xtcian

If you ever learn the 'YYZ' drum solo, tape it and post it on YouTube. Not an Asia fan, though Carl Palmer is superb.

Sorry, taking a page from caveman, I'll opt out of the heavy stuff.

Before you try to learn the drum solo from WILDEST DREAMS, you need to master the following:

1. In The Air Tonight.
I recognize that Lucy could probably do it, but you still need it in your arsenal.

2. Wipeout.
It's just classic.

3. Swingtown.
If, for no other reason, than to see if it evokes the same Pavlovian response with your friends as it does for a full Kenan Stadium on Saturdays in autumn. You'll know you've nailed it when your friends jump in on cue with the, "Oh OOOOOOOOH"

4. A Sort Of Homecoming by U2.
Understated, but incredibly hard to nail when air-drumming.

As for the heavy lifting, I'm gonna get some popcorn and wait for the pay-per-view fighting that will most certainly ensue.

Asia?...Asia? Bait the conservatives all you like,but Asia? Now you're hurting me.

I still believe in a place called Hope, but maybe I'm naive. I wish we had some really good candidates for prez in '08. In a country this big, we can't find more than a few?

Kirsten Dunst is running for office? No way! I can't vote for her, though -- her break up with Cutie Jake Gyllenhaal indicates poor judgment.

Ha! Sorry to be a dork. I am punchy from too much coffee and too little interest in the Insurance Job work.

So, running every other day and a trainer. Maybe I will try it.

Oh, and it is good to have faith! You will be a better parent for it.

Hope springs eternal, Ian. Some words that give me comfort in times like these.

"There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured with what is right in America."
~William Jefferson Clinton

"Hope" is my state's official motto. We live one house in from Hope Street, a major residential thoroughfare. And I love to recite "Hope is the thing with feathers (etc.)."

As an old AmCiv major, I often contemplate how this era will play in tomorrow's history books. The Dark Ages analogy has occurred to me, too. Titles like "The March of Folly" come to mind. Not to mention all my geeky Star Wars tropes (evil empire, Dark Side).

I'm old enough to remember one of the mantras of the late 60s: Keep the faith, baby. It's probably the best we can do.

I'm having deep concerns over the Georgia electorate right now. Hopefully, they will be alleviated after this Tuesday's primary. Ralph Reed is running for Lt. Gov, and I can't believe he could very well win. This guy is one of Abramoff's partners in crime yet no one here really seems to care. And a headline in our paper today reads "Home schooled kids hit campaign trail for GOP." "a small army of 76 homeschooled students from 10 states, ages 14 to 20, who assembled in Alpharetta this week to help Ralph Reed try to win the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor." I mean, this guy and buddy Jack are being sued in Texas for fraud and racketeering. And his main competitor has only just now taken a slight lead in the polls. Guiliani has even taped an endoresement for Reed. I guess as long as you don't commit a mortal sin like lying about a BJ you can get away with anything. Whatever.

P.S. Kevin, I love that Clinton quote. The man gives great soundbite -- with substance.

Why? Evolution. Because we'd DIE OUT if we stopped believing, a la Norma Rae, that change is possible and inevitable. We know enough of our species' history to have seen the shifts. We've been through Dark Ages, fought towards the light, and emerged victorious...for awhile.

Given my newfound "state", I found it particularly galling when someone close to me recently asserted, "You've gotta be crazy to bring a child into this world right now," or something like that. But what's the alternative? As terrified as I am about the state of the world (we can't even begin to talk about 'trivial' domestic issues like poverty or education at this point), giving in to hopelessness is simply not an option. Preparedness and honesty are simply functions of accepting reality, but relinquishing all control and being swallowed up by despair is not in our DNA as much as it wasn't when we slimed our way onto land.

I love your ocean-as-sanctuary image, Ian. The ocean has always been a very powerful force in my life, as a metaphor, and literally. I almost drowned once, due to a particularly nasty rip tide, which didn't make me afraid of the sea, just gave me intense respect for it. Metaphorically, it has always helped me put things into perspective. Dark Ages, Light Ages, we'll keep cycling through, as we have since the beginning of time, as the waves keep crashing and receding. Doesn't mean I'm not gonna swim.

Ian, I just don't get your hate for your fellow countrymen. Also I would have to say overall the Democrats I know are fatter and much lazier than the Republicans. I think you are out of touch with the working man. No offense, but the people you associate with just aren't living in the real world. I know this is your blog, and as you have stated before most of us readers out here don't really know you, but I would like to think that if we met you might still not hate me simply because I voted Republican last election (although I consider myself independent).

Well, Alan, I'm a working woman, and I have as strong feelings of disappointment in and alienation from my countreymen as Ian. I'm also a Democrat who's not fat or lazy, so I guess it's not simply about "who you associate with", is it.

