A minotaur's þencan

Geocaching and social conscience

2009-05-12T10:09:00.001-05:00

This morning I found my first geocache using the Colorado 400t GPS unit J. gave me for my birthday. Wow! It is so much nicer than using Google Earth to find caches!

I’ve been thinking about how I can use my new gadget for civic good. Games are great, but I want to give back to the community I’ve taken so, so very much from. My first, and so far only thought, is to transfer my hate-group monitoring practices from Google Earth to my hand held. It makes so much sense and the data will be much easier to manipulate. It will also be easier to combine the data collected by others in this effort.

Previously, when I found a recruiting sticker, graffiti, or other sign of hate-group activity (hate-groups being a catch all for National Alliance, KKK, et alii), I would record the date and location on a jpeg map image I took from Google. Great start, but impossible to correlate, manipulate, share, or do anything with other than look at. Now, I can put this onto my hand held, share it with others, trace activity over time and through space, and probably some other things I don’t know about yet.

Expect to hear more about this.

Sorry I'm not at Davos

2009-01-29T10:39:00.000-05:00

Well friends, it’s happened once again. The fine folks at Davos have allowed my invitation to get lost in transit. While I feel bad for all of you – whom I’m sure were waiting with breathless anticipation for my eye witness reports regarding this Swiss-based elitist event – I mostly feel sorry for myself. My dreams of meeting Voldemort in person have been dashed.

“Don’t loose hope,” I hear you say. “There’s always next year.” No. There is no next year for Voldemort. Once the final installment of the Harry Potter series comes out, Voldemort will be no more. And as Klaus Schwab, the gatekeeper of Davos boasted regarding Richard S. Fuld Jr., there is no room for has-beens at Davos.

Oops. Should I have included a spoiler alert? Well now you know the pain I feel.

Fill in the blank:

2009-01-09T09:21:00.001-05:00

Another day, another _______.
a. rejection
b. dividend payout
c. both

Unfortunately, the answer is “c. both.”

My short story “Coldwater Gold” was rejected for the second time. Ultimately, this isn’t all that bad. The market for short stories is tight and I sent it to two well respected literary magazines. Still, I find this part of the writer’s life disheartening.

On the flip side, I received a $0.1557 dividend per share of TELOZ stock I own. That will pay for about 5 more submissions. Hope springs anew.

A Holiday Letter from Leaky Canoe Inc.

2008-12-18T13:25:00.000-05:00

From:

Zebulan Noh
CEO
Leaky Canoe Inc.
Wall Street
New York, NY

Dear Friends, Family, and Investors:

My favorite holiday is nigh upon us. Each year, as the smell of fresh
cut balsam wreaths fill the city and the sound of little children’s
tantrums drown out the Salvation Army Bell ringers, I begin to count
down the days until December 26^th —Boxing Day.

Now friends before you accuse me of being extravagant during a time of
national belt tightening, understand that I am like you. I may sleep on
Wall Street, but my apartment on Main Street (Park Avenue) has felt the
pinch. Just yesterday I was forced to file a false complaint against our
doorman of twenty-three years and see him fired because I couldn’t stand
for him to see the chagrin in my face when I told him that I couldn’t
afford to tip him anything this Christmas. It was almost as hard as
watching his back recede as he went home to his family. But this is a
season of cheer and I am filled with warmth knowing that his five
children will have him home for the 25^th and, of course, for the
following Boxing Day.

Ah yes, back to Boxing Day. If we celebrated Boxing Day in this country,
I would not have felt forced to ruin the reputation and retirement plans
of a fine upstanding man like my doorman. Rather, the traditional Boxing
Day approach as dating back from the 17^th century would have placed a
small clay box in the lobby into which everybody could drop their spare
change into throughout the year. The donations would have been anonymous
and Stanly would never have known who stiffed him on his bonus when he
opened the box on the day after Christmas.

It’s quaint the way our thoughts run to times of yore during moments of
hardships. While our economy goes up in flames quicker than a ’73 Ford
Pinto, I—as I’m sure many of us can—take joy in knowing that much of my
former wealth was in the form of shares in the company that made that
analogy possible; shares which I leveraged many times over to purchase
bundled sub-prime loans. It’s only money after all, so says my
accountant who has recently taken up Zen Buddhism and suggests that I
too should learn how to become one with nothing.

In other holiday news, our family investment company co-founded by Titus
Morales, my great-grandfather, and his special friend Zachariah Noh,
will be changing its name as we enter a new chapter of our company
history. On Wall Street, we call this chapter eleven it’s a bit
different from how we use the term on Main Street (Park Avenue), however
the term still gives rise to strong emotions. But this is the holiday
season and I want you to know that everything will be okay.

As many of you know, called, emailed, and screamed from your cars about,
our great firm experienced some difficulty in weathering this financial
perfect storm. Our position was further compromised when our top
investment strategist found herself detained by the police on the first
of the month. I know what appeared in the newspapers. It’s shameful the
way our gotcha-media throws around charged words like “Ponzi scheme” at
the slightest hint of systematic accounting irregularities.

In an effort to leave behind the taint of scandal as well as to create a
vehicle by which we may enjoy our fair portion of TARP money, we have
transformed ourselves from a investment bank into a holdings bank. On
paper the two companies are separate entities with the holding bank
purchasing the investment bank for a steal. Wink. Wink. Nudge. Nudge.
From now on, rather than having your wealth managed by Noh Morales
Investment Inc., Leaky Canoe Inc. will see to all your fiscal needs as
well as ensuring that the government bail out of Wall Street helps your
street as well.

I’ll leave you now on this positive note and wish you all a happy,
happy, holiday season. For those of you who are traveling, I invite you
to come and join me in Cambodia. Accommodations are rustic but there are
no pesky extradition treaties or diplomatic relationships to ruin the
festivities. For those of you staying in the states, I wish you well
again and please remember the little people this year on Boxing Day. You
never know when they might be able to take a fall for you.

Zebulan Noh

CEO

Leaky Canoe Inc. née Noh Morales Investment Inc.

Wine making updates

2008-11-17T09:48:00.001-05:00

Started two batches of wine today:

1 gallon Green Tea Blend
(½ Dragonwell & ½ Young Hyson).
Specific Gravity = 1.074
Potential Alcohol = 11.84%

5 gallons Black Tea
(China Rose Petal Leaf Tea)
Specific Gravity = 1.080
Potential Alcohol = 12.8%

Also, I strained and oaked the 3 gallons of grape tea I’m making.

Crazies on the Street

2008-11-10T08:04:00.002-05:00

7:00 a.m. I'm walking my dog up Chestnut Street and down Congress Street. Our pace is slow as we make our way inevitably to Starbucks.

As we walk, I have a smile on my lips and a song in my heart. Actually, the smile and song keep changing places as I burst out whistling. It is a beautiful morning.

After a few minutes I stop whistling and my smile fades. I've just started looking around. I take a census over the next couple of blocks. The only people smiling are those off their meds. Once more I'm reminded that a chipper morning mood is the clearest sign of insanity.

Nuts. At least I have a day of drudgery and toil to which I can look forward. That should bring me down a couple of notches.

A Halloween Posting

2008-10-30T10:38:00.001-05:00

Halloween is upon us. Like Poe’s raving character Usher, I can hear it scratching in the thin wall separating tomorrow from today. The entire city moves with nervous steps. Leaves skitter up the streets with restless energy. Animals, wild and tame, look about fearfully.

In that darkest hour just before the salvation of dawn, my dog woke me from a sound sleep. This was no dream – this was today. My silent protector, my quiet sentinel, roused me with a long, melancholy howl at four a.m. How can I describe this sound to you? It froze the house cats in the midst of their nocturnal mischief. It chilled my blood even as I lay under three layers of heavy quilts. It was a sound born of the darkest, most sorrow-filled caverns of hell. It was the cry of Cerberus himself.

There can be no doubt that this year even the dreams of the peaceful and the sleep of the saints will be defiled by the lurking evils that hid throughout my city during this last night of October.
Now you, my dear friend, know that I am no believer of fairy tales. And I pay little heed regarding the so called proof of phantasms or other fantastic phenomena. What rational human does? However, mark these words: There are places in Portland where even the bravest, the sanest, and the most skeptical dare not go on this upcoming profane night for fear of becoming cowards, lunatics, and superstitious believers. And mark this too: Particularly not on a Hallow’s Eve cursed by the death of the Hunter’s Moon. Yes, it will be a dark, moonless night.

“What place does he refer so gravely to?” you ask. My friend, I shall tell you of two of them. The first is grounded in solid fact, historical evidence, even a commemorative sign. The second remains shrouded in sealed court documents and folklore – old Native American legends nonetheless.

Facts first: In September 1689, what is now the idyllic Deering Oaks Park was the sight of a shameful massacre. The blood of dozens of Native American’s flowed freely during that wicked event. Knowing what we know about how non-whites were treated back in those barbaric times, can anybody believe their spirits went to rest honored and peacefully?

The second site of spectral horror in this city lies under the very foundation of the Portland’s great citadel of higher education. According to legend and some lawsuits brought by local tribes and swiftly dismissed by the judges (although, oddly still not available to the public), Luther Bonny, the great eyesore of 60s architecture on the Portland campus of the University of Southern Maine, was built on the sacred soils of an ancient Indian burial ground.

Now I do not believe in ghosts, but by that same measure I do not go around desecrating the sanctuaries of the departed nor disturbing the haunts of the deceased. Regardless, the land stores its own memories and wreaks her own vengeance when wronged. Some things that should slumber in this city are greatly agitated and they have been greatly wronged. Was it that knowledge that made my dog wail so piteously last night? Does he know what is coming with the morrow? Will I awaken to a beautiful November dawn? Or does this Halloween come as a time of reckoning long over due?

Sleep well tonight my friend and again tomorrow night. Sleep the dreamless sleep that I shall scream out for during my waking nightmare as my city pays, measure for measure, a bill long overdue.

Wines Bottled and Made

2008-10-27T08:29:00.001-05:00

On Sunday Alex, Elana and Byron came over to help make and bottle some wine. We started off with cleaning and sorting the 25 pounds of grapes Elana and Byron brought from their home. Then, as I sampled and measured the acidity and specific gravity of the liquid, Alex and Byron mashed the grapes by hand – everybody was quite disappointed when I forbid feet in the primary fermentation bucket. If you had seen Alex’s feet, you understand why.

I’m making an oaked red. I think we’ll get about three gallons of grape wine (14 or so bottles). Half of which will go to Elana and Byron. Byron is a graphic designer and will be making the labels for this wine (so cool). I think I’ll be naming it “Wrath.”

We also bottled. We began with the five gallons of Maple Sap wine (named Acer Saccharum, after the latin name for Sugar Maple). It’s a crystal clear wine with a spicy flavor (from the cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon I added) with a maple after taste. The flavor is surprising and we all agreed that it will make an excellent mulled wine. Its alcohol level at bottling is 14.65%, but will even out to fifteen while aging. I got a total of 23 750ml bottles – two of which I gave to those helping me and 10 of which will go to Matt and Bethany who gave me the sap to make the wine. In all, I have 11 bottles to keep.

The six gallons of apple wine produced 28 375ml bottles for Alex’s wedding as well as 12 (if I remember correctly – I’m away from home as I write this) 750ml bottles. I gave my helpers two bottles of that as well, leaving me with 10 bottles of my own. Unfortunately, I still can’t find my original documentation for the apple wine although I do have the recipe to make it again. And, the SG readings that I wrote on the bottle rubbed off. I believe that I expected an alcohol level of 18% or so, I think it’s pretty close to that. The wine is called Trifecta in homage to of the apple blend I used to make it – it’s a mix of McIntosh, Cortland, and McCoun windfalls I collected from McDougal Orchards. It has a wonderful taste. We blended some of the maple and apple in a glass – next year I may have to make a blend of the two.

My only concern with the apple is that it’s not a clear as I would have liked it to be. Next time I need to use more pectin enzyme during the fermentation.

Not a bad haul. If anybody would like the recipes I'm using, email me and I'll be glad to send them to you with my comments.

Dolce Far Niente, Yeah Right!

2008-10-26T20:31:00.000-05:00

Wow – my first weekend home this month. What a weekend it was. The house was a shambles after three weeks of neglect. I had 11 gallons of wine waiting to be bottled, the floors desperately needed a mopping, and the mud room was filled with plants waiting to come inside.

Amazingly, everything got done. My partner – the sweetest man in the world – let me direct him to the chores that needed to be done. He cleaned the kitchen on Saturday while I did the bathrooms and floors. And on Sunday he set up places and brought the plants inside while I started a new batch of wine and then bottled the stuff that was waiting.

So much for dolce far niente; the weekend I dreamed of having. Still, we had a wonderful time.

The Sad Chant of a Boutique Store Clerk

2008-10-22T16:16:00.002-05:00

Let us shop then, you and I,
Where the clothing is folded neatly near by
By some clerk who finds his job inescapable;
Let us shop, without caring how late we keep,
That hungry clerk who weeps
To go to his pathetic little home
And those seedy bars where he likes to roam:
Keep his kind from me and focused on folding shirts
But don’t pay fair his efforts
Or he will begin to think he is like us…
A terrible thought is it?
Let us shop and make our visit.

In the store the tourists come and go
Griping ‘cause prices are not low.

The snow white shirt that lies upon the shelf with coffee stains,
The snow white shirt that lies on the table covered with stains
Wrinkled where I left it to be folded again,
By some small part-time clerk with fluff for brains,
Who cleaned it once and must now make it clean before leaving,
Or find a new job, perhaps McDonalds,
If he could learn how to use the fryilator,
I’m done, let’s leave him seething.

(my apologies to T. S. Eliot)

A wine by any other name

2008-10-20T05:58:00.002-05:00

May I introduce my latest batch of wine: Tunnel of Love. She was labeled yesterday afternoon as the golden sunlight sparkled off her ruby bottles.

Seriously though, it takes a lot of effort to name some wines. Their flavors, purposes, color and ingredients all work in conjunction to avoid the snappy bon mot. In the end, I went through about 10 different names including:

Violaceae Sub Rosa
Kelligor (combination of two engaged (to each other) friends’ last names
Love Potion #10

I’m still really fond of Violaceae Sub Rosa – expect to see parts of the name blended into future wines.

Rose Hip Violet Wine

2008-10-15T08:08:00.003-05:00

Last night I bottled a slightly less than a gallon batch of Rose Hip Violet wine. When all the spilling, drinking, bottling and corking was done, I walked away with seven 375ml bottles. Not bad.

I like where this wine is going. In about a year it will taste like more. I'll probably do three gallons next summer.

Now I just need to come up with a name for it.

Seth Chaos’s Greatest Novels & Short Stories Adapted for Text and IM

2008-10-14T15:55:00.002-05:00

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A goodbye letter to somebody I never knew.

2008-10-06T10:29:00.002-05:00

My sister-in-law miscarried this weekend. She hadn't been pregnant long, weeks at most. The baby was due July 5th. I found tears when my brother told me the news this morning. Strange. I never knew it nor will I, but the grief is real.

I couldn’t wait to become an uncle (or as my family says in their French way, Oncle). I was gonna be the Auntie Mame of uncles. I don’t even have a name or gender for what was coming, I just call it “it.” And still, I saw myself introducing it to the great joys of life I’ve discovered over the years: live boxing matches, going to the opera, the great masters of painting and sculpting. I know that there will be another, whether it comes to my family through adoption or is blood related. But I still need to say goodbye to this one.

When I heard that my brother’s wife was pregnant, I wrote a letter to It. Here’s that letter followed by the second letter.

Dear Baby X,
Jason just called to tell me that you were expected in early July. It’s the end of September right now; you’ve got plenty of time. Over the next nine months I’m sure you’ll be hearing plenty about those in the world before you. I imagine it will sound pretty garbled through the amniotic fluid.
I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself before you’re swept away in a flood of cradling arms of aunts, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers. I’m you’re uncle on your dad’s side. Despite how different we are, Jason and I are in fact brothers.
From what I understand about pregnancy, you’re essentially a cytoblast right now, a tiny nucleus of cells. I don’t want to overwhelm you with new information. Be well.
Oncle Joseph

Dear Baby X,
Jason just called to tell me that you are no longer expected. It’s the beginning of October right now, and the leaves are at their peak. Beauty is everywhere. I’m sorry you won’t be able to enjoy them next year.
One of the things you would have found out about me as you grew up was that unlike your parents and grandparents, I’m not a Catholic. If fact, I’m atheist. I think this would have annoyed you very much as a young person.
I don’t have the comfort of believing that you are in heaven right now. But I hope that the cluster of cells you were experienced the vibrations of your mother’s laughter or your father hugging her. If some nucleus that was working on bringing you to life somehow perceived the love those two felt for each other and you, than you experienced everything beautiful about life. Good bye.
Oncle Joseph

Diary of a Financial Melt Down

2008-10-01T07:32:00.000-05:00

8:30 a.m.

It is the 17th day since the Financial Crisis turned my pristine world into a post apocalyptic nightmare. Already I have seen the JPEG (Jobless People Eating Garbage) population swell from one or two former executives holding “Will Work 4 Latte” signs into bleary-eyed hordes roaming the street. Nobody is safe anymore. This morning I saw a gang JPEGs jump a college student after a rumor circulated that the student had found an internship. This is Hell!

The market spiked yesterday. This gave many of my friends a crumb of hope which they held onto as if it were life itself. I do not begrudge them this misconception. They need hope as badly as they need dividends. But they are wrong. What they felt is the same deceiving emotional up-tick a former lover feels when an ex hooks up with him for a fling. The markets just needed a quick lay with some profits. Today it will be back in it’s free fall.

Today At Work

2008-09-30T18:26:00.001-05:00

She walked into the shop around mid-afternoon. She was smartly dressed with close cropped silvery hair. Both she and the husband following behind were in their early sixties. She gushed over the clothes. She loved the designers sense of the basics. And then her cell phone rang.
–Hello
–What?
–You’re serious? That’s awful! I’m so distraught. What am I going to do now with fall coming?
–How’s (name withheld) taking this? She loved them too!
–Oh, I know. This is terrible news. This is terrible.
She hung up the phone and turned to her husband. “The worst thing has just happened,” she said choking back a cry. “My favorite upholsterers have just gone out of business.”

