. Additionally, the interim roadways the geniuses at the CA DOT have provided are narrower and more dangerous than a badger's asshole.

Here's the skinny: the on-ramp at one of these improvised stunt tracks/heavily used roadways is about 150 feet long and simply meets the freeway at a 35-degree angle, with no merge lane whatsoever. Additionally, the shoulder is comprised of seven-foot tall concrete barriers sitting inches from the so-called on-ramp. Also additionally, the next exit from this on-ramp is a total clusterfuck where two highways and an interstate converge and diverge in the space of one-fifth of a mile. So anyway, I am proceeding down the on-ramp at typical merging speed: 45 mph. One especially wants to be up to speed because I said, there is no merging lane, you just have to get the fuck over at speed or slam your face into two feet of concrete.

So it's 10 am, past rush hour, traffic is medium heavy but moving at a good clip, with no stopping/starting. Tra la la, here I go, oh wait, what's this? Why is this gigantic Suburban 75 feet in front of me slowing down and stopping? One second goes by - at 50 mph that's 73 feet - and in that time I have to make a decision. I slam on my brakes while honking my horn, put on my left blinker and because I have so little room to stop and cannot pull to the shoulder on the right, must try and merge to the freeway. Unfortunately, the fucking dumb shit bitch has stopped her Suburban at the point where the on-ramp and the freeway meet, effectively blocking both lanes. I cannot merge without blindly throwing myself across two freeway lanes of heavy traffic. I have no choice but to try and screech to a halt. I do, inches from the Suburban. A late 1970's pure steel pickup truck slams into the back of me. My Honda, weighing all of 700 pounds with me inside, is launched forward under the Suburban's bumper. Damage done to the pick up: pretty bad. Damage done to the Honda: total loss. Damage done to the Suburban: none. NONE. In fact, she almost drove off, I wrote down her plate while honking to get that dumb bitch to pull over. So what is her excuse for stopping the Suburban on a freeway on-ramp/lane of traffic in a construction zone with no shoulder and heavy traffic??? Could it be something legitimate like her car died or the transmission exploded or she had just seen a vision of God in her tortilla who told her to stop the car so He could start the Rapture? Nope! It's so bad, I swear I almost pushed her into traffic. I almost murdered this woman. And you think I'm going to say she was on her cell phone, right? Well guess again, it's even better than that. Ready?

THE BABY WAS CRYING AND SHE WAS NERVOUS.

Oh, oh no! The baby was crying at you! Well by all means please go ahead and continue acting like you're the only creature here on this Earth and tend to whatever little need right away! Never mind that you're driving a behemoth of an automobile, or that you're so small you probably need a two fucking L.A. phonebooks just to see out the windshield, or that you're trying to merge onto one of the busiest freeways in Riverside while the entire thing is under construction! No! No no no, please, don't let any of that bother you. You were nervous? THEN WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING DRIVING A TWO-TON, TWENTY-FIVE FOOT ENGINE OF DESTRUCTION?!? If you're so incapable, incompetent, so below normal functioning then what the fuck are you doing outside of your cage, let alone reproducing, let alone being allowed to operate a motor vehicle when you should be locked up in a cosmetics factory and have oven cleaner shot into your eyeballs while bunnies and puppies that would normally take that punishment be allowed to run free, where even if all they do in their short lives is fuck and shit, they will have accomplished so much more than you ever will, you damn worthless monkey!

.........Whew. Sorry. That's a lot of frustration coming out at once, and not just about the car. The car is a total loss, I'll get about $1200 from insurance. So I've got to find a new car, and quick, because starting next Monday I need to be at Corona HS every morning for six weeks. There's also a whole host of other shit going on right now, but I'm so angry after retelling the car wreck that I need a break, and besides who the fuck wants to listen to me complain. I would really enjoy a nice hot shower right now, but oh wait, guess what? Not only have we not had hot water since January, but we haven't had running water at all today. How about a shower and a shit? No sir! Can't flush, can't wash, can't drink, can't brush your teeth. Hoo-ray for today.

AMERICA!

There are too many things I could write about today, so I'm going to try and spread it out over the next few days so it looks like I'm coming up with a lot of fresh ideas in a short time span.

