Frank

Does anyone out there have the number for a good attorney?

I want to file a class action lawsuit against The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for false advertising.

I just saw the list of 2008 inductees, which completely shatters the Sha-Na-Na theory that, "Rock and Roll is here to stay, it will never die." (Great, now I've got that song stuck in my head...)

The list includes such "rock" stalwarts as professional exhibitionist turned D-list actress Madonna and long-forgotten disco diva Donna Summer.

Of course, it also includes well-deserving artists: Leonard Cohen, John Mellencamp, The Beastie Boys, The Dave Clark Five, hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa, and instrumentalists The Ventures.

Talk about a schizophrenic class!

The Hall nominating committee, made up of Rolling Stone magazine mafioso Jann Wenner and his hand-picked cabal of rock writers, has made a tremendous error in judgment to think that Madonna--whose contributions to rock are about as notable as Lawrence Welk's, or Donna Summer, who, at the height of her career represented the very antithesis of simple, hit-you-in-the-gut Rock and Roll--were ever as influential to the genre as other non-rock greats, like legendary blues musician Muddy Waters or jazz genius Miles Davis.

I understand that the Hall pays tribute to the artists in other genres who profoundly influence rock music. After all, rock has always been an amalgam of various styles and cultures--rockabilly, pop, blues, country, jazz, and more recently hip-hop, among others. My problem is not with honoring other styles, but with honoring Madonna and Donna in particular.

What has Madonna's big contribution been to rock music? She's influenced pop music, no doubt, but can anyone name an actual rock song that she wrote (or even performed) that changed the way subsequent rockers approached the craft? As for Summer, anyone who was around during the late '70s/early '80s (in other words, none of my fellow classmates--except Old Man Ryan) remembers that disco was the sworn enemy of rock. Thousands of rock fans attended rallies in baseball stadiums and cheered on the bulldozing of disco records beneath banners that screamed: DISCO SUCKS!

So to have Summer inducted into the Hall of Fame is pretty much akin to stepping into a time machine set for 2025, and discovering that Osama Bin Laden's head has been added to Mount Rushmore!

Madonna's lasting legacy, meanwhile, has been serving as a mentor for some of pop music's worst performers (i.e. literally engaging Britney in the Kiss of Death).

The bottom line is that the Rock Hall of Fame is a complete joke.

Any institution claiming to honor the genre while inducting these two before Iggy Pop and the Stooges, The MC-5, or even commercially-obscure (but musically influential) bands like Sonic Youth or Television, among countless others, shouldn't be taken seriously.

But--like everything else--I DO take it seriously. I know, it's only Rock and Roll...but gosh darn it, I like it, I like it, yes I do!

Why? Probably because I spent my 20s as a semi-professional musician, and I owe my life to Bob Dylan, John Lennon, The Band, Van Morrison, Sonic Youth...ROCK AND ROLL, BABY!

However, I am glad to see that songwriter Leonard Cohen is getting his due (He's my man!). True, he wasn't a rocker either, but anyone who follows rock songwriting knows he has been a major influence on any number of rock artists, from Elvis Costello to U2 to REM to Nick Cave to Jeff Buckley--basically anyone who gives a damn about their lyrics. Right up there with Bob Dylan, Cohen has written some of the most poetic lyrics ever to accompany music. I mean, anyone who can come up with this deserves to be in every Hall of Fame ever created:

Ah, you hate to see another tired man lay down his hand
like he had given the holy game of poker.
And while he talks his dreams to sleep
you notice there's a highway that's curling up
like smoke above his shoulder.
It's curling just like smoke above his shoulder...

So, to think the woman who told us she felt like a virgin while gyrating through the Venetian canals and the disco diva whose main contribution is a looped orgasm, are now in the same boat as Leonard Cohen tells me that...as Mr. Cohen would say:

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got that sinking feeling
Like their father or their dog just died...

Oh well, at least The Ventures and the Dave Clark Five got some long overdue recognition.

My only hope is that the Beastie Boys will stay true to their form and make a complete mockery of the ceremony (after Mr. Cohen has been inducted)...

Just please tell me that this doesn't mean we'll be seeing the Spice Girls inducted anytime soon (honestly, I'm all ziga-zigged out for one lifetime)!

Video games are the new sports for our generation. In this burgeoning era, people are becoming tired of throwing and kicking little spheres around a grassy field for no apparent reason and demand something a little more exciting: televised video game competitions.

South Korea is fast setting pace for this new and exciting form of entertainment, thanks to their fancy broadband infrastructure, which allows users to access information at around 50 megabits per second. This beefy network trumps any other seen around the world, including Japan and the United States, and has a broadband penetration of over 20%. And out of the nearly 50 million people living in South Korea, about 17 million are self purported gamers. With such a huge population playing games, it was only natural for gaming to become the national pastime.

Today, it's not uncommon for a professional Starcraft player to pull in six figures a year with through televised competitions and a healthy dose of sponsorship. These modern-age rock stars are paving the way for professional gaming as not only a sport, but a way of life.

Now, I know some of you sports fanatics will say that gaming is not a real sport because there isn't any real physical activity. If that's the case, then how come people have died from playing games? Sounds a little more dangerous than a rogue shuttlecock, doesn't it? Physicality in games is more than just pressing buttons repeatedly. It's about pressing those buttons with a precision that only comes from sacrificing more than your body for the sport. The most dedicated professional gamers have sacrificed far more than most athletes: job, wife, kids, and a sense of personal hygiene have become all but lost to some of these extreme gamers.

Ok, seriously though, as fond as I am of gaming, and trust me, I am, I just don't see how viable it is to actually produce television around gaming competition. Aside from games being difficult to follow on TV, the reason games exist is to play them. Sitting on the sidelines and watching can be fun in a group setting when you have some drinks, but television fails to capture the essence and excitement of what a game truly is. Gaming television is huge in South Korea because of Starcraft and it is gaining a foothold in the U.S. But I find it hard to sit and watch other people razing a Terran encampment with a Zerg rush when I could load the game and do it myself. Until they find a way to capture the thrill you feel when you actually play the game, I just can't see myself watching the professional gamers duke it out on television.

Reading some of the crude graffiti scrawled on the door and side partitions of the restroom in the Watson Library, makes you wonder whether the anarchists are political science majors, the uncomplimentary representations of male and female sexual organs, a wayward biology student and the reasoned verse fashioned by a follower of Aristotle.

But then again, sitting there for a while does make you think about all manner of things. I wondered, for instance, whether there was any truth to a story that came to mind about a waitress who entered a competition to win a Toyota by selling the most beer in a month. When she won, she was led blindfolded to the parking lot and presented with her prize – a new toy Yoda, the Star Wars character with the strange syntax. What would he have made of the confusion? Gullible beings are we, the force is dark to those who see not. Kate Winslet, I believe, does her best thinking in the toilet.

A recurring preoccupation is the design of the cubicles. I haven't been able to figure out why the base needs to be about six inches off the floor. Was there not enough material to go all the way down? Is it a safety measure, to perhaps yank someone by the ankles and rescue them from their distress? I've asked some fellow students about it and they allude to it being a security feature, though I'm not entirely convinced how six inches of space and a fairly large gap between the door and the frame is meant to help rather than intrude on my propriety.

Why should I cringe every time someone enters the restroom? There I am with my
trousers and underwear resting over my shoes for all and sundry to see. It just seems so intrusive on your personal space. Oh, and if someone steps a little closer to the door, why they can just make out that it's that foreign student from the Stauffer-Flint building.

"Are those John Deere tractors there or Granny Smith apples on your Jockeys?"

"No, it's Fruit of the Loom and they're neon teddy bears. Should've leaned forward a bit more, with your eye to the door and you'd have seen clearer. But a good try. Come around tomorrow at 2pm after I've had lunch and have another go."

