The Election Lost

According to CNN.com, Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain announced today his choice for running mate would be Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the first female Republican to be nominated for Vice President.

I find this funny/stupid on a few counts.

1. She is inexperienced. Much of McCain's platform up until now has been based on calling Sen. Barack Obama a political baby, saying he's inexperienced and couldn't possibly lead effectively. Palin, 44 and even younger even than Obama, has only two years of political experience outside that of civic duties she performed in her small Alaskan town. For instance, here's a quote from an email sent by a concerned Republican voter who said she felt Obama was treating this election like a game, a competition for votes:

"And she's come out of nowhere basically, and nobody knows anything about her. And when you consider she may have to be President someday in case McCain kicks (which is more likely to happen with McCain than Obama) what kind of President is she going to be?"

A logical concern I should say.

2. She is a she.
Republicans don't vote for shes the last time I checked. I don't have a problem with a woman running for VP, but much of the conservative bank I can guarantee you, will have a problem with it.

3. She is simply the wrong choice.
If McCain wanted a serious shot at being President, he should have gone with Mitt Romney. The Neo-Con base is bananas over this guy. Personally, I think he personifies everything that is wrong with the Republican party (partisan arrogance, CEO type leadership, could give two flips about those in need etc.) but Republicans would have rallied around him.

Of his pick McCain said, "She's exactly who this country needs to help me fight the same old Washington politics of me first and country second. She's got the grit, integrity, good sense and fierce devotion to the common good that is exactly what we need in Washington today."

This may be so, but what a punch in the face to the Republican party. I'm a self-proclaimed independent, I think both parties have it wrong in their magnetic existence, being pulled together by the arrangement of our government and bouncing off one another with their polar-opposite fundamentals.

However, I truly believe John McCain just lost the election. Too many Republicans don't identify McCain's wishy-washy ways of crossing party lines as a true picture of a Conservative American. And now, he picks a woman for VP?

Thoughts?



Cheers

P.S. As a side note, I'm not sure if very many people are aware that the delegates of the state of Nevada have been rallying around putting their votes in for Ron Paul to be the official nominee at the Republican convention. Could this move by McCain mean more votes for Paul? I think not. But I can hope.

The Art of Reading Poetry

I just finished reading Harold Bloom's The Art of Reading Poetry, which, though also published as a standalone volume, is the introduction to his book, The Best Poems Poems of the English Language: From Chaucer through Frost.

The piece certainly thrusts you into a whole other level of literary criticism. Once you begin reading, you realize that Bloom is a genius without the time or want to go into any more depth than what he thinks is already painfully obvious. However, this is good in that it forces you to think more carefully about what he says, and trust me, his arguments are deserving of your time.

Art is only about 51 pages long, but in that span of time the reader should come out with a basic understanding of the keys to reading (and writing) poetry.

Bloom is very much a believer in recognition and allusion.

"Memory is critical for all thought, but particularly so for poetic thinking...Literary thinking relies upon literary memory, and the drama of recognition, in every writer, contains within it a moment of coming to terms with another writer, or with an earlier version of the self."

This reminds me of C.S. Lewis's thoughts on our role as Sub-Creators. According to Lewis, part of the charge of the cultural mandate in Genesis 1:28, is that we take what our Creator has put us in charge of and create new things from that. According to Bloom, it is impossible to write or read poetry without being reminded of past poetry. Therefore, the next great poem will come as a direct descendant of the last great poem.

What this means for writers, of course, is that the next great thing our pens spill forth should have roots in the creations of the writers before us, which have roots in the creation of God. The only way to write well, is to posses the ability to read even better.



Cheers

The Lies of a Lying Liar

If I wanted, I could watch FOX News everyday and find not only the neo-Con bias that each of their "journalists" spew every second of air time, but also purposefully twisted facts to serve their overall cause.