Someone needs to turn off America's expansion engine. We are rushing construction projects and continuously building as if we still had a frontier. Bad news guys - we ran out of new land some sixty years ago (note: I am not including recent foreign conquests, because it is pretty clear we're not planning on building anything there at all - except this). Yet we continue to expand throughout the countryside with no regard for civic planning or even actual need. Everywhere I look there are half-finished construction projects spilling over into giant, empty lots with dozens of dusty parking spaces and "Office Space for Lease" signs in every window. Companies are treating the already stressed landscape like a contract crapshoot, just building blocks and blocks of office or retail space that no one requested. These vacant shells wait scornfully for tenants, unapologetic in their uselessness.

To be fair, rapid expansion and construction provides countless jobs and generates tons of money for the economy. Businesses have access to more affordable space, which in turns (ideally) translates to lower prices for consumers. Standardized home construction provides cheaper living space for our growing population. However, as much as I would like to believe that the driving force behind our constant expansion is to create a better society, I can say with certainty that a vast majority of these construction projects do not stem from some altruistic notion but rather for that almighty Dollar. I'm not here to rail on capitalism, which I'm all for, but rather to point out that because construction is so profitable it is that much more resistant to change. Why fix it if it's not broken?

I would like to see the huge economy of construction distilled out into a multitude of smaller economies. I would like to see many local companies that only concern themselves with building in single states (maybe three or four for you tiny statettes in the northeast). I would to like to see the rampant expansion reigned in, to quit building just for the sake of it and refocus that engine inward toward building a local community.

I'm ending this one now because I'm about to shoot off on a completely different tangent, along the lines of the update I wrote called "Countrified Counterculture", which I'll be rehashing and refreshing in a few days. For tomorrow, a comedic update about one of my favorite topics: education!

Eloi

In a search for some sort of defining culture around Riverside, Tiffany and I hit up the museum a few weeks ago. They were spotlighting a photographic exhibit titled "Eloi: Searching for Paradise". Eloi is the name H.G. Wells gave to the human descendants populating the Earth 800 millenia from now in his short story "The Time Machine". The Eloi live in a seeming Eden, where food grows plentiful without the attentions of the population, disease is defeated, and all the other shortcomings those of us in the 2nd millenia must face. Of course this paradise is flawed, as the narrator find outs. The Eloi have become cattle for a second branch of human evolution, the subterranean-dwelling Morlocks. The background here is relevant to both an understanding of the exhibit and a commentary on the current progress of humanity.

The exhibit is unfortunately very brief, consisting of maybe 20 pictures. But the message (with the added weight of H.G. Wells) is clear enough: every day we hear that the world is getting better, that we're closer to solving many of our problems, that everything you see around you is working towards achieving paradise. The exhibit brings into focus what that paradise is turning out to be. Pictures of blasted empty lots, carefully constructed sand castles, and nude men and women revealing their individual scars and age lines. We are in danger of believing the "hype", that the rampant homogenization of America is the paradise we all want. Every day another giant Wal-Mart of Target shopping center is built, paving acres of land and clear-cutting through neighborhoods. Every day we see forgotten skeletons of buildings, rotting in place just blocks away from a new ten-story, state of the art office building, never remembering that thirty years ago that broken building held the same passing awe of the people. MTV, magazines, popular culture all throw images of the ideal human, effortlessly beautiful and competent, while no one you know looks like them and everyone has their own personal stripe that doesn't make them "beautiful".

People constantly reach for this perceived paradise, following fashions with a zeal better reserved for something meaningful. Medicine is working towards the general health of the population, if you can afford it. But luckily a good portion of the medical eye is turned towards defiling our bodies and our habits, helping us reach that unattainable goal of manufactured beauty. Liposuction, plastic surgery, implants - you name it, and we can force your body into your preferred mold.

More than a century ago H.G. Wells saw a future where people failed to evolve. The Eloi and the Morlocks both devolved into sub-human mockeries of modern people, one so helpless that they no longer spoke a language, the other into an underground creature working endlessly forever, for no reason. The question is, are we heading towards the paradise we want? If you look around you and think about your surroundings, are things progressing towards a future you want to be a part of?

Another Quick Note

Tiffany and I went for a walk/half-hearted jog this evening and while waiting to cross an intersection one of those low-riding pick-up trucks stopped at the light. It had some nice Wal-Mart rims, maybe one halogen headlight, tinted windows, some bad ass lick-and-stick decals, but all of these wonderful adornments paled in comparison to this fantastic achievement in dumbass-ery: the idiot installed video screens in the headrests. That were pressed against the rear window. The tinted rear window. Of his tiny pick-up truck. What, does he fold down the seats when he's hanging out in parking lots? Are they so his homies can squint and crowd around while riding in the back of his truck, blocking his rear view mirror?

