NASCAR & Integrity

The other day, the US House of Representatives denied passage of a bill that would eliminate federal funding for advertising of the US Military on NASCAR cars.

Earlier, the same congress slashed funding for Planned Parenthood and Title X, the LIHEAP, NPR, PBS, and Americorps, cut funding for the EPA to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and rejected numerous defense spending reductions.

I suppose it depends on your politics whether Republican congresspersons are wholly self-interested, NASCAR-loving "rednecks" with absolutely no integrity - or patriots who stick to their core values.

As a result of some conversations this weekend, however, I've learned that, as "enlightened," "open-minded," and "liberal" as I may be I'm super judgmental of folks I perceive to be closed-minded. So it's time for a thought experiment.

What if you believed that a vicious, world-wide conspiracy of armed and dangerous terrorists were mobilizing to destroy your home country, and patriotism is one of your core values? What if you believed that the conspiracy was so vast, and so dangerous, and so illogical and backward that there was literally no chance of any kind of diplomatic solution to the disagreements between these terrorist killers? What if you believed, literally, that they are the embodiment of evil?

Then, wouldn't it make sense to prioritize marketing the US Army (the growth of which is a necessity, remember, considering the scenario above) to NASCAR watchers, who tend to be both lower-income and Southern (two heavy markets for Army recruiting), even when doing so conflicts with one's other values ("fiscal responsibility")?

The thinking could go, "I know that it's important to help poor people heat their homes in the winter, but they won't even have homes if (when) Al-Qaieda takes over our country, installs Sharia law, rapes all of our women and murders all the good Christians. Preventing that from happening is more important as it affects all of us."

I don't buy it, but I could see how some people with values radically different from my own could (though it's hard for me to believe a rational person having those values without simultaneously being burdened by Islamophobia, Xenophobia, Orientalism, etc).

By the way, Obama's budget also cut funding for LIHEAP. Food for thought?

My favorite music of 2010

It's a week or so late, but...

A lot of this stuff has seen life on my Quarterly Mixes, click back to see what I was into each quarter of this year and what made the cut through to this "Best of 2010" Mix.

It's two CDs because I couldn't trim it down to a respectable single-cd level. I couldn't figure out how to split all of the songs into two different CDs (I originally had them flowing as one piece) - but as the genres vary, I decided to try and keep my original order intact but put most of the upbeat songs - either by BPM, lyrical content, dance-ablility, etc. - on the 1st CD and the downbeat songs on the 2nd CD.

If you see a song on here, and it's different than a song from the same artist that was on one of my quarterly mixes, that's either because 1) I wanted to branch out and get some deeper cuts from that record onto here or 2) I realized that, since that quarterly mix came out, I like this song better than that one. Nearly every song on here means I really liked the album that it came from, not necessarily that that single song was one of my favorites from the entire year, you dig?

Click the image to download. They should show up in iTunes with album art, track numbers, etc. So don't worry. Also remember - if you like these songs, pay for them! This is just a sample. Go buy music!

1. Lost in the World (ft. Bon Iver) / Kanye West // My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
2. Umm Hmm / Erykah Badu // New Amerykah Part II: Return of the Ankh
3. Cold War / Janelle Monae // The ArchAndroid
4. Can Change / LCD Soundsystem // This Is Happening
5. O.N.E. / Yeasayer // Odd Blood
6. Thieves in The Night / Hot Chip // One Life Stand
7. White Sky / Vampire Weekend // Contra
8. Convertiible Balloon / Wavves // King of the Beach
9. When I'm With You / Best Coast // Crazy For You
10. Low Shoulder / Toro y Moi // Causers of This
11. Vesuvius / Sufjan Stevens // The Age of Adz
12. Biting Your Tail / Iron & Wine // Walking Far From Home
13. Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) / Arcade Fire // The Suburbs

1. Falling From the Sun / The Album Leaf // A Chorus of Storytellers
2. Don't Leave My Mind / Azure Ray // Drawing Down the Moon
3. The Resistance / Drake // Thank Me Later
4. If You Want It / TV Girl // TV Girl EP
5. Always On My Mind / Reading Rainbow // Prism Eyes
6. Goons / Small Black // New Chain
7. Castles in The Snow / Twin Shadow // Forget
8. I Really Do / Seapony // Seapony EP
9. Good Intentions Paving Company / Joanna Newsom // Have One On Me
10. Honey Come Home / Head and the Heart // Head and the Heart
11. My Girl the Horse / Fences // Fences
12. I'll Build You A Fire / Seabear // We Built A Fire
13. Like the Wheel / The Tallest Man On Earth // The Wild Hunt

What did I miss? Any glaring omissions?

First Words Since

I re-watched this today. Years later, still my favorite poem.

Quotation Analysis

Hey y'all, "Quotation Analysis" is a new blog theme/meme/gimmick where I quote someone else and then analyze their quote.

Today's quote comes from Glenn Beck, quoted at this ridiculous tea-party bullshit blog that has a better layout than mine does.

I have taken a lot of hits from people like Rev. Jim Wallis on “social justice.” But I needed you to know there is a poison in some of our churches. Social justice — the way Jim Wallis and Jeremiah Wright understand it — isn’t in the gospel, neither is redistribution of wealth.

Wait, really? I seem to remember a certain passage about a "rich young ruler." From Luke:

[18] A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"...

[22] ...he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

I figure you can argue the specifics. I mean, what does he mean by "If you want salvation, sell everything you have and give to the poor" really mean? He's just using a metaphor, right? Beck's (and many, many mainstream conservative pastors and church leaders') argument is that "social justice" or "liberation theology" advocates for a government redistribution of wealth, and that instead we should be free to do what we will with what we've earned.

But the argument that the Bible doesn't quite explicitly support redistribution of wealth is disingenuous at best. But what do we really expect from the likes of Glenn Beck?

New Blog Theme/Meme: Overheard in Capitol Hill

Overheard in Capitol Hill is a new blog theme/meme/gimmick where my loyal blog readers can make fun of the "effing hipsters" that populate the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, WA, and the "sillie" things that they say.

► Young man to another young man: "If I were going to, like, see someone about my problems... I'd fucking tell my wife, you know?" Overheard at Victrola on 15th

► Man to cell phone: "Well, when we got divorced, everyone was so pissed off at us that it didn't work out." Overheard at Victrola on 15th

► Young girl 1: "So we all started making out, even though no one knew each other."
     Young girl 2:  "Oh, that's so nice." Overheard at Stumptown on 12th

Have you Overheard something blog-worthy in Capitol Hill?

Five Legitimate Ways to Respond to the Oil Spill

There are over 750,000 members of the "Boycott BP" group on Facebook.This is, frankly, a travesty. Of course, you can't put too much stock in how many members there are in a facebook group, but still... The level of awareness of the BP Oil Spill in the gulf is tremendous and heartening; and I hope it changes our attitudes and lifestyles and alters the way we think about the cost of oil - but boycotting BP is a useless waste of time. Sharon Begley at Newsweek hits at the crux of the issue quite well:

It’s understandable that consumers are furious and frustrated by the gulf catastrophe and want to punish those responsible... [but] BP and the 32 other operators of deepwater wells in the gulf are there not because they find it technologically interesting to see how deep they can drill... They’re drilling because of America’s—and the world’s—insatiable lust for oil.

The U.S. consumes 800 million gallons of petroleum per week, according to the Energy Information Agency. The only way to make this the last oil spill in the gulf is to make oil obsolete. 

...Just as buying green products is better for our eco-esteem than it is an effective way to save the planet, so consumer boycotts of the latest oil company to run afoul of public opinion are emotionally satisfying but ultimately futile.

A boycott does nothing but punish the actual owner of whichever gas station you bypass (to ostensibly go purchase your gas from some other gas station). We need to recognize that the oil spill is our fault because we demand oil and we demand it cheap. Reducing our demand for oil is the only way, short of advocating for a government solution (do this too!), to reduce drilling for oil - to reduce the myriad environmental impacts oil production wreaks on our planet.

But the question is always, well what do I do about it then? Here are some simple suggestions.

Thank Me Later

I am wholeheartedly surprised by how much I enjoy listening to Drake's new album, Thank Me Later. I am no fan of mainstream hip-hop. The only hip-hop groups that I can say that I actually enjoy listening to are Digable Planets, KanYe West (basically just this latest album though) and Aesop Rock. I've tried to get into other hip-hop, both mainstream and underground and it's just not resonated with me.

I remember when Drake blew up. I was surprised and amused - I remembered Drake (nee Aubrey Graham) from his long-running stint as character Jimmy on The N's imported pre-to-teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation.

It was actually an excellent show. I would go as far as to say it was to our decade what Freaks & Geeks was for the 2000s and My So-Called Life was to the 1990s. The show used actors the same age as the characters they played, unlike, say, the OC, and dealt with hard-hitting issues (Degrassi tag line: "It Goes There").

Anyway the transition from Jimmy to Drake was interesting to me because was a very kind, sympathetic character. He had strong personality characteristics - was accepting of gay friend Marco's coming out, forgave Spinner for stealing his iPod, got back with his girlfriend (whose name escapes me now) after she went to drug rehab and turned goth even though the popular kids (one of whom he used to be) made fun of him for it. I stopped watching the show when I went to college in 2005 (no Satellite TV there) so I missed some of the later developments - Jimmy's confinement to a wheelchair, for example.

Seattle Pride - Leather, Nudity, & Condoms?

Went to the Seattle Pride Parade + Festival today. Afterward, a friend asked us how it was. "There was a lot of leather, nudity, and we got a bunch of condoms." Is that what being gay is all about? Is it all about unabashed promiscuity and the celebration of fetishes?

After hearing our description of the festival, the friend responded "yeah, that sounds like Pride." I suppose as an outsider that's what you would gather from the parade and party afterward. What do you think?

"Rio"

Nothing to say today except that Hey Marseilles, my favorite local band, is finally officially releasing their album next week. They made a sillie video to go with the lead single. It's embedded below; enjoy :)

Oh also I'm working on an update to the "Cohabitation" post from last week. Finished the book, talked to my friend about lotsa stuff, and came to some conclusions.

Bite-Sized Musings: On Male White Men Punching Female Black Teenagers

As though Seattle Police didn't have enough controversy to deal with, on Monday a video surfaced of a Seattle Police officer punching a young Black woman in the face. Video below:



The back story is, from what I can gather: the Police officer was arresting another (Black) man for jaywalking across Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. Some people on the street objected and approached the officer (albeit somewhat violently). There was a confrontation, and as you see in the video, when the situation got heated, the cop punched the woman in the face.

The main question that's come up is: is this racist? The officer was clearly outnumbered, and the women were somewhat violent and confrontational. Should cops be allowed to use force in the face of violence on the part of citizens? Was he "protecting himself" or "controlling the situation?" Was his behavior in line with his duties and responsibilities as a Police officer?

"A Little Bit Married"

A friend of mine and his girlfriend are, for a variety of reasons, considering moving in together. In the (Christian) communities they were raised in, this is called "living in sin." Other communities call it "cohabitation."

While most Hollywood movies and sit-coms consider this a normal stage in a relationship's progression, for these two it's quite a big decision (which it probably is for most people, though definitely for those with a somewhat conservative or religious upbringing). Conservatives love to throw around the "fact" that cohabiting couples tend to divorce more.

One Less Reason to Hate Starbucks

Starbucks Corporation tweeted a surprising and heavily re-tweeted announcement today:

"We're very excited to announce that coming July 1st: Free. 1 click. No registration WIFI at all US locations! :-)"

To anyone that's ever utilized a coffee shop before, this is surprising only because it's taken this long - every other (non-enormous global conglomerate) coffee shop in the United States has offered free Wi-Fi forever.