I don't hate people because they voted Republican. On my wedding day, one of my bridesmaids (my liberal college roommate, in fact) mentioned that she'd voted for Bush. The shock I felt eased into surprise, but certainly not hatred. For me, it's more disbelief than anything else. Ever since the Bush elections, I've been in a state of confusion. I was naive enough to believe that more people thought like me in this country, and I was wrong. That's not a judgment, it's simply an observation, a personal awakening.

Of course I have judgments as well, but I'm sure you judge me for voting for Kerry, and I'm not offended; it's your opinion. At this point, you're a resource to me; someone who can attempt to ellucidate what the majority of the country is thinking, and why.

did anyone watch jon stewart last night? he was UNABLE to make a joke out of anything; I'd never seem him so somber; so incapable of funniness. He just kept saying he was anxious. It was creepy. And the emotional weather report was just painful to sit through(except for the crazy front).

I really hate to get in to a political discussion, but I feel compelled to add this. Deb (and I think we are saying a bit of the same thing here)- I don't judge you (or anyone else) for voting for Kerry. In fact, that is what I think is great about this country. You can vote for the person who you think is best to do the job and I can vote for the person who I think is best to do the job. If you vote for a different person than I do, there is nothing wrong with your opinion and there is nothing wrong with my opinion, because these are, in fact, our opinions. This country is a melting pot and I am thankful that everyone does not have the same opinion that I do and that each one of us has the opportunity to vote our opinion. Isn't that what democracy is all about?

And on a lighter note, it seems appropriate to add here the late Red Buttons paraphrase of Abe Lincoln's quotation that I heard on NPR this morning: "A house divided is a condominium."

Emma--Sure, we're kinda saying the same thing, but by "judge", I mean have an opinion about. As in, I may think someone working minimum wage, whose kid is over in Iraq voting for Bush is crazy. It's my opinion. It's my judgment. We are a judgmental species, evidenced by the non-stop reality "judging" shows. The word "judge" gets a bad rap, and I didn't mean it as having a negative connotation. Of course I would never say that people shouldn't be allowed to exercise their right to vote because I judge their choice of candidate, but, if you voted for Bush, you have opinions about my choice of Kerry. One of those opinions/judgments/assessments may be that it's my right as an American to vote thusly. I'm sure you have others. I don't take offense. But that's what I mean by everybody judges.

ah, me. a friday and i'm going to get sucked in...

i need to comment on this whole opinions/judgement thread. i want to insert into the discussion the notion that while we may all have opinions, and we're entitled to them, some opinions are wrong. some people may fight to the death that they believe the earth is flat or that we're not doing damage to the environment (insert current talking point here), and they'd be wrong.

the downside of touchy-feely live-and-let-live, in which i whole-heartedly believe, is that we inadvertently dilute all of the creedence we've built in scientific study and learning and questioning. some things simply ARE. and a choice not to believe in them doesn't mean they're no longer true.

i don't need to fill in the blanks here, but i felt it was important to point this out. have a great weekend, everyone!

Kaz--I totally agree: your opinion is yours, but it can be wrong. I just think it's naive to say that we, as individuals, don't have judgments about everything we come in contact with. And I don't think judging something is necessarily an evil thing; it's simply a fact. We judge food, how other people dress, art...doesn't make us bad people, just makes us people. So I don't mind if someone judges my political affiliation, because, as you say, they could be wrong!

absolutely, deb. we are inherently judgemental, as making snap judgements are necessary for survival. and that's not at all a bad thing. the harder part is being able to step back, acknowledge we're making judgements, and then consider whether there's merit to it.

as ian and i discussed briefly the other night, i think critical thinking skills in this country are down the tube. and that's perhaps at the root of our current situation.

I've had some discussions about why people vote for whom they vote, and the most concise way to describe it (which I didn't think up) is that people vote Democrat are voting their hopes, and people who vote Republican are voting their fears.

It doesn't pay to think a stereotype about anyone is anything better than a crude first order approximation of who they are. I know Republicans and while it bothers me that they supported this disastrous President it is because of what he has done and not because of who they are.

Without going into the whole 'framing' hocus pocus, I think that Bush presented a narrative people found compelling, and Kerry did not. Kerry very nearly won -- and arguably would have won if not for Republican-engineered voting irregularities. But if Americans had gotten from Kerry a clear, unambiguous story about who we are as a country and where he wanted to take us as president, no amount of voter harrassment and illegal purging of voter roles would have mattered.

And if anyone figures out how to motivate the people that don't vote to participate, things could really change in a hurry. I suspect that the two biggest factors in people not voting are A) they don't think that it matters who is elected and B) They don't see anyone running for office that embodies the ideals that would give them a stake in the outcome.

Deb, first of all I didn't address you, so I'm sorry if you were offended by my post. I didn't mean to imply that all Democrats were either fat or lazy, and I don't think I did. I referred specifically to the ones I knew to refute Ian's stereotypical generalizations. I'm glad that you like Republicans and can separate your dislike for their opinions from dislike for the person.

chaircrusher - the problem is that the issues in the real world cannot be addressed simply. kerry could surely have spouted platitudes and soundbites, which sadly work better with the general populace, but democrats are always trying to ACTUALLY address the issues.

how do you propose they do that when the issues are complicated and require thought?

also, there is no unambiguous statement that can be made about a melting pot country.

this is compounded by the fact that, indeed, an educated, thoughtful, and articulate presidential candidate is more difficult to sell than a black-and-white, elitist-dressed-as-a-common-man who plays the part well.

i just think that people shrink from pain, which is the story that most democrats have to include in their comments on this country. it's going to hurt to address the oil dependency. it's going to require sacrifice to really address the problems we've fueled in the global stage. it's going to hurt to get our debt down. and all of that sounds sucky on the campaign trail. and people don't want to hear it.

sigh.

Oh, no worries, Alan, I wasn't offended. I was just commenting on the generalization you made based on the people you knew, when you criticized Ian for stereotyping Republicans based on the people he knew.

Chaircrusher: I think you have a point. Be it Bush's pervasive "flip-flopper" name-calling, or Kerry's own lack of a definitive stance (or appearance thereof) on many issues, I can certainly see how one would look to Bush's concise view of the world and the country for stability and clarity. The part that bothers me, as I was saying before, is that so much of the country found his narrative compelling, as you say. The fact that he wasn't the "lesser of two evils", he was the *appealing* choice, or, in many cases, it wasn't even a choice.

Which is why I think, even if Kerry had been...."clearer", I don't know that the outcome would have been any different. The person who was voting for four more years of Bush was not ambivalent, not unsure. I truly don't think Bush "swung" many voters. I could be wrong.

it's your choice to have hope or be driven by fear. that's a choice that goes beyond just the war.

ian, wasn't it just yesterday that you posted the movie clip with all the links to the psychology of war? in the experiments where they tested people's capacity to torture another human, you had a majority of people who would just inflict pain on others if they were "ordered" to do so. and it made me wonder about the people who refused. what was it about their point of view or internal moral compass that made them say no? i have to believe it was something inside them that was there long before the experiment.

so i think we all need to turn off cnn and all the other mainstream propaganda (i mean, "news") focus on who we are ourselves as people and focus on living our own core values to the fullest because it does us no good to get filled with reactionary frustration and depression and negativity. it does nothing to help us act more moral.

i'm not going to live on negative terms and i'm not going to have the hope that fuels me crushed by the right wing propaganda machine. i vote the way i vote and i get behind the candidates i believe in regardless of the war. we had barbara lee in office long before the war, right? if you want whistle-blowers, you have to vote for whistle-blowers who aren't afraid and who would rather be right than be popular. i also voted for nader and kucinich, same reason.

when 130,000 people died in the tsunami and half a million became homeless, i didn't map a route to the desert and build a raft. when asian bird flu paranoia took hold, i didn't cancel my travel to asia.

just question how productive it is to let too much fear and frustration enter your life. does it really help, and is that what drives you? does it help you become a better parent? or as deb said, does it drive your decision to even become a parent?

i don't know about anyone else, but personally, i find it a lot easier to have hope and figure out what to do if i don't let my head get beaten in with their bullshit.

and honestly, it works both ways. as much as i love moveon.org and support them, and i think al gore's a good guy, etc., it's not like they don't see this as an opportunity to get their own propaganda on. i mean, al gore is practically a friggin hedge fund manager now. the democratic political machine is in full swing, telling us that all our problems would be solved if we voted for them. (come on.)

you just have to ignore all of this and keep on keepin on.

anyway, here's some positive news:

http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17163&ch=biotech

happy friday.

Alan, I think if you go to kunstler.com and read the What's New essay "The Twilight of Lumpenleisure", it may give some insight into Ian's 'contempt for fellow Americans' or faux populist tendencies. I don't mean to offend Ian on his own blog or generate a class consciousness discussion here but Kunstler is a good bit more overt in his attacks on fellow Americans and is way more unapologetic about doing so. I suspect that the founding fathers were equally skeptical about their countrymen (despite the awesome documents)and generated the electoral college.

To Kaz and Ian: I think critical thinking is more present than ever, but so is the overwhelming influence of the largest wealthy class of unconscious, uncritically educated, one-or-two issue voters in the history of the world. They are all accessible by the internet or TV and their would-be or current representatives are unapologetic about tapping them in the most basic and shameless ways.