Below is a video from Keith Olbermann's Countdown on MSNBC. A fellow Faux News hater, Olbermann brings to light a blatant lie told by our good friend and "culture warrior" Bill O'Reilly. Keep in mind afterward that people watch him to learn things.





Cheers

The Poet's Dispair

Things are getting back to normal in Tuscaloosa now. School has started, the quad is packed and the kickoff to College Football is only 8 days away. It's hard not to be excited.

However, I had a bit of a depressing moment yesterday in my 20th Century Poetry class. My professor, a Dr. Heather White, was introducing us to the course material, all contained in the behemoth-sized Norton Anthology of Poetry.

The reading load is quite heavy and by way of warning she described the first few weeks as an upward march, in which we will be plowing through some very tricky pieces and are bound at some point to tire and want to give up. At this point she began to get into the disparaging fact that poetry is somewhat a dying art and it is in classes like this that it is on "life support."

It is no hidden truth that most who end up studying poetry, whether it is in a high school class or simply stumbling upon a piece in a magazine are forced into the situation. People read poems, don't understand them and decide that anymore of that is a very tedious waste of their time. Why read if not to understand?

However, Dr. White brought a little bit of hope into the discussion by explaining that poetry, like anything worth its existence, must be worked for. You must learn how to read it, appreciate its rules and write it yourself to appreciate the beautiful tangles of yarn that masters like Wordsworth and Coleridge have left for us to untangle.

She said not doing these things now will mean missing out on something very special.

"It's not that you won't have to do these this after you graduate. It's the fact that you may not have the chance to," she said.

And all at once, I was frightened and overjoyed.

But it makes me ask the question why aren't more teachers addressing this issue in the same way? It is simply this: those same teacher don't like poetry either.

Here at UA, your first creative writing course is EN200, which requires a section taught on poetry, a section taught on screen writing and section taught on poetry. I can't tell you how many creative writing teachers I have come into contact with here who "don't get" poetry and put very little effort into teaching it to their intro classes. It's sad that the only appreciated form any more is prose.

Or is that the case? Where is this going and what is the problem? Let me know how you feel.



Cheers

The Need for Technology (and Capitalism too)

Through a picture in a magazine, it is almost beautiful.

In a white tiled room, silently lay three tiny bundles of colorful quits, tied at one end to keep lifeless little toes from escaping. Inside the red and yellows of the quilts are the once lively bodies of three Ethiopian children, now crumpled like paper, defeated by hunger.

They were only babies, with stringy muscles meant to flex and float through the African air, their bodies on fire with the light of mankind's cradle.

But now, they are only statistics.

In the August 11th and 18th issues of Time magazine are two articles worlds apart at first glance, but center on the same problem in application. The first is a piece in the August 18th issue titled "Pain amid Plenty" by Alex Perry/Kuyera.

It talks about the misleading Green pastures and fields that litter Ethiopia, while hunger sweeps the country with 4.6 million people at risk and 75,000 children with malnutrition. The problem lies with the temporary character of the green. Perry/Kuyera says it is a product of rains in June, too late for the first of two annual crops.

According to the article, Ethiopia is a nation of 66 million farmers and, as the writer puts it, "...exemplifies the consequences of giving a starving man a fish instead of teaching him to catch his own. This year, the U.S. will give more than $800 million to Ethiopia for food, $350 million for HIV/AIDS treatment—and just $7 million for agricultural development...Why bother with development when shortfalls are met by aid? Ethiopian farmers can't compete with free food, so they stop trying."

In the August 11th issue is a piece written by Bill Gates titled "How to Fix Capitalism" which talks about the bad rap Capitalism gets, but strives to remind readers of all the good the free market has done and can do to help those in poverty.

Gates's argument is that big companies have the power, both financially and creatively, to help the people in our country who need it the most. The core of this belief is what Gates says are markets that have either been skipped over or simply missed by companies. Many of these markets are in very poor areas of the world and therefore companies don't waste time in studying them because they don't believe the people there could afford their services. However, Gates cites a study finding that the poorest two-thirds of the world's population has some $5 trillion in purchasing power.