More anagrams*

2008-09-17T16:31:00.004-05:00

Political
Joe Biden: I need job
Sarah Palin: Anal Parish or A sharp nail

Financial
Lehman Brothers: Herman's brothel
Goldman Sachs: Adam's schlong
Henry Paulson: Shun no player or Ha, openly runs or A sly heron pun or Haply runs one

*Just for the record: whenever possible I try to find anagrams that will make people from all political persuasions happy. Don't like the anagram? Write to the person and ask them to change the spelling of their name.

Overheard from my bedroom

2008-09-16T11:15:00.002-05:00

Time: 10:15 p.m.
Location: The shared driveway outside by bedroom window.

Car starts up then pauses. Male voice says, "Get outta here man. The cops are on their way."

The cops never actually showed up.

2008-09-15T10:33:00.001-05:00

My favorite question comes from an unlikely source – that is to say, an unlikely source if you’re an atheist as I am. It comes from the Bible. In John 18:38, Pilate asks the imprisoned son of a Jewish carpenter “What is truth?” The prisoner gives no recorded answer.

It’s a question that has challenged humanity through out the ages. No mind engaging in any sort of philosophical endeavor will find it possible to reach a communicable understanding or even an inner answer granting personal peace without first addressing this question and the ramifications that come part and parcel with it.

The key word in the last sentence of that paragraph is addressing. Like all major life questions (e.g. Who are we? Where are we going? What will we eat for lunch?*), this question doesn’t come with a sound-byte, one-size-fits-all answer. I personally don’t believe it comes any answer, but still the need to ponder it and to find some kind of resolution gnaws away at my mind as it has done in the minds of people across the ages. It is a question which leads the asker to seek for the sake of seeking. Through that process, the seeker is given opportunity to address the question of The Truth in a way that will irrevocably shape and reshape his or her life. This reshaping is the result of constant encounters of the truths that lead to the formation of the beginning of understanding The Truth.

At this moment in my life, I have come to understand these little-t truths as cardamom pods. When you eat a dish flavored with cardamom, you know it’s there. The floral scent it unleashes stimulates the olfactory and the tongue discovers sweet citrus flavors that would otherwise have been masked by stronger flavors like garlic. If you’re not careful, you bite into a cardamom pod. Your mouth will become overpowered by a airy, almost mentholated feeling. It’s too much, humbling even. It’s shocking. Then, it’s gone. The moment and the flavor passes but the memories and lessons remain. You eat slower now, looking at the food before each bite.

* * *

Let me tell you about John Doe #1. I have no name for him. He won’t tell it to me. He sits every morning near the corner of High St and Congress St. Often I find him at Starbucks; sometimes in Longfellow Square. He’s approximately 5’5”, 200 pounds. His curly hair, pear shaped build and skin tone makes me think he comes from one of the Franco-American communities that dot Maine (as I myself do). He is dirty. His clothes, always a sweat suit and sometimes a jacket, are perpetually damp with sweat or rain depending on the weather. Around his neck he wears a small set of plastic rosary beads like those Catholic children are given on their first communion. He often sits on the corner swearing at people who walk by, fighting with the voices in his head, and sometime arguing with walls and lamp posts. I’m not joking; I watched him chew out the south wall of Key Bank one day.

He created my cardamom pod moment last Monday. It was 7:30 a.m. and I was taking my dog for his morning mile long constitutional. We were heading north on Congress St., between High St. and Forest Ave., when we passed on the sidewalk. “That dog! That dog!” John Doe #1 began shouting at me as I passed.

In my most affable manner I attempted to defuse the situation. “Good morning,” I said smiling.
John Doe #1 stared right into my eyes and then shouted, “Fuck you! It’s not a good morning.” We each took a step backwards and then continued on our separate paths.

I made it three yards before I dissolved into laughter. I wasn’t laughing at him, but at the moment of truth that hit me with all the subtly of biting into a cardamom pod. I had been totally incorrect in my comment to him. It was not a good morning for him. He spends nights in a shelter (if he’s lucky), he needs medical attention and suffers from some form of mental illness. Who was I to trivialize his daily struggle with my presumptive “good morning?” Just another schmuck on the street blind to the dire struggles happening around me, that’s who.

* * *

This morning, while walking my dog and experiencing my little cardamom pod epiphany, I passed John Doe #1 again. I looked at him. He looked at me – there was no recognition of the other day in his eyes. He scowled and then made a chopping motion with is arm. “Case closed,” he shouted. I agreed and respected his pain with a moment of silence.

An Observation:

2008-09-05T11:05:00.001-05:00

Should I be worried that Microsoft Word's spellchecker doesn't include the word "recuse"?

We Have a Problem?

2008-09-05T10:30:00.004-05:00

This morning as I left Deering Oaks Park with Brody, a woman with a miniature schnauzer stopped me so our dogs could meet. The woman exemplified pleasant from her gregarious smile and perfectly white clothes to her sympathetic chuckle when I told her that my 120 pound mastiff/lab mix phobia of small dogs. Like most dog owners who meet, she wanted to talk.

She had moved to Portland yesterday. I didn’t ask where from. She’s an artist and her son is starting at the Maine College of Art. Could I recommend and good places where her dog could play off leash with other dogs? She was out meandering through Portland’s Parkside neighborhood appreciating the architecture. And, aren’t there a lot of homeless in the area?

I’m not sure why she phrased the last part as a question but I answered it as such. Sort of. “Yes, the city has a very visible homeless population,” I said. “And it grows significantly in the winter.”

Her mouth lost the pleasant creases of a smile. The corners dipped down distastefully low and her voice became a conspiratorial whisper. “There are so many panhandlers,” she said. “And some areas stink like urine.” Immediately I looked at my watch and using the oldest of all excuses, time, I extricated myself from the situation.

Brody and I walked a block and a half before I realized why her comments bothered me. She wasn’t being cruel. She wasn’t abusing anybody in front of me. To be fair, Portland’s PR arm doesn’t exactly highlight this aspect of our beautiful costal postcard perfect city. There’s no way she could have known that I had spent the last hour trying to convince one of the causes of her changed expression in the park that the government wasn’t 18 billion dollars from him and that he needed to start thinking of winter housing? There’s no way she could have been expected to assume that earlier that morning I’d been discussing with my mother the importance of recognizing dignity when people at a point in their life when it appears that all of their humanity eroded away into nothing. It bothered me that there was no way she could have known this.

But That’s not “We,” That’s Them

You and I are people. We use proper nouns like Joe to talk about ourselves in the singular and words like people to discuss ourselves en masse. If a person doesn’t have a permanent residence we change our words slightly. We omit any reference to the commonality of our shared humanity. We got some great terms for them. Panhandlers is a functional term, it evokes an image of something inanimate and easily found like a dishwasher or streetlight. Vagrant is more transitory in nature, like a passing annoyance or bad mood. A hobo is quaint like a local custom and a bum is a growing waste.

My favorite is homeless when used as a plural noun. The careful omission of and reference to people in that term defines a segment of the population as something other than human like you and I based on their residential status. I receive mail, therefore I am. They do not, therefore the diverse group (including: the mentally handicapped; addicts of all sorts; those hit by financial hardship; social castaways; and so on) can be summed up with one dingy grey, fit all word that places them exactly where they fit into our lives: outside.

What Was the Problem Again? Can You Put It Into Numbers?

We live in an information age. It’s great. Every morning I can roll out of bed, turn on my computer, and bring into my home anything in this world that I want. In a matter of seconds I can immerse myself in the thoughts of Jean-Paul Sartre or the adventures of Jean-Luc Picard. With ingenuity and focus I can make myself a strong voice with power to shake the masses or I can get lazy and veg out on flash games. It’s all there. We’re all there. Almost.

If a person doesn’t have a home, then they don’t have a computer. I can argue the benefits of capitalism versus communism with FoxyRed83 in China from the comfort of my living room at the push of a button. Learning that a particular homeless kid in my neighborhood is being regularly harassed by a local gang? That’s much more difficult. Since the homeless kid doesn’t have a computer, communication breaks down. I can’t interface with him.

This also means that the pleasant lady I met would have little idea that there are an estimated 3,500 to 5,000 people homeless in Portland. That’s 5% to 7% of this city’s population. To put this statistic into perspective, that’s more than the combined totals all of the Asians, African Americans, and mix raced people in the city. It’s roughly equal to how many people in Portland are of German ancestry.

That’s a fucking lot of invisible people out there. It’s more than I can help.

So Now What?

I like listening to people and I like writing. I can write a few of their stories. I don’t think this will change the world or even change one life. I need to do something. I can’t sit here without these numbers running through my mind. They make my stomach get all tight and I start feeling queasy. I don’t have money to give, even if that could be the silver bullet solution. I need to do something and this is something I can do.

I’ll tell you Chris’s story – the one waiting for billions owed to him by the Maine State government. I’ll tell you about Red’s laugh when he’s spanging outside the high end boutique I work at. When I’m done those two, there will always be High Steppin’ Bob, Betty Thompson, the Tommy’s Park punks and so on. Let's see who these people are.

Just a thought

2008-08-26T14:01:00.001-05:00

Three old women have left the store. The youngest of them looked like she was gone so far past sixty that if a cop carded her she’d get arrested for speeding. The oldest looked the same just moved slower. And as if I needed any signs of impending mortality, the middle one shared my name. Damn it.

The ladies made it very clear when they came in that they weren’t out shopping, just looking. “You picked a beautiful afternoon for it,” I said. Apparently they mistook the store for a museum. It happens a lot. I should probably mention this troubling phenomenon to my boss. Maybe she could start charging admission?

Methodically, ever so methodically, the trio worked their way up the right side of the store and then down the left. Every sweater elicited an “Ooh, that’s lovely.” Every time they found something in “their colors” there was a discussion about what “their colors” were and wasn’t one of them some kind of pink or was it yellow?

As they shopped – I mean looked – I kept thinking, if I ever get that close to death, please don’t let me spend my last years in a clothing store. Then it struck me, I’m as close to the uncertainty of death as they are and I’m selling my time to sell somebody else’s cloths.

Birthday Wine

2008-05-09T21:11:00.000-05:00

Today's my birthday!

After years of having my birthday fall at the beginning of the week or midweek, it's great to have it fall not only on a Friday, but on a Friday I have off.

I tried spending the morning enjoying my garden (I'll post some pics of it later on in the summer). It was nice until I noticed the invasion of violets. Last year these misconstrued shrinkers almost choked out my roses. They devoured my dusty miller and engaged in total warfare with an advancing squadron of lily of the valley. I usually adopt a laissez-faire attitude towards any plant with useful properties. This includes violets, day lilies, dandelions, and so on. If I can eat them, turn them into a poultice, or dry them for potpourri, then they can stay. However, killing my roses is tantamount to garden treason.

I couldn’t see just throwing them out. There were so many of them – there are still a helluva lot of the little flowers. I went through my reference shelves and pantry and discovered a recipe for flower wine (pansies specifically, a cousin of the violet) and I combined that with a recipe for rose hip wine and a packet of dried rose hips I’ve have kicking around.

Everything is now boiled and soaking waiting for some pectin enzyme and yeast. I’ve made a gallon. It should be ready (although a bit young) by the end of the summer.

Waiting for Peace - Some thoughts about Sunday

2008-04-28T07:10:00.001-05:00

There’s something almost religious about standing on the Casco Bay Bridge on a rainy Sunday afternoon. There were six of us this week – R., L., and myself as well as a few people further down. We stood in the drizzle from noon to one, holding our sign or flag, making peace signs with chilled fingers, and laughing as yet another person drove by and gave us the finger.

I know these actions won’t end the war in Iraq. Call it cynical, but my sign says “Stop This War” so I don’t need to paint a new sign after we invade Iran. So, as I march out to the bridge on Sunday I ask myself, “Why?”

R. argues that going out sparks discussion. Whether or not people support the war, making ourselves visible puts the war in the forefront of their mind at least for the 45 seconds it takes them to drive the bridge. He may be on to something there.

Like I said though, it’s almost religious for me; religious as in a “religious practice.” I’m going out with no chance of personal gain and standing there in meditation for an hour. Maybe we would have more peace in the world if the monotheists who are fighting right now focused more on the practice part of their creed rather than the religious part of it.

New batch of wine in the primary!

2008-04-07T10:15:00.003-05:00

I discovered a five gallon bucket of sap on my door step last night. I had been talking to some of my friends about turning Maple sap into wine. They were tapping trees and were getting more than they had the capacity to boil down.
The recipe I used was pretty simple: sugar; cloves; lemon (juice and zest); cinnamon; tannin; yeast nutrient; and yeast. I based it off a recipe I found here. Their measurements were for a gallon of wine, however, and I really wanted to try a bit of cinnamon with the maple. If anybody wants the exact measurements I used, email me. I’ll send them along.

One other change I made to the recipe was the yeast. I couldn’t find any Riesling yeast yesterday, so I used a packet of Red Star Montrachet – can’t imagine that being too big of a deal.

It took until this morning for the must to cool down enough to add the yeast. It looked great – the recipe called for boiling the sap for 15 minutes which turned it from clear to a beautiful amber. The tannin pushed it a bit darker, but I’m guessing it will return to that amber color over time. The must also had a wonderful smell and flavor – spicy, like an old New England farm house during Christmas.
Maximum expected alcohol percentage is right around 15%.

This batch will spend about nine days in the primary (a bucket) before being transferred to a secondary (a five gallon glass carboy).

Before anybody asks me for a bottle, I’d should point out that the stuff won’t be drinkable until January 2010 at the very earliest. It probably won’t be great until July of that year. Damn.

Ahimsa & Satyam

2008-04-04T10:23:00.002-05:00

Most mornings I walk about a mile and a half to the gym for a quick workout before work. I love this walk during spring and summer. I past blooming snow drops and crocuses in April. I enjoy the serenade of beautiful birdsongs throughout May and June. I’m wrapped in cool morning breezes during the hot months.
My walk starts out in Portland’s business district, Congress Street and the like, before meandering through the city’s small industrial area near bayside. In all of this, there’s one particular area I treasure walking through the most: Portland Street. That’s where the soup kitchen is. As I walk up Portland Street and veer left onto Oxford I pass a veritable army of Portland’s homeless. They’re coming from the various shelters towards the soup kitchen for breakfast.
When I reach this area I take my headphones and sunglasses off. I slow down. I try to make eye contact with each person I pass and I wish them a good morning. The expressions I get are worth the extra five minutes that are added to my walk. They, that mysterious They we call those who aren’t members of what we define as productive society, smile back. Many look surprised to be greeted so casually.
It’s a silly thing. Why should I care about saying hello to some vagabond whose face I’ll forget in thirty seconds. And why the hell should they smile at somebody like me wishing them a good morning but not doing anything else for them?
The answer all comes down to something my mom taught me. “Try to see the humanity in everybody you pass,” she often said. “You may be the only person to smile and say hello to them all day.” If I heard that lesson once, I heard it a thousand times. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, I must of heard her say those sentences at least once every two weeks.
I didn’t really understand what she meant or believe her until July of 2000. I was working at a coffee shop in Monument Square and every Wednesday, after finishing my shift at two, I would spend all of my tip money on flowers from the flower market and then walk through the city handing them out to people for no reason at all.
One Wednesday I had one last stem of daisy’s left and I was working my way towards home – I was living a few blocks up from the square on Congress Street. I passed a woman in her forties sitting on the curb. When I gave her the flowers she started sobbing. “Nobody has ever given my flowers in my life,” she said. I sorta freaked out, not publicly or on her, but I never gave out flowers again like that. I got angry at her for ruining what had been a fun, whimsical past time by showing me how much it meant to people. I could never give out flowers again without wondering if I was about to change a life. I didn’t want that responsibility. I just wanted to see people smile.
Then I got it. I didn’t know the words for it at the time, but know I understand it to be my first deep realization of ahimsa and satyam. In a world of violence, particularly the emotional violence suffered by the invisible masses of working poor, homeless, addicted and wounded, I acted in a way to intentionally counter that violence – this si the non-violence of ahimsa. In a world of lies and pressures telling people they need to consume, and “Buy! Buy! Buy!” I found truth in the act of giving freely something not processed, not edited, just grown from the earth – this truthfulness is satyam.
These were not great acts. I’m under no illusions about the ability to help through flowers. Nor were these acts selfless. On the contrary, I acted from purely selfish motivations – I love seeing surprised smiles. But neither fact negates the small good done by them. Like smiling at the homeless I passed, I opened a door that allowed the humanity of this one woman to come through. It burned to hot for me then, I was and still am very immature, though I begin to understand it now.

Rethinking the Revolution (Post II)

2008-03-31T11:13:00.001-05:00

Mission Statement:

To recognize promote the need for societal change on a global scale that well lead to the wellbeing of humanity as a whole and to explore the potential mechanics of how such a change may take place while focusing on efforts to minimize violence and sectarianism.

Rethinking the Revolution (Post I)

2008-03-28T13:14:00.002-05:00

The Premise
The impending revolution will not be the assumed boom some activists would love to see televised. Simply because if such an event were televised and the masses were glued to their flashing screens, enthralled, who would be revolting? A handful of isolated activist? No pun intended.

The days of the romantically inspiring French Revolution are over. A violent protest directed at bringing down the US government would be the equivalent of trying to catch a lizard by grabbing its tale. It would be a futile exercise with minimal results.

But what if The Revolution was re-conceptualized? A long history of war and violent conflict has altered the way humans engage in killing each other. Originally, the leader would charge in front of his or her forces with distinctive regalia. Then, as people realized that a force could be sent into disarray by removing its leader, the leader moved to the back and eventually of the battlefield and, when possible, preferably out of the country altogether. And now, the concept of a force has been changed. Major military powers are swiftly adopting guerrilla tactics and a cellular notion of the importance of the individual and small group over and within a platoon. Does “Army of one” mean anything now?

