The Parable of Dinner

If you give me a fish, you have fed me for a day.

If you teach me to fish you have fed me until the river is contaminated or the shoreline seized for development.

But, if you teach me to organize, then whatever the challenge, I can join together with my peers and we will fashion a solution of our own!

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Despite hating most people, I really like people. I often will drop by a friends house just to chat or hang out with no desire to do anything in particular. The majority of my friends are young families. I've figured out that if I show up after 5 they will be home from work, but much later than that they'll be busy putting their kids to bed. Although it's not my intent, this works out that it's dinner time.

Tonight I went over to some friends' house to show them pictures of my recent trip to New Orleans. Two things stood out...

Considering I always show up at dinner time I'm always a little concerned that people think I just come over for dinner. This whole thing of showing up sometime after 5 and before 8 made me realize that often there is only a three hour period in any given weekday that a family gets to hang out with each other. The reason for 5:00 is that is usually when the parent(s) get home from work. The reason for 8:00 is that they kids (young kids) need to wake up for school in the morning. The reason for waking up for school in the morning is that school starts at 8 am (ish). This is because there must be a certain amount of time spent in school per day on particular subjects. So, the focus goes to the kid needing to get an proper education at the risk of valuable family/socializing time. All of this so they can wake up one day with their own kids , go to work and repeat the same cycle they lived as a child and subject their own children to it.

Americans, especially christians, talk about the erosion of family values. Based on this completely non-scientific observation it seems that the biggest threat to the 'family' is the oppressive conditions that the American workforce must operate under in order to survive - the mortgage, medical bills, student loans, need to get a high paying job, etc. That all seems pretty god damn ridiculous to me.

The second thing about this visit with my friends tonight was that the dinner they had was not made by them. There are four families who take turns making dinner for each other. When it is your night to cook, you cook enough for the other three families and take it to them. You don't necessarily eat together, but it's this nice little community that's being built. Plus, there are rules to what has to be provided, like protein, carbs, and so on. I think that is neat.

I don't know where the quote I started with originated, but I like it and I think applies to my experience tonight. If you bring me a dinner I can eat tonight. Since I know how to make dinner but I'm spending all day at the office and will have to spend at least an hour preparing a healthy meal I will only have two hours of quality time with my family. If my friends and I organize to allow one another to eat healthy and provide opportunities to develop relationships between friends and family then I can survive in a system that isn't structured for my happiness and ultimately I can operate without it.

19 Men

I should be writing term papers but this is on my mind...

On September 11, 2001 nineteen men hijacked three planes two of which hit the world trade center buildings, one crash-landed in Pennsylvania, and one crashed into the Pentagon. Thousands were killed. It was (as far as I know) the largest fatality rate in any modern terrorist act and set the stage for the situation the US is in today -- not so much the financial part but the two wars part.

Khalid Almihdhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaf Alhazmi, Salem Alhazmi, Hani Hanjour (AA flight #77); Satam M.A. Al Suqami, Waleed M. Alshehri, Wail M. Alshehri, Mohammed Atta, Abdulaziz Alomari (AA flight #11); and Marwan Al-Shehhi, Ahmed Alghamdi, Hamza Alghamdi, Mohand Alshehri (AA flight #175); and Saeed Alghamdi, Ahmed Ibrahim A. Al Haznawi, Ahmed Alnami, and Ziad Samir Jarrah (UA flight #93) participated in the attacks that occurred on US soil over seven years ago.

These are 19 men. They are murderers by the standards of some and martyrs by the standards of others.

Professor Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado made a statement at one point referring to the people who worked in the World Trade Center buildings at the time of the attack as equivalent to Adolf Eichmann who was a train engineer who delivered Jews to concentration camps in NAZI Germany and refused to admit that he had done anything wrong -- he turned a blind eye from the evils of his labor.

From every angle the 9/11 attacks have been analyzed: from Muslim fanatics, from Christian fanatics, from liberal scholars, conservative scholars, and everyone within and between those. We wage two wars based on the idea that we have to keep the world safe from more men like those. We are in billion dollars of debt because of those wars. The political climate of our nation has been deeply divided because of those wars. These things are just the beginning of how America has suffered from the terrorist attacks.