Standing side by side at the urinals is fine, but surely you ought not to see the rows of bunched Bermudas and jeans, no matter how the cute the neon teddy bears. No wonder then that disasters of this sort arise.

I'd left my backpack and laptop to respond to an urgent call. It wasn't my subject advisor, but a more desperate act of nature. I dashed off to the restroom and relieved to find a vacant cubicle, I settled down. I'd read the graffiti and then searching for more news, reached down and grabbed some of the discarded newspapers strewn all over the floor. Half of the news section was in the adjoining cubicle, which was occupied. I struggled with my left foot to scoop the pages over to my side. John Deere, I thought, does it much better with rubble. As my foot struggled to reach further, I brushed against the leg of the person in the adjoining booth. I'm immediately rooted with shock and unable to speak. Like the time when I was a kid, and half-drowning in a public swimming pool when my head kept bobbing to the surface, I couldn't utter a word. I try to mumble an apology, but instead, let my fingers do the talking. I signal under the divider - apology and newspaper retrieval all tied together in my gestures. I hear what I think sounds like a profanity, but it's drowned out by the flush of the pan. I pull back, abandoning my attempt to get the paper. A short while later, campus protection bangs on my door (yes, it's taken that long to finish. Must have been the curry from that place downtown Mass.) If it had been like a Hollywood movie, maybe a cop would have shouted:

"You there! Come out with your hands up!"

If I got up and tried to march out, I would certainly have tripped over, and although the next thing they do in the movies is to tell you to "spread ‘em," before the search commences, the idea of lying spread-eagled on the floor like that … not the most pleasant sight.

I ask for time to clean myself and when I'm done I hear the charge is one of soliciting sex. I wish to be someone powerful, like a senator so this whole stinking mess I got myself into can be flushed away. Quietly. If that's at all possible. I think of calling a lawyer, but the good ones don't come pro bono. Whoever it is, I aim to tell my lawyer that the cops are trying to stick me with some sh*t that I know nothing of.

The restroom door bangs, and I remember my laptop on the desk. Before I leave, I think about adding my dream account next to the vacant space on wall to my side. Then again, someone might enter after me and think; Aristotle, political science major, biology junior and pausing to read the latest etching muse; anally retentive (is there are course on that?)

"The United Nations cannot but react," said former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. "Iran is a member state of the United Nations that is threatening to destroy another member state of the United Nations," he said.

Let's wake up, people. Iran is throwing elbows, and our current administration in America is on the warpath.

Yes, Iran wants to destroy Israel. Yes, their president denies the holocaust . Yes, they are most likely a state sponsor of terrorism. Yes, something needs to be done. Maybe war, maybe not. But something needs to be done.

But if we go to war this time, it won't be so pretty.

We cannot do this unilaterally. If the US goes alone to war with Iran, we will have a meltdown. Our budget sheets are already soggy and swollen from bills from the Iraq War. Its economic ramifications could soon surpass $1 trillion, and one estimate weighed the total impact as high as $2 trillion.

Normally, war is good for business because materiel and supplies must be produced en masse, creating a huge boon for the economy. However, as we noted in Iraq and Afghanistan, we didn't have much trouble fighting and toppling the formal regimes. Hence, the need for military-industrial production never materialized. It seems as though this would be the case in Iran as well.

And if you haven't noticed, our economy isn't doing so hot right now. Detroit's Big 3 are flagging, and Ford's sales in September dropped 21 percent.

Furthermore, the housing market is collapsing out from under its foundation, which amounted to short-term unstable price bubbles.

Robert Shiller, a Yale university economist, told a US Congressional panel on Sept 19th, "The collapse of US home prices might turn out to be the most severe since the Great Depression.

Finally, the dollar has recently reached an all-time low exchange rate against the euro at 1.4 dollars per euro. If that's not bad enough news, listen to this, truest patriots: The American dollar is now equal to the Canadian dollar! This weak dollar will impact us in several ways. Most notably, it makes us pay more for everything we import. Hopefully no one owns anything made in China…

Now, I'm not a warmonger, and some of our worst fears from the Iraq War have come true: Instead of creating a new gleaming democracy, we have destabilized an ethnically fractured country in an already unstable region and given impetus to an entirely new generation of suicide bombers. We thought we were taking the fight to the enemy, but we just put our fist into the wasp's nest. Due to our heavy-handed meddling in the Middle East and our two current wars there, we can expect more terrorism.

Texas Representative Ron Paul nailed it when he said about terrorists, "They don't come here to attack us because we're rich and we're free. They come and they attack us because we're over there." Unfortunately, he is one of the only politicians willing to admit that in a national discussion. And Ron Paul is not talking about only our last ten years of involvement over there.

The truth is, we've been in the Middle East for the last 75 years in some form or another because the region is strategically important to us. Namely, they have oil, and our nation cannot run itself, let alone defend itself, without lots, and lots, and lots of oil.

If we hadn't been meddling in their affairs for four generations, maybe they wouldn't be so pissed off at us.

So, where do we go from here?

First of all, we don't leave Iraq to implode and die. Why not? It's simple. It's the right thing to do. We started this mess over there, and we owe it to those people to finish it.

Yeah it sucks, yeah we're probably in it for the long haul, yeah, if I were a politician this would be political suicide (John McCain). But I don't believe that we in America can fulfill our aspirations of being a benevolent hegemony unless we use our power for good. Here's a way to start: help those we've promised to help. However wise or misguided we think it is, we cannot leave these people to kill each other over religious differences and political intrigues.

Disclaimer #1: the Iraqis need to reciprocate with some decent attempts at working democracy. I understand they've been under dictatorship for generations, and need some room to stretch and understand their new rights and freedoms. But it should be stated that nothing will be accomplished if they continue to stagnate in their reconciliation attempts. We cannot help others if they are not going to also help themselves.

Disclaimer #2: I don't really view the US as a "benevolent hegemony", but many of us wish this were the case. While America's footprints throughout the world have often been tainted with corporate greed and CIA manipulation (Guatemala, for instance), we have also done great things, too (Tsunami relief, for instance). While there is a hypocritical dichotomy between these two faces of America, the only thing we can do to better the situation is to start doing more great things and start cracking down on the bad.

Secondly, though we have blunderingly created a power vacuum in Iraq and Afghanistan, we CANNOT allow Iran to fill that vacuum. That's like giving Hitler Austria and Czechoslovakia. We must somehow hold off Iranian influence. Honestly, this seems impossible.

But there is one avenue the current administration has not used. If anything, they seem to have abused it.

Diplomacy. There are two things that the US and Europe can find in common these days. One, we're all targets of terrorism and two, we don't want Iran to have nuclear capability. Most recently, following the election of American-friendly president Nicolas Sarkozy, France's foreign minister came down hard on Iran's nuclear program, warning of the possibility of war.

It is time we again approached our NATO allies for help in the Middle East. This time, we shouldn't force them to conform to our brittle and myopic plans, but should work with them to find a solution on common ground. Furthermore, this action should not seek to selfishly increase our power in the Middle East, but to squarely check Iran's hateful and bigoted threats.

Thirdly, we should actively work to increase our reputation and relations with Middle-Eastern countries. While we have done a lot through the Cold War and afterwards to earn a reputation as an evil empire, we have done much good, as well. It's time to emphasize that good behavior and reject our bad behavior. We need to stop politically manhandling those countries for economic (namely oil) concessions, and start helping them achieve their goals and aspirations. They're not our whores to beat for increased compliance. America needs to admit and then end its hypocrisy. We need to demonstrate the good international behavior that we demand from Iran. We need a benevolent diplomatic renaissance.

I have long been simmering over bicyclists use of the road. Sometimes I start to boil.
In early August, in Kansas City, a man and his granddaughter were killed while riding on a busy street. They were training together for the MS 150. It was horribly tragic and I can't imagine how very sad it must have been for the family. A few days ago the driver of the truck that hit the pair was arrested and charged with 2 counts of involuntary manslaughter. Yes, it would be nice, maybe even comforting, to hold someone responsible for the tragedy. Police have said the driver was speeding, distracted, and did not control his vehicle. But it took them over three weeks to charge him. The prosecutors suggested a $50,000 bail. http://http://www.kctv5.com/news/14242860/detail.html
As more and more bicyclists are on the road, more and more deaths are occurring. The bicyclists want drivers to be held accountable. Mike Hendricks, a KC Star columnist is calling for tougher penalties. http://http://www.kansascity.com/news/columnists/mike_hendricks/
I am sorry but I want the bicyclists to be held accountable.
My own experience with bicyclists has been scary from the get-go. When I was 16 I was driving on a residential street when a little boy on a bike turned into my car. I'd seen him riding back and forth from the side street to the street I was on. Fortunately, I had slowed down. Suddenly he turned back into the road and grazed my car. My mirror was pushed forward so hard that I wasn't strong enough to raise it back into position. The white rubber from his handlebars was pasted onto my window and later had to be scraped and washed off. He was fine and I was hysterical. He wouldn't tell us who he was and walked away. I followed him. I had to go to his door and tell his mom that I had just hit her little boy. It remains one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. But it wasn't my fault. I didn't do anything wrong.
Today I am constantly infuriated with bicyclists. And usually they are adults. Very often I come upon a rider and barely see them. They are riding in the early morning, at dusk or even after dark. They always have dark clothes on. They expect me to see the little glow in-the-dark strip on their shirt back or the blinking red dot on the back of their shoes. Even those with a tiny light on the front and back of their bikes are difficult to see until the last minute. They ride in the middle of the road and come out of nowhere. They ride on very busy streets. I never see a bicyclist following the rules of the road. They cut through traffic. They make illegal turns. They don't stop when they are suppose to.
On Tuesday the Kansan asked students if campus bicyclists should be subject to automobile laws. Well, YES. First of all it is the law. All traffic laws apply to bicyclists. http://http://www.ksdot.org/burrail/bike/biking/KsBicyStatutes.asp . And besides, the laws are there for the bikers safety. I just don't think the laws are convenient for the bikers. They want to take short cuts. They don't think.
Maybe most bicyclists would argue that the bulk of riders do follow the rules. (Maybe the only problem riders are the ones I have encountered.)
I would argue that almost all drivers act responsibly toward bicyclists. No one is aiming for bicyclists.
It is frightening to me that myself or one of my family might actually have to do prison time because of a bicyclist's irresponsibility.
So who pays for the bikers indifference? Who should be held accountable?

Sitting in class the other day, finding myself caught in the crossfire of Ranjit and Trevan's History of Rock travelogue, I kept hearing the opening verse of one of my favorite songs, Chris Smither's Leave the Light On:

If I were young again, I'd pay attention
to that little-known dimension,
the taste of endless time.
Just like water, it runs right through our fingers
but the flavor of it lingers
like a rich, red wine.

I was sort of reminded of when I was much younger, and my mind was then, as these men's minds are now, a vast rolodex of current and historical music and entertainment factoids. I reveled in it, and the available influx of information was a priceless commodity.

But for whatever reason, I've lost a good bit of that part of myself. It's not that I don't enjoy music any more, or that I feel like there's some haunting void where that pursuit once was--it's simply been exchanged for other behavior and interests, I suppose--but I'm not exactly sure how it happened.

I suppose the military is the primary culprit. Not only did I go from listening to music pretty much throughout the day to not hearing much at all most days, there were also plenty of situations where there was no music to be heard for days and days and days and days.

I understand that one's brain more or less becomes rewired--just as kids (or "shitheads" as I tend to think of them) who are raised on massive amounts of television go through a physiological process in which the neural paths of their brains are literally conditioned to need constant, shifting visual and/or auditory stimulation in order to pay attention to anything, I guess that being divorced from all that leads to a physiological change as well.

I like to think it's for the better, but who knows. It's not as though I've achieved some sort of blissful, zen state of inner tranquility--my mind is typically filled up with just as much racket as it ever was (more, actually, as I don't tend to use mind-numbing substances the way I used to)--it's just that now it's all of my own invention. Which would be great, except for the writer's strike that's apparently been going on in my head for the lst four years. Honestly--it's nothing but Who's the Boss? reruns in here.

As a little digression--I picked up that Chris Smither CD around November of last year, and listened to it on an endless loop as I headed into the final week of the fall semester. I was cranking out a 35-page paper, analyzing LBJ's word choice and speech patterns in press conferences during the Vietnam War, and the album had taken on the trance-inducing quality of a Buddhist chant for me. Luckily, the music isn't permanently tied to the memory of that ridiculous research project.

Whew. Considering how quickly the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies disposed of the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies, respectively, I was afraid I might run out of time to blog about the MLB playoffs.

While Cubs manager Lou Pinella's postseason decision making has become the most recent subject of scrutiny, the playoffs started with controversy regarding the use of instant replay in baseball and the time slots MLB chose to air the Divisional Series on TBS.

In case you missed it, the Rockies finished the regular season deadlocked with the San Diego Padres for the lone NL Wild Card spot. As a result, the two teams were forced to play a one-game playoff last Monday to see which one would receive a ticket to the postseason. As one might expect from two teams that played so evenly through 162 games, the Rockies-Padres showdown lasted 13 innings before the Rockies rallied for three runs in the bottom of the 13th for a 9-8, playoff-clinching victory.

Lost in the drama of the Rockies epic late-season surge, where they won 14 of their last 15 games, was the questionable call that gave Colorado the victory over San Diego.

On the last play of the game, Matt Holliday scored the game-winning run for Colorado on a sacrifice fly by Jamey Carroll. The sacrifice resulted in a play at the plate where, from umpire Tim McLellan's point of view, Holliday dove headfirst and got a piece of home plate, despite a top-notch block of the plate by Padres catcher Michael Barrett.

To the naked eye, it's a 50-50 call as to whether Holliday touched the plate or not. According to slow-motion replays from every possible angle, it's a 51-49 call that Barrett probably blocked Holliday from reaching the plate. Nevertheless, the news the next day wasn't so much that the Rockies completed an amazing run to reach the playoffs as it was debates on whether instant replay should invade Major League Baseball.

The consensus analysts seemed to come to was that replay should be used to decide whether home runs were fair or foul, or whether they actually cleared the fence (Oh yeah, that same game, Colorado hit what looked like a home run that barely cleared the fence before bouncing back into play, but it was ruled a double and the runner didn't end up scoring), but replay should not be used on judgment calls around the bases.

As for me, all this talk of instant replay is ludicrous. Baseball has survived for more than a century on split-second judgment calls. The knee-jerk reactions that have resulted from this one game is almost comical. Almost. It will be awfully sad if the fabric of the game is drastically altered because of one play where there's no guarantee instant replay would have even changed anything.

The beauty of baseball, to me anyway, is how each play is completely subjective. Every pitch is scrutinized by umpires with different definitions of the strike zone. Every bang-bang play at a base is up to a single umpire to decide whether the runner was safe or out.

To interrupt the flow of the game with instant replay for such things would be an injustice to fans and players alike.

Instant replay has worked pretty well in football, but in my opinion that's because 1) it's such a taxing sport the players probably welcome an extra timeout here and there and 2) there's so much action during the game, fans can tolerate a stoppage in the action. But in baseball, down time is the last thing players want. Pitchers want to keep their arms hot once they've started throwing, players in the field don't want to fall asleep waiting for the final call, and batters don't want to lose their focus as they await their next at-bat. Plus, an unnecessary stoppage in the action could make fans more likely to switch the station.

Using replay for home runs only is the most reasonable option I've heard, but even that is unsatisfactory to me. It won't change the 1996 playoffs and the thought of using replay at all just doesn't sit right with me. It seems more logical that MLB should focus on hiring umpires capable of making the right call as often as possible and for MLB ballparks to find a way to make it clearer as to when a home run has cleared the fence and is fair or foul.

Now, since I took so long on the first topic, I'll be brief on the topic of last week's TV schedule.

The main complaints about TBS's schedule came out of Philadelphia where poor Phillies fans were forced to choose between going to work/school in the afternoon or watching the Phillies on TV because the Phillies-Rockies games were the first games of the day on Wednesday and Thursday. Even worse for fans in Philly: Those who chose to watch their team saw it lose twice before being eliminated in Colorado on Saturday. The Rockies are just ruining everyone's life lately, it seems.

I don't see what the fuss is about, though. God forbid the East Coast Bias in sports not rear its ugly head just once.

If it were me, and the Royals were in the playoffs - try to stay with me - and they were playing at 2 or 3 p.m., I wouldn't even have to contemplate where I'd be. If not actually at Kauffman Stadium, I'd at least be parked in front of a TV. Just as Dane Cook says, "There's only one October." There's nothing that would keep me from watching my team.

From my perspective, MLB and TBS couldn't have scheduled the games any better. It would have been foolish to push the game times back and have multiple games going on simultaneously. Lord knows there are Boston, New York and Chicago fans displaced all over the country, so there's no fair way to decide which regions get which games unless every region can watch every game. Despite the complaints coming from Philadelphia, a late afternoon game should be more than convenient for any real fan.

So, before I get any more carried away: PLAY BALL!

As 4:30 AM rolls around, and I'm still sitting there, on my bed, unable to fall asleep, I begin to do what any good self-loathing insomniac will do…I find a distraction to bury myself in…a way to run from the natural comfort and restoration that sleep affords…this time in the form of a pixilated documentary film I find on the internet challenging the belief of God. "The God Delusion" is a documentary by the world-renowned scientist/atheist Richard Dawkins. As the film reaches its half way point I come to a great epiphany, albeit perhaps not the one Richard was trying to inspire in his audience… I realize, I don't like Richard Dawkins, and from a journalistic point of view I really don't like the way his film presents something so complex in such a completely biased (and therefore unscientific) manner.

The God Delusion is an apt title for the documentary, but I think it's equally about the lengths Richard Dawkins will go to convince people that he is in fact the one true God. The irony of the film is in Dawkins' stubborn and self-congratulatory tone of establishing that the universal truth of humanity is science and that religion has only contributed wars, death, hatred, and ignorance to society. He's one step from Michael Moore.

What Dawkins establishes is that there is no concrete or "real" proof that God exists, and that all religions are born of fictional folk lore passed down from generation to generation, changing a little each time. He mainly criticizes the system of belief over proof that religion endorses (the fundamentalist idea that, "if it's in the Bible it's the truth"). The problem with the documentary is that Richard Dawkins tells his story like an alien landing into a foreign world, while all the world sitting coldly outside it.

In one scene when Dawkins visits an Evangelical Church in the Midwest where the crowd is singing and dancing in praise, a shot of Dawkins reveals the scientist looking more like a kid who didn't get hugged enough by his mom than a leading, unbiased scientist. He was missing the point of the allure of the church…the community and the love and smiles that people have within it. That's the important thing that has kept it together.

I was immediatly interested in the contrast of how the Church tells its stories in the Bible and such, and how "scientists" like Dawkins tell theirs. Is it better to tell a story from your heart to describe the unknown (as in Bible verses), or find truth by clinically disproving others from a distance (like Dawkins)?

Do I think that there is a God? Its hard to say really, sometimes yes, sometimes no, but do I think Richard Dawkins misses the point of what it is to be alive and a human? Yes. As people we are not always prone to rationality, and no matter how much science advances I believe there will always be things that can't be explained logically.

One of the most well renowned scientists (and atheists) ever, Einstein once said, "I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." With this quote, Einstein acknowledges that science has a long way to go...just dont tell that to Dawkins.

I used to pay a lot of attention to artists and album names and all that. Some how it just faded away. I don't know if it was because of a shift in priorities or values. I held on to it through out my time in the military. It disappeared on me around the time I started school which also corresponded with when I became a dad.

I do remember when the obsession began though.

I was just about to enter junior high. I lived in a small town just northeast of Lawrence. On my way home from pretty much every where in that little town, I would walk by a do it yourself carwash. I made a habit of going up there and looking for change or what ever else was on the ground and I would also run my hand across the top of the little box you put the quarters in for the car wash. This paid off for me time and time again because apparently everybody put quarters up there to have them ready for the machine and many forgot to grab the ones they didn't use. This was about 1988 when 75 cents meant something to an 11 year old.

One day though I swept my hand across there and I didn't feel coins, but something more substantial. I pulled it down. It was an opaque charcoal cassette and on it was written: The Cure. Kiss me, Kiss me, Kiss me.

I went home, played it and something clicked in my head. Now, it's not that I think (or even thought at the time) that The Cure is fantastic music. What clicked in my head was a realization that there was more than the crappy top 40 music that I was being forced fed. It was like a thought, that I didn't even know about, had suddenly took over the part of my brain that interpretted music.

Shortly after, in an episode of possible divine intervention, I re-discovered KJHK. I say re-discovered because I had actually listened to it years before when my older brother would prank phone call Dennis Dailey's sex talk show. But we'll save those cheap thrills for another story (or maybe for the therapist).

Through The Cure and KJ, I realized that there was a world of music out there that I had to discover, but I had to push aside the easy shit and go find it for myself.

This led me to talk to anyone who was willing to talk about what music they liked. Hypies, punks, my dad (who is a jazz and big band man). Anyone.

I could spend a whole day in a place like the Love Garden, shuffling through their discount boxes, trying to figure out how to get the most bang for my buck. I did this in Lawrence as a teen ager. I did it in Chicago as a Navy recruit. I did it in Orlando and all over the north east when I was stationed in Connecticut and Virginia. I did it over seas.

But like I said, something shifted. I stopped having the time, and maybe not even the will, to put that much energy into my music.

The great thing is that now a days, I don't have to. Not because I've given up; I don't have to because there is a group of younger people who do it for me. This was impossible to do ten years ago, but now a days, a musical artist can easily be chosen by millions of music lovers who are just as enthusiastic as I was. The two big differences between today and before is that now a days people don't have to sort through a few records at a store. They can shift through an infite amount of music files at an infinite amount of stores online. And the other difference is that what the people choose to listen to is what gets heard. It's not a matter of record companies choosing what they like and then distributing. They distribute what the audience has already shown to like by the way of down load numbers from the internet.

This has been the driving force behind all of the great music that has come out in the last few years and which leads me to say that right now, there is more great music being produced in America than ever before. If you don't believe me, then just think about this.

If we wanted to throw a music festival right now, think about all the great musicians we could invite. Lets start with the oldies: The Stones, U2, Dylan, members of Led Zeplin, Leonard Cohen and countless others (even some Beatles). From there we can move into the Chilli Peppers, Will Ferrel, Butthole Surfers, Pearl Jam, Violent Femmes, Flaming Lips and pretty much just an ass ton of other college rock musicians from the last three decades. After that we have the current online generated group. The Killers, Spoon, The Shins, the White Stripes and so on. The list of great music being produced today goes on and on as far as the internet can take us.

Now you might be thinking that this makes us dependent on the taste of the masses (particularly the young masses) but I say it's better than being dependent on the tastes of a few elitists in the record industry who probably have nothing in common with me. And besides, so far, the taste of the young masses (in terms of music at least) has shown to be pretty good. The rock and roll that Jack White is turning out is some of the best I've heard and the lyrics from The Killers is...well, killer. I think in ten or twenty years from now we'll look back at this time as being the penacle of rock and roll and if we don't then that means the music went on to get even better

After we read Barry Bonds* a sideshow - not history - at Fenway Park in class this week, Mrs. Benson asked the million dollar question in regard to Mr. Bonds: "Why did he need to take steroids?"

It's perhaps the most loaded question surrounding Bonds, yet you hardly ever hear it asked. I suppose the main reason is that he hasn't actually been caught. But sports writers have speculated on the subject enough that the question might has well be asked, even if hypothetically.

As we discussed in class, Bonds has become the poster child for the steroid era by default because he's taken over the most hallowed record in sports. Unlike other players who've been caught using performance enhancing drugs, Bonds was an amazing player even before he bulked. In 1990, at 25, he hit 33 home runs for the Pittsburgh Pirates, drove in 114 runs, stole 52 bases and batted .301 on his way to winning his first MVP award. Even then, it was clear that he was a future Hall of Famer.

So, why did he feel the need to, supposedly use performance-enhancing substances?

Personally, I feel two factors came into play. 1) His fathers - former Big Leaguer Bobby Bonds and his godfather, Hall of Famer Willie Mays - and 2) his poor postseason performances early in his career.

Bobby Bonds wasn't a great player, but he was a Major Leaguer nonetheless and Barry certainly felt pressure to live up to his father's career and surpass it, considering the advantages that come with having a father in the Big Leagues. It didn't take long for Barry to do that, finishing the 1996 season two home runs ahead of his father's career tally. Every home run after 1996 could have been icing on the cake for Barry. Could have, that is, if not for his relationship with Mays.

Mays was like a second father to Barry. However, unlike Bobby, Mays went down as one of the greatest all-around players in history. When he was just 24, he hit 51 home runs, drove in 127 runs, stole 24 bases and batted .319. He won his first MVP the year before. By the time his career was over, Mays had amassed 660 home runs - the third highest total in Major League history at the time of his retirement.

There must have been a drive in Barry to live up to Mays, too, and even after he'd passed his father's home run total, he was only halfway to reaching his godfather's.

The next four seasons after 1996, Bonds had great home runs seasons (40, 37, 34, 49), putting him at 494 for his career at age 35. But at that pace, it would be four more seasons before he matched Mays' mark, and that's assuming he could retain that pace into his late-30s. In Barry's mind, he must have felt he needed to step it up a notch.

Step it up a notch, Barry did, blasting a MLB record 73 home runs in 2001. By the end of the 2003 season, he was just two home runs shy of Mays. What's happened since, whether we like it or not, is history.

But allow me to go back in time, once more, to Barry's first MVP season.

After posting phenomenal regular season numbers en route to the NL MVP in 1990, Bonds had a putrid postseason for the Pirates, batting .167 with no home runs and one RBI in six games. He was only worse the 1991 playoffs, hitting .148 with no home runs or RBI in seven games. Barry won his second MVP in 1992, but his postseason numbers - .261 average, one homer and two RBI - still weren't MVP-quality.

He didn't reach the playoffs again until 1997 with the Giants, but his numbers didn't improve with age. Instead, he hit .250 with two RBI. And in his next postseason appearance, in 2000, he hit .176 with one RBI. At that point in his career, Barry had played in 27 playoff games, hit just one postseason home run, and never advanced past the first round. Barry's godfather, though, played in a World Series his rookie year and won the World Series in his third season (his MVP season).

Again, Barry must have felt lost in Mays' shadow. Hitting 73 homers in 2001 was nice, but he wanted to prove himself in the postseason, too. So, he pushed himself harder and led the Giants to the World Series in 2002, hitting .356 with eight home runs and 16 RBI in 17 games.

Do these factors excuse Barry for sacrificing the sanctity of the game (if he did, in fact, use performance-enhancing substances)? Of course not. However, there's no telling what the psycological effects of having to live up to his father and grandfather and prove himself in the playoffs were for Barry Bonds. We may never know. As for me, I think they pushed him over the edge.

As December approaches and I inch closer towards having my KU umbilical cord finally snapped for good, I am having to do something I've dreaded for a long time…trying to get a job. My first step has been securing an internship at Fox 4 in Kansas City, where I have assisted in the various news stories, carried things, and checked my email during downtime.

Upon returning home one night I discovered a late 1990's BBC2 show via the Internet named Weird Weekends with Louis Theroux. The show chronicles various subcultures in America and is notable for being both hilarious and informative, while revealing the idiosyncrasies in each (usually extremist) sub culture. For instance in the macho man world of bodybuilding a decidedly homoerotic subtext soon becomes apparent, in the world of gangsta rap, most street thugs rapping have actually had years of college education and suburban upbringings contrary to their personas, etc.

I was immediately struck once I had watched the first episode (on swingers), and right then and there a new dream was born. I've decided that I want to do a new updated version of the show hosted by yours truly. I want to try to pitch the idea to HBO (or similar network) and get a pilot shot.

Ideas for subcultures that I would want to investigate would be: bouncers at nightclubs, phone sex girls, and lounge singers amongst others.

This great show helped remind me about the endless possibilities that our country has, and just how many beautiful, weird points of view that we all have. That's why I love this damn place so much.

In a side note I had a strange weekend myself a few weekends back. It went something like this:

As a friend and I were walking home from a night of drinking at Fatso's pub, we ran into a group of cool looking black guys behind the Granada Theatre. Immediately I approached them and discovered that Tech N9ne, the semi-famous KC rapper was playing, and that one of the men in the camp was Tech's manager. It took some convincing, but eventually we were let in for free backstage where we watched the tail end of the show in peace…for a while that is.

When the show ended I was drinking a beer when a large shaved head bouncer knocked the can out of my hand, upsetting me. I then expressed my disapproval of his actions and was thrown out of the club, head first, onto the pavement and into a large puddle in front of Tech N9ne and his whole crew. Upon standing up, I was greeted by the fist of a large 350 pound black man for no apparent reason. I then stumbled home. You gotta love those weird weekends.

(Let me know if anyone has any connections at HBO)

So, Al Gore's trophy collection grows ever more impressive. In addition to his Oscar statue and what is an undoubtedly endless catalogue of merit badges, our former Vice President now lays claim to the Nobel Peace Prize. So let the grousing begin.

Friday night, I asked my wife how long she supposed it might take the collective conservative punditry machine to begin telling us that the Nobel Committee is just another liberal elitist, European, American-hating institution, and that Gore's award is only further proof of this assertion. The answer came in Saturday's NYT letters to the editor.

Granted, letters from readers aren't exactly "punditry" in and of themselves, but they often seem to be reflections of punditry. I'm not sure what the odds are that any given NYT reader would just happen to mimic the word-choice of talk radio personalities like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, but I imagine I'd have to hire a mathematician to find out.

At any rate, of the six letters reprinted, at least two were decrying either the worthlessness of the award, Gore's claim to it, or both. In one of the more eloquent effigies:

To the Editor:

Mother Teresa not only talked the talk, but she also walked the walk for her Nobel Prize.

Al Gore walks the walk and rides on his atmosphere-polluting private jet to his energy-consuming estate to win a Nobel Prize given for his work with global warming. Sheer hypocrisy.

The Nobel Peace Prize has evolved into a forum for a political statement and away from any real meaning. It is but a mere feel-good experience for the monied elite and aristocracy of the world perpetuating its flawed and politically correct stance. It's sad.

Bill Steiner
Omaha, Oct. 12, 2007

So here we have all the classic elements essential to the conservative complaint:

-Reference to Gore's hypocritical use of both modern transportation and the conventional electrical power grid.
-Complaints of the "monied elite and aristocracy," truly the trademark of leftists around the world. Fucking Che Guevara.
-General distaste for "political statements"
-Contrasting reference to noted Catholic/woodland gnome Mother Teresa.