Le sigh.

Quick Note

I just finished my first quarter here at UCR, and I can say that I've learned much. Mostly that Riverside sucks. Anyway during my final tonight I remembered something that happened a few weeks ago. There is a guy who sits a few rows in front of me, and every single class he has worn a Yankees cap and a Yankees jacket, nice expensive ones too. During a lecture the professor was talking to the kid as part of the lesson, noticed he had baseball-type clothes on, and because he is old and had no idea asked the Yankee-clad student "Oh you like baseball?", to which he replied "No, not really."

Sigh.

City of Industry

Last night Tiffany and I went to a friend's St. Patrick's Day party in Los Angeles. It was fine; we knew the hosts and our mutual friend Kim was in town, so we had a good time getting scrambled on one Guinness and a bunch of warm Miller Lites. Miller Lite, by the way, is swill. Three-day-old rainwater is more palatable. And even though it was the day before St. Patrick's Day, the party was dubbed as such a party and signed outside noted that those not wearing green would be raped by the host. Nonetheless, less than half of the party wore any green. This is because of two reasons: one, there isn't a large Irish influence here like there is on the East coast, and two, most of the people there were trendy "industry" posers who wouldn't lower themselves to the level of us plebeians. My gripe with these people is that they stick to well-defined cliques. If you're not clearly someone higher up on a social ladder that is defined by experience, vague connections, and name-dropping, then there is no reason these people would speak with you. I found it almost impossible to strike up conversation or break into one, and when I did engage one of these future actors/singers/failures I was given curt responses and thinly veiled scorn. The only new people I managed to talk to? Two kids out of Elon in North Carolina and two Texans, or more simply the non-LA "industry" people. The social scene, at least in Los Angeles, is much more competitive, even in a leisure setting such as a house party. That sort of snobbery is completely unnecessary.

Parties at UGA usually found me talking with new people more than I talked with the friends that came with me. Southerners seem much more friendly, more willing to speak with random people, more ready to have a good laugh and at least try a little conversation with someone, no matter what you think of them at first glance. But of course there are douchebags everywhere, and perhaps LA just has a higher concentration of douchebags than the rest of the country. I'm hoping that the douchebag concentratoion dilutes the further north you travel in California, because that is where I would like to move once I finish my schooling here. Riverside sucks.

NCAA

It's been a while since I've written an actual update about moi. Right now I'm soaking in the last great sporting event I'll be participating in until football starts back up in the fall. This is especially key because Tiffany isn't here to receive the awful torture of having sports being watched/talked about/referenced off-hand, which seems to cause her and many women to react as if they've been personally insulted. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

I had a job interview this past Saturday and another this morning for the two biggest school districts around me, Corona-Norco and Riverside. The Coronoa one went well, as I dazzled the two women interviewing me with my disarming smile and wit. I won't hear from that district until mid-April, but from talking with other students in the credential program as an "intern teacher" I will still be paid at or near regular teacher salary - needless to say this would finally give a reason for my existence out here, and the monetary compensation is enormous compared to my current job of testing the limits of my credit with various lenders. The Riverside interview didn't go as well, but the two districts have different interview policies: Riverside's pre-lim interview is really just to make sure I have all my paperwork, while Corona's is a little more extensive, asking a dozen or so work-related questions. Anyway I wandered into the Riverside USD building at 9 a.m. sans caffeine, which proved to be a big mistake as a my interview consisted of being asked five rapid-fire questions that at any other time were simple but in my drowsy and suddenly confused state I found perplexing. After asking a question, the interviewer was greeted with a ten second silence while I slowly repeated it to myself.