As as nation we have been angry, vengeful, sad, and scared.

Here's what's been on my mind: Those 19 men who terrorized our nation used to be somebody's boys. They used to run and play with their brothers and sisters. They used to have religious ceremonies and holidays with their families. Their mothers used to rock them to sleep at night when they were scared. Their grandmothers and great-grandmothers were so excited to live to see the day they were born. They rejoiced at their high school graduations and their college graduations. Many of them may even have had kids of their own. They were loved.

There are direct, intermediary, and precipitating causes for most things that happen in this world. A direct cause for these men bombing the WTCs was more than likely religious fanaticism. I want to remind us that this can happen to Christian Americans too -- think abortion clinics and Oklahoma City. This is inexcusable. An intermediary cause might be a book they read or a group of people they associated with while in high school or college. A precipitating cause may have been poverty, oppression, Arab-Israeli conflict, or some other kind of violence.

The fact is, they were not born this way. This side of them was created. If the average US citizen understood this, they might think twice about the fact that we're killing innocent people daily in Afghanistan. Maybe it is good that we rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein but it is certainly a cluster-fuck now.

The two wars that we are fighting might have been started under the guise of national security but I think we can all admit that lying below that was a sense of vengeance. We believed Bush that Iraq was involved in 9/11 because we were irate. We wanted blood. And whose blood did we get? Mostly civilians. Friends I knew since childhood have been changed forever because of those wars. They used to be great guys.

When we are killing kids, women, old folks, and innocent men, what is it that we're proving?

I guess my point is this: what if, instead of hoping for success in either of these wars we were to admit that the problem lies somewhere within the Western construct of society. If we were to admit that our way of conducting civilization is not 100% right we might still have to fight these two wars in order to save people from tyranny, but we might also be able to bring down the tyranny that is taking over our society and leading use to agree that killing children is necessary.

Killing children is what "the enemy" does. We're better than that.

I don't really have answers, just questions for this one

A Letter to the President Elect

Mr. Obama,
I'm not going to type 'President Eelect Obama' because that's too much typing and it really doesn't have a good ring to it. Well, I guess I ended up typing it anyway. I guess I've started our relationship with a lie.

I'll be honest. I didn't vote for you. But I didn't vote for anyone so don't feel bad.

There are conflicting emotions going on with me right now. First, I am excited that a black man has been elected president. I am also excited that this fucking election is finally over. I am also excited that you were elected and not John McCain. On the other hand, I'm afraid that because of you as President, young black men all over the nation will look to you as their role model: the type of black guy who makes himself as white as possible in order to appear as a normal white guy, in order to be acceptable. I look at a black kid on the street and feel sad for him that even in today's world white people still look at him and immediately think that he is a criminal; they're afraid -- as irrational as it may be -- that he poses a threat to their beautiful white daughter. Then, I look at the black guys in my college courses and feel sad for them that they have to be extra smart, act slightly effeminate, and suppress the truth that they know about racism in America in order to fit into the white world. They can't afford to stand out in their classrooms and admit that this nation isn't built for them to succeed.

I say that because I am skeptical about your sincerity about change. You may have made that fancy speech about racism in response to the Rev. Wright situation and "opened up the race conversation" in the US, but that only means that you successfully evaded a huge political liability and distracted the American citizens...lets face it, they aren't that smart...it was an easy task.

I'm not convinced that you are an agent of real change.

With everything in me I hope (i use that word reluctantly) that you have just been "playing it safe" to win this election and that as soon as you take office in January you will begin a drastic restructuring of American culture. I know that isn't going to really happen but at least I can hope for change.