What piqued my interest was the idea that either Gore himself has devalued the award, or that the award itself has been on a downhill slide for some time now.

I'm not, as they say, a Nobel scholar. The only bookmarks of oddity in the Peace Prize's history that I'm immediately aware of are the aforementioned Teresa's award in 1979 for her work in India, and that Babylonian whore Henry Kissinger, having jointly received the Prize in 1973 with Le Duc Tho, who had the good sense to decline the award.

So, to the Internet--simultaneous savior of the research-exhausted and entertainer of the drug-addled--for what I'm willing to assume (for the sake of a blog post, anyway) is an accurate account of the Prize's history.

In 2006, the prize went to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, for their work to alleviate poverty through the use of micro-loans (also known as "micro credit"). On the economics side, it's easy to see why conservatives might not be particular fans of the Nobel Committee. Most of the economic actors who have received the prize have addressed poverty and suffering through mechanisms which are basically either socialist, or fairly close to it. The Wal-Marting of the 3rd world, it ain't.

In 2005, the prize went to Mohamed El Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (or IAEA-EIEIO). Bushies of the world are still pissed at him--along with UN inspector Hans Blix--for not "finding" the WMDs in Iraq and being fairly egalitarian regarding Iran's claim to nuclear energy. Again, not winning any points from W.F. Buckley's side of the room.

2004 & 2003, a couple'o people for "sustainable development, democracy and peace" and "democracy and human rights." Let me save El Rushbo a breath and just say, "liberal bullshit."

2002: Jimmy Carter. To quote Ol' Dirty Bastard...

2001: Kofi Annan & the U.N.

Getting the picture? It just goes on and on like this, one left-leaning handjob after another.

What's really interesting, though, is 1972. You know who won the Prize that year? Nooooooo... body. Think about that for a second. You, as a member of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, scour the earth for good news, and at some point you just say, "Fuck it." This, to me, helps explain 1973's choice (Kissinger, for "brokering peace" in Vietnam, four years after he illegally subverted the exact same peace deal so that Nixon could gain an edge in the presidential election)--I look at it as a sort of rhetorical statement for its time: "People, we are in such bad shape, that we have floundered beneath the baseline of human decency. Last year, we tried to show you that there was no one deserving of a prize for their efforts of peace. This year, things have gotten worse. They're not just bad. They're Henry Kissinger bad."

Seriously--how bad do things have to be to give the award to a man like this? Granted, in 1973, the extent of his deviousness was not so thoroughly documented as it has since become, but come on, people--evil has a smell. It's a smell you can smell. Before we had Axe Body Spray, we had Henry Kissinger.

So... do I believe Gore deserves this Prize? Meh. He's worked hard, for no apparently self-serving reason. He could certainly have spent the time endlessly wallowing in his sorrows, as he surely had claim to, following the electoral debacle of 2000; but he chose instead to educate people as best he knew how about something he seems to genuinely care about. Do I think he fairly beats the Buddhists of Myanmar, who endlessly, fearlessly subjected themselves to repeated imprisonment and ass-beatings in order to call national attention to a brutal and oppressive government regime? Not especially.

But listen--Myanmar? Buddhists? Self-sacrifice? Democracy?

That's just not our thing.

I am so impressed with the level of 'hip' in our class. Several of our class scholars know so much about so many artists and songs, most of which I have never heard of. I enjoy learning about today's music scene. I might even listen to a few of today's music makers because of your enthusiasm.
But, if you take me back a few decades ... to the Golden Oldies...
My first memory of music was reading my sister's diary about the night Elvis appeared on Ed Sullivan. Then came rock-n-roll (as I know it), Motown, and the British Invasion. Great tunes to sing to and dance to. Just as I graduated from high school in 1971, music became a little heavier and a lot louder. The content, just like the world, was more serious . The Beatles no longer produced simple, fun music. They sang messages. Music was making a statement. About that same time my life became heavier and busier. When I look back I think that is when my music tastes stopped progressing with the times. Every once in a while I would enjoy a song that was THE big hit. And I still loved music but enjoyed a more mellow sound. I discovered the Big Band, Jazz and Easy Listening sounds. Today music is one of my greatest pleasures.
But this isn't my point. All this talk about music and bands and songs brings up something I have thought about for a long time.
I like solutions. The simpler the better. The sooner the better. I like solutions to my dilemmas, my kids dilemmas, work dilemmas and the world's dilemmas.
And music strikes me as one of the biggest, simplest solutions to the problems of the world. Now maybe this isn't news to anyone. Maybe it is just so obvious and right in front of my face that I never realized how important music is on a level so much more than just entertainment.
I first saw how music could make a difference the day my then 3 year old niece, Beth, arrived from Korea. My sister and brother-in-law had adopted her. She had been on several planes for over 24 hours traveling to her new home and family in Kansas. She was terrified. She didn't speak. She didn't move. She was scared of dogs. Beth's new family had 3 dogs, a couple of cats, some goats, birds, horses and 3 other children. My 3 year old son and I went to meet Beth. She said nothing and did nothing. At some point I suggested the children and I should play ring-around-the-rosy. That was all it took. She sang the words, fell down, laughed and got back up to sing it again and again. She came alive. Ring-around-the-rosy was universal.
Six months later, in December, we were together at a Christmas Tree Lighting in little DeSoto, Kansas. I was holding Beth and singing Christmas carols. As Silent Night began, Beth's little voice sang the words...in Korean. Universal.
And that is my point. Music is all-important to the world. Duh. So, if it is all-important, we must make sure that music is not cut from schools. That it is an opportunity for a better world. We should make sure everyone is exposed to and experiences all kinds of music. Everyone doesn't have to like hip hop or easy listening. But it may be the best form of communication to bring people together. The availability, variety and technical progress of music today may be the best hope for the world.

12 years really is a long time. That was the last and only time, until now of course, the team sporting the black and purple reached the playoffs (also as a wildcard). I used to go those games at Coors Field when I was a kid; I remember the names like Andreeessss Galarraga, the classic Larry Walker, Eric Young (the Black Cat), Vinny Castilla, Dante Bichette and Ellis Burks. These guys are the original Blake Street Bombers, but a new dream team has arrived in the Mile High city. This one doesn't consist of any of the original Blake Bombers, but no worries, these new ‘kids' have gladly taken on the role of saviors for baseball fans in Denver.

Going into this season, no real sports fan, or Rockies fan for that matter, had any real expectations for this team to play into October. Again, this is a team that is incredibly young and has a pitching staff that has been anything but consistent. But all of these deficiencies worked themselves out as the Rockies are on their way to play in their first World Series! THEY'VE WON 21 OF THEIR LAST 22 GAMES!!!!

Sports fans in Denver live and die for their hometown teams, much like Kansas City except for the fact that Denver teams are actually of some quality. Whether or not these fans are on the bandwagon is irrelevant. No body, NO ONE, wants to watch a losing team. If the KU basketball team had 12 losing years, let's see how full the stands would be inside the Fieldhouse. A radio personality on a national sports show explained the fan base in Colorado right now, "This is a great setting for baseball" when referring to the wild crowd at Coors Field. As simple as this statement is, it speaks volumes and is timely as the rest of the nation is asking the question, "Who the hell are the Rockies?"

I am tired of hearing from other national media syndicates that the Rockies don't belong in the World Series. Are you kidding me? This team came back from a huge deficit by nearly going undefeated in the last part of the season forcing a one game playoff, which they won, swept the first series handily against the Phillies, and then swept the Diamondbacks in the NLCS. If you're not completely interested in sports, just understand that this feat has never been done before, especially in terms of the experience of the team. The media does talk about this amazing feat, but they say it like it doesn't even matter because they're going to get murdered in the World Series. All I hear about too is how this LCS has been the least watched in history. Wow, way to be a downer (Colin Cowherd - ESPN Radio). This is clearly east coast bias, (Eastern Sports Propaganda Network) and is such a disservice to what these great ball players have accomplished. I was listening to Cowherd one day, and he plainly said he didn't want to listen to any more calls about the Rockies because they simply weren't relevant. Red Sox and Cleveland, apparently that's what's important.