However, Gates stays realistic.

"Naturally, if companies are going to get more involved, they need to learn to earn some kind of return," Gates explains. "This is the heart of creative capitalism. It's not just about doing more corporate philanthropy or asking companies to be more virtuous. It's about giving them a real incentive to apply their expertise in new ways, making it possible to earn a return while serving the people who have been left out. This can happen in two ways: companies can find these opportunities on their own, or governments and nonprofits can help create such opportunities where they presently don't exist."

As an example, Gates supplies a new U.S. law enacted last year that gives any drug company that develops a new treatment for neglected disease a priority review from the Food and Drug Administration. This means more medicenes in areas of the world fighting diseases like Malaria on a daily basis and the drug company getting their new domestic medicines on store shelves as much as a year earlier. It's a win-win situation.

He also talks about the cell phone company Vodaphone who bought a large stake in a Kenyan cell phone company, Safaricom. Today, Safaricom has more than 10 million users and is making a huge profit and helping the region by introducing new and useful technology.

It is this point in Gates's article that connects with the article on Ethiopia.

The situation in Ethiopia and other impoverished nations around the world highlights the need for more ideas like those expressed in Gates's article. These people need farming equipment, seed and training so that they may feed their children and families and do so with pride, instead of at the feet of volunteers with rice bags. Our government, already fighting two wars and under the control of a President leaving his office with the country $10 trillion is debt, cannot support its own poor, much less that of the world.

More companies need to realize the need of technology internationally and our government, instead of writing a blank check each year while the value of the dollar slips to oblivion, needs to offer incentives for these companies to offer their services to everyone and not just demographics.

If we don't, we soon won't be able to help at all.

The other thing the situation highlights is the ludicrousness of socialism and programs like government-run health care. We are in fact in trouble in the U.S. in regards to health care. According to the U.S. Census, 47 million Americans are without health insurance. But how is giving it to them for free the answer? It's not. Because to do that means higher taxes and sending these people to doctors paid for by the government. State doctors means lower paid doctors. Lower paid doctors means a decrease in medical school students. That means the quality of American health care falls apart.

So we're back again to compaines making themselves more available. Insurance companies, with government incentives to do so, could make health insurance more affordable, with acceptable coverage and lower premiums for those who need it. (I believe this is what Obama's health care stance is, but do double check me.)

Therefore, the free market system is not flawed, it is run by flawed and greedy minds unwilling to expand and serve the people who need it the most.

Unfortunately so is the country it represents.



Cheers.

The Style

While perusing the Web yesterday I stumbled upon an essay by the famed writer Kurt Vonnegut. It's titled "How to Write With Style" and in my opinion it is right on. (The following is an overview of the essay but please click on the title to check out the full essay.) It is very useful as a checklist for writers in helping to make sure that your voice is coming through what you write. Right off the bat, Vonnegut goes after Journalists and "technical writers" saying they reveal nothing about themselves in their writing. He's absolutely correct. This isn't a dig at them I think it is more of a remark of pity for them.

"Newspaper reporters and technical writers are trained to reveal almost nothing about themselves in their writings. This makes them freaks in the world of writers, since almost all of the other ink-stained wretches in that world reveal a lot about themselves to readers. We call these revelations, accidental and intentional, elements of style."

Journalism is meant to be an objective art, designed to inform without swaying the opinion of the reader. This is great for straight "Dog Bites Man" stories but what about the stories I like to write? What about the stories people actually want to read, not only the first 3 paragraphs of, but, gasp, the whole thing? Vonnegut says what makes readers want to spend their time with a writer is that writer's voice, or writing style.

"Why should you examine your writing style with the idea of improving it? Do so as a mark of respect for your readers, whatever you're writing. If you scribble your thoughts any which way, your readers will surely feel that you care nothing about them. They will mark you down as an egomaniac or a chowderhead — or, worse, they will stop reading you."

Vonnegut's advice is to basically, and I mean very basically, begin writing with the ideas in your head. How you feel about certain things, your emotions, your broken heart etc. One of the first things I was taught by Jason Smith, my high school English teacher, is that reading requires the reader to surrender their mind to the author, or as Coleridge put it, a "willing suspension of disbelief." When reading a story, one is to leave behind any prejudices or opinions behind and let the author take them where he/she will. Vonnegut says the key thing to voice, is to be assertive. Tell the reader what is and is not important and back that up with emotion.

"The most damning revelation you can make about yourself is that you do not know what is interesting and what is not. Don't you yourself like or dislike writers mainly for what they choose to show you or make you think about? Did you ever admire an emptyheaded writer for his or her mastery of the language? No."

Curious about how to find these ideas and make your reader care about them? Vonnegut provides a list of which I have provided below with an excerpt from his explanations of each item:

1. Find a subject you care about
"It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style."

2. Do not ramble, though
"I won't ramble on about that."

3. Keep it simple "Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps even sacred. The Bible opens with a sentence well within the writing skills of a lively fourteen-year-old: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

4. Have guts to cut
"If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out."

5. Sound like yourself
"I myself find that I trust my own writing most, and others seem to trust it most, too, when I sound most like a person from Indianapolis, which is what I am. What alternatives do I have?"

6. Say what you mean
"If I broke all the rules of punctuation, had words mean whatever I wanted them to mean, and strung them together higgledy-piggledy, I would simply not be understood.

7. Pity the readers
"They have to read, an art so difficult that most people don't really master it even after having studied it all through grade school and high school — twelve long years...Our audience requires us to be sympathetic and patient readers, ever willing to simplify and clarify --- whereas we would rather soar high above the crowd, singing like nightingales."

Technically the list is eight items long, however the last simply tells you to consult The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White. I realized after reading this essay the first time that I actually own this book. It came with a truckload of books I bought for a literature class one time and I had never cracked its cover. Mistake. Of the book Vonnegut has this to say:

"You should realize, too, that no one would care how well or badly Mr. White expressed himself, if he did not have perfectly enchanting things to say."

And that, I think, is half the battle in writing anything at all.

Cheers.

The 2008 Olympic Games

The Olympic games are in full swing and as I was perusing the NBC site for the games, I ran across some pictures I thought were beautiful.

The first is of badminton players Miyuki Maeda and Satoko Suetsuna of Japan, celebrating after their match point during the Women's Doubles match against a Chineese team.















The next is of swimmer Michael Phelps, who is going for an Olympic record 8 gold medals, celebrating after he and the 4 x 100 meter freestyle relay team won the gold medal in their event.






















And here is another shot of the whole team after the win. Beautiful.













And if you were wondering, here is the current medal count.





















Cheers, and USA all the way.

The War Going on for Your Mind

There is a song by the Flobots titled "There's a War Going on For Your Mind" that I can't believe I didn't put in with the last post about the media and the election. I don't think the group has made an official video for the song, but here is one I found on YouTube that is very well done. The words of this song are very important and this video uses them to paint a very clear picture of its meaning. If you'd just like to read the lyrics, they're below the video. Do let me know what you think of this.

There is a war going on for your mind.

Media mavens mount surgical strikes from trapper keeper collages and online magazine racks
Cover girl cutouts throw up pop-up ads
Infecting victims with silicone shrapnel.
Worldwide passenger pigeons deploy paratroopers
Now it's raining pornography,
Lovers take shelter.
Post-production debutantes pursue you in NASCAR chariots
They construct ransom letters from biblical passages and bleed mascara into holy water supplies.

There's a war going on for your mind.

Industry insiders slang test tube babies to corporate crackheads.
They flash logos and blast ghettos
Their embroidered neckties say "Stop Snitchin.'"
Conscious rappers and whistleblowers get stitches made of acupuncture needles and marionette strings.