The fact is, you will continue supporting wall street. You will follow through with your fucked up plan of supporting the "healthcare" industry by forcing employers and employees to bear the burden of paying jacked up prices for doctors and insurance companies instead of telling those expensive assholes, "NO! You cannot charge that much! It's just not right make people PAY TO LIVE!!" You will mutter a few words next time Exxon reports record profits and leave it at that, then blame Congress for not doing their oversight responsibilities if anything illegal turns up. You might make it easier on college students to prepare for helping our world (like those preparing to be teachers), but it's still going to be hard for us because you won't fix the industries that drive up tuition costs year after year after year... why? because you're such a sucker for liberal economics.

I read about a boy in Kenya who is recovering after being attacked by an American funded group in the Congo. I have a hard time believing you will put an end to that funding and do something about the suffering that is happening in nations that we like to ignore. No...instead, you will divert the attention, as all other politicians do, to something that the American people can identify with - "let's see, what's more appealing to the American people, Muslims killing 300,000 or so blacks, or blacks killing 5 MILLION or so blacks?" I'll give you your answer. BOTH ARE FUCKED UP!! But, at least we can stop funding those who kill people. Well, blacks kill blacks all the time, in NYC, in New Orleans, in Chicago...that's old news. Oh, plus we have huge economic ties to the DRC region because some of our country's corporations rape their natural resources without regard for life...that's important for the world economy, right?

My basic point is this. I'm glad you won, rather than McCain, but FUCK YOU!! You might bring change to America as we know it, but we both know that America as we know it is wrong. The only difference between us is that I'm willing to admit what the problem is. I don't need hope for change because I can admit what the real problem is and try to do something about it. You, on the other hand, are so wrapped up in the ideology of racist America that you must submit to the idea that humans can be valued by a dollar amount.

I feel bad for you, and at the same time I'm happy that a black man will finally have to face the problems that white, affluent American presidents have ignored for centuries. I have no doubt that it will eat at you that you are supporting a system that hurts people of every color. Not only will you be supporting it, but you will have to support it for at least four years at the cost of thousands, if not millions of lives.

With that said, I congratulate you on your victory, I wish you the best of luck, and I pray to whatever fucked up god may be out there that I'm wrong about everything above.

-Rob Huffman

Financial awesomeness / a prediction (at the end)

I haven't posted in a while for two reasons: (1) because no body actually reads my blog, and (2) because I haven't had any thing to say -- yes, even in the midst of this economic crisis that is happening.

The fact is, I am enjoying the shit out of this economic "meltdown". Partially because it is not a meltdown -- it is simply what happens when the worth of a society is put into one place. In the late 1800s there was the Great Panic in the US. This was a period of time when the national unemployment rate skyrocketed. The reason was we had put so much labor and so much money behind the railroad and primitive infrastructure systems to cross the continent that when it was all finished we had nothing to do. Also there was the overrated Great Depression. It started in October of 1929 when due to reasons -- mostly stemming from overconfidence in the stock market and a lack of oversight -- that were not the fault of average Americans. Then, in 1933 or so the runs on the banks began. We had people starving thoughout the nation and a new president came in and did something. (I say he did something because that's all he promised to do, as opposed to Hoover who thought we should just leave shit alone.) Roosevelt wasn't willing to let people starve and be unhappy in order to let capitalists work out the kinks. I'll return to that point later.

There were several other breakdowns along the way all having to do with the idea of "too many eggs in one basket."

Now...here we are! Over a year ago I predicted that between July and September of 2008 the economy would crumble and the government would pump in astronomical amounts of money to try to fix it. HOLY SHIT I WAS RIGHT!!! Why? Because it's elementary capitalist theory.

TODAY's SITUATION
I'm not going to get into why this is happening. All of the things your are hearing on the radio have some element of truth. Last night I was able to see Naomi Klein speak about her book The Shock Doctrine. I was very impressed by her premise: basically, those in power use traumatizing events that put whole populations in a state of shock to advance their own prosperity whether that be money, power, or whatever else is thinkable. I do not disagree with her thesis, however, I do disagree with her limit. In the book she is speaking specifically of capitalists. The way I stated her thesis would include everyone in a position of power. In fact, I have recently been throwing around the idea of staring a socialist club on my campus because I know it would attract a lot of people at this period in time -- this would be using "the shock doctrine" to my advantage.