Well Holliday, Tulow, Helton, Hawpe, Francis, Corpas and the rest of the Rockies, it's time to prove all of these doubters wrong. There IS baseball in Colorado, you CAN pitch at a Mile High, the NL CAN compete with the AL and NO ONE can stop this team. This team could be the team of destiny. People will know all about the Rockies when this is all said and done.

Working for an elected leader definitely has its perks, but dealing with constituent letters, emails, phone calls and visits can be a frustrating experience.

During the first couple weeks of this internship, I knew the organization of state agencies about as well as the inquiring caller themselves. I used Google to find the answers to most of their questions or put their calls on hold while I attempted to find the answer from another coworker. I used my politest voice while talking to them, but had to remain assertive with the difficult ones who refused to hear the correct answer because it did not help them.

Well, despite this assertiveness, there are some things I was not able to say, as an intern, to these constituents that I wish I could have. Behold, the mind of an intern:

Scenario 1: Save the minis!

Problem: Pictures of "starving" and sickly miniature horses on a farm in Unionville, Kan., have found a home on YouTube. Miniature horse lovers from Texas to Canada are upset that more action has not been taken in this case and decided to call the Governor's office to complain.

Official response: "The Governor is aware of this situation and we are monitoring the case. The county sheriff has given the farmer 30 days to remedy the problem, but they are collaborating with the Kansas Chapter of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and other state agencies. Please contact the sheriff or attorney if you have resources to share or want to share your concern.

Another point of view: Really? There are starving kids in Africa. No, there are starving kids in Kansas and you are calling me about minis? Thanks for calling, please don't get your panties in a wad. We've got it covered. And oh, that YouTube video you made, thanks for ruining any Sarah McLaughlin song I might ever listen to again.

PS- What about the goats?

Scenario 2: Get out of jail free.

Problem: The Michigan caller's son is currently incarcerated in a Kansas Prison. The inmate was a formerly in the Air Force and living with family in Kansas before being tried and convicted of raping a child. The father wants his son to be released to his home in Michigan so that the inmate's parents can "make him into a productive member of society" because he couldn't have possibly raped anyone because he is "a real God-fearing man."

Official response: "All requests for pardons and clemency have to go through the Department of Corrections. You will need to contact them to receive the appropriate paperwork for this process."

Another point of view: No flippin' way. Tried AND convicted? Your son is going no where, nor should he. There are consequences for your son's actions, so just quit trying to make excuses for him.

Scenario 3: Kids pack, please!

Problem: A fifth grade Alaskan girl needs to know the exact words to the Kansas State Song for a school research project. She sent a letter, which was promptly answered by the "Governor", but snail mail was not fast enough and she demanded the office email her first thing Monday morning.

Official response: She was sent an entire packet of information about the State of Kansas, including the lyrics to the state song. Her email was also answered with the words.

Another point of view: Try Google, sweetheart. What are schools teaching you these days when instead of doing the dumb research yourself, you ask people to look up the information and then sent it to you? When I was your age I had to actually walk into the book stacks in the library to pull an encyclopedia off the shelf and copy the information. How about you try that too?

Scenario 4: Blame game

Problem: A 2006 alum of the University of Kansas never completed English 102 in order to complete the graduation requirements. Now he is afraid he might lose a good job offer without the diploma so he wants the Governor to intervene and waive the necessary class since his "engineering school advisors never informed him that he needed the class."

Official response: "I'll connect you with the Board of Regents since they oversee all the Universities in the State, but they might need to direct you to another person that will help."

Another point of view: Did you complete the requirements for graduation? No! Should you get your diploma anyways? No! If you spent five years in college like you say you did, you had plenty of time to look at your ARTS form to verify your graduation status. You need to grow up and take responsibility for your education. The Governor will not waive this, nor will the University. Yah, ENGL 102 sucks, but get over it.

Scenario 5: Why ain't we more like Oklahoma?

Problem: According to some riled-up constituents, immigrants are taking American jobs in Kansas, using our state resources, not following laws and they're just different than us! Kansas should pass legislation similar to Oklahoma that unconstitutionally cracks down on illegal immigrants in their state. One Kansan even called to oppose a highway he thought was being built from Texas to Kansas because that would just make it easier for "those immigrants to get here!"

Official response: While immigration does require a federal response, the Governor is taking action to reduce the hiring of illegal immigrants. Additionally, the Kansas National Guard was deployed to build a fence on the Arizona-Mexico border. (There's more to this response, but I do not have the letter at my disposal.)

Another point of view: What is this? Modern day McCarthyism? Asking the Governor to drive down to a corner in your hometown because you claim all the people standing there are illegal immigrants isn't just a bad idea, it is unintelligent. Get your facts straight on what resources immigrants are actually eligible to use before you call complaining. I know it is an issue, but you are ridiculous.

Go out and celebrate this weekend, fellow Kansans--our state just saved the planet!

You may not realize it but there was a major victory for the national environmental movement right here in Kansas yesterday.

The heroes of the day are Governor Kathleen Sebelius and Rod Bremby, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, for rejecting the permits of two proposed coal-burning electric plants in western Kansas. The plants would have provided electric power for western Kansas and parts of Colorado. But--combined--they also would have been the largest new source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States (releasing an estimated 11 million tons of carbon dioxide annually).

The rejection is a big deal on the national level because Bremby cited hazardous emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as the reason for denying the permits.

In other words, it's the first time a state has used a global warming defense to turn down a power plant.

Sunflower Electric Power Corp., which proposed the plants, cried foul, arguing the greenhouse gases are not currently regulated by Congress so it's improper to judge their plants against that "non-standard." Of course, they promise to get this overturned either through the courts or in our legislature.

To reach those ends, the corporation has the backing of two key state Republicans: House Speaker Melvin Neufeld and Kris Kobach, head of the Kansas GOP. Neufeld is already rounding up Republican legislators for the upcoming battle. According to a story in the Washington Post:

The plants' powerful supporters included the speaker of the state House, Melvin Neufeld, who had earlier gathered the signatures of 46 GOP members, including key committee chairmen, for a letter to Bremby. The letter said, "Without your approval of the permit as proposed by Sunflower, our state and its citizens will lose access to the low-cost energy source and millions in economic development." Thirty-one Republican House members declined to sign the letter.

Meanwhile, as I've documented in my own films about immigration, Kobach has yet to find a high-profile case he doesn't like--fortunately, he's also yet to find one he's won.

He's taking his fight straight to Gov. Sebelius, as he told The Lawrence Journal-World:

"By forcing Secretary Bremby to deny the permit, she (Sebelius) has not only caved to liberal special-interest groups, but she has once again shown her lack of commitment to promoting Kansas economic interests," said Kris Kobach, state GOP chairman.

I'm not sure how Kobach gets away with claiming Sebelius forced Bremby to do anything. Then again, hyperbole and overreaction are Kobach's calling cards, so this should come as no surprise.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post article and a few Kansas newspapers have already framed this issue as a battle between the east and west portions of the state, since the plants would have been out west, and the opposition has come from mostly eastern cities like Topeka and Lawrence. While those divisions do exist on some level, this issue is not as simple as a geographic divide.

The plants might have brought some economic boost to the region, but supporters who touted increased jobs and added revenues conveniently failed to mention that waste from the plants would not be shared between Colorado and Kansas. Instead, all of that waste--namely mercury--would be dumped exclusively in our state. So, not only would we be tearing a huge hole in the ozone, we'd also be polluting our own water. On top of all of that, the water required by the plants would put tremendous pressure on the already strained Ogallala Aquiffer.