In other news, I'm sunburned on my back and face. One class is completed and the second class will be over after a final exam Monday night. Tomorrow night is a badass St. Pat's party (I know the holiday is on Saturday, but we're Irish here and don't mind spreading the cheer across multiple days/weeks). Also, why the hell is CBS showing UCLA/Weber State when Duke is doing its best to fully play out the tools they are by losing to Virginia Commonwealth in the first round? That's a downside of living on the West Coast, you have to put up with West Coast sports. They suck. On top of that, nobody here even cares. Oh wait, CBS just switched to the Duke/VCU game - they had to stick with the 2 seed UCLA until they were up by a comfortable 24 points - shit they just switched back! This game was over as soon as it was written in the bracket! Who the fuck cares about this game? UCLA is up by 20 with ten minutes left in the game, Weber State hasn't made 10 field goals in the game - why can't we watch something interesting? My only thought is that Duke has cried enough to the refs that they're going to go ahead and let them blow out VCU just to shut them up. Quote from UCLA game: "And that's the first points for Weber State in five-and-a-half minutes!" Why is this televised?

Also way to go UGA, stomping over another West Coast pansy league team, Fresno State, in the NIT. In the first half Fresno made one non-three point field goal and three free throw points. They made nine 3's. It was ridiculous. They refused to step inside the three point arc. UGA stopped even pretending to guard the paint, they would triple-team whoever was at the top of the key and Fresno State still thought they it would be a good idea to keep hucking up low-percentage three's all day. UCLA up by 27 with 7:40 left; Duke up by 6 with 10:00 left. Stupid CBS. Stupid West Coast not being sports oriented. Stupid Bon Jovi doing Hanes commercial.

"Don't worry, we'll get you back to Weber State and UCLA in just a second, but let's take a peek at Duke!"... "Duke doesn't have a lot of spurtability..." What does that even mean? Duke is up by 6 now, UCLA still by 27. Sorry, I'm done bitching about this.

Well I picked Texas Tech over BC. I always pick Bob Knight for no good reason. Also Michigan State is going to beat Marquette, which I do not want to happen. I have Arkansas beating USC (12 over 5) because the Pac-10 sucks, Texas beating UNC, and 6-seed Louisville going to the Final Four.

"Well this game is already wrapped up, UCLA dominating from minute one." Meanwhile, Duke's lead is down to ONE! Why the fuck are we watching this boring-ass mismatch? "UCLA's defense has really shut down Weber State." The girl's varsity softball team could shut down Weber State!

EDIT (the next day): I suck at making tourney picks.

News Day

KRISTEN: OK Umberto, how does the shot frame up? Do you have the broken windows in the background?

UMBERTO: Yeah, I got it. You're fine. We're going live in thirty.

KRISTEN: You know this is going to be great for me, nothing like this happens anymore. I guess there were those riots in L.A. over the whole O.J. thing. God! That lucky bitch Crystal Espinoza got such great exposure! I would've killed to be there for that! What a great opportunity that must've been... Do you think this'll get national play?

UMBERTO: Five seconds.

KRISTEN: Good afternoon Keith, I'm standing in front of what remains of the student commons here on the University of California, Riverside. As you can see, the entire front has been broken through, tables overturned, the Dance Dance Revolution game totally shattered, and the Starbucks inside looks like a war zone. What could have caused this destruction? According to eyewitness reports, a single crazed assailant went on a rampage here, causing all the property damage you see behind me. I have with me a young man who says he was here during the carnage. What's your name?

JESUS: Jesus Ramirez.

KRISTEN: So Jesus, what can you tell us about what happened? Did you see the person who did this?

JESUS: Um, yeah, well first my name is Hay-seus, not Jesus. Although that would be pretty cool, I guess. Uhh... yeah I saw the guy who did it. He was this white dude, he was like a little bit taller than me and stuff.

KRISTEN: Do you have any idea what started him on his rampage?

JESUS: Yeah he was yelling a lot, waving his hands around like, and pointing at people and shouting. Then he started breaking all the windows and throwing coffee at people.

KRISTEN: What was he yelling?

JESUS: I don't know.

KRISTEN: There was a man breaking windows, throwing things at people, shouting the whole time, and you didn't hear what he said?

JESUS: Well I had my iPod in one ear, and I was on the phone with my boy too. Hey Hector what's up man!

KRISTEN: Actually, I see you still have your iPod in your ear. OK, thank you Jesus... Yes Keith, there have been reports of injuries, nothing serious I understand... Well we don't have a confirmed number yet, but there are about a dozen students in the area with visible bandages. Two ambulances were called but no one has been taken to the hospital. OK, I have here another student who was at the commons when the destruction began. What's your name sir?

JESUS: Jesus Hernandez.