Just as battle tactics have changed over time, the concept of a revolution must also change to accommodate a dynamic society. This change will not be the ejaculatory explosion demanded by today’s activism-minded youth. If nothing else, the recent surge of car fires and riots in France showed a global bemusement regarding such unpolished action. Worse yet, the indignant government took minimal steps to make the changes requested by the repressed classes. In short: the old revolution proved to be inefficient and unproductive.

Over the course of several posts, I will conduct a study of how positive major changes in society could be actualized. I’ll begin with a mission statement for the project and then a structured analysis of various forms of protest, revolutions, and relevant philosophies and ideologies. In theory, by running all of these disparate approaches through some form of analytical sieve, we’ll be able to learn what has worked and not worked over history. I can only hope that at the end something meaningful will be found in the rubble.

As always, dialogue and constructive criticism is essential for this project to come to any real conclusion. Please feel invited to contribute.

Thank you.

My thoughts on the 5th anniversary of the war in Iraq

2008-03-17T10:52:00.002-05:00

Last Saturday there was a vigil to mark the 5th anniversary of the war in Iraq. There were about 80 people there. Unlike many of them, I held no sign because I wasn’t there to protest the war. I was there to acknowledge that people (Iraqi and US citizens and soldiers) were dying in my name.

Regardless of my own personal views of the war, I was saddened to see not one single person there who supported the war. So many people who are pro-war and anti “cut and run” claim that we can’t pull out because we need to support the troops. Why were they not there that day? Why couldn’t even one supporter leave the comfort of their homes and sacrifice some time to recognize the great sacrifice that is being made in name of their government and therefore their name?

This indifferent attitude towards the soldiers is the greatest form of betrayal by those who have sent them into harms way.

Reading The Razor's Edge

2008-03-17T09:55:00.000-05:00

Amazing.

I recently finished a 1949 printing of Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge.

I want to tell you all about it. I want to try to somehow share the beauty of Maugham's descriptions of people. I want to take you on the same journey he took me through the characters of Larry Darrell, Elliot Templeton, and the rest. But I can't. I can't steal Maugham's thunder, nor would I even if I had the slightest inkling that I could do him justice by doing so.

I can only repeat myself: Amazing.

There is one thing that I will say about this book, one section that I cannot avoid remarking on because even days after reading it, I still play it again and again in my mind. There is one paragraph in this book that stands out in my mind. In it, Maugham retells the story of the temptation of Christ in the desert. In a book full of evocative ideas, keen observations, and explorations into the nature of truth, destiny, and faith this paragraph left me stunned. To date, it is the best stand alone paragraph I have ever read!

Good bye Lady Liberty

2008-01-22T10:24:00.000-05:00

Dear France,

In 1886 you gave us a beautiful token of our international friendship: Lady Liberty illuminating the world. She still stands on Liberty Island looking like a beacon for the world’s tired, poor and huddled masses yearning to breathe free. But like an adult’s once treasured childhood dream, my country has forgotten her. Please, take her back, restore her dignity, and adopt the graces this country has forsaken.

When you gave us the Statue de la Liberté, you thought this country truly believed what was written in its constitution. You thought this country actually believed in freedom, liberty and justice for all. Unfortunately, both you and I were duped.

Everyday, all I read on line and all I read in the papers confirms a fear that has been haunting me. The descendents of the immigrants who founded this nation are now terrified of other people enjoying the same opportunities that allowed their families to succeed in this young land.

In the same breath the citizens of this country swear to defend the constitution and bill of rights but then argue that all Muslims, blacks, atheists, and anybody who doesn’t look like them or believe what they believe, should be silenced and evicted. My country people, I’ve realized, love the crumbling parchment of those documents but not the words written on them, which guarantee freedom of speech, freedom of (and from) religion, and the pursuit of happiness.

So please, take her back. Give her a home where her words will be valued and her values will be treasured. I can no longer bear to see a symbol that I once revered acting as a mirror of my nation’s hypocrisy. Maybe some day we’ll be more deserving. I hope so.

An American

Hey Iran - I've seen the Gates of Hell. They're fun!

2008-01-11T11:42:00.001-05:00

I come from a family where politics create tension. Remember May 1997, when Maine was overtaken by a bitter fight on a bill that would prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation? My father and I stopped speaking to each other for three days. When Bush won a second term in 2004, my mom placed a moratorium on political discussions when the family got together in an effort to avoid a replay of 1997. I’ve been known to call my parents (to their face) uninformed, one-issue voters.[1] They’ve called me a radical liberal and belong to a religion whose leader holds people like me (homosexuals or atheists, depending on the day) responsible for all of the troubles in the world.

Don’t worry! I’m not writing about this because I’m about to endorse some miracle candidate that both my parents and I support. At this point in time I don’t want to use my blog to stump for individual candidates of any national race.[2] I just wanted to point out that it was my parents who helped me hone my sharp tongue when it comes to affairs of state. It was they who forced me to back up every statement I made and it was they who made sure that I was ready to defend any bit of derision or mockery when we hashed out our various ideologies over the dinner table. So, I guess I wrote it to say “Thank you mom and dad. I love you.”

However (back to the blog), should I see a candidate from any party saying something totally ridiculous, like anybody else I catch saying something ridiculous, you can bet I’ll be skewering them here.

For example: Let’s pretend that Mike Huckabee was quoted in the Times Online as saying, “Be prepared, first, to put your sights on the American vessel. And then be prepared that the next thing you see will be the gates of Hell, because that is exactly what you will see after that.”[3] That’s the sort of thing that might catch my attention. I might get kind of curious as to what the Gates of Hell look like. I might even run a Google image-search on the phrase.

If I did, you can be sure I would put a link right here so you could see what Iran would see (it's better if you turn off Google Safe Search). Now, I’m not sure if Huckabee was referring to the Rodin sculpture or to the multi-looped cock-ring, but I don’t see how either could be strong deterrents.

Good thing he would never leave an opening like that for me to lampoon. Right?

[1] To be fair, although my mom is a republican and will only vote for anti-abortion candidates running at the congressional and presidential levels, she was also the campaign manager for her good friend Terry Hayes, a democratic member of the Maine State House of Representatives.

[2] I reserve the right to stump for local politicos or to change my mind at some point in the future. However, I’ll give a notice before I exercise that right.

[3] Reid, Tim. “Iran dominates Republican presidential debate in conservative South Carolina,” Times Online. 11 January 2008 . 11 January 2008.

The Honorable Thomas P. Agresti vs. The English Language

2008-01-08T13:47:00.000-05:00

I love the proscriptive nature of the English language – usually. We have tropes that span ages and cultures. We have words and wit and puns galore. We have the freedom to bastardize words from antiquity like “decimate” so that they become synonymous with words like “annihilate” and everybody can still understand what the speaker meant.

But every once in a while there’s a speaker who redefines a word or botches a metaphor so terribly that one wants to tar and the perpetrator. Today, in the court of A minotaur’s þencan, the Honorable Thomas P. Agresti, shall be brought to task.

The charges:

1 count of unnecessarily mixing metaphors; 1 count of improper usage of political cliché and jargon; and 1 count of misquoting Shakespeare.

Exhibit A:

“Countrywide Financial Tells Judge It 'Recreated' Letters –NYT,” The New York Times 08 January 2008. 08 January 2008.

Exposition:

In paragraph three of the aforementioned article, Judge Agresti, references the ‘recreated’ letters referenced in the headline, saying “These letters are a smoking gun that something is not right in Denmark[.]” If his Honor had stopped speaking after the word gun or if he had simply misquoted the bard in the second half of his statement, there would be no need for any of the rigmarole that has brought us here today. Unfortunately, his failure to keep his mouth shut and to check his sources has resulted in a lingual travesty of a magnitude that hasn’t been seen since President George Bush redefined basic words when he describe the US financial markets as “strong and solid” on 4 January 2008.

But, let’s parse this mal mot one charge at a time starting with “smoking gun.” These days, everybody and their brother owns a smoking gun: Iran has a smoking gun; there were smoking guns during the Enron trial; Iraq has had more smoking guns than militants! In some up coming news story the public can expect proof of a fraudulent arms deal to come in the form of a smoking gun. As early as 2004 the public was sick enough of this word for it to make Lake Superior State* University’s “List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness.” Perhaps Judge Agresti was trying to be counter-cultural through his blatant disregard of public opinion?

Moving on to the Shakespeare quote: The phrase is not “something is not right in Denmark.” That’s the equivalent of a deep fried Barbie doll attributing “like you could be or not be,” to Hamlet. If an educated person is going to quote one of the greatest writers in the history of Western culture, then get it right! As written by the bard and spoken by Marcellus, the quote is “something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” Such literary incompetence in a judge must be noted immediately or else society faces the danger of this laxity towards the written and spoken work spreading like a cancer to all parts of its sectors from pool boys to presidents. Shit. Too late.

As far as the third count, only one metaphor was needed to communicate the gravity of the situation. Either stick with the clichéd gun or the trope of Demark. Do not combine them for the same reasons why one would not use phrases like “smokes like a fish,” or “sleeps like a lying dog.”

Verdict:

Guilty.

Sentence:

The Honorable Thomas P. Agresti is strongly encouraged to enroll in one (1) creative writing classes and two (2) classes surveying western literature.

* Thank you Anonymous. It is quite funny.

A Confession

2007-12-27T15:06:00.000-05:00

I started this blog awhile ago when I was a student at USM, then I discovered the networking sites. You know them: Myspace, facebook, gay.com, and so on. I also got my own website (no longer active). Can you guess what happened next?

I admit it. It’s true. I forgot about this blog. I’m sorry. When I last posted I was getting maybe one hit a month. I think those were from my mom. But that’s no excuse. I loved writing on here and analyzing poetry and books and what not. It won’t happen again, I promise! I’m coming back to you.

Why? I got an email earlier this month from a reader who like my analysis of a Donne poem. I didn’t know this blog was still up. So I dredged up my old Statcounter.com report. I couldn’t believe it. Since I’ve been gone this blog has been getting around 150 hits a month. Either I’m more popular in my absence (totally possible) or maybe I should keep posting on Blogger – the website I paid for never averaged more than 3 hits a month.

Now that I’m back, I have a laundry list of things to do: I’ll be updating some of my links; copying some of my Myspace blogs to the site; and analyzing new poetry. And that’s just a beginning. What happens next is up to all you all. If you have something you’d like me to read and respond to, let me know. We’ll see where this all goes.

Yours truly,

JRFT

P.s. I'd like to do a pod cast of spoken poetry. Any thoughts?

Feeling left behind?

2006-08-08T06:59:00.000-05:00

If this blog is starting to look a little stale, I understand. It's been a long time since I've updated it. But don't worry: Soon, I'll be putting up a new blog on my personal website, www.joseph-thompson.com.

I look forward to seeing you there.

JRFT

Has Hush-A-Bye Baby become obsolete?

2006-06-27T17:40:00.000-05:00

From the cheesy music blasting in the discothèque to the unfortunate haircuts that defined a generation, the director securely anchored Hush-A-Bye Baby in the late 80s. As a result, the movie faces the risk of being obsolete.

In 1990, just a few years before Dublin became a global technology center, Irish society was undergoing major changes. Hush-A-Bye Baby taps into the energies of these changes – it was filmed during a year that straddled the extremes the society was wrestling with. Women were just beginning to receive education surrounding pregnancy and in two years a suicidal rape victim would fight for the right to go to England for an abortion (and win). In 1988, just two years before the film was made, a mother had died in a grotto giving birth.

In this time period the film was an important and relevant tool that both provided a mirror for Ireland and the world, but also as a way to teach sensitivity. Goretti’s reliance on word of mouth information (like using whiskey and castor oil to induce premature labor) and her lack of information (regarding the differences between a miscarriage and an abortion) reveal the problems that come with blooming sexuality and ignorance. At the same time, her “friends’” reaction to the girl from St. Bernadette’s exemplify the social violence that was acted upon anybody unfortunate enough to fall victim to the societal ignorance.

But, when one flashes forward to the present day the film is only marginally relevant to urban viewers and youths. In the modern urban areas of Ireland, like elsewhere in the world, institutions like libraries are being used more and more by high school and junior high students. While they might not be reading books, they are accessing the internet. And, while the library may have been an intimidating place for those in the lower-middle and working classes before the technology boom, the rapid spread of email usage across all of the social strata has increased casual patronage. This is where the modern Greta would have gotten her information. A quick “I Feel Lucky” search for “pregnancy” on google.com would have immediately brought her to http://www.pregnancy.org/ - a source that would have discredited much of what her friends were saying and provided her, if not with answers, at least options.

In shorter terms, the birth of the Internet has substantially changed the way youth culture gets information and this film is a static representation of bygone modes of interaction among urban youth.

The distinction between urban and rural youth is important. Despite what Thomas Friedman would have us believe, the effect of the Internet in rural culture is much more diluted. High speed access is more limited and so are places to log on.

Title: Hush-A-Bye Baby

Director: Margo Harkin

Maj. films by Dir.: 12 Days in July

Screenplay: Stephanie English; Margo Harkin

Producer: Tom Collins

Editor: Martin Duffy

Director of Photography: Breffini Byrne

Studio: Ardmore

Production Co.: Derry Film and Video Workshop British Screen RTE

Distributor: NA

Country of Origin: Ireland

Locations: Derry,Donegal

Background: Set against the spat of stillbirths, infanticides and mothers dying during births being held in secret, a girl finds herself pregnant with no where to turn.

It’s All in the Cards*

2006-06-25T16:20:00.000-05:00

Magic: The Gathering still popular as a card game in Maine, but on-line? Not so much.

On any given Friday night, you can find Jason Baither, of Portland, waiting around in a Westbrook basement store for a draft tournament of Magic: The Gathering to begin.

“I don’t play video games, watch TV, or listen to the radio,” says Baither. “This is the only game I like to do.” Milling about nearby in Weekend Anime's fluorescent lit basement, are several other like-minded players ranging in age from 12 to 28, and a couple non-players who have ventured looking for the latest anime releases. While talking about the types of games he likes to play, Type 2 and Extended — both tournament types that allow or ban particular card sets, Baither keeps half an eye on the casual game being played next to him. A newcomer, a high school student, is sitting in the chair behind him. Amid the mock protests against outside help and good-natured teasing from other players, Baither offers advice, suggesting the new player bring out more land cards and then a particular creature. Baither says he doesn’t see as many new players as when he lived in New York, but “sometimes new people come down the stairs,” he said.

Like the rest of the players in the room Baither spends a fair amount of his discretionary income on Magic cards. How much? “I wouldn’t wish to calculate it.” He plays mostly at his “friends’ cribs,” and, like other players in the room, balks at the idea of playing online. “It’s too expensive he said.”

In June 2002, Wizards of the Coast announced the newest, and unexpected evolution of their internationally popular card game: Magic: The Gathering Online. It created a virtual space where up to 3000 players per server could meet up and chat, create decks, buy cards, and, most importantly, play Magic: The Gathering with gamers from around the world. And now, four years later, various gaming world publications online and in print are buzzing anew with reviews praising and panning the advances in WoC’s newest release: Magic Online 3.0.

But in Maine, the core sets, which sell the software to log on, are sitting on shelves. Not because the magic is fading in the state. While Justin Ziran, brand manager for Magic: Online wouldn’t give exact numbers of sales for Maine, he did tie Magic sales in with population density. According to Ziran, “Magic Online’s population mimics that of the US with clusters of accounts originating from the population centers of the Northeast, Midwest and west coast.”

It seems in Maine, where most players play for fun rather than at sanctioned tournaments, players like to be face to face without paying for either the one-time $9.99 activation fee, which comes with an equal credit for digital cards, or the $14.99 core set cost, which includes the activation fee. Ryan York, owner of Weekend Anime, echoes Bathier’s impressions on the price.

“I find casual players don’t like it because it’s too expensive,” he said after narrowly loosing the game Baither was watching. York says the online version is a great tool for people who like a high level of play, tournament players. “I imagine that at a professional level it has appeal.”

The Company

In 1993, Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro Inc., and part of its gaming division, which counts for 27 percent of all of Hasbro’s US game sales, released Magic: The Gathering. For a complex strategy game, it’s very simple, needing only cards and basic arithmetic skills. It’s almost like rummy on steroids: Each player draws seven cards from his or her own deck and continues to draw a card at the beginning of each turn. But, rather than collecting suits and runs, Magic players try lay out certain combinations of creatures, lands and spells they then use, or “tap”, to attack their opponents. The game ends when all but one player runs out of either life or cards. And within a couple of years it caught on, fast. Today, Magic is WoC’s biggest money-maker, even beating the iconic Dungeons and Dragons with consistent sales and a responsive fan base.

According to Tolena Thorburn, spokeswomen for WoC, the player demographics, measured by tournament registrations, are male, between the ages of 15 and 30. “There are some females that play,” said Thornburn. “But it’s not measurable.”

Perhaps because of its casual nature, Maine store keepers see things differently. “The game went through a massive explosion in ‘94 and ‘95 where I was selling several booster boxes a day,” says Chris Thacker, manager of The Keep Games and Comics in Brunswick. During the Magic boom, other collecting cards sat on the shelf. “It’s all that anybody wanted,” said Thacker.

And, unlike other role playing games or collecting cards, Thacker saw it spark an interest in women, one of the toughest demographics to get into a game store. Thacker has worked at The Keep since 1994, right at the beginning of the Magic boom. “I was teaching housewives, little girls, teenagers, everybody,” said Thacker. “Usually, this kind of thing is mostly male-dominated but I taught tons of women as well, which was kind of neat to see them interact in the hobbies because that’s a demographic [the hobby and gaming] industry hasn’t pierced very well.”