SO...
I've watched several interviews from Naomi Klein's website www.shockdoctrine.org and found that her primary problem, and this is true of all pundits, is that she is trying to place the blame on people. She certainly isn't shy about the fact that she is anti-capitalist, which is against a system, but she keeps trying to find someone to blame. If you look at the website a great example of this is her interview with Bill Maher.

What you will see in that interview/debate is that she ends up defending her theory against a man who is proposing that the American people, those who fucked up on their mortgages, are to blame. She steps into the position of blaming it ALL on the corporations and politicians, corruption and whatnot. I don't necessarily disagree with her, but my problem is that she is submitting to arguments that force her into that defensives posture when she needs to be attacking the very notion of capitalism. She finds herself in these interviews where sound bites are the key to success. She cannot present a coherent anti-capitalist agenda in thirty seconds -- nor can anyone else -- that breaks down people's deeply held, irrational beliefs. Of course if they were to read her book they might find themselves agreeing with her, but in reality more people are able to watch a small bit of TV than pick up a good book. And that is part of the problem!!

Who is to blame is not the question. Rather, it needs to be, what is to blame.

Capitalism does not value human life. As far as Naomi Klein goes, this is an unspoken theme that runs throughout her writing. What if she were to be so bold as to say that on the Colbert Report? Well, no one would understand her.

That was a digression.

Capitalism does not value anything other than profit. It is NOT sustainable. There cannot be infinite growth in a finite world. But, that is the narrative that we live by. Wealth can always be made. Everyone can get a "slice of the pie."

We are not only dealing with human life, but that of plants, of animals, of natural resources, of OUR ENTIRE PLANET -- the thing we rely on for our existence. Capitalism does nothing other than exploit the available resources. The only time it refrains is when it is stopped by either governments, individuals, or the total elimination of the needed resources. Primarily, capitalism does not value human life. People die every day because our society has been conditioned to think that profits are a necessity. We are using all of the world's resources to supply unnecessary goods to the masses, from which the profits benefit only a small elite. The animals that we need for nutrition, not to mention the fact that they provide fertilizer for the plants we need, are being killed off species by species.

On a purely human level, it does not make sense that people should have to work their ass off at a shitty job in order to PAY TO SURVIVE!!! We are not born into this world to suffer. We are born to exist. When the value of our existence is based on how many things we have, how big our house is, how much our net worth is, and how many chics we got to give us a blow job last weekend, we have something wrong. The worth of each and every one of us has been recreated to mean all of these things. IT'S NOT RIGHT!!

It's a manufactured existence! We need to reinvent how the market works. It needs to be run by those who it serves. It needs to be run for the benefit of those it serves. It does NOT need to be run by a select few who own the majority of the resources. We need to stop being giant fuckin' pussies and dancing around this "fine line" between capitalism and whatever-the-fuck-else. CIVILIZATION AS WE KNOW IT IS NOT SUSTAINABLE!!!!!

If you think Barak Obama is going to make a change, you're stupid as shit! When he starts talking his border-line socialist views and speaking the populist speak, that we need market regulation, then says "I've spoke with my financial advisers," (who just happen to be rich Wall St. fucks) he's just giving a little heads up to the financial community that they shouldn't believe what he's saying.

If you think John McCain is going to make a change, you're stupid as shit!

Oh, and fuck Ron Paul too!!

Your life has been run by a storyline that submits the results of your life to people who are looking out only for their pocket books. If you think that's ok, you're wrong.

Another Prediction
Let's assume Barak Obama wins the election. I, like many, would not be a bit surprised if someone tries to kill him. I would also not be surprised, if that were to happen, it would happen between election day and inauguration day. Also, having written that, I would not be surprised if the FBI or Secret Service puts me in jail.

Everywhere but here...

It seems that everywhere else in the world is involved in some kind of war, whether with a foreign power or and internal war. Iraq, Russia, Georgia, Columbia, Burma, Sri Lanka, India, China, Pakistan, