Walking home it's dark
Drop the gate key in the snow
Cold, wet it becomes
Ice coating sidewalk
Deceptively clear and thin
Slip and scrape my palms
Walk to taco truck
Bad Mexican food for lunch
They don't pay taxes
Heater on all night
Wake up sweating but peaceful
Move sheets, feel safe, sleep
Sky growing lighter
The earth rounds its circled orb
Seasons never still
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
King still the King?
Martin Luther King is possibly the most unanimously celebrated figure in American history. This is because his words and his philosophy- that we should love all of mankind despite any physical or even cultural barriers- are pretty palatable to everyone, including people with a lot of power. It's pretty much required that you absolutely agree with everything he said. But there's a serious blind spot in America's concept of King, and it lies in the fact that people don't actually believe what he said at all. It's really easy to go along with King-worship when you can just talk about love and universality, when you can reference his speeches from Capitol Hill or quote him to your class, when you can profess to believe in what he said without actually delineating a plan or a policy to move closer to his ideals. People repeat what he said without talking about what he actually meant. It's as if his preacherly southern drawl is what we remember and not the words he spoke with it.
The idea of universal human love is actually very radical. Practicing universal human love would involve a fundamental change in the way America governs itself. We would have to love the Iraqi people. We would have to love the Taliban. We would have to love Al Qaeda. We would even have to love Osama bin Laden, and to understand that even he is our same species. A lot of people would call this a total perversion of King's ideas and say that these people are standing in the way of equality and prosperity and therefore must be stopped, but that's simply not what Martin Luther King thought. He, like Ghandi, believed that loving the group that oppresses you is the only way to break their stranglehold and the only way to move forward. What I said is simply the logical extention of his I Have a Dream speech, simply an update of King's statements. And that is absolutely unacceptable for the American power structure. So we turn his birthday into a day off and talk about how great he was without discussing any real context for his words, while every day in the Middle East we violate his dream in ways more violent and oppressive than even those used against King himself.
The idea of universal human love is actually very radical. Practicing universal human love would involve a fundamental change in the way America governs itself. We would have to love the Iraqi people. We would have to love the Taliban. We would have to love Al Qaeda. We would even have to love Osama bin Laden, and to understand that even he is our same species. A lot of people would call this a total perversion of King's ideas and say that these people are standing in the way of equality and prosperity and therefore must be stopped, but that's simply not what Martin Luther King thought. He, like Ghandi, believed that loving the group that oppresses you is the only way to break their stranglehold and the only way to move forward. What I said is simply the logical extention of his I Have a Dream speech, simply an update of King's statements. And that is absolutely unacceptable for the American power structure. So we turn his birthday into a day off and talk about how great he was without discussing any real context for his words, while every day in the Middle East we violate his dream in ways more violent and oppressive than even those used against King himself.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Sports in My Life
I really don't like sports. I think it's really weird. The fact that people support and identify with teams really disturbs me. I don't understand the concept. These people on the screen, I mean you'll never meet them, they're probably not even from your area, and there's really no way you can relate to their life, so why do you identify so strongly with them? Why identify at all? The groups they form share no values or ideas of any kind and divisions are essentially arbitrary. Nothing is really gained based on the result of the game. The only value is that of entertainment, and I definitely agree that any sport can be very entertaining to watch. But I don't really understand what sports rivalries and team affiliations contribute to it.
It's considered a ubiquitous, harmless, and entertaining part of American culture. But I think it may be something more sinister. In other countries, and in all the situations discussed in How Soccer Explains the World, there are very real political motivations underlying the rivalries and identities. But in America, the pointlessness shows that something drastically different is going on. It's easy to write it off as "people just want to be part of something/ it's just for fun/ it's just for entertainment", but I think it may be something more sinister. I think that sports rivalries show that America competes and ultimately goes to war not for any real political or even simple material gains, but purely for the sake of competition and violence. And that may not be so harmless.
It's considered a ubiquitous, harmless, and entertaining part of American culture. But I think it may be something more sinister. In other countries, and in all the situations discussed in How Soccer Explains the World, there are very real political motivations underlying the rivalries and identities. But in America, the pointlessness shows that something drastically different is going on. It's easy to write it off as "people just want to be part of something/ it's just for fun/ it's just for entertainment", but I think it may be something more sinister. I think that sports rivalries show that America competes and ultimately goes to war not for any real political or even simple material gains, but purely for the sake of competition and violence. And that may not be so harmless.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Thankful for a Classmate
I am thankful for BRIGIT! she's so awesome! She often annoys me. I hate Brigit. But I also love her!
We share our hatred of a certain person which is always fun because everyone always likes said person. She also has a really awesome house. However I almost fought her brother. He's just such a destructive and negative person. Unlike Brigit!
Some things about Brigit actually do annoy me though. Like the fact that she speaks Japanese and actually likes Japan, and Japan sucks. Its culture is really disturbing to me personally, and I'm seriously not saying that because it's foreign to me and I'm being xenophobic. Ok maybe that's a little the reason. But anyway also the fact that she wears high heels and then complains about the pain. Which is dumb. And also all her hipster photography which is actually MEANINGLESS. It reflects her indecision on all political or social anything and she really doesn't have any opinions.
But actually I think she probably does have stuff to say! She just has the humility and the sensibility not to be aggressive with it or talk about it all the time. I talk about my stupid opinions all the time and probably noone cares. She's actually legitimately nice and welcoming and stuff and she's actually a really great friend. To a lot of people. She never says or thinks anything negative about anyone at all without an actual reason. She's also COMPLETELY unpretentious which is so rare today and among all the people I run in to. She welcomes lots of new people into whoever she's hanging out with and it's so great.
Brigit is an amazing person and I should appreciate her more! <3
We share our hatred of a certain person which is always fun because everyone always likes said person. She also has a really awesome house. However I almost fought her brother. He's just such a destructive and negative person. Unlike Brigit!
Some things about Brigit actually do annoy me though. Like the fact that she speaks Japanese and actually likes Japan, and Japan sucks. Its culture is really disturbing to me personally, and I'm seriously not saying that because it's foreign to me and I'm being xenophobic. Ok maybe that's a little the reason. But anyway also the fact that she wears high heels and then complains about the pain. Which is dumb. And also all her hipster photography which is actually MEANINGLESS. It reflects her indecision on all political or social anything and she really doesn't have any opinions.
But actually I think she probably does have stuff to say! She just has the humility and the sensibility not to be aggressive with it or talk about it all the time. I talk about my stupid opinions all the time and probably noone cares. She's actually legitimately nice and welcoming and stuff and she's actually a really great friend. To a lot of people. She never says or thinks anything negative about anyone at all without an actual reason. She's also COMPLETELY unpretentious which is so rare today and among all the people I run in to. She welcomes lots of new people into whoever she's hanging out with and it's so great.
Brigit is an amazing person and I should appreciate her more! <3
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
I am a shoe.
I am a Nike Converse sneaker. I represent individuality and resisting authority. I'm worn by subversive rebels of all kinds, from Snoop Dog to Kurt Cobain, Johnny Knoxville to The Edge. I'm a symbol of fighting the system and standing out from the herd of lemming-like idiots around me. Yes, I'm a symbol.
But this symbol is a lie. Because of the distinction I afford people they don't look at where I come from. I am so infused with artificial meaning that people forget that I am a shoe. Yes, I am a shoe, made of rubber and canvas fabric, with a distinctly "retro" look without actually pointing to any real time or any real political stance. But this rubber is manufactured and this canvas is sewn together by thousands upon thousands of small, deft brown hands in nations worlds and continents away from where I'll eventually be sold. They work inhumane hours in disgusting conditions. They are essentially paid slaves, and being paid only nominally, only enough to keep them barely alive and economically addicted to their jobs. In fact, in the minute you've taken to read this, the Vietnamese worker making me has earned $0.0013, while my parent company has earned over $36,000. This is because I'm not owned by a subversive or offbeat company. I am in no way connected with the ideas I'm bought to show support of. I am owned by Nike. Nike is a corporation worth more than some governments, with more power than any factory worker could even compete with, and which is currently exacting a terrible and constant tyranny against millions of the non-american brown-skinned peoples of the world.
No, I am not "subversive." "Subversive" never meant anything. I support "the system" by pretending to be fighting it, and pretending that fighting this system is so easy a battle that buying me can somehow help. I represent nothing. I am just another shoe, from another disgusting sweatshop, made by another pair of brown hands, sold by another white businessman. But you're going to buy me anyway.
But this symbol is a lie. Because of the distinction I afford people they don't look at where I come from. I am so infused with artificial meaning that people forget that I am a shoe. Yes, I am a shoe, made of rubber and canvas fabric, with a distinctly "retro" look without actually pointing to any real time or any real political stance. But this rubber is manufactured and this canvas is sewn together by thousands upon thousands of small, deft brown hands in nations worlds and continents away from where I'll eventually be sold. They work inhumane hours in disgusting conditions. They are essentially paid slaves, and being paid only nominally, only enough to keep them barely alive and economically addicted to their jobs. In fact, in the minute you've taken to read this, the Vietnamese worker making me has earned $0.0013, while my parent company has earned over $36,000. This is because I'm not owned by a subversive or offbeat company. I am in no way connected with the ideas I'm bought to show support of. I am owned by Nike. Nike is a corporation worth more than some governments, with more power than any factory worker could even compete with, and which is currently exacting a terrible and constant tyranny against millions of the non-american brown-skinned peoples of the world.
No, I am not "subversive." "Subversive" never meant anything. I support "the system" by pretending to be fighting it, and pretending that fighting this system is so easy a battle that buying me can somehow help. I represent nothing. I am just another shoe, from another disgusting sweatshop, made by another pair of brown hands, sold by another white businessman. But you're going to buy me anyway.
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