Magic was a surprisingly revolutionary success for WoC and Hasbro, resulting several spin-offs including Star Wars and Star Trek versions, and games which mimicked the Magic playing format like Pokemon and, most recently, Yu-Gi-Oh. But, unlike the Star Wars and Star Trek versions, Magic has proven to have a longevity that didn’t wane as the release hypes for the movies and television series did. And, unlike Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic enjoyed several years of being the only game of its kind on the market and was being played by a wide age range and by entire families. So while its fans grew up and stayed loyal, other card games are finding their market to be a much younger, and therefore smaller, demographic This translates into stronger sales for hobby store managers like Thacker.

Other card shops felt the lift too. Paul Kane, the proprietor of Don’s Sport Cards, was skeptical about the amount of space the Magic cards took up when he was considering buying the sport card store in 2004. “Come to find out it’s the most solid thing in here, though,” said Kane. “[Magic sales are] very, very steady.” The shop mainly focuses on selling sport cards, like boxing, baseball, and hockey and card collecting paraphernalia like protective cases and price guides. But on the western wall of the store, behind the counter, a four-foot-wide floor-to-ceiling shelf is devoted to Magic: The Gathering. And, visible from the retail floor several stacks of boxes filled with unopened foil packs of Magic cards can be seen waiting in the storage room to replenish the display.

While most sport cards release a set a year, the Magic and other cards based on the game model are different – since they don’t have a season or draft picks to determine their subjects, card makers can release new cards at will. WoC releases up to four different sets a year and sanctions various types of tournaments which phase out older cards and requires players who want to compete to have the latest, most up-to-date sets. And, the online version also continues this model by excluding any cards that haven’t been reprinted with each new release. “Baseball will sell year-round but the other sports have their seasons: Racing is starting now so racing is picking up and football is slowing down,” says Kane. “But, with Magic and non-sport cards, those are year round. They don’t have a season.”

Back to the players...

There is also a tactile-social aspect to Magic: The Gathering, which may be the cause for the cool reception of the online version here. At The Keep, Thacker said he’s only known a couple of customers who have tried the game. “I don’t think they enjoyed it initially,” says Thacker. “I don’t think they enjoyed buying booster packs online and then waiting to trade their cards in and come through the mail.” And beyond the time delay, Thacker believes the online version undermines the basic reason why people play a card game. “The whole point a game is the human interaction that you have, especially something like cards that have been around for like what, 1500 years probably?” says Thacker. “I understand that you can play magic online and do duels with other people play for ante and all that kind of stuff but you’re still losing the ability to look at somebody in the face, know who your opponent is and play with a friend. I don’t think online gaming will replace that kind of interaction.”

However, while really learning your opponent can be difficult in an online game, they do have a place in the gaming world and are here to stay. “I have four gaming machines back here hooked up with a guy playing World of Warcraft and I’m playing City Heroes,” says Thacker. “I am sure that traditional games, miniature games will, and are, seeing a downturn and until some kind of status quo happens and the computer gaming world will get humdrum again.”

...And who they are

So, just what is the demographic that is buying the physical Magic: The Gathering cards? Both York and Kane agree it’s a pretty broad range. “Anywhere from six-ish to fifties,” said Kane. “There’s a lot of ‘adults,’ certainly they’re not all kids by any means.” And Kane’s noticed it’s still not just men and boys, too. “I’ve noticed with Magic that there are mothers that will come in and pick out cards with their kids and things like that,” said Kane. “One of the nice things about a business like this is seeing the bonding that goes on while they’re picking cards and it’s kind of neat because there are adults that come in with their kids to buy magic cards and you know that they’re playing the game which is great.”

While Kane was speaking, 12-year-old Austin Shields came in with his father to buy three packs of Magic cards. “I play with my friends at school,” said Shields, who has been playing for three years. He estimated his collection to be around 1000 cards. Although he found the idea of playing online interesting, he doesn’t do it. Shield said he like to play with his friends not because they can talk about Magic, but because “we can talk about other things too.”

There’s also the issue of money. While young players who are new to the game and are more likely to be willing to pay for virtual cards are an important demographic for Magic Online, this is the demographic that most likely won’t have the money or credit cards to do so. Shields spends about $10 per shopping trip, when he can, buying three packs of cards using money he earns by doing chores. The online core set cost an initial investment of $23, plus he would have to purchase the digital versions of cards he already owns.

As Shields and his dad left the store, Kane pointed out another reason why people like to buy cards in person. “The thing that still works with this is you can come in and buy the pack and 'oh wow,'” says Kane. “It’s that excitement of finding the card yourself as opposed to going and picking it out yourself.”

Back in Westbrook at Weekend Anime, the Friday night draft game was just about to begin, more people were pouring into the store and Ryan York was busy selling booster packs. “For the most part, once people know the basic rules, it’s about socializing,” He said. “The closest to a demographic you could say is ‘geeks.’” But he quickly retracted that, saying many players wouldn’t identify themselves as geeks. According to York, an important factor why there is such a broad demographic that plays. “A lot of the kids here come from impoverished background or are high school dropouts,” said York. “It gets them to think and one thing about any gaming environment is that there are people actively looking to socialize.”

*First published in the Portland Phoenix in 2006.

An examination of John Donne's "The Dream"

2006-06-08T09:02:00.000-05:00

In John Donne’s poem “The Dream,” the narrator is woken from a dream by the person who he claims to have been dreaming about. Like in the more popular Donne poem “The Flea,” the narrator attempts to cajole the woman into coming to bed with him by talking about the poetic conceit (the dream, the flea) and how it relates to them. Unlike in “The Flea,” however, Donne uses some very complex imagery to describe the dream and the waking and to form his arguments for her staying.

Although nothing in “The Dream” uses the feminine pronoun to describe the one who wakes the narrator, the imagery of an angel and the cajoling tone all point to a feminine character. Because of this, Donne’s romantic reputation, and his use of the female pronoun in other similar poems the following explication assumes that the unnamed person who wakens the narrator is a woman.

Dearest, for nothing worth less than you

Would I have woken up from this dream;

For reality was stronger than fantasy.

The clause is an explanation from the narrator that reality (her in his room) is stronger than fantasy and simply the reality of her being there woke him up. In the actual poem, this clause reads “For reason, much too strong for fantasy.” It’s an odd juxtaposition – why “reason” and not “reality,” the more exact opposite of fantasy – that hints at a pun. According to Merriam-Webster OnLine, the entry for reason includes an archaic definition meaning “treatment that affords satisfaction,” the very sort of treatment the narrator is looking for.

Therefore, it was wise [good] that you woke me; yet
You didn’t end my dream, but you [yourself] are the continuation of it
You are so true that the thought of you
Is enough to make a dream true, and fables [factual] history;
Enter my arms, for since you thought it was best,
For me not to dream, let us act [out] the conclusion of that dream.

The narrator, glad to be awoken by the person he was dreaming about, starts off by complementing her and attempts to bring her into his bed. He tells her she is so true that she makes dreams into reality and histories into fables.

Although it’s not a theme he uses often, the idea of a woman altering history appears in one other Donne poem: The Damp. In “The Damp” Donne challenged the wooed to “…like a Goth and Vandal rise, / Deface records and histories,” (lines 13-14) –to make different choices then what she made in the past. In each poem, Donne uses this image to portray women as have remarkable power over reality and perceptions of reality.

At the end of the stanza, much like the quip that was in his usage of reason, Donne again makes a reference to the activities occurring in the dream but in a less veiled way. “Let’s act out the rest,” (line 10) as the line was originally written, coupled with his calling her back into his arms, gives away the sexual nature of this dream.

As lightning, or the light of a candle,
Your eyes, and not your noise woke me;

The abstraction of the woman’s eyes fits perfectly into both the Petrarchan tradition, where Laura’s eyes are often described as stars, and also to the more contemporary Philip Sidney. In Sidney’s sonnet “7,” Sidney describes Stella’s unveiled eyes as “sunlike, should more dazzle then delight” (line 8). With this metaphor of eyes and light being a common one, it’s not surprising to see it here. But, in other poems, Donne uses eyes and light to express something else. In Elegy IV: Julia, Donne describes Julia as a “This she Chimera that hath eyes of fire, / Burning with anger —anger feeds desire—” (lines 15 – 16). In each of these Donne poems, eyes inspire desire through a burning light, candle and fire, and create desire. In “The Dream,” Donne happily moves from fantasy to reality when those eyes wake him. In Julia, he describes the burning anger within the subject that creates desire within her.

Yet I thought you
-for you love truth- were an angle when I first saw you [after I woke up];
But when I saw that you saw [what was in] my heart,

There is irony in the lines “Yet I thought thee / —For thou lovest truth—an angel, at first sight” (lines 13 – 14). Donne positions her love for truth right next to his flattery. By doing this, he is able to use the hyperbole of thinking her an angle, while at the same time saying “this is true and I’m telling you this not to flatter you, but because you love truth.”

And that you knew my thoughts better than an angel has the ability to do,
When you knew what I was dreaming, when you knew when
An excess of joy would wake me, and then you came,
I must admit, it would be nothing but
Profane to think of you as anything but yourself.

Going beyond calling her an angel, Donne says that she knew what he was dreaming, so exactly, that she was able to wake him up at the very moment before he could experience an “excess of joy,” his euphemism for a nocturnal emission. And her ability to do that proves that she knew him better than an angle would and to call her such would be calling her something less than she already is.

Coming and staying showed you to be yourself [revealed your intentions]
But rising [leaving my arms] makes me doubt, what your real intentions are.

The toughest and last stanza of the poem begins with the easiest lines to paraphrase. She came into Donne’s room and woke him from an erotic dream. In the previous stanza he said she knew the precise moment to wake him and, for him, this means she was interested in playing out that dream in reality. But as she gets up to leave, he questions why she is leaving.

Love becomes weak with fear [hesitation]

And if this fear [hesitation] is a mixture of shame, then have honor

Like torches, which must be ready for
Men to light and put out, so you deal with [treat] me;
The original text for this section reads “That love is weak where fear's as strong as he; / 'Tis not all spirit, pure and brave,” (lines 14 – 15). When viewed through the Petrarchan tradition it lends itself to an interpretation based upon the personification of Fear and Love, with the former becoming stronger as the latter becomes weaker. But this doesn’t mesh with the implied question of the two previous lines: Why is she leaving?

When viewed through this question, it becomes an answer. Love, the woman’s resolve to express the emotion of love through a physical act, weakens as she is confronted with the reality of the social mores and taboos regarding sex outside the confines of marriage. Donne recognizes this along with the sense of shame that would accompany a fallen woman and almost sardonically lets her off the hook by saying “Fine, if this makes you feel shame then find the honor in the fact that you are treating me in the way men treat torches.” It’s a bit bitter but it aligns her shame with a normal thing even an honorable man would do.
You came to kindle, then you go to leave; and then [now] I
Will dream that hope [of you coming] again, or die.

If before Donne almost let her off the hook, he attempts to drive it home now: He lets her go but not without an “I’ll die without you parting shot.” It is not, however, in the same sardonic spirit as before. Instead, he is returning to the same power of altering history and waking him up with her eyes. It is the classic “without you I am nothing,” concept from the troubadours.

Works Cited

Donne, John. The Works of John Donne. Anniina Jokinen. 10 April 2004. Luminarium. 20 December 2005 <>.

“The Flea” .

“The Dream” .

“The Damp” .

“Elegy XIV. Julia”

"reason." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2004. http://www.merriam-webster.com 20 December 2005.

Sidney, Philip. “Sonnet 7.” Rick Abrams. University of Southern Maine. 20 December 2005 .

For a complete bibliography and/or permission to use the above text beyond the terms of fair use, please contact the author, Joseph R. Thompson, by email listener83@maine.rr.com

The Conquest of New Spain: A Three-pronged Approach to Colonialism

2006-06-08T08:50:00.000-05:00

The Spanish conquest of the Americas and its peoples illustrate a three pronged pattern used by Spain not only in the New World, but also in Africa. Much like the triangle, each aspect of this pattern works to support and sustain the other two. In no particular order they are: A quick turnaround of resources; a renaming of the land and people and a lack of self-representation in the cannon – with the exception of a very important few that will not be addressed in this response due to lack of spatial constraints.

The Resources:

At each area of conquest, Bernal Diaz very carefully notes the commands given by Cortes to replenish supplies or the receipt of gifts of food by the natives. And, each of the early stops discussed in The Conquest of New Spain center around the resources and the ease and ability, or lack of either of these, for the Spanish to collect them. For example, the battle of Tabasco is not framed in the context of a conquest – one could read that as a forgone conclusion. Rather, the battle is framed as a quest for resources. The natives are given the option of fighting or letting the Spanish come in and trade goods for food (Diaz 69). Then, following the battle and during and after the parley, Diaz accounts the resources given by the natives including maps who’s lands are soon renamed with Spanish names, 20 women who became converts to Christianity, the natives’ ignorance about cannons and weaponry and a variety of traditional material resources like gold and food. The resources are turned around almost immediately: The understanding of the natives’ ignorance was used to impress Montezuma’s messengers, material for trade the maps to alter the entire discourse and Donna Marina for translation and public relations.

Absent from Diaz’s account, according to Matthew Restall’s “Black Conquistadors: Armed African’s in Early Spanish America,” are records of the African and mulatto men who accompanied Cortes. This is not surprising because although they were resources, like horses (Diaz 55), and not men on the expedition, they were not resources gained on the expedition – in the same vein, Diaz does not talk about the gold, ivory and slaves from Oran and Bejaïa (http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761595536 _4/Spanish_Empire.html#s16).

Going beyond the lack of names provided by Diaz, Restall observes it is “plausible that a third to half bore that name [Juan]” due to a lack of imagination on the Spaniards part when assigning names to the slaves. Like the maps and Donna Marina, the resources have lost their autonomy. And, like the rest of the resources from New Spain mentioned above, the Africans have been commandeered from an area conquered by Spain and are being used acquire a new resources.

The triangular nature of the pattern:

The following three paragraphs each take a single aspect of this pattern and juxtapositions it with one of the other aspects. In each case, the support of the third aspect of the pattern becomes apparent.

Couple the concepts: “lack of autonomy” with “being a resource.” The result sets up a situation where self-representation becomes impossible. Be it gold, horse, or any other resource, barter-able item lacks the ability to represent itself.

Couple the concepts: “being a resource” and “lack of self-representation.” The lack of autonomy that is created with this combination helps prevent rebellious uprisings and to facilitate the turnaround of the resources.

Couple the concepts: “lack of autonomy” and “lack of self-representation.” Without representation, an individual or group lacks the ability to be a human that operates within society. That person then becomes either a resource or waste. Without autonomy, the individual cannot even choose which of those to become – and with the value of unskilled labor at a high in New Spain, waste was not an option.

For a complete bibliography and/or permission to use the above text beyond the terms of fair use, please contact the author, Joseph R. Thompson, by email listener83@maine.rr.com

Dropping the "literary" from Pan-American Studies

2006-06-08T08:27:00.000-05:00

Literary critics and cultural historians have begun, recently, to make observations and arguments regarding the rift between their disciplines. This rift threatens to limit scholarly discourse if discussion of the American cannon continues to maintain a concept of disparate lines of inquiry between these disciplines. An understanding of these dangers led the fiery Amy Kaplan to discoverer a rare common ground with the bleak Leo Marx regarding the dearth of examinations of the United States government in American studies[1]. And now, as the field of Pan-American literary studies begins to coalesce, this rift becomes even more limiting: The scholar is not encouraged to account for the multitude of languages, histories, traditions and sovereign nations within the two continents. If Pan-American literary studies are to maintain any degree of relevancy, then an examination of the cannon must begin anew with a dual purpose. First, the examination must actively drop the term “literary” to create a more holistic “Pan-American studies,” which must then necessarily include other branches of study. And second, this examination must return to its primary texts using these various branches of study to create a chiaroscuro where, for example, a history is used to help contrast and bring forward aspects of a literary tradition.

Imagine a field of study where the literary works of 22 nations, with the word nation only referring to geographic areas of land divided by the political boundaries drawn on a map, being rolled into one course of study. It would be a Sisyphean task to attempt the untangling of a text; from the very first paper published within the field, scholars would be plagued with issues of representation, identity and history. This is what Pan-American literary studies does: It takes almost two dozen political divisions, each with their own governments, histories, origins and, quite often, languages and dialects and attempts to form them into a single academic field, which can only be described as chaotic. According to Octavio Paz, the first purpose of criticism is “to establish a relationship between [works]: to order them, to lay bare their relative position within the whole on the basis of their biases and tendencies.”[2] To attempt this, in the Pan-American sense, more is needed than just the literary works. There must be something that binds all of this literature together.

The creation of Orientalism, as envisioned by Edward Said, was faced with a similar situation where several regions and traditions, an entire hemisphere’s worth, were collected into one field of study. However, every nation and tradition shared a solitary common bond, even if the specifics were different. Each one, Said recognized, was an “integral part of European material [sic] civilization and culture.”[3] In this parallel one finds the common bond for Pan-American studies: regardless of the specific colonizing country, the specific geographic region colonized and various specific outcomes of the indigenous peoples/colonizer interactions, the Americas were an integral part of European civilization and culture. But, to do this one needs to move beyond the literature and must draw from a wider variety of sources in an attempt to begin to understand the effects of colonization and time on the literary works being examined. Again, Said provides a parallel from Orientalism: He defined Orientalism as an intricate web, a very tightly policed and complexly interwoven discourse made up of “supporting institutions, vocabulary, scholarship, imagery, doctrines, even colonial bureaucracies and colonial styles.”[4] These are the very aspects of the Pan-American discourse that must be incorporated into the study. History, anthropology and political science must be researched; government documents from colonizing countries and native lifestyles and crafts must be considered in an attempt to place the literary work both in the larger context of Pan-American studies and o place it with in the specific context of the author’s experiences and narrative.

This more holistic approach also begins to solve another problem: a lack of Pan-American literature. Paz defines the second purpose of criticism as a function which “creates a literature (a perspective, an order) out of individual works.”[5] In the limited paradigm of Pan-American literary studies, there cannot be an order or a perspective defined – every text becomes random and individual when lacking the ability to place it in relation with other texts and its own context. Paz’s analysis of this problem in relation to Hispano-American literature left him with the realization that “there is no Hispano-American literature, even though there exists a whole body of important works.”[6] And the chaotic mess of this body of works led Paz to observe the futility of pondering the state of literature, “to answer this question would be to relate individual monoliths, not steles erected in a desert to commemorate a disaster, but a society: not a chorus but a dialogue of many contradictory voices.”[7] Further north, American scholars are starting to understand this also. John Carlos Rowe, in an essay looking at Said and American Studies, observed that “the comparatism Edward Said exemplified in his public persona and his distinguished career should be the work of many different scholars, coming from many, increasingly overlapping disciplines, such as American studies, Middle Eastern studies, comparative religions, history, comparative literature, philosophy, political science, anthropology, and foreign language departments.”[8]

With this more holistic approach to the study a process of chiaroscuro begins. Paz defined this contrast through a definition where the works are understood not as being “simply a reflection of social relations, neither is it an entity that has no connection with history. Literature is a social relation, but at the same time it is a relation that is irreducible to others.”[9] This relationship gives the text a place in time and space as well as a context. It can be held up against the governmental actions that took place before and concurrently with it’s creation. It gives a sense of identity to the author and the society examined in the work. Although this will be a simplification of the process, an examination of two specific texts can show how this contrasting works and provide an argument for the need of such a process.

The first text, Jean de Léry’s History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil, has long been considered an important text, as it provides an ethnographers look at the Brazilian natives. But where does it fit in Pan-American studies? An argument can be made that the text, written by a French author about a crew comprised of his fellow country men[10], is more accurate as part of the European cannon. Its vivid details and constant of the indigenous Brazilians’ lifestyle and culture and the comparisons of this to the European home Léry left, make it an ethnographical and social study. The second text, Bernal Díaz’s The Conquest of New Spain, faces similar problems. The writer, a governor of a Spanish colony in modern day Guatemala,[11] writes not about the Mexicans but about Don Hernando Cortes and his conquering of the Aztecs. It becomes a history from the perspective of the Spaniards. But when both texts are examined in the context of criticism as defined by Paz, they help create a chiaroscuro, a contrast between different extremes that orders and places the works of authors from Mexico and Brazil.

In this way, for example, Hasta no verte Jesús mío, Here’s looking at you, Jesus, by Mexican author Elena Poniatowska[12] is anchored as part of the Pan-American discourse. In Politics, Gender, and the Mexican Novel, 1968 – 1988, by Cynthia Steele, Poniatowaska’s source for her main character is reported claiming the novel was fabricated until “she saw her patron saint… on the cover of the published book,” and then she asked for copies for her friends. [13] Steele’s rational for this behavior, that the woman “was willing to accept the veracity of the text once it was associated with a symbol of religious authority”[14], makes the woman seem quaint and antiquated. But, in Díaz’s narrative this pattern is seen when Cortes orders the destruction of idols and safe keeping of the symbols of the Christianity and the “Indians promised to obey him.”[15] The historical and political context Díaz places Poniatowaska’s source in a complex relationship with herself, the origins of modern Mexico and also the effects of the Spanish colonization of New Spain. The lack of this style of conversion in Léry’s text provides a chiaroscuro that helps to identify Poniatowaska’s work as being uniquely Mexican. Both of the European texts, in the sense of their authorship, provide an additional contrast, showing the shift in Mexican society from the authority figure changing from the Spanish colonizers to religious ideologies.

An inherent danger to this approach to Pan-American studies is the process of discrimination. Learning from the same way that Said was criticized for variety and weighting of his sources – an issue of representation[16], Pan-American studies will have to find a way to filter secondary and primary sources, contextual information used to create the chiaroscuro and what counts as literature. This discussion will not be ending anytime soon.

[1] Kaplan, Amy. “A Call for a Truce,” American Literary History 17, no. 1 (2005): 143.

[2] Paz, Octavio, Alternating Currents (New York: The Viking Press, 1967), 36.

[3] Said, Edward, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Press, 1979), 2.

[4] Said, 2.

[5] Paz, 36.

[6] Paz, 36.

[7] Paz, 37.

[8] Rowe, John Carlos, “Edward Said and American Studies,” American Quaterly 56, no. 1(2004): 45

[9] Paz, 38.

[10]Léry, Jean de, History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992) xvi.

[11] Díaz, Bernal, The Conquest of New Spain (New York: Penguin Classics, 1963) 15.

[12] Poniatowska, Elena, Hasta no verte Jesús mío, trans. Magda Begin. (New York: Pantheon, 1986).

[13] Steele, Cynthia, Politics, Gender, and the Mexican Novel, 1968 – 1988 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992), 33.

[14] Steele, 33.

[15] Díaz, 62.

[16] Olson, Carl, “Politics, Power, Discourse and Representation: A Critical Look at Said and Some of His Children,” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 17, no. 4 (2005) 317.

For a complete bibliography and/or permission to use the above text beyond the terms of fair use, please contact the author, Joseph R. Thompson, by email listener83@maine.rr.com

Reading Lolita in Tehran and the problem of Othering

2006-06-08T08:17:00.000-05:00

Azar Nafisi, in her memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, actively uses a process of otheringto create contrasts that will illustrate specific points for her western readers. These contrasts force the reader to step beyond his or her own world and to accept, as a foreign world, the one offered by Nafisi.

As a teaching tool, this method works as expected. When Nafisi begins chapter 8 with the question “how can I create this other world outside the room,” the reader is forced to suspend his or her world. That world, beyond the room of the reader, is a familiar one. But for this other world, the reader is told that Nafisi must appeal to the reader’s imagination. This method gives the reader a clear command to approach Nafisi’s world differently. This other world is the world of an Islamic regime brought into power by a popular revolution in 1979. This other world is a world where laws are based on the Koran and the government is a powerful theocracy. In short, it is a world that is very different from most of Nafisi’s readers’ worlds.

But Nafisi’s approach of otheringcreates two interrelated problems for any discourse about the text or issues within it. The first problem is the polarizing effect on the reader. By othering, by creating this foreign world, a dichotomist model is created with the reader on one end and Tehran on the other. It creates an opposition that fails to take into account the histories of the East and the series of complex East/West interactions - all of which played a part in the out come of the 1979 revolution. Without these vital details, the two worlds seem totally disparate.

The second problem is compounded by this idea of there being two disparate worlds. With this relationship discussions regarding social issues are hampered. For example, feminism becomes difficult to approach in a valid way. If the world being presented to the reader is so different that the author creates it out of the reader’s imagination, then how can the reader apply behavioral and social models from his or her world to it? That is, a reader from the west (for all practical purposes, the majority of Nafisi’s readers and her counter balance to Iran) cannot, in any meaningful way, discuss feminism in Iran, within the context of Reading Lolita in Tehran, if he or she uses a western paradigm to understand feminism. It is impossible to discuss the western concerns of gender inequalities in the work force like wage differences in regards to a country that the author presents as a place where judges blame battered wives and women are harassed for eating apples to seductively.

These problems are surmountable but it requires a new historicism approach to the text, which forces the reader to bring outside sources into the memoir. It also requires the reader to acknowledge when Nafisi is actively otheringto illustrate a point.

For a complete bibliography and/or permission to use the above text beyond the terms of fair use, please contact the author, Joseph R. Thompson, by email listener83@maine.rr.com

Who really is the odd man out?

2006-06-06T14:43:00.000-05:00

As Johnny McQueen, played by James Mason, is shuffled from person to person, group to group, and location to location throughout the first half of Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out, he becomes the obvious title character. Nobody wants him and, like the ball from the old children’s game, McQueen becomes a hot potato. Drop him quick before the police or his friends catch wind becomes the functioning set of rules guiding his interactions. But a wider and more encompassing view of the movie forces the viewer to accept McQueen as not the odd man out but an odd man out as every character who meets McQueen faces a similar sense of impotence when confronted with the forces of fate. Whether the character is Shell, the classic forgotten man portrayed as a mercenary Ms. Flyte,[1] Grannie, the singular widow, or Fencie the Barman, who finds himself squeezed between the unnamed group run by McQueen and the police, each character finds him or her self singled out by fate and placed in a position where they must make a choice to act (by either helping McQueen or surrendering him to the police) or to attempt inaction (by pushing McQueen on to somebody else).

There are two characters in the film who do not meet Johnny McQueen despite their efforts to find him. Through these characters, the viewer is invited to break from what Reed presents visually as reality and to recognize the outsider aspect he or she is being led to experience when watching the movie. These characters subvert the visual reality allowing for various aspects of the movie to operate “out of relation to the first presentation of the subject matter,”[2] which profoundly affects the viewer’s relationship with the film.

The Inspector

The first of these characters, in order of appearance, is Denis O’Dea’s as the Inspector. Shortly after McQueen gives a factory representative a fatal case of lead poisoning and members of his gang spill the story to the local madam, the Inspector arrives at the home of Grannie and Kathleen Sullivan. In film noir cliché, he enters the room last.[3] His authority is marked by the cameras focus of him in the doorway. The emblem on his right arm is highlighted in the shot making it a glowing contrast to the black staff in his left hand. He is justice: Not concerned with right or wrong, the inspector enforces the law on the basis of black and white guilt and innocence. He does not ask why an action was taken; he only seeks the perpetrator. The inspector represents the authority of the city and, due to the nature of Johnny McQueen’s crime, the “civic order [,] which he represents, must be satisfied.”[4]

Modern reviews of Odd Man Out note the movie’s “high contrast between light and dark,”[5] in a city defined by its “unforgiving landscape.”[6] As its representative of authority, the inspector embodies these aspects of the city. Sullivan’s love for McQueen is meaningful only as a tool of his capture. The inspector is as unforgiving as the inclement weather that chills the wounded man. The reason or intention behind the crime matters little to the inspector’s motivation of guilt verse innocence in the same way the lighting’s dichotomy allows for either visibility or blindness with no shades of gray. In this way, the inspector, as a character and as a representative of the city, acting as the agent of authority and the tool of civic justice shifts the viewer from watching a nuanced reality to a observing an acted out philosophy in a black and white world. It leaves them removed from the characters – no longer are they simply cheering for either the antagonist or protagonist, they are now looking for a moral and a lesson.

The Priest

A typical counter balance to the man of law, as represented by the inspector, is the priest. Usually Catholic, the priest operates within a society but with an allegiance to a larger organization, the Catholic Church. Father Tom is no exception. In her desire to help McQueen escape the problems of this world, Sullivan goes to Father Tom to discover if he’s heard word of McQueen’s whereabouts. Like the Inspector, the priest also desires to find the fugitive. But, justice is not his concern. He views the world in terms of right and wrong and the ability to be forgiven of one of the graver sins.

Father Tom never meets with McQueen, but in the Lukey’s apartment, Shell passes word to McQueen that Sullivan is with the priest waiting to meet him. Suddenly, the film switches from a rather realistic format to a surreal montage where paintings fly from the walls and line up like an audience. The priest is standing in the center of them counseling McQueen but he is unable to make out the words due to the shouting in the background. The scene climaxes in “a hysterical and rather cliché morality play,”[7] with McQueen recital of 1 Corinthians. It is an attempt to recast McQueen in a different light than the criminal who leads his gang into an armed robbery that he botches. It tries to turn him into a freedom fighter who is striving for an idea worth dying for. This twist has McQueen realizing even though he has given all the money to the poor, he has profited nothing by it.[8]

But this shift in realities directly caused the mention of Father Tom’s name to an addled McQueen, acts to alienate the viewer who has had no opportunity to see McQueen as moralistic human. Rather, the viewer has only seen McQueen as “a terrifying picture of a wounded man, disheveled, agonized and nauseated, straining valiantly and blindly to escape,”[9] not as a conflicted philosopher who has attempted to act nobly but lacked the proper intention. This acts to turn the film from a story to be viewed by an audience into “an enormous fantasy, a fantasy of the unconscious, a confession, a private dream.”[10] Although, in the original book, “the prospect of a stringent moral choice” managed to create enough “uneasiness”[11] within the reader to allow for philosophical inquiries, the ability to logically follow McQueen’s spiritual emotional growth to this climatic scene was one of the “inflated ideas in the script” that prevented Carol Reed from “creating a masterpiece.”[12] It leaves the viewer feeling disjointed, like a step, a thought, or a scene has been missed.

The real odd man out

Together, the Inspector and Father Tom act to move the film “away from reality” and into a “general antirealistic context.”[13] The Inspector does this by taking away nuance from the very real world created by Green and Reed so it becomes a morality story. The priest adds to this by suddenly and drastically altering the main character at a very belated point in the movie. These forces push the viewer away from reality and into an exaggerated and simplified world with the same color scheme as the movie itself: black and white. While it may be cinematically possible to examine some discursive life philosophies with out alienating the viewer, it is not possible to “examine life without opening a floodgate of truths, for the world is generous in revealing its systems… But when these truths conflict with presupposition rooted in interest, then you must obey the truth or refuse to look. In Odd Man Out the storytellers refused to look.”[14]

By refusing to deal with these conflicts, the viewer is left feeling like he or she has stumbled like an unwanted guest into somebody else’s private dream. Essentially, the effects of these two characters allow for the title to be taken not only as a reference to most of the characters within the film but also as a reference to the viewer who is now on the outside of somebody else’s thought, looking in.

[1] Charles Dickens, Bleak House, (New York: G.W. Carleton & Co., 1881), chapter 14.

[2] Abraham Polonsky, “‘Odd Man Out and’ and ‘Monsieur Verdoux,’” Hollywood Quarterly 2 no. 4 (July 1947): 401 – 407.

[3] Odd Man Out, prod. And dir. Carol Reed, 1 hr. 56 min., Two Cities Ltd., 1947, videocassette.

[4] Polonsky, 403.

[5] Lance Pettit, “Screening Ireland,” (New York: Manchester University Press, 2000), 32.

[6] Parkinson, David “Odd Man Out,” Radio Times, 256 no. 3353 (5 March 1988): 16.

[7] Polonsky, 403.

[8] “I Corinthians,” New American Bible, (Patterson NJ: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1970), chapter 13 verse 3.

[9] Bosley Crowther, “‘Odd Man Out,’ British Film in Which James Mason Again Is the Chief Menace, Has Its Premiere at Loew’s Criterion,” The New York Times, 24 April 1947, sec. A page 30.

[10] Polonsky, 403.

[11] Eunice S. Holsaert “Inching Toward Certain Doom,” The New York Times, 10 February 1947, sec. BR page 10.

[12] Pauline Kael, “Odd Man Out (Film),” New Yorker, 65 no. 22 (17 July 1989): 22.

[13] Polonsky, 405-406.

[14] Polonsky, 406.

For a complete bibliography and/or permission to use the above text beyond the terms of fair use, please contact the author, Joseph R. Thompson, by email listener83@maine.rr.com

A Critical Approach to Friedman: When Man and Metaphor Fall Flat

2006-05-08T10:28:00.000-05:00

Thomas Friedman’s best seller, “The World is Flat,” is currently sending major shock waves through the economic world. With 1.5 million copies sold as of February[1], an astounding number of people have read this book and raved about it. On Friedman’s website, a Publisher’s Weekly review praises the book for its “reporting and intimate yet accessible analysis that have been hard to come by. Add in Friedman's winning first-person interjections and masterful use of strategic wonksterisms, and this book should end up on the front seats of quite a few Lexuses and SUVs of all stripes.”[2] But a quick search through databases, like Academic Search Premier, reveals a dearth of critical commentary beyond book reviews in the humanities regarding Friedman’s work.

In some ways, it would be very easy for the English professor or the Historian to dismiss the book as an economic text. The book does argue for a form of globalization, glocalization if one will, that creates equality for those willing to play by the western rules of business. This argument is based on the nurturing of specific western cultural and business norms throughout the developing world. Why is it essential that academics in the humanities focus on such a book at a time when so many scholars are working to define the relatively new interdisciplinary field of American studies?

Two reasons immediately become immediately obvious upon a cursory examination of the book. First, in making his argument, Friedman’s counterintuitive model of a flattened Earth is used metaphorically to describe the effects of technology worldwide. Although it makes a catchy title, the metaphor is both colonial in it’s subtext and flawed through its exclusion of millions of the world’s impoverished and voiceless. And second, the book the book’s mass culture appeal is redefining words that are used to delineate and entire philosophical and economical system.

Flat Metaphor

Since it makes up his title, it seems fitting to begin with Thomas Friedman’s metaphor of a flat world. Since early antiquity, progressive elements of humanity have operated under the belief that the world was round and any who may have doubted soon found themselves at the margins of society as voyages of Columbus and later on Magellan proved beyond question that the world was indeed a globe.[3] But in 2005 that idea was challenged as Friedman set out to prove the opposite, at least in metaphorical terms. According to Friedman, three eras of global activity shrunk the world and flattened it creating the potential for developed nations and developing nations to compete on an even playing field. Economically speaking, time and discussion will tell if the metaphor is apt. But, as piece of popular writing that has captured the public eye, this metaphor is flawed if not misleading in two aspects.

The first flaw in this metaphor comes from its colonial based tenor. Starting with his title, Friedman attempts to create a radical revision in the way the general population views the global landscape. Friedman fails to account for the inherent relationship between perceptions of landscape and modes of representation, as pointed out by Don Mitchell in Progress in Human Geography. Mitchell, while discussing the landscape of feudal monarchs, argues that found within the landscape itself are “the transformation of the landscape polity and the modes of representation embodied in the landscape.”[4] By “flattening the world” as an American and then investigating this phenomena from the American perspective, Friedman’s vehicle, the Earth, becomes uniformly flat with the exception of America – the empire whose representative is now defining the new economics-based polity, which represents countries only by economic measures. In a truly flat world, no individual sovereignty would have the elevated perspective needed to make this assertion.

This creates a situational contradiction when Friedman talks about the leveling, or flattening, of the military playing field.[5] Friedman is, as Siddharth Varadarajan observed in his review of The World is Flat, standing “in a country that has just been flattened by the U.S.” while making that observation.[6]

This first flaw raises a question that scholars need to address: intent. On his website, the description of The World is Flat, claims that Friedman is working to “demystifies the brave new world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering global scene unfolding before their eyes.”[7] There is nothing inherently wrong in this, as the intended goal of most popular nonfiction writing is that of elucidation. But working within the tenor of an altered landscape, The World is Flat faces the charge of being an Americentric text working to promote the advancement of the American empire. In this hegemonic vein, Mitchell argues that for a ruling power to takeover a landscape, it must “be diverted to a different purpose, and through that a new mage of the polity constructed.”[8] This change of landscape, according to Mitchell must “remake the physical environment so it reflected a different kind of polity. The trick was to destroy the landscape in order to ‘improve’ it – and in the process to instill a new relationship between land, law and justice.” Friedman’s newly reshaped landscape clears the way for the construction of an argument based on Friedman working under a thesis that is intentionally not advocating for a diversity of economic practices working in unison, but for countries to homogenize – assuming America sets the standard that other countries are expected to conform to.

Then there is the argument opened up by this flawed metaphor that the Economist proposed when reviewing his book in March of 2005. According to the Economist’s unnamed reviewer, Friedman’s text is “such a dreary failure,” rife with “imprecision” that goes beyond the title of the text. The reviewer feels that beyond lacking any new arguments about modern economics, readers will be troubled by the “sloppiness” that permeates the text. The review argues that by “flat” Friedman means “smaller,” and that Friedman has been caught up by the wit of his title and “shows his readers no mercy, proceeding to flog this inaccurate and empty image to death over hundreds of pages.” [9] When a respected economics-focused periodical berates a work not just for its contribution to the discourse but also for its flawed trope, one must ask if perhaps Friedman, rather than pushing an Americentric agenda, discovered that he could wax eloquently for 469 pages on a subject that he knows little about. After all, in chapter one he argues that all of this globalization took place while he was sleeping.

The second flaw in his metaphor rests in his definition of the world and is closely related to the homogenization problems of the first flaw. According to Friedman, Globalization 3.0 creates an environment where the “plug and play” abilities of modern communication devices allow for “every color of the human rainbow to take part.”[10] This sort of metaphoric generalization, the world is everybody and everybody can plug in, marginalizes people around the world who find that connection to these communication devices challenge their traditional concepts of the world.

One example of this can be found in Catholicism. As a religious tradition, the Catholic Church took several years to accept the Internet as no-sinful means by which it could use in its ministry. Until World Communications Day, 2002, Catholics could not reach a consensus on this issue. On that day, Pope John Paul II released a statement saying that the Internet was “a new forum for proclaiming the Gospel.” He then wrote that “on this World Communications Day, I dare to summon the whole Church bravely to cross this new threshold.”[11]

Without making value judgments about wisdom of an organization to move at such a speed to accept technology, it must be recognized that every human has the basic right to representation. And, in this case, Friedman’s flattened world excludes those who are unable to plug in for cultural/religious reasons. Additionally, a second class of people also seem be missing in Friedman’s world. Those who can’t connect for economic reasons.

A review by Roberto J. Gonzalez, a professor of anthropology at San Jose State University, published in the San Francisco Chronicle noted the absence of this large and diverse group via the prism of his local region throughout the bulk of Friedman’s work:

Not until the final chapters does he acknowledge that most Indians and Chinese still live in poverty. He never mentions that the gap between rich and poor in both India and China is widening. Nor does he dwell on the fact that many of the companies that have laid off thousands of Bay Area employees (Santa Clara County alone lost 231,000 jobs between 2000 and 2004) have replaced them with workers in Asia.[12]

It is an essential responsibility of scholars working within the humanities to recognize that while this book has popular appeal, there is a counter study that needs to be examined. Economist need to ask what the Santa Clara County numbers look like when extrapolated globally. Anthropologist and sociologist need to ask what effect, on society as a whole, does this form of economic displacement have. And, literary critics need to examine how somebody can use such a flawed metaphor and gain such mass market success.

The Semiotic Argument

Popularized in his 1776 book The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith defined a capitalist economic system as one that encourages a market to function on its own without government interference, hence the nearly synonymous term free trade (trade free from government involvement).[13] In its platonic form, this hands-off economic policy establishes a system where market forces set the fairest prices for items. But this pure form suffers the same fate as do so many theoretical systems: It does not exist in its platonic form within the real world.[14] Internationally, governments are wrestling with conflicts arising from experiments in capitalism. This interference goes against the free market ideals of capitalism and has lead to the creation of the term “mixed capitalism,” which is used to define a capitalistic system with a limited amount of government involvement.[15] While mixed capitalism implies levels of government involvement that fall far short of a socialist government, it does have some traces of government control over business by the inclusion of oversights that include antitrust legislation and the ability for the government to act as a stabilizer during economic downturns or upheavals.

Mixed capitalism and free trade are the key drivers of Friedman’s economic theory. When outlining how companies can make align themselves with his flattened world perspective, he quotes directly from Doing Business in 2004, an International Finance Corporation report, saying “Good regulation does not mean zero regulation […] The optimal level of regulation is not none but may be less that what is currently found in most countries, and especially poor ones.”[16] Friedman does not challenge this report in any way. Rather, he uses it quite liberally to support his arguments. He then argues, in the next section of the same chapter, that an essential ingredient in achieving this balance must come from a societal ability to be open to other cultures; societies must be able to glocalize.[17]

This is extremely logical: For a global market system to work equally for everybody in a mixed capitalist society, than cultural differences and national sovereignty must take a back seat to economic and corporate governance organizations established to maintain a flattened world. It requires the individual to think about what’s best for his her self, not in the context of his or her nation but within a global context. In The World is Flat, Friedman writes as a proponent of limited government involvement within a capitalist market system (mixed capitalism) creating flat global playing fields. He argues that countries must be willing to glocalize, to be open to outside influences, if they wish to experience economic growth. To do this, according to Friedman, a country must be willing to think beyond the tribal concept of “me, my brother, and my cousin against the outsider” to “me and my brother and my cousin, three friends from childhood, four people in Australia, two in Beijing, six in Bangalore, three from Germany and four people we’ve met only over the Internet all make up a single global supply chain.”[18] For the end of this equation to actualize, “me” must view people from Australia, Bangalore, Beijing, Germany, and the Internet as being equals who each specialize in a particular process of that chain. It requires a shift in thought that minimizes nationalistic concerns for the neighbor next door for a more globalistic approach where one is concerned for the neighbor 3,000 miles away; political divisions stop being points of community identification and become mere tags denoting physical location.

This is where Friedman crashes into a semiotic wall: he finds himself repeatedly unable to discuss free trade through one definition. As he works to establish one particular sign (free trade)/signifier (glocalization) relationship to discuss economic reform in other countries, he is unable to maintain this relationship when discussing his views on America’s relationship to free trade. Rather, he begins that discussion of free trade with “will it benefit America as a whole,”[19] a step back from the global supply chain and a step closer to tribalism. Friedman builds an argument that a country must be ready to glocalize but can only question the effects of such glocalization in terms of what effect it will have on those people of his nationality, not of those people within his global supply chain.

For academics and scholars within the humanities, this creates an important trouble spot that needs to be either reconciled or discredited. Friedman has created two different definitions of a relationship: One for members of his nation, which bases the definition on how the relationship will benefit him and those with his national identity; and a second definition for the world that asks how they will help those connected regardless of their national identity. This raises several questions, which, because of the books huge popularity and potential for an equally large impact on public policy, the various branches of academia need to address: While recognizing that English is a living language, how does one discuss a text like The World is Flat when one of its key drivers is operating under two contradictory definitions? Does this dual definition represent, at the minimum, a singular Americentric slip on Friedman’s part or does he believe that in today’s flattened world America should be a pinnacle, which demands the examination of this text as a work from an empire operating within a colonial world

These two reasons focus on Friedman’s usage of flawed literary devices and his questionable understanding of basic semiotics from the perspective of contemporary literary criticism but they open the door for renewed inspection from the historic, anthropologic and economic perspectives. It is important to note that while the occasional reference to these just mentioned perspectives is unavoidable, it is the responsibility of each of the fields and not that of this paper to take up the arguments within the areas of their expertise

[1] Nayan Chandra, “An Interview with Thomas L. Friedman,” Yale Global Online, 23 February 2006, (29 April 2006).

[2] Thomas L. Friedman, “The World is Flat,” Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times “foreign affairs” columnist and author of “The World is Flat”, April 2005, (1 May 2006).

[3] According to the Wikipedia entry, “Flat Earth,” the misconception that people before the age of exploration believed that Earth was flat entered the popular imagination after Washington Irving's publication of The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus in 1828.

[4] Don Mitchell, “Cultural landscapes: just landscapes or landscapes of justice?” Progress in Human Geography 27, no. 6 (2003): 788.

[5] Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat, (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 39.

[6] Siddharth Varadarajan, “But the World’s still round,” The Hindu, 2 August 2005, (28 April 2006).

[7] Thomas L. Friedman, “The World is Flat,” Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times “foreign affairs” columnist and author of “The World is Flat”, April 2005, (1 May 2006).

[8] Mitchell, 788.

[9] Anthony Gottlieb, ed., “Confusing Columbus,” Economist.com, 31 March 2005, (4 May 2006).

[10] Friedman, 11.

[11] “What Pope John Paul II said about the Internet,” Michael, (4 May 2006).

[12] Roberto J. Gonzalez, “Falling Flat,” San Francisco Chronicle, (15 May 2005) (22 April 2006).

[13] Marc Becker, “Terms and Definitions,” Illinois State University, (17 November 1998) (20 April 2006).

[14] John Petroff, “Chapter 4: Mixed Capitalism,” Professional Education Organization International, (2002) (20 April 2006).

[15] Credit Research Foundation, (20 April 2006).

[16] Friedman, 321.

[17] Friedman, 324 – 329.

[18] Friedman, 326.

[19] Friedman, 225. Emphasis his.

For a complete bibliography and/or permission to use the above text beyond the terms of fair use, please contact the author, Joseph R. Thompson, by email listener83@maine.rr.com

Hispanics Target of Incitement and Violence

2006-04-27T14:19:00.000-05:00

Well, I guess its time to sell the Statue of Liberty back to France. It seems that this country has forgotten that its economic growth is owed to early massive influxes of illegal immigrants (starting with the Mayflower, of course).

The ADL just published an article recapping the hostile actions of white supremacists over the recent past. It’s definitely worth reading. Check out the article Extremists Declare 'Open Season' on Immigrants: Hispanics Target of Incitement and Violence here.

While there’s a lot Id like to say about this issue like how my family comes from an illegal French stock that was chased out of Quebec by the British I wont right now. Instead, here’s the list provided by the ADL (cut-n-pasted). If I get time, Ill add some comments made by extremist leaders in Maine (yes, we’ve got them too).

Here's the list:

* Aryan Nations faction leader August Kreis in October 2005 claimed on his Web site that "this infestation of cockroaches need deportation or extermination!" If legal means of "stopping this rising tide" were not enough, "then these brown squat monsters should begin to turn up dead all across AmerikaWe now have another game animal to add to our list of available targets for our favorite pastime, hunting, and we'll declare permanent OPEN SEASON on these dirty wetbacks! From what I have heard through the grapevine the Skinheads and Klans across the country are more than prepared for this type of action. I say let's play by state and see which state can claim the most kills and let the jewsmedia whores keep score!"
* Oregon National Socialist Movement leader Jim Ramm wrote in June 2005 that "the browner invasion is much like a cancerous tumor that should of [sic] been removed. But instead, it was allowed to grow and infect other organsas this brown disease rages out of control the white patient faces racial death."
* Kevin Strom, leader of the neo-Nazi National Vanguard, gave a shortwave radio broadcast in June 2005 in which he claimed that "These Mestizo invaders are so different from us that by mixing with them or being dispossessed by them we will cease to live, we will cease to be ourselves or have a place to exist to support the lives of our future generations. And that is the crucial reason why this invasion must be stopped."
* "AllisioRex," a member of the neo-Nazi web forum Stormfront, wrote in July 2005 that "they are barbarians, they are our enemies, they want to destroy our civilization and we have to fight them. We need to organize better and be more open activists; otherwise, I only see race war in the future." Another Stormfronter, "Strasser," wrote in November 2005 that "White minorityhood on a national level is a very real possibility. How can White folk tolerate this? Do they care that most minority populations become a cultural hostage? What is the interest in having their children a minority on a mestizo dominated campus? Mestizo immigration is going to force White America to make some very important decisions."

What am I doing about it? - A work study revisited

2006-04-26T16:05:00.000-05:00

While on the shuttle bus home today, a student took issue with my recent letter from the editor (posted as a blog here on 25 April 2006). In the letter I decried the lack of opportunities given to somebody with a mental handicap. Rhetorically, I asked if anyone had “taken the time to teach him to play the piano, to write a story?” This student returned the question to me saying that I had done nothing but point a finger.

For exactly two seconds I was at a loss for words (a rare thing, according to those who know me). And then, I shifted the discussion and said nothing because what I wanted to say would have been an impolite challenge, too short for a three minute bus ride.

So, here’s my response now:

Taking a stand and exposing a problem is never easy. If it was, civil rights workers in the South would not have been killed. People would have reacted to Hitler’s extermination policies quicker, and the press would not have let Scott McClellan get away with the obvious lies and half-truths that he did.

Taking a stand and exposing a problem is never easy. Taking a stand is the first action in taking a step. Getting up and out of the comfortable zone of “minding one’s own business” requires fighting against emotional inertia. Some people will never do this once in their lives.

Taking a stand and exposing a problem is never easy. If it was, then journalists would not be killed while in pursuit of a question that humanity has been asking for at least 2,000 years: What is Truth?

Taking a stand and exposing a problem is never easy. And making it more difficult is the realization that it is not my job as his coworker to take a stand for this person. It is the job of his family and friends, his community. It is my job as a journalist to report on the problem - to bring it to the public attention. The only concession I can make to his humanity through my relationship with him is to allow him the space to pick up the tool he chooses.

What am I doing? I’m doing what little bit to evoke change that I can humanly do.

Am I just pointing a finger with out actually taking an action? No more so than any other person who has stood up to say “this isn’t acceptable.” Is my letter from the editor all that I could do? No, but it’s all that I care for the public to know about what I’m doing – what I do in my personal life is not for the world to examine and not for anybody to ask me to justify.

Now I return the question: What are you doing, aside from complaining?

A work study?

2006-04-25T08:55:00.000-05:00

For those of you who don't know, I currently edit a weekly college newspaper. Recently, I published this letter from the editor.

I want to say goodbye and thank you to somebody who will have left his University job by the time you read this letter. I’ll call him JD. A few of you who are on campus for the second shift may have seen him: He worked each day cleaning, vacuuming the various houses along Bedford Street. I’d guess he was 18, maybe 19. Everyday we would exchange those polite platitudes that people share with when they work in the same space but not together. He would smile, say “Hi, how’s it goin’?” I would reply in a like manner. And every time I saw him, I would get pissed off, not at him but at USM, Maine and society in general.

JD, like many people who get funneled into janitorial work, is mentally handicapped. Now, my cousins and I are the first generation of my extended family who have not earned their living by pushing a broom – my issue with JD doing janitorial work has nothing to do with his profession, one which is essential for to all institutions. Rather, I am angry about JD’s potential options for employment. While he may never become a professor, who the hell has the right to decide that he should be a janitor? Has anybody ever handed him a paint brush and canvas? Has anyone taken the time to teach him to play the piano, to write a story? While none of these professions are more or less important than being a janitor, they represent an aspect of being human, which he was denied: Free will.

Around the time JD was born, I got to go with my mom to see where she worked. I was either four or five. It was an institution called Pine Land. One of my most vivid memories of that visit was seeing a room filled with residents, all of whom were mentally handicapped in someway, putting together little pill boxes. According to my mom, the residents were paid some pittance to make these. Suddenly, one woman gave a strangled scream and cry, lashing out with her arms knocking everybody’s piles of boxes and materials off the table. It was the most uninhibited display of frustration and anger I had seen at that point in my life and I have never been able to erase that sound she made from my mind.

While these two people are very different, their plight is the same; for the sake of productivity, their humanity was diminished. Both JD and the woman were given jobs so that they might “contribute to society” or “gain a sense of self-worth” without consideration of what they might want to do or might truly be able to do. In essence, mainstreaming did little more for them than to force them to fill the shortage of manual labor. It turned them in to little more than objects, servants, of those of us lucky enough to be able to recognize our own autonomy. And, since these jobs are usually done after normal business hours or in institutions, we don’t have to see their faces and reflect on what’s happening.

So, goodbye JD. I’ve heard that your new job pays a bit better (not hard to do with the lack of union contracts here) and you said that it’s something you’ve been looking forward to doing. I know you don’t realize that you’ve been one of my teachers but I thank you for it and hope you find another student, one who can make a difference.

A Pop-Culture Correction

2006-04-20T08:54:00.000-05:00

Recently, a fellow blogger pointed out an erroneous statement I had made. I would like to take a moment to thank her and to correct my statement.

In my post “Go figure... Kentucky” [4/11/2006] I referred to Mary Magdalene as the prostitute who seeks out Jesus in the Gospels. This was not Mary Magdalene, rather it was one of two women she often gets confused with:

Very early on, Mary Magdalene was confused with two other women in the Gospels, which may have led to her reputation as a redeemed harlot. Today we've come to recognize that there is no textual support for such a claim, but still the image of Mary Magdalene as a penitent sinner persists. Throughout the Middle Ages this was to have an impact on her legend, which grew in complexity and depth as Christian theology and Western civilization continued to evolve.

(http://www.magdalene.org/intro.php)

Thanks Emily, I think you’ve given me a new interest to research.

Go figure... Kentucky

2006-04-11T12:57:00.000-05:00

As surprising as it may be, a college in Kentucky has kicked out a student because he is gay. If you haven’t heard about this yet, click here to read the article.

In brief, the college’s argument is that the student was kicked out because he violated a conduct code that insisted students "conduct themselves, on and off the campus, in a manner which is consistent with the objectives of the College and with its standards of conduct."

I’m curious what percentage of students who have drank alcohol or danced or masturbated have been expelled? The hypocrisy is so blatant I’m having trouble expressing these feelings of rage and general impotence about not being able to say anything that people will hear!

What about the college administrators who have missed Jesus’ message of compassion? Last time I checked Jesus was hanging out with hookers (Mary Magdalene) and rather than condemning her, he said “Go, sin no more.” The Bible never says that she stopped and it’s hard to imagine that she did stop prostituting herself – she had to earn a living and Jesus provided her with compassion, but not a subsidy. But, what difference does this make? I’m just preaching to the choir.

Is it ironic that I’m becoming an atheist preacher?

Why the deaf ears? Do we, as human beings, really need to be so scared at whatever doesn’t fit into a specific paradigm of normal?

I generally try to make it a point not to be disgusted with people simply because of their religion - particularly when there are so many other reasons to be disgusted. But, with Easter coming and this rising tides of Christian-entitlement and Islamic-fundamentalism, it is time we take a stand. And by we, I mean every single one of us who looks in the papers and are disgusted by the way superstitions are trying to control what is taught in the class room; those of us who don’t want these same superstitions to dictate what scientist can explore and how we live our lives; I mean those of us who are sick and tired the minority of religious fanatics dictating our foreign policy.

Of course, this raises the question of what can we do? Last time I checked, throwing people to the lions was out of fashion, not to mention cliché. I suggest writing letters, but who has the time or the drive?

Here’s an idea: Even though this day in age it is politically incorrect to criticize somebody’s religion (even though it’s p.c. to try to convert someone to yours if it’s Christianity), I say tell them what you really think about their religion, that you’re tired of the oppression. Let’s start raising our voices!

In the words of Howard Beale “I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!”

Damn straight!

Reading Lolita in Tehran

2006-03-22T13:09:00.000-05:00

I've recently been rereading Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran for a pan-American studies course I'm taking. It's an interesting book but this time around I'm finding myself questioning the value of some of Nafisi's references.

It seems to me that the examples of the Iranian oppression she uses are chosen with the intent of not educating the reader, but to create a sense of "other" to place the western reader in foreign territory and herself in some vague middle ground grey area of being both western and eastern. I could go through and reference specific places, but unless requested to, I'll spare you from the academic paper I'm writing about it.

Now, I'm not going to pontificate for the Ayatollah's regime, I think many atrocities have been and are being committed in Iran since the revolution. At the same time, however, I think Nafisi's class, as a silent act of rebellion, and her book, as a work of literature, contributes to the power of the conservative Iranian government in two ways.

First, the secrecy of the class, like the hidden satellite dish on her porch, place her in the middle of the silent majority who are being oppressed by their government but at the same time are empowering their oppressors by not protesting it. The class, again like the satellite dish, is illegal and gives Nafisi something to be scared of getting caught and therefore force her to tow the line. To be fair, she does give the guards at the University hell and even though it's a minor act of rebellion, I applaud her for it.

Second, as a piece of literature, her othering not only can lead to intolerance in western readers towards conservative Muslim practices, but it also, when spun by the Iranian government, allows them to say "look at how the west looks down on us and trivializes this or that and mocks fatwas." I'm thinking specifically of Nafisi's anecdote about the morality of a man having sex with a chicken (he and his family can't eat it afterwards, but his neighbor's neighbor can).

Any thoughts on this?

International Women's Day

2006-03-03T15:08:00.000-05:00

Where are the Womyn and grrls at?

Ever since the Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR) hit the campus political proverbial fan, neo-con demagogues on campus have turned “USM is a liberal campus” into some kind of zen mantra. But after a careful look around the campus, I’d have to disagree. I wouldn’t call it a liberal campus; I wouldn’t call it a conservative campus either. Let’s try a little experiment to find out what to call it. March 8th is International Women’s Day. Which of the following groups have sent out press releases and tried to space to write a guest editorial about the eroding rights of women in this country for their student paper? I’ll make it easy, you have four choices:

1. The Gender Studies Student Organization

2. The Women’s Studies program

3. The Women’s Resource Center

4. No USM organizations – only off-campus national programs.

If the mantra was accurate, there would be a “yes” on numbers one through three. As it turns out, only number four is true. I called all three of the USM organizations before I finished up this letter to find out why but all I got were answering machines. To be fair though, the GSSO is inviting a speaker but you would only know this if you regularly visit their webpage.

What is going on here? I think USM is a politically silent campus, apathetic even; the recent furor over the Academic Bill of Rights and the No on 1 campaign are rare exceptions that prove the rule. Wake up! The college campus is a small, enclosed environment where a single individual can promote great, positive change. Why isn’t this happening?

Pretend I’m wrong. Or, if you want to, believe I’m wrong. Pretend National Women’s Day is an obsolete occasion and women have equal rights regardless of their backgrounds and ideologies. Pretend that we no longer have a need for the socially forward and aggressive Womyn and Grrls. How have women been represented on campus? At the two ABOR panels, one faculty and one student, there were no women speaking for the conservative side. At the student panel, there were no women on it at all on the panel. Too political? Look at the list of USM college presidents: Out of 21 presidents, only one has been a woman – not that I think President Pattenaude is doing a bad job, on the contrary I’ve been impressed with his work. Moving beyond USM, we live in a country that is over 50 percent women with a democratically elected president. Logically, we should be able to point to at least 15 female US presidents. Of course, the national record is worse than USM’s record in that area. And in the job sector, a five year study done from 1995 to 2000 discovered that women are paid 73 cents for each dollar that men are paid. And if the women are black, drop that number down 10 cents. Since 1963 this gap has only shrunk by a third of a penny each year.

As a guy, I find this discrepancy disgusting, reprehensible even. As member of the human species, I find it doubly disgusting to see fellow equals being treated as something less than a full human. At times I don’t believe that a little bit of activism on one Maine college campus will change much nationally. And as just one guy, what can I do? Since when has one voice in Maine ever had the power to shake the status quo?

I found the answer to my questions at the Maine State Museum in Augusta. They have a statue of a 10 year-old girl who wrote a letter that changed the world just a little bit, just enough to help end the Cold War between the US and the USSR. Samantha Smith, where are you now? We at USM and in the USA need you more than ever.

Suit: W.Va. Police Chief Denied Gay Man CPR

2006-03-03T08:31:00.000-05:00

Here it is in a nut –graff: CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A small-town police chief was accused in a federal lawsuit Thursday of stopping a would-be rescuer from performing CPR on a gay heart attack victim because he assumed the ailing man had HIV and posed a health risk.”

If you want the full story, just click on this blog’s title.

I like to say that I believe in the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" but it my own life I have seen courts fail to prosecute somebody who's committed grave crimes because of burden of proof. Does this make that person innocent? No, it just protects the innocent person who may be sitting before that jury someday. And now this chief: He’s accused; he’ll face this stigma forever, whether or not he is found innocent by the courts. Why does this happen?

Here’s my theory: This case will ultimately end with a question of “can you prove beyond a doubt that the chief did this,” i.e. “do you have video footage?” While the real question should be motive: Who has a motive to lie here?

In this case, the family of the deceased is making the accusation. In a small town you have nothing to gain by making a claim like this – true or false. A family will be ostracized for being public about something the townies feel is taboo (the man’s homosexuality), the family will be considered sue happy and as having embarrassed the town by bringing out its dirty laundry for the world to see.

While the police chief risks losing his job and more if he says that he did it – notice, I did not say “tell the truth.” But, if one were to lie in this case, the motive is on his side.

And then there’s the bigger issue: That in our society, that this day in age, there is the possibility that somebody’s claim of an action this despicable could actually be true. Now that’s scarier.

Time, Poetry and eBay

2006-02-28T14:25:00.000-05:00

It’s my fourth year of college and am I ready to bust out of this joint! My jeans are wearing out, only two pairs without holes, I’m paying to do work I normally get paid to do and, worse yet, I perpetually feel impoverished.

No, not broke like a lack of ready money – although I do feel that too. I mean impoverished: To be at a point where the one commodity that we all have and trade with on a regular basis, is the one thing that I don’t have enough of. I constantly am frittering away this commodity to finish pointless academic papers, to write another by-law that will be meaningless in 6 months, to read the work of somebody else rather then creating my own. The commodity? Time.

Time is bizarre and unruly. I spent seven years of my life working on a single poem that was only a page long. And I’ve spent less than a week on a 2,500 word (6 1/3 pages) paper. The returns on these investments? Heartbreak and an A-, respectively.

* * *

I had a great idea last night: I’ve decided to auction off the poem along with two others on eBay - their common theme is that The New Yorker rejected them all. There it is, item #7011746033. Over seven year’s worth of my time starting off at $3.00 (plus shipping and handling). It’s strange seeing them on the block like this but the lack of bids are a good check for my ego.

The Three-pronged Approach: Spain’s Conquest of the New World

2006-02-24T07:13:00.000-05:00

Let there be no doubt the following is an academic paper. I'd like to hear some commentary on it. Expect to see more papers like this over the next few months. As the world enters a new realm of imperialism and oil, while giving a nation great wealth, makes them a target of the US, issues of colonialism, post-colonialism and national identification will become more and more relevant. Let's start the discussions now.

The Resources:

The Triangular Nature of the Pattern:

The following three paragraphs each take a single aspect of this pattern and juxtaposes it with one of the other aspects. In each case, the support of the third aspect of the pattern becomes apparent.

Literary anagrams: arrange stray mail

2006-02-19T13:12:00.000-05:00

Some more anagrams - this time hitting the critical literary gods (Orgiastic dirty cellar) of our time:

E. D. Hirsch: Rich Shed
Amy Kaplan: Napalm Yak
John Muthyala: Human halt joy
Ernest Renault (1): Nature's relent
Ernest Renault (2): Enters neutral

Political Anagrams: A political man's rag

2006-02-14T11:19:00.000-05:00

A few anagrams on some political buzzwords:

Academic Bill of Rights : Tragicomic flab shield
Gay Marriage: a army area gig
War on Terror(1): Arrow err not
War on Terror(2): Error not war
George Bush(1): He bugs gore
George Bush (2): Shoe Bugger
Republicans(1): Nubile craps
Republicans(2): Replica snub
Democrats(1): Roast 'em D.C.
Democrats(2): Mad Sector

A follow up on Chau

2006-02-14T10:33:00.000-05:00

Following a scooping by USM's The Free Press, the Portland Press Herald, Portland's paper of record, has finally featured Siphat Chau in a front page missing persons story.

Chau, a 19 year old Asian male, disappeared from his family’s home in Portland at 1:00 a.m. on Christmas Eve. With the exception of 3 dispatch notices, without photos, and a few initial clips on television, there had been very little from any of the major media outlets about his disappearance.

While any coverage will help bring Chau into the public eye, the Press Herald completely avoided the issues of race and gender that plague news coverage of missing men and minorities across the nation.

Who will report on Siphat Chau

2006-02-06T19:50:00.000-05:00

It has been over a month since Siphat Chau disappeared from his home in Portland near Veranda Street at 1:00 a.m. on Christmas Eve. Following his disappearance, posters when up around the Old Port, local news channels 6, 8 and 13 each broadcasted a brief report including Chau’s description, a picture and a public call for help from the Portland Police. And, three dispatch notices have appeared in the the Portland Press Herald’s “Dispatches” section. But this is where the media coverage has stopped.
Like many of Chau’s friends, Jarrod Dyke doesn’t know why this has been the only coverage about Siphat’s disappearance by the local news outlets. “He’s only been on the news twice since then and it’s been a month now,” said Dyke. “It upsets me.” Dyke and Chau went to the University of Maine together. They had met through the Portland Rugby Club. “He was a nice kid. He was an honest kid,” said Dyke. “I think it would be more of a concern to people but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to work this way.”
Sena Phin, working at a local coffee shop, described the media coverage around Chau’s disappearance in stronger language. “Completely inadequate,” said Phin. She questioned if Chau’s gender or race played a role in determining media coverage. “It just seems really unfair that a girl goes missing and the next day the entire media world is all over it.”
The girl Phin referred to was Lynn Moran, a 24 year-old who fell off the Maine State Pier in October of 2005. Within two weeks of her disappearance Moran received front page coverage in the Portland Press Herald and regular updates on local television stations.
“We would never treat one missing person differently than another for those reasons,” said Eric Conrad, managing editor for the Portland Press Herald. According to Conrad, while the Portland Press Herald does not have guidelines in place dictating which stories get reported on, community impact, among other news elements, is an important factor when considering what stories to run each day and how much to cover them. “You try to get a sense of which stories are being talked about the most, which stories have the most news elements, and you use your judgment to decide how far those stories should go,” said Conrad. “We take these cases seriously and certainly, when there are posters in the Old Port, we know there are people interested in these cases.”
Although race and gender may not be issues at Portland Press Herald, a quick browse through the website for the Poynter Institute, a well respected school for journalism, shows how the media industry as a whole recognizes a problem in this area of missing persons coverage but is at a lack on how to deal with it. While there is a dearth of studies, several articles on the website point out that media coverage is out of proportion with the actual disappearances. According to an USA Today article by Mark Memmott [Spotlight skips cases of missing minorities, 6/15/2005], the majority of news stories focus on white females who go missing, but, according to FBI statistics, a missing person is slightly more likely to be male. And, according to Memmott, “blacks make up a disproportionately large segment of the victims,” in the FBI missing persons database.
And then there is the question about the effect of media coverage on an open investigation. “I really don’t care how the media covers it,” said Detective Sergeant Thorpe of the Portland Police Department. “We’re doing our job.” Thorpe took over the case when the assigned detective received an unrelated injury and couldn’t work for a couple of weeks. According to Thorpe, can both be both helpful and harmful to a case. And, unlike the Moran case, there is very little to go on. “Lynn Moran and this guy are two totally different situations,” said Thorpe. “There was way more information with Lynn Moran with Siphat.”
But either way, people in the Portland community like Andrew Frederick, an undeclared USM student, are moving away from the major media sources to alternative sources because of the lack of stories like Chau’s. “The reason I don’t pay as much attention to media in any form is because it’s less about reporting the news and making a buck,” said Frederick. “It’s not sensationalism to report on someone sad and local.” According to Frederick, although he does still read the newspapers, he does not watch the news on television for this reason. But at the same time, Frederick doesn’t think the blame is entirely on the reporters and editors. “It could be my fault for not seeking out more information,” said Frederick. “I don’t hold myself above reproach for not seeking out information.”

The state of the union is what again?

2006-02-03T18:52:00.001-05:00

Generally I like to stay away from national politics in this forum. I’m not a democrat, I’m not a republican and as a whole I find it a waste of time to talk politics with anybody who feels the need to identify with a party – there just is no arguing with anybody who subscribes to the cultish group-think which has invaded all aspects of our political system.
I also don’t like to alienate readers who may or may not agree with me. But President Bush’s State of the Union Address got me all riled up: I hate being proven wrong and then having to say sorry for it.
I owe my apology to Professor John Muthyala, in the English department, for my allusion that Ameri-centricism was dead or at least dying and that the way we were discussing the topic was too static for something with such a dynamic nature. Although I have been wrong before, I have never so greatly underestimated the vast quantities of racism and nationalism that have become rallying points for the current administration.
Let me put my comments in context. The following are two excerpts from the address:
(1) To overcome dangers in our world, we must also take the offensive by encouraging economic progress, and fighting disease, and spreading hope in hopeless lands. Isolationism would not only tie our hands in fighting enemies, it would keep us from helping our friends in desperate need. We show compassion abroad because Americans believe in the God-given dignity and worth of a villager with HIV/AIDS, or an infant with malaria, or a refugee fleeing genocide, or a young girl sold into slavery. We also show compassion abroad because regions overwhelmed by poverty, corruption, and despair are sources of terrorism, and organized crime, and human trafficking, and the drug trade… and (2) …Yet many Americans, especially parents, still have deep concerns about the direction of our culture, and the health of our most basic institutions. They're concerned about unethical conduct by public officials, and discouraged by activist courts that try to redefine marriage. They worry about children in our society who need direction and love, and about fellow citizens still displaced by natural disaster, and about suffering caused by treatable diseases.
I could find it forgivable if President Bush had only listed homosexuals, through his reference to gay marriage, along with corrupt politicians, hurricanes and pestilence as the major domestic concerns – gays, the fifth horseman of the apocalypse, tally-ho! I could have just dismissed him as laughable when he claimed to be concerned about Katrina victims only days after placing limits on how the state could use the $6.2 billion federal grants to rebuild – not that $6.2 billion is a shabby job, it’s almost 3 percent of what we’ve spent on Iraq so far. But the fear-mongering, cold war reminiscent rhetoric he used to classify the world outside of America was nothing more than an insult to the diversity that makes this country run and all the benefits we reap from having a global economy.
Look again at that first excerpt. Those are some pretty powerful images. Listening to this, one would believe that our world is a desolate hellhole. Hmm, let’s take a closer look at this. Do we have rising HIV/AIDS rates in this country? Check. Do we have corruption, despair, poverty and an ever worsening drug problem? Check, check, check and check. Are young women and men kidnapped and brutalized in this country? Check. And did we do anything to stop the genocide in Darfur? Well, not really.
So, what am I trying to say? It’s not that I don’t like this country – I love America. It was founded on some very beautiful ideals. But we cannot afford to believe that we are a unique paragon of virtue in this world – that is true isolationism. This arrogance, this unhealthy mixture of ego and pride is what fuels anti-American sentiment. And, I’m sure it made me look like a fool in the eyes of my professor.

Rascism and the student body at USM

2006-02-02T20:28:00.000-05:00

Two days ago, while I was waiting for the Portland Hall Shuttle bus, I witnessed an interaction on campus that I found to be personally sad and an embarrassment for the student body: A student leader, who I shall not name and is not on the senate, stood in the way of a janitor, who was working that morning.

I have watched this janitor work several times over the past year. Anytime a student is on a rug he is vacuuming or in the way of his mop, he doesn’t scowl or tell that student to move. Rather, he smiles. He says “Good morning, how are you today?” He is friendly. He is polite. This janitor’s attitude towards his job and the students is an example of what the University wishes all its employees could be like.

The student, on the other hand, just stared at the janitor for a second and then proceeded to stare just a bit to the left of the janitor. Didn’t move, and couldn’t be bothered to return a civil greeting. The janitor looked perplexed and then repeated his “good morning.” The student didn’t even glance at him this time. S/he remained staring.

I know this student leader well enough to know that s/he is not visually or hearing impaired. Also, coming from a family where my grandfather worked 80 hours a week to raise four kids on a janitor’s salary, I know how students tend to treat janitors – not just at USM, but at all schools even the Ivies.

Unfortunately, I can’t blame this on being just an antiquated class issue. Racial issues come into play: the janitor was black and the student was white. And while the student didn’t utter any slurs, there is the issue of racism by failing to acknowledge the other person’s humanity.

The scowl-iPod fashion trend

2006-01-22T13:28:00.000-05:00

We’ve just finished up the second week of school and I’ve learned a very important lesson: Nothing ruins a person’s aesthetic appeal less than the latest fashion combo of a scowl and an iPod. I have to wonder if everybody with an iPod is walking around forcing themselves to suffer through Wagner’s entire ring cycle – that would warrant more than a scowl.
Maybe the scowls come from listening to podcasts of the news. A brief look at recent headlines would include: Veiled threats of nuclear strikes against terrorist states (a.k.a. nations with a different agenda than the west); Mixed messages to love fellow members of our species but that we are at war and will kill our enemies; Iran threatens Israel; Israel threatens Iran; and so on. Great, now I’m scowling.
And then, there’s my personal belief for the dour expressions I’ve been seeing not just on students, but on faculty and staff as well. I think that we have forgotten what it means to be curious about those around us. Why? Well, we are in the sixth year of an perpetual war – how can there be an end to a war where an offered truce is summarily dismissed as a ploy? And that can’t help but to buildup levels of distrust, fear between various groups of people. People begin to look at their neighbors differently, particularly if the neighbor is not white: “Why is my neighbor of (fill-in the blank) descent taking pictures of a particular tourist attraction? I should call homeland security just incase.” And so we put on iPods and crank the Wagner, J5 or even Acta Non Verba and tune out the rest of the world. Of course, we don’t feel any better, just safely isolated.
What ever happened to just saying hi and inviting your neighbor over for coffee to get to know them? Is this the future? Is this how we are supposed to live from now on? I can’t accept this sort of life. Please tell me that as a diverse nation we have not forgotten how to be curious without suspicion – curious simply because we want to know, not because we’re scared.
In 1927, Max Ehrmann of Terre Haute, Indiana wrote a little poem encapsulating some advice that is cross-culturally relevant, even here and now. Here’s the opening stanza:
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant, they too have their story.
It probably sounds familiar. The Desiderata was a rallying point for San Francisco’s flower-children. The words in it are very beautiful, but the lessons are just as hard now as they were in the 60s, if not harder.
But maybe, for just this week its words will make some sense and the scowl-iPod fashion trend will be bucked. I just figured it couldn’t hurt to try.

Minotaur Funds is moving

2005-12-15T09:54:00.000-05:00

In an effort to sort out and organize my private interests, I've decided to separate out all financial posts from this blog and move them into a new blog "Minotaur Funds."

Hopefully, I'll be able to catch everybody up on the wine making (in this blog) and the TNC (in Minotaur Funds) by January 12- a totally arbitrary deadline.

Joseph

World AIDS Day

2005-12-01T13:31:00.000-05:00

The first was World AIDS Day. Throughout the state, country and world people who have died because of AIDS were remembered. Those living were encouraged to be tested. Sections of the AIDS Quilt were displayed. At Coffee By Design, on Congress Street in Portland, a wall was covered with brown paper and markers were made available for people to write their own memorials. And I realized that I had to say a goodbye I never got to say to a man who died a couple of years ago.

In 8th grade Jody Lee came to my class to talk about living with HIV and AIDS. Until that moment this disease existed only anecdotally in my world. It was something that was destroying lives, families and communities in New York or California but not in Maine.

He came to a private catholic junior high and spoke frankly and openly about issues surrounding rape, being HIV positive and all the ramifications that had in his life. Ten years later, after I moved to Portland, I ran into him in a coffee shop I was working at.

We became friends over time and coffee. And eventually, his three legged cat began to like me.

When I went to get the results from my first HIV test, Jody waited for me. I got an answer he would never get.

Jody was always making things for people. He went through a spell where he made dream-catchers for those he cared about. The last time we saw each other, he gave me one.

I thought that I could be there for him someday, but I let the daily work of life get in the way of living. Weeks went by. And when I called one day hoping to catch up on lost time, I got a message saying the number had been disconnected.

I found out later he had died. He died before the virus could get him or, as obituaries like to euphemistically say “unexpectedly.”

AIDS is a devastating disease. In China alone, low-end estimates predict that 260,000 children will be left orphaned because of AIDS as it spreads and people are killed. By now, everybody has heard about what it’s done to Africa. I don’t have the audacity to say that anything good has come from this scourge, but it took Jody’s death to teach me to value those who are with me today.

I’m sorry, Jody.

These words don’t make any difference to him now. But as another World AIDS Day passes and we hear again about the dangers of unprotected sex and STDs, I hope that we can also learn about the value of this temporary thing we call life. Positive or negative, cure or no cure, after we get done memorializing and eulogizing the dead we need to learn to spend more time with loved ones who are here still.

More against the Academic Bill of Rights

2005-11-21T11:23:00.000-05:00

Before you read this letter, check out this website regarding the Academic Bill of Rights

I’m afraid I have some bad news: college students, not just at USM but nation wide, are becoming more sheltered and unable to use the tools of academia to argue a stance they believe in. “You lie!” I can hear you shout it now.

Really, I’m not lying. I’m trying to draw your attention to the current ominous threat to universities and colleges across the nation: the misnamed Academic Bill of Rights. This bill essentially says if college students are scared of opinions they don’t agree with, then they can, when confronted by these opinions, take it on themselves to say “Hey, you’re not allowed to express that opinion because I find it threatening.” This undermines the fundamental purpose of a college: to create responsible, cognizant citizens who have the maturity, ability and backbone to engage in a civil discourse.

I encourage you to carefully read this bill (and read between the lines) and examine the motives of its supporters. The bill attempts to silence professors from expressing “liberal” political opinions in the classroom. Last time I checked, college students were adults – read: consumers – and wanted to be treated as such. This bill treats college students like elementary school kids. It enforces the idea that we can’t support our own opinions or beliefs when in a dialogue or discussion with another adult – oddly enough another adult who we are buying a product from (i.e. paying their wages) and could protest simply by not purchasing what they are selling. Isn’t this how the free market is supposed to work when dealing with products for sale?

According to the website, people who disagree with the intent of the bill represent leftists who live in a world of myths. Supporters of the bill champion it as helping to stop “liberal professors” from pushing “political agendas.” There are no comments about stopping the political agendas of conservative professors. This doesn’t seem to be about “rights” anymore. Stop playing politics with my education! The university – all universities – should be places that encourage a variety of ideals and beliefs. It’s abhorrent, offensive to the very nature of higher education that one political group would even attempt to squash the voice of another.

Even if you ultimately disagree with my stance on the bill, there is one thing I hope you agree with me on: your education is too important to be used as a political pawn. This is the saddest thing about this bill; rather than trying to pass it with the ideals that supposedly inspire it, it has been turned into a partisan bayonet.

So, what can we do? First we need to think really hard about the long-term effects that passing the Academic Bill of Freedom would have. Do you really want your children’s college to be a four indoctrination into a single political ideology? If not, let your representatives know this bill would harm the quality of education in the future by limiting dialogue.

And second, USM needs to start taking steps NOW to prevent this degradation of discourse. The University needs to make it impossible for students to isolate themselves into little islands of people who only share the exact same view points they hold. The Board of Student Organizations should withhold funds from the Catholic Newman Club and the Pagan Association until members from each group participate in a worship ceremony of the other group’s tradition. The same goes for the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship and the Baha'i Campus Association or, politically speaking, the College Republicans and College Democrats.

Hey now, that could actually be a fun idea!

For those of you who don't know, I currently edit a weekly college newspaper. Recently, I published this letter from the editor. Any feed back on these is much appreciated.

Money makes the world go round...

2005-11-09T13:11:00.001-05:00

As well as making wine, there’s another experiment I’ve embarked on: the market. This is the “games” part of “Minotaur Wine & Games.” My entire investment philosophy is based completely on the idea of treating the stock market as a game that even some one with as little capital as I have can play in.

Now, I know that with the amount of money I’m playing with, I can’t expect any big payoffs. I think I’m doing pretty well to have made back what I’ve spent on commissions – with one major exception that I’ll talk about in December. But I’d like to know what you think about what I’ve misnamed as the “Minotaur Funds – a Very Tiny Hedge Fund.” My goal with posting updates on this investment experiment is not to give advice (read: do not listen to me for advice) rather I want to start a discussion about the small time investor and the responsibilities s/he has to the market and the market has to him/her. And if I can make a bit of bread off this experiment so much the better.

The pie chart in the corner represents the break down of my investments, I’ll be putting a more detailed one up eventually with percentages and details about shares up but right now I’m looking at making some major changes to my minor holdings.

It's time to sign off now this morning. Let me know what you think about this investment discussion idea and what topics should be discussed.

2005-11-08T15:14:00.000-05:00

The chaos of my desk behind me is nothing compared to what appears on the paper as I try to arrange my thoughts.

2005-11-05T14:31:00.000-05:00

I’m afraid I have some bad news: college students, not just at USM where I observe it but nation wide, are becoming cowards. “You lie!” I can hear you shout it now. But I don’t lie and, unfortunately, I’m not using mere hyperbole to make a point.

Last week I received my first anonymous letters from students. Some of them were pretty funny, like the one with missing and misspelled words complaining about the typos in The Free Press. Some were rather disturbing, being rife with homophobic sentiment and incorrect political accusations. But, there was one that was truly scary. The student was appalled The Free Press would print allegedly anti-religious opinions on its opinion pages.

Holy oppression, Batman! Does only one type of opinion belong in the paper? This issue isn’t so simple that it can be dismissed by flippant rhetorical question. Instead, it illuminates a more ominous threat to universities and colleges across the nation: students are scared of view points they don’t agree with and when confronted with these points, they take it on themselves to say “Hey, you’re not allowed to express that opinion because I find it threatening.” This undermines the fundamental purpose of a college: to create responsible, cognizant citizens who have the maturity, ability and backbone to engage in a civil discourse.

I’m not basing this rebuke of the American college system on just one anonymous letter – that letter just allowed a great intro to my topic. Rather, I encourage you to look at the Academic Bill of Rights. The bill attempts to silence professors from expressing political opinions in the classroom. Last time I checked, college students were adults and wanted to be treated as such. This bill treats college students like elementary school kids. It enforces this idea that we can’t support our own opinions or beliefs when in a dialogue or discussion with another adult.

USM needs to start taking steps NOW to prevent this degradation of discourse. The University needs to make it impossible for students to isolate themselves into little islands of people who only share the exact same view points they hold. The Board of Student Organizations should withhold funds from the Catholic Newman Club and the Pagan Association until members from each group participate in a worship ceremony of the other group’s tradition. The same goes for the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship and the Baha'i Campus Association or, politically speaking, the College Republicans and College Democrats.

Well, I guess I should go prepare for the flood of angry letters I’ll be getting for accusing college students of becoming cowards. But, if you want to prove me wrong, sign your name to that letter and engage in discourse with professors rather than trying to silence them.

For those of you who don't know, I currently edit a weekly college newspaper. Recently, I opted not to publish this letter from the editor so other voices on the campus could be heard..

2005-10-25T11:32:00.000-05:00

Recently I walked past a sign at a church on State Street that read “Is God trying to get our attention?” It looked like another religious sect was jumping on the disasters-are-messages-from-God-bandwagon. Phooey, I say.

I usually try to avoid national news and religion in my letters, but the ridiculousness of some of the things being said on a national level need to be addressed.

Okay all, here’s my big news flash: Shit happens. This means when a city gets flooded and destroyed, although it’s a tragedy it is not a sign of the end times. It is a sign indicating humanity should avoid building in flood zones and hurricane paths or, rather than building dykes to 500 year flood levels, we should follow Holland’s example and build flood dykes to 10,000 year flood levels. To carry this idea a bit further, when a Muslim country is devastated by earthquakes it is not retribution for worshiping the “wrong god” nor is it a sign of an angry Allah. Rather it’s an indication of the need for better building codes.

My frustration lies not with the gods of any of particular religion, but with those who have the trust of the general population to lead them on a spiritual journey. In my eyes this inciting of fear is the most disgusting injustice I have witnessed in my life time. This manipulation of a belief held by not just an individual, but by a community leads to discrimination (I’m right and going to heaven while you’re not), crusades and jihads and total disregard for the environment of our planet (after all, it’s just the valley of tears and won’t be around much longer).

Unlike racism, homophobia or domestic violence this injustice is much tougher to fight against. The First Amendment makes no distinction between discourse and fear-mongering and as such I do support these leaders right to say what they want. But, on the same note we have the right to say “No, that’s wrong.” We have a right to not listen. We have the right to withhold funds from anybody who says “it’s a sign of the end times” and passes around the collection plate. Why do they need the money if Armageddon is coming? And ultimately, we have the right to point out inconsistencies within the sources for these apocryphal prophecies.

Let’s end this epistle looking at one such source: the Bible. Last time I read the Bible there were quite a few passages indicating that it would be impossible to predict the end times – check out Matthew, chapter 24, and 1 Thessalonians, chapter five. Despite this, it seems Revelations has become very popular with televangelists and doomsday prophets. This final book if read literally indicates the end times will be herald by disasters. It also said that only 144,000 men would be saved on the condition that these men “have not defiled themselves with women,” (Revelations 14:4). Oh dear, is heaven only for homosexuals and virgins? I wonder what Pat Robertson has to say about that. If Revelations is taken figuratively, then interpretations depend on the agendas of the readers.

For those of you who don't know, I currently edit a weekly college newspaper. Recently, I published this letter from the editor. Any feed back on these is much appreciated.

2005-10-18T06:05:00.000-05:00

My office door...

For those of you who don't know, I currently edit a weekly college newspaper. Recently, I published this letter from the editor.

My office door will probably be remembered as the most undecorated Executive Editor door ever. Currently, I have two papers stuck to it and tomorrow I might add a feather and a copy of the Desiderata. What's there now is a paper encouraging HIV testing (do it if you haven't yet) and a print up of the First Amendment. I've been staring at that amendment a lot as I go into the office each morning; sometimes with pride, sometimes with frustration.

The first amendment is currently interpreted as naming five rights. In no particular order these are: freedom of speech, freedom to peaceably assemble freedom to petition the government, freedom of the press and freedom of religion. Also, a sixth right is implied in this: freedom from religion. This amendment is the closest thing to a bible or creed that I follow, but a crisis is occurring. I've started asking questions like "Freedom of speech is great, but what if somebody is using their speech to push their religion and to petition the government in a way that oppresses me?" and, "What if they're doing this on my dime?"

I started asking the questions last week and in doing so I began to wonder about the responsibilities I've been entrusted with. Can I edit a paper, even with great colleagues, when I catch myself questioning my own ethical codes at the first sign of discord? Can I be objective? Ultimately, the only answer to these questions is that I'm human. A diversified staff will keep a balance. A constant office dialogue will keep both sides heard, promoting objectivity. And an active readership will keep us in line - letting us know both the objective and the slanted coverage.

But is that enough? According to "The State of the First Amendment Survey 2005" by the First Amendment Center, in partnership with the American Journal Review, 47 percent of Americans did not know that freedom of speech is a right named by the First Amendment and 84 percent didn't know it named freedom of the press as a right. Alarm bells are ringing.

These rights are not "God-given, inalienable rights." They can be taken away. And, if we, made of the very same flesh and blood as the original authors of this amendment, don't value them enough to know what they are, then they will be taken away. And if that happens, the government will be able to go through your library records without you knowing and to arrest people who hold a peaceful protest in front of the White House.

Oops, too late.

2005-09-04T20:05:00.000-05:00

Genesis

The carboy, yeast, pectin and etc., all are now sitting on the kitchen counter, still in their boxes and bags. I have bottles in various stages of undress and sanitization. This usurping of the kitchen is only temporary, a full scale assault on the basement is already planned and underway.

One of the bottle labels, the house table wine, floats in the sink. I know exactly what I have spent on this endeavor, and I know what the house wine costs. I cannot resist the simple math. If I make a full load with every batch, 30 bottles, I will be paying a bit more than two-thirds of the bottle price for the house wine cost. But making the half batch I’ve planned on…

Even the basement is warm in this weather. The dust mixes with the humidity; a free floating mud. This will all settle, the basement to the left of the stairs, back to the furnace is now mine.

2005-09-04T20:00:00.000-05:00

Prelude

Every book about any hobby includes the admonition to keep a journal. Writing, trains, mushrooms, metallurgy, ginseng, carving, aquariums, the study of any of these requires a special balance of graphite/ink and paper before any success actualizes. And to these, wine is no exception; the venophile must keep several vials, files, all linked with inks before the cork is even cooked.

This is the journal, the story of a country ^wine_timein the city. This is the first story of Minotaur Wine, the first breaths of ^existance_life the berries stole even as the bottles were being sealed.

The story, like the wine, must have time to mature; the berries, the details, do not intoxicate when still fresh with fact. Months must mediate the malaise of memory with the menace of madness. Only then will the story be palatable or the wine describable.