KRISTEN: And Jesus, can you give us an idea-

JESUS: It's Jesus, like the guy.

KRISTEN: Of course. Jesus, can you give us an idea of what caused the assailant to behave like he did?

JESUS: Well I don't know, I mean he was all like yelling at me and my buddy and this girl we were with, and then he threw my phone at me, and took my friend's Helio and stepped on it. That's not cool, cause those are pretty new and expensive, so I started to say something but he punched me right here in the chest and I fell over, and that's when I got out of the way. That dude was crazy.

KRISTEN: Apparently he was yelling a lot, can you remember any of what was said?

JESUS: Yeah, he was like "Shut the hell up! Just shut up! I've been listening to you for ten minutes and I couldn't finish my food!" And then some other stuff about, like wasting good oxygen, and something like being a total tool, and then he called us all idiots. I told him "Hey man what's your problem?" and he said "How did you even get into this university? Your life is a total waste!" and that's when my buddy tried to take his picture with his Helio because he was going to send it to his myspace and that's when he started going crazy. And he said my shirt was for a poodle drag show. Uh, excuse me, but Armani does not make pre-torn hot pink shirts with bleach spots for dogs.

KRISTEN: OK, thank you Jesus. I hope that you and your friends recover and return to school soon. I understand that the Dean is letting everyone take up to a week off to recover?

JESUS: Yeah I guess, I don't know who Dean is but that sounds cool to me, I've got a poster about rabbits that's due tomorrow.

KRISTEN: When we return from the break I'll be talking with an off-duty police officer who was inside the student commons building when the assailant charged in. Back to you Keith.

UMBERTO: ...And we're off. Three minutes.

KRISTEN: God that Keith is an ass. Hey wow, two guys with the same name? What are the odds?

UMBERTO: They didn't have the same name. Jesus was my cousin actually, like on my aunt's daughter's side or something.

KRISTEN: Which one? Wait, never mind, I don't care. Oh look, the policewoman has a head bandage! This is going to be so great!

[KRISTEN walks off camera. UMBERTO sets the camera on the ground and sits beside it. Quiet snoring is heard after a minute]

KRISTEN: Umberto get up! I think we're on soon.

UMBERTO: Huh? Uh, yeah, hang on. Twenty seconds. Get the lady here.

KRISTEN: Hello and welcome back, Keith. We're going to speak with policewoman Cho, who was in the Starbucks inside the student commons when the assailant broke in and started wrecking everything. Can you describe what you saw?

CHO: The man was about five-foot-ten, a white male, with a bad haircut. His clothes were really bad too, just a plain t-shirt and some jeans. I couldn't see a brand name anywhere. And his shoes were pretty dirty.

KRISTEN: I see you've been injured. How did this come about?

CHO: Well he kicked through the glass doors, walked past the barrier Starbucks had set up, totally cutting in line, and started screaming about wanting a "frozen mocha whipped frappachino with vente espressos". Which is ridiculous, that's not even a drink! So then the other barista puts up someone's order on the bar, it's like a caramel apple spice drink, and then guy who ordered it said he wanted extra whipped cream on his, and that's when the assailant picked up the drink and smashed it right in the guy's face! He then started throwing the jars of mocha flakes at everyone, yelling at us to leave room for sugar and cream. I got clocked with bottle of coconut syrup.

KRISTEN: What a harrowing experience, Officer Cho. I'm sure you'll be eager to catch the villain.

CHO: Yeah but first I want to get my seasonal St. Patrick's Day Irish Creame Vanilla Coffee. Do you know where another Starbucks is?

KRISTEN: Well no I-- I've just been informed by Keith in the studio that a new Starbucks has been built across the street. He says they just opened thirty minutes ago, in response to this one being destroyed two hours ago. Well thank you Officer Cho, we here at the Channel 6 Action Fire Sun Bomb News Team wish you a speedy recovery.

CHO: Thanks guys! I love you Keith Algonquin!

KRISTEN: So there you have it. A man, frustrated by the state of popular culture, driven to destruction. Kristen Dawes, reporting from the University of California, Riverside. Back to you, Keith.

UMBERTO: And we're off.

KRISTEN: How was that? I bet I'm on Fox News or CNN by tonight!

UMBERTO: You suck.

Touch this illa fifth dynamite

The past few years I've moved away from pop-punk and indie music towards hip-hop. Not rap, studio gangster bullshit. Actual artistic production from African American (also known as "black people"), such as the work of Mos Def, Talib Kweli, The Roots, Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Dialted Peoples, Kanye West, MF Doom... and even more artists I don't know or can't remember. These artists could all be classified as "conscious hip hop", a label indicating that they are not in the music business to make a buck like their MTV contemporaries but rather to pass on a message, a revolution for their people. Black people. I don't buy into calling people "African American" unless they actually are; otherwise you must call me an Irish-Jewish-Russian American.

These artists are like a modern day Rolling Stones or Who, Ramones or Dead Kennedys. The artists I mentioned above are creating for the uplift of their race! They exist as a reaction to the sell-out, minstrel show act of the studio gangster. "You've got to applaud niggers that raise the bar", Talib Kweli says, and that is what appeals to me. On the broadest level, these artists are pushing their brothers and sisters to reach for the top, to accomplish everything they are capable of. That's what I like, that's what gets me fired up. Pushing oneself to achieve. Coming from a black person's perspective the message is even more potent. Black people still suffer from prejudice as does any race that is not the majority. "Civil liberties is free but just for some... trust your family, trust nobody at all, see your brothers getting struck down" says Blackthought of the Roots. The struggle isn't entirely physical as it was 100 or even 40 years ago. Now black people must fight to catch up to the white's educational complex. I like that these black artists encourage their fellows to learn, to achieve, to accomplish something beyond owning a few square blocks in the ghetto. "Hip hop will simply amaze you, craze you, pay you, do whatever you say do, but black, it can't save you" rhymes Mos Def. Being black isn't an excuse anymore - it is time for black people to take their own intellectually, to come into their own as a people, to move past the dominant white people's perception of the "rapper".

Ace of Spades

Another Wednesday night in Riverside, California. Another night I'm spending alone. Well, that's not completely accurate - there's a daredevil Manx purring across the sofa from me and a 18 of my best friends staying cool in the fridge. Make that 17.

I barely drank at all when I first moved here. I was too anxious, getting my classes and life in line, studying for a big exam. When I finished with the exam, passing all three tests in under three hours and passing with flying colors, I made a few trips out to the local bars trying to discern some sort of scene around here. There isn't one. Downtown Riverside is barren. Riverside is barren. I kept my drinking to myself. It's cheaper, and the company is infinitely better.

Something happened. I kicked my drinking up to full-bore. Rum shots with beer chasers and no dreams, no nightmares. Something happened. I backed down. Red wine and chicken stir-fry for dinner. Healthy heart, that was me. Something happened, nothing happened. The mind is a powerful, deranged thing.

Why drink? Why drink at all? Why drink alone? It lets you sit at a bar and tune out the inane conversations around you. It turns you into a sieve, stupid recycled radio sluices through you and doesn't stick at all, but gems like "Have you seen that new show, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? That show confuses me!" are caught and filed under Reasons to Keep Drinking.

It stops the questions. Questions like, Was that the last one-way flight she'll ever buy? Will my friends remember me? Will I remember them? The doubts you had about moving out here, that grow every time you go out and visit the wasteland, fade away. Never mind that you moved from one suburban hell to another. Never mind that there's no one here on your side. Drink puts you on the launch pad. You're stronger than this, you're the freaky radio here, you're the beacon.

Bang. Are you going to do it? That's another question. All the questions have answers, but can you face them? Will you find them is a better question. You won't tonight, tonight you've turned off the thinking part of your brain so you can get some sleep. This tide of mediocrity is overwhelming, so much more so than ever, and all you can do to stop from screaming is let your voice echo in another bottle or can or bathroom mirror.

Applications in the mail, loans on the table, bureaucracy in front, the past behind, reaching for the future. In the meantime? Feelin' great. Lay back and relax your mind - I'm about to double the dosage in the half the time!

Vaguely Related Paragraphs

Our T.A. brought up an interesting point in class today: American culture is focused on youth. He told us that nowhere else in the world is there such an obsession on young people. In fact, most of the world reveres older people instead, respecting their wisdom. Think about the rash of teeny-bopper stars (Lolitas like Spears and Aguilera to mere boys like Hanson) less than a decade ago. That in itself isn't so unusual, as their has been plenty of young musical acts in past decades. But moving past that, a lot of advertising is now aimed at teenagers and children because companies know that its these young people, not their working parents, who control the money. Perhaps people here look towards youth as a celebration of potential and care-free worry? Idealized youth represents freedom from the crap this nation is wading through.