Ian: You know how my old man is and could expect an NRA, born again, country dweller like him to go for Bush, but he didn't. He was very specific about not voting for "those lying, oil company screwing sons of bitches who are ruining our country". Alas, his peers are one issue voters and voted for Bush "to return us to our Christian Principles." I studied this very carefully and cannot explain the disconnect. Political polls only reflect that voters are unhappy with "your" representative, not "their" representative. Therefore 95% of incumbents will be returned to office. The close races will reflect that vacillation of 5%, no more, no less. The point of this last personal paragraph is that nothing has changed. DO NOT get involved in electioneering this year. It will be very stressful and unhealthy. Oil prices will determine the single-issue voter discomfort and it may affect the outcome, not your arguments or poll labor.

you need to keep rekindling your faith for one reason - lucy. we can't give up.

and if we have to take a test to be able to drive...why don't we have to take one to vote. i know that driving can kill people, but as we have seen over the bush years so can voting. just a thought.

xuxE - here's a cool thing (thanks for exploring my film and site and links) - something that came out of the experiements, both milgram and prison, was that AWARENESS of the experiments alone could help "innoculate" against a blind response. the more that people were aware of the powers of social pressures, the more likely they are to resist them.

that's something that gives me hope. it's part of the reason i made that film and posted those links and get out of bed every day and talk to people about what drives me.

it's also the reason i read this blog and take part in the discussion.

my hope is that we all walk away and tell someone else at the water cooler, the classroom, or the dinner table, about what's pissed us off on here or inspired us or made us consider something from a different light. that is what pollinates change. that's what keeps me hopeful.

rock on, people! let's all do our part.

well not to pick apart your words, but i don't know that i get anything out of the *water cooler* talk per se any more than media propaganda. i mean, i usually feel a lot of passion in these discussions but not a lot of substantive information.

in the bay area there is alot of pressure to vote left wing, and line up for any anti-[fill in the blank] rally. i love the fact that it's like that here, but i don't want to be a clone left wing voter for the left any more than i want to be a one-issue voter for the right. i'm just sick of it.

so often politicians change their votes depending on the whims of the constituency or other influences without their own moral core. i'm sick of the way both parties work.

i mean, the democrats didn't come out in opposition to the war until just recently. that was only because they felt some momentum in the masses and a chance at some election victory. before that, almost all of them were hedging their positions.

i'm sorry but i need real leadership and knowledge and conscience and guts, probably from an outsider type candidate. i don't need a candidate-of-the-moment who lines up with the fact that the war is becoming unpopular. i need someone who's going to do that AND make the right call on the NEXT big issue, whether it's popular AT THE TIME or not.

can you imagine if at the time of 9/11, the words coming out of Barbara Lee had come from the president instead? what if the president had the conviction to do what is right despite popular opinion to the contrary? i mean, seriously, can you imagine...

Ian, you're planning on learning "Heat of the Moment" as well, right? That would be a wicked Asia 1-2 combo.
Scruggs, my fingers are crossed about Reed's primary, too. I heard him on NPR the other day acting like his association with Abramoff was no big deal. In e-mails released by the Senate Indian Affairs committee, Abramoff and his evil henchman, Michael Scanlon (who has also copped a plea), discuss their anger at Reed's insatiable desire for them to keep kicking money Reed's way. Abramoff, e-mailing Scanlon, describes Reed as "a bad version of us!" That about sums up Ralph Reed. A bad version of Jack Abramoff.
I've included a pdf link to the e-mails (the "bad version" is page 5). May Ralph Reed finally reap what he has sown next Tuesday.
http://www.indian.senate.gov/public/_files/2002scan.pdf

It's probably a good thing that I was too busy to visit this blog today (until now).

Ian,

I felt the same sense of being overwhelmed by the state of the world today so I did the only logical thing. I flew to Las Vegas and checked into Caesar's Palace. I am sitting in a sweet (comped, no less) room typing this comment and preparing to head to a steakhouse for some single malt and meat to celebrate my destruction of the roulette wheel today (okay, it was only a few hundred bucks, but for me, that's big money). The world will be there for me to worry about when I get back.

Cheers,

Gribster

Weren't you moving to Cannes, like, three years ago?

Yep, but the deal fell through. Looks like we're stuck with each other.

ian: hope you are feeling better, and i realize i'm late to the party, but don't just support gillebrand because rahm says so.

understand that you are going door to door for the daughter of a VERY well-connected REPUBLICAN lobbyist who isn't even from upstate New York. i absolutely, wholeheartedly agree that sweeney is a schmuck, but don't presume that gillebrand is anything more than a relatively well-funded "god-maybe-we-can-win-THIS-seat" vehicle for national democrats.

and, i'd hazard a guess that most of the folks in your congressional district aren't going to vote for her. it's a heavily GOP-registered area. not that this should dissuade you from trying to turn the tide!! as emma said: that is what democracy, and that which this country is founded on, is all about!

and ps-the park slope government reps are going to be FAR more in line with your politix... of course, i know you know that!