There is a war going on for your mind.

Professional wrestlers and vice presidents want you to believe them.
The desert sky is their bluescreen
They superimpose explosions
They shout at you,
"Pay no attention to the men behind the barbed curtain
Nor the craters beneath the draped flags
Those hoods are there for your protection,"
And meteors these days are the size of corpses.

There is a war going on for your mind.

We are the insurgents.

Cheers.

The Media and our Next President

I was listening to the latest Relient k release (which by the way has 26 tracks on two EPs and is great) and the song "Wit's All Been Done Before." It's a pretty cheesy title and play on words, but the song has a good point. Read for yourself.

"But to innovate is a mistake,

because there's nothing new under the sun.

Because we're all getting tired of the media,

Because it tries so hard to make you like something.

Because we're all getting tired of the media,

Because creating something new is just recycling"

I love the repetition at the beginning of each line of the chorus and I think Matt Theissen has a point. As a journalism major, it's hard for me to watch the election coverage sometimes. Not only for the reasons that bug everyone else like the fact that IT IS ALL CNN AND FOX talk about. But also because of the way certain outlets handle stories and how their choices conflict with what I'm being taught in school.

Because I look at FOX News's Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity and I think to myself, "Do these guys think they're actually fooling anyone." And the answer is no. They KNOW they are. In 2003, The University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes conducted a polling of FOX News viewers.

According to Jim Lobe of the Inter Press Service, "PIPA found that 48 percent of the public believe US troops found evidence of close pre-war links between Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist group; 22 percent thought troops found weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq; and 25 percent believed that world public opinion favored Washington's going to war with Iraq. All three are misperceptions."

That's a lot of misinformed people. And not only that, just the other night on Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan confirmed the long rumored question of whether or not the White House delivered talking points to FOX News correspondents. 

Keith Olbermann on his show Countdown said as far as MSNBC knows FOX News still does this for FOX News "propagandists... to spout as if ventriloquist dummies as if they had thought of it themselves, as if they had come to those opinions independently, as if there was a process that had been either Fair of Balanced." Check out the video below.

And to FOX News viewers, I'm sorry if it seems like I'm picking on that network. It's not because CNN doesn't do the wrong things too, it's just that their not nearly as blatant about it as FOX News is. However, CNN and the rest of the media has its fair share of problems. 

For instance with Barack Obama and the rumors surrounding his run for the presidency which are spread through those emails we all get from our neo-con relatives and the internet. Even though CNN isn't starting these rumors they sure do love to air them and spread them. But that's just their job right? Take a look at this video from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In it Stewart looks at CNN's looking down on rumors while continuing to perpetuate them themselves.

There is another video on the Daily Show Web site that covers the media's criticism of McCain's campaign as well and it is equally ridiculous. Either way, I guess my only advice is to be careful who you listen to. These reporters on TV are in a cutthroat business where the big money goes with the big stories so they tend to make things bigger than they really are. But you already know that.

So what's your opinion, does the media have the control over elections that people say it does? Or are we independent for the most part and capable of picking a President without CNN or FOX News' help. Because I can tell you right now, they don't think we are. It's their job, and mine someday.

The Saga Over: Favre is a Jet

Earlier tonight Fox Sports broke the news that Brett Favre is now officially a New York Jet. Late Tuesday night it was rumored that the nearly month long "saga" (as ESPN has referred to it) would end within 24 hours with a Favre trade to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Maybe the man just likes how he looks in green.

According to FoxSports.com's Jay Glazer, the Jets were more aggressive in acquiring Favre all along and the Packers were hoping to seal the deal with New York, because the team offered Green Bay better compensation for the trade and New York is not only out of the NFC North, but all the way in the AFC East, meaning it's very unlikely the Packers will have to figure out how to beat the man who has started for them for them since 1992.

The Web site said there is no report on how much the Jets will pay Favre.

Favre, 38, holds nearly every passing record in NFL history and led the Packers to an unexpected 13-3 season last year and a shot at going to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1997 before falling to the New York Giants in the NFC Championship 23-20.

Personally, I'm glad to see this mess come to an end so I don't have to see it dominate ESPN anymore, that is until he reports to camp and everyone starts speculating on whether or not Favre can work his magic for the Jets who, like the 2006 Packers, are awful.

This entire time I have hated this for him. Unlike many in Alabama, I love the NFL. My dad raised an avid Steelers fan in me and since I was very small I can remember donning the black and gold every autumn Sunday. Last summer I had the opportunity to see Favre play my Steelers in a preseason game. The Steelers lost that game, but seeing him in action was so worth it. (And the Steelers defense destroyed him during the quarter he played.)

However, I've always been amazed by what Favre has been able to accomplish, and I just hope this return from retirement is the same as Michael Jordan's first when he led the Bulls to another NBA Championship and not his last when he was just another struggling player for the Washington Wizards. 

When on the field, Favre never let on that he was in the big time professionalism of the NFL. He was daring and often times tried and was successful at making risky decisions into huge plays. And with each touchdown pass he always looked like that young boy who just won a backyard football game. That is what made him one of the greatest. As a feature from ESPN's  ESPY awards put it, "He played the game like we would have."

Cheers.

Update: ESPN is calling Favre "Broadway Brett" and brought up the interesting fact that Favre is the biggest name quarterback the organization has had since "Broadway" Joe Namath. I wonder if the "Broadway" thing is just a coincidence?

The Office Poetry

Friendship in a storm turned sour,

prayed for the sun at least each half an hour.

Duties to a God unseen,

were mixed with false ones to a false queen.

My brother's keeper, I forgot,

under shorting lights of a parking lot.

Gravity is blood's best friend,

returned to sender, my love, evil intent.

And I never thought I'd hear from you again.

Cheers.

The First Post

From Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in fiction:

"In later years, holding forth to an interviewer or to an audience of aging fans at a comic book convention, Sam Clay liked to declare, apropos of his and Joe Kavalier's greatest creation, that back when he was a boy, sealed and hog-tied inside the airtight vessel known as Brooklyn, New York, he had been haunted by dreams of Harry Houdini. "To me, Clark Kent in a phone booth and Houdini in a packing crate, they were one and the same thing," he would learnedly expound at WonderCon or Angouleme or to the editor of The Comics Journal. "You weren't the same person when you came out as when you went in. Houdini's first magic act, you know, back when he was just getting started. It was called 'Metamorphosis.' It was never just a question of escape. It was also a question of transformation." ... His dreams had always been Houdiniesque: they were the dreams of a pupa struggling in its blind cocoon, mad for a taste of light and air."

Hopefully after reading that you'll do yourself a favor and go out an buy this book. I read this exact section at the local Barnes & Noble here and immediately took it up to the counter. I can only think of one other book that struck me on the first page and that was McCarthy's The Road and that book rocked the foundations of every thing I had considered good literature beforehand.

In writing classes you hear a lot about tone, voice, and rhythm and if you want a good example of how to do it and how to do it to perfection, look no further than Chabon. But what drew me in much more than his eloquence, was his opening theme of transformation. The image comparing Superman to Houdini is so unique and beautiful and the idea excites me as to where Chabon is going with his prompting that effective literature—good literature—is transforming of its audience. I look forward to the rest of this.

Cheers.

P.S. Welcome to the new blog. I am finally discontinuing the French Fry Filosophy after failing to revive it. I think it just held too many things irrelevant to my life now. However, it's still up and I might even refer back to it every once and a while, but everything will be done here now. 

My initial instinct was to do a post solely for introductions but after speaking to my good friend Jarrett a few weeks back, I was convinced that's just a waste of words. Much better to get into what this blog is for, and that's sharing good art and news.