I wonder what the collective reaction is here in Seattle, Starbucks' hometown. It's easy to hate Starbucks here - there's the faux-independent coffee shop across the street from an actual independent coffee shop, there's the buying out of another local chain, there's the whole debacle with the Supersonics - granted, I don't know how Starbucks is related necessarily, as I moved here long after the Sonics were gone - but it has something to do with Schulz, Starbucks CEO.

Five Things: Musical Talents/Abilities Edition

 

Five Musical Talents/Abilities I Wish I Had / I Hope to Cultivate

1. Ability to whistle like Andrew Bird
2. Ability to emote like David Bazan
3. Ability to harmonize like Fleet Foxes
4. Ability to write like Colin Meloy or Joanna Newsom or Aaron Weiss
5. Ability to sing or play guitar at all, perhaps?

Five Ways to "Do Something" about the Oil Spill

Remember "Five Things?" It was a new blog theme/meme designed to further appeal to the tl;dr crowd. Here are five new things and this is a BONUS because it also deals with current events.

Five Ways to "Do Something" about the Oil Spill

1. "Boycott" BP while continuing to consume as much oil as before from other oil companies
2. Buy an expensive, useless product that garishly proclaims your aversion to oil spills and/or love for seabirds (preferably a t-shirt or bumper sticker) and/or gives at least 1% of profits to conservation/environmental causes
3. Get angry at the government for not cleaning up the spill quickly enough
4. Add some "oil dripping" graphic to your twitter avatar (via green Iran activism)
5. Write a blog post or two offering one-sided opinions, freshman year-level philosophy, and largely unfeasible "solutions" without considering the unique circumstances of readers

Bicycling as a Response to the Oil Spill

I am not giving up on how much of a monumental disaster this oil spill is. Pretty soon we'll be seeing the end of mainstream media coverage of the spill - I give it two weeks. See my previous post for some perspective: how much is 70,000 barrels of oil a day? For the next two months?

I think it's important, though, to not just vilify BP or Big Oil in general or the government or the "drill, baby drill" Republican blowhards, but instead to use this opportunity to spur debate - how do we prevent this from happening again? And I don't mean, how do we create better technology so that when the next oil spill happens we can cap it more quickly. I mean, the reason that we are drilling oil off shore, the reason we are importing oil from the Middle East, and then sending troops over there to protect the stability in the region and thus the stability of our oil supply, is because with the status quo, we need oil. We demand it. Supply = demand. Basic econ.

We are the reason for the oil spill. We, with our cars, our heated homes and showers and laundry machines, our demand for meat, and out-of-season and processed and packaged food, our comfortable lifestyles - we demand the oil and we demand it cheaply. We see in the photo above how costly oil really is.

Top Kill

Update: Check out this image of how large the oil spill is in relation to your city. Here's how much of the Seattle metro area the oil spill would cover - and remember, it's not yet HALFWAY DONE SPILLING!

It was announced recently that "Top Kill" has failed, and that the next realistic option for plugging the Deepwater oil leak will be the relief wells BP is drilling - slated to be finished in AUGUST.

“After three full days of attempting top kill, we now believe it is time to move on to the next of our options,” Mr. Suttles said.

The abandonment of the top kill technique, the most ambitious effort yet to plug the well, was the latest in a series of failures. First, BP failed in efforts to repair a blowout preventer with submarine robots. Then its initial efforts to cap the well with a containment dome failed when it became clogged with a frothy mix of frigid water and gas. Efforts to use a hose to gather escaping oil have managed to catch only a fraction of the spill."

Two more months of up to 70,000 barrels a day... How much is that? It's hard to fathom.

NPR and the 24-hour News Cycle

A common critique of the "current state of things" is that we are so thoroughly saturated with information, especially news reporting, that we've lost our attention span and are more easily convinced of certain positions via sound bytes, talking points, and the like.

I always figured that with an entire channel (in fact, multiple channels) focused solely on news, 24 hours a day, that there would be enough time to really get into issues, showcase all points of view, have legitimate discussion/debate, and so on. For whatever reason, this isn't the case.

I think, like a lot of people in my generation for sure but probably a lot of people more generally speaking, I haven't really "read" a newspaper in a long time. I have a hard time reading through an entire news article and instead usually skim headlines, get the relevant details, and then impress people at parties and gatherings by appearing to be "abreast of all of the relevant issues." Just don't ask me any questions about details or specifics.

The 1st Quarter Double-take

UPDATE: I got a cease & desist order from Blogger. According to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA),  my mix was copyright infringement. So all of the links have been taken down. I guess I'm flattered that they found my blog? Anyway, e-mail me, I suppose, if you are interested in the mix. Am I allowed to say that? I won't e-mail you the link. We can just talk about the songs...

Although Carles and his commenters seem to think 2010 has been the "worst first quarter of a decade ever for relevant music," I've been thoroughly enjoying most of what I've heard that's been released so far this year. Fluxblog already made a 1st quarter mix, and it is excellent so check that one out. But while I enjoyed almost everything on that playlist, I couldn't help but feeling that Mr. Perpetua left some really good stuff out.

The reason for the "double-take" moniker is this: I didn't want to put songs on my mix that were already on the Flux mix. Other times I couldn't decide what my favorite song from a recent album was. So instead of make difficult choices, or put in a less-excellent song just because Matty got to it first, I decided to put two songs from each album, which I like because it gives you a little bit better sense of what these bands are all about. Ever listened to a mix and really liked a song, and then got their album and were really disappointed? Well, have no fear - the Double-take has you covered.

One other thing I noticed that's important - this mix is 1.5 hours long. Whoops! Can't fit that on a CD. So I guess this is an internet/iPod/computer-only mix. Sorry to all the Luddites out there without standard current technology :(

Download after the jump.

Bite-Sized Musings: Death/Lack of Control

Editor's note: "Bite-sized Musings" is a blog topic theme developed in response to a criticism of this blog by Steve Norberg - friend and editor of Scan My Life - that the posts are too long and don't have enough pictures/bullet points to be digested easily. BSMs are short, relevant questions about important topics intended to generate discussion. They can only work if the "comments" feature is utilized. Please comment; thank you! <3

A Christian friend visited Sula House recently, and we "had a pow wow" and talked about theology. Of course heaven/hell was mentioned, and she asked me: "Are you afraid of death?" Because I'm not really a Christian, the question was kind of: "Aren't you afraid of Hell?" I'm not, because I don't really believe in it.

But I think the question has a more interesting philosophical underpinning - a lot of people who don't believe in Heaven or Hell still fear death. But why? I have a theory - because death is inevitable. I think that people who fear death also have an inherent fear of the inevitable.

Responses to Inevitability

1. Worry/Fear - Many people develop fear of "inevitables" because they cannot be controlled or avoided, despite human effort. "You can't stop it or change it! It's coming no matter what! There is no control! Doesn't that freak you out? There's nothing you can do about it!"

2. Indifference - Fewer people feel that because nothing can be done, there is no use worrying about something that cannot be avoided. "Well, I'm going to die someday and there's nothing I can do about it - so why waste the life I do have worrying about something I can't change?"

This doesn't just apply to things like death and (blaugh) taxes. You've already taken an exam and your professor is grading it. Do you worry about the outcome or relax because post-exam, it's completely out of your hands?

-> Do you worry about the inevitable or are you indifferent?
-> Are you afraid of death?
-> What other examples of "inevitables" can you think of?
-> Does your response to the "inevitable" change depending on its severity (i.e. I'm not worried about my exam score but the thought of death paralyzes me?)

The New Busy

If you live in Seattle (or one of the three other metro areas in which the campaign has been launched) then you have probably seen the new ads for Microsoft Hotmail. If you haven't, click the link, and the above image will make more sense. I actually think the campaign is sort of clever, though most everyone else on the internet that has commented about them tends to disagree.

Surely there are lots of reasons to dislike the campaign, but mine is less marketing-specific and more an underlying philosophical critique - what is the deal with championing a busy lifestyle? Do people these days really need to be more busy?