I can't believe folks out west are thrilled about those prospects. You don't have to be an anthropologist to know people out there are deeply tied to the land.

No, it's not a matter of east- versus west-Kansas. Instead, this is a debate between those who do and don't believe in global warming. A battle between those who care about the land, the state, the planet, and those who care foremost about the bottom line. Some call it good versus bad, I prefer responsibility versus greed.

This, of course, was just one battle in an ongoing war. As debates heat up in the legislature over these plants, Kansans who support environmental protections need to contact their lawmakers and tell them to stand by this decision (state legislators in particular...the governor, of course, is busy right now dealing with pretty little ponies).

In the meantime, I hope this sets a precedent for other states. I also hope we seize this opportunity to explore alternative energy sources, especially wind energy. We've sent the message that we care about the environment, now we need to take action toward breaking our dependence on these inefficient energy sources.

At the very least, those of us who love the wide open spaces of Kansas should take time to really appreciate this recent victory--and be thankful Sebelius and Bremby were willing to put the protection of the environment we all share above corporate interests of a select few.

Immediately following a stunning microeconomics lecture the Thursday before fall break (and my adventure-soaked voyage to our nation's raw expanses of land), my friend and classmate Ben brought to my attention a Web site he had recently found. It's called StumbleUpon.

"But watch out," he said. "If you're bad about procrastinating, this will only exponentially increase your struggles." Yes, he phrased it like that. He's an Organic Chemistry major.

Gravely considering my self-diagnosed ADHD, I immediately resolved not to look at this Web site until after midterm week was over.

Now that it's the weekend, I had nothing better to do during the afternoon than reading for First Amendment class. So I cracked open my yuppy-chic MacBook and checked out StumbleUpon.

It's pretty dang cool. The premise is StumbleUpon helps you not search and find sites that you would normally search for, but rather it helps you discover sites you didn't know existed. Within my first twenty minutes, I read news about a particle accelerator that will be used to test string theory, discovered fascinating artwork from about seven different artists, one of whom cuts ingenious three-dimensional scenes out of single pieces of paper, and found a map of what Europe would have looked like if the Nazis had won World War Two.

Considering all the ways I've procrastinated in the past, including playing a pop-up Orbitz miniature golf game until I could get a hole-in-one on every hole, StumbleUpon is relatively productive. Well, sometimes. I just got distracted from writing this post by discovering animals in Halloween costumes.

So, StumbleUpon is a double-bladed dagger. It seems like a stimulating place to discover anything from brilliant new ideas and art to the downright strange. There is a category listed as bizarre, but I'm afraid to click it, fearing most of the links would be to CNN headlines.

I don't know what advice to give you about StumbleUpon. Just click it at your own risk.

Participatory culture and You

Many traditional media experts like Michael Budd, Robert Entman, and Clay Steinman have and (continue to) underestimate the importance of fandom on culture itself. These theorists would insist that the audience is a submissive one…but to these theorists I must quote Bob Dylan, "the times are a changing.'" As fan circles became more intricate and numerous, new types of fan participation has cropped up in the past years such as blogs (on culture, politics, etc.), music mash ups (like Danger Mouse's the Grey Album), and youtube parodies, etc. So these days, what does it actually mean to be a fan?

For this we turn to expert Michel De Certeau, who first coined the term "textual poacher" after he compared readers to nomads, "traveling from text to text." He said that, while readers don't create the text directly themselves, they do have an active role in the meaning of any particular work.

Henry Jenkins notes the origins of the word "fan," come from the Latin word "fanaticus;" which translates to, "of or belonging to the temple, a temple servant, or a devotee." In turn, its interesting to note the similarities between the religious worship of a God or deity, and the sometimes extreme (almost religious) adoration that can be involved in being a "fan" of a TV show, film actor, musician, or any other thing in popular culture.

Being a textual poacher of popular culture means taking something away from the sometimes-dispensable world of mass media. To look at the world of the Star Trek franchise one quickly notices how the fans have created their own culture by "poaching" and readapting many themes, motifs, messages, and characters from the show into their own lives. These fans dress up like their favorite characters, use fictional languages from the show, and even conduct large-scale conferences with other fans across the globe. Creepy? Perhaps. Powerful? Definitely.

After these clubs gained notoriety on a national scale, it came as no surprise when the networks took a gamble at the franchise again, beginning with the Next Generation from 1987-1992, and ending with Star Trek Enterprise in 2005. A shining early example of how fans pulled their resources together to invest time in a television franchise and influence a major business to back the project

In keeping with the almost religious adoration involved in fandom, it should come as no surprise, that as media fans, we "worship" as a way of filling needs and wants deep within our unconscious. For instance, Henry Jenkins noticed that the largest group of fans, by far, is middle-class white women looking for meaning or substance outside of their home lives. The need for glamour, beauty, romance, and good conversation is often times met through soap operas and celebrity programs.

Media expert Stuart Hall has a theory that is based in the Marxist school of thought. He says that the general populace has an "ideology" that can create commodity fetishism. By living in a capitalist society, he says that selling the products depicted in the media (books, films, albums, etc.) becomes the media's primary concern, saying these "products" are meant to appeal purely to the dominant ideology, so as to make the maximum amount of profit. Any other meanings taken away by the audience are purely coincidental he says.

Theorists like J Fiske would agree that popular culture is one for the proletariat, he argues that there now exists a difference between "official culture" and "popular culture." Frsike says that while, "popular culture" may be constructed from the official culture of the people, "popular culture" and the realm of fandom is something completely distinct and oppositional to the official dominant culture.

continued in part 2

When we find something that we relate to in this dominant culture, it is only human instinct to take it in and make it your own. Likewise, an active fan would tell you that by interacting with the fandom surrounding their favorite shows or movies, etc. they are re-appropriating the culture that should be there's in the first place. So, the idea of fandom at its base is a socialist one that's is controlled, produced, and distributed among the average person. However, in a capitalist society, such as our own, where culture is copy written and purchased by large corporations, is it even possible to "poach" and stick it to the man?

Big businesses have indeed caught on to the idea of extending the reach of books, movies, etc. out into the hands of the public by selling merchandise related to the program, book, etc. By purchasing merchandise from a large corporation, we are in fact putting the money back into the pockets of the big business that produced the culture we are fans of, so in a monetary sense, the big businesses gain power, not us.

However, independent vendors across the Internet and street corners often sell merchandise directly related to pop culture. Fans also can create their own artifacts pertaining to their favorite bits of pop culture, and many do.

One video that perfectly illustrates the idea of textual poacher is the Internet video, "Star Wars Kid." The short video was sent into the Internet via file-sharing services in 1999. Within a short amount of time, the video had garnered acclaim from mainstream media outlets, and was viewed millions of times.

The video depicted an overweight high school boy holding a large silver beam and twirling it around in the fashion of a Star Wars light saber. By imitating the Star Wars films, this kid managed to distribute a bit of fan culture out to fans. To make things even more complicated, in the wake of Star Wars Kid, many websites appeared offering alternate versions of the video (including videos that were cut different, that had different music, and that added in the actual Star Wars light saber beam by computer).

The phenomenon of Star Wars Kid and the responses to the video illustrates how much the Star Wars universe has been ingrained into people's minds, and in the video, the viewers were quickly able to catch references to the handling of the "light saber" and the noises that the kid was making with his mouth.

The video also works on another level with regard to the idea of the textual poacher. One of the undoubted reasons the video was a success was because of the way the star of the Star Wars Kid was presented. The kid was your typical Star Wars fan, overweight, effeminate, nerdy, and ungraceful, slipping and falling several times throughout the video.

By recognizing the archetype of the typical Star Wars fan, which this high schooler represented to a tea) people were able to relate to the video. So in a sense, the Star Wars Kid is a parody of the textual poacher, and the dangers of fandom; the idea being, that