I picked up a book to kill before class today, Salman Rushdie's Fury. Early in the first chapter the author makes a note about the difference between the Christian and Muslim moral universes. He writes that Christians have sin and redemption, while Muslims have shame and honor as their moral poles. This simple insight reveals a lot about a world I know a little about, and explains why Western philosophy is so far removed from the streets and cities of the Arab world. The two moral compasses have almost no overlap, especially since each has developed independently for hundreds of years. A situation: your daughter is raped. In Western philosophy, the one at fault is the rapist, he is evil, he is wrong, he is a sinner, he is punished. In many Islamic countries, the daughter is the one at fault. She has brought shame on her family and is punished, usually with death or mutilation. The rapist often receives punishment, but nowhere near as severe as the punishment the daughter receives, and it is not unheard of for the rapist to go free.

I just finished The Brothers Karamazov, a Russian novel about four brothers and the murder of their father, but primarily serves as a vehicle for Dosotoevsky's philosophies concerning good and evil in man through the influence of Christian religion. One of the brothers is an intellectual who renounces and mocks those who fall in line behind the church, and actually Dostoevsky provides through him some very compelling arguments against the existence of God. The next book I started reading is Nietzscshe's Thus Spoke Zarthustra, his most famous work. On page 3 of the novel the protagonist speaks one of the most well-known sentences associated with Nietzsche: "God is dead". Karamazov was published in 1880, and Zarathustra in 1883-1885.
It is doubtful that these two authors had any connection with each other, but it's even more important to realize that while the current generation always thinks it is on the cutting edge, every generation previous has thought the same. Just these two works provide enough philosophical weight to give that 140-year-old generation a lotta clout.

I don't really know what that last sentence means, but the takeaway here is that it may be a bit premature to put faith in the upcoming generation (we're Generation Y, apparently includes those born 1978 to 1998. Some call us Millennials). Instead we should focus on the problems we're facing right now, not hoping that a group of young up-and-coming people will bring solutions to light. Are these paragraphs related? Barely.

Countrified Counterculture

I don't think there is any counterculture left in America. Any idea that begins as an underground movement is quickly co-opted by a business corporation, marketed in a blitz, and six months later is so ubiquitous that 90% of the American population is familiar with or owns some bastardized product based off the idea, and the spirit of the idea is dead. A counterculture idea should exist outside the regular bounds of society - if it's a truly valid idea, it will reach a tipping point and spread of its own accord. Quoting directly from Malcolm Gladwell's book, companies purposely seek out these sort of ideas, attach themselves to it and ride the popularity to profit. Even worse, companies have begun seeking out these sort of ideas or simply creating their own convenient ideas and blanketing society with the intent of artificially creating their own tipping point - all for profit.

So that's why there isn't a counterculture in America. It's bought out in its infancy. Instead we have commentators. A counterculture is birthed as a reaction to the failings of popular culture. But now, any counterculture is literally aborted by its forced saturation, removing the potency of its meaning. So all we have left are those who can comment of the ridiculousness of our popular culture. Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, some stand-up comedians, some magazine and newspaper editorials are our commentators. Certain television shows and movies can be more indirect commentators, but two facts remain: there is no real counterculture, only commentators, and the commentators exist within the framework of the pop culture.

If there was a counterculture, we probably wouldn't be talking about it. A counterculture begins at the local level and usually stays there - if it is an idea with a true revolutionary spirit it will spread of its own accord, and it doesn't happen in a few weeks. I think that what needs to happen next is not necessarily the birth of true counterculture - that will come later - but a complete shift in people's frame of reference. We need to disconnect from the media, which has us aware of what is going on in every corner of the world. At first this was a great awareness-raising medium, but now it's become a giant advertising tool, telling us what people on the other side of the country are doing and how this is somehow important to us and the way we dress, the cars we drive, the music we listen to, or even the words we use. So what we need is a total frame shift. People are too concerned with other people. There aren't any individuals in the general populace. Individuals should be concerned with individuals. From there society will move forward, people focus on actually being people again.

Sorry this is really disjointed, It's late and I haven't really formed this idea very well. But I do think the next thing for people, for Americans at least, is a complete shift in reference. What we see now just can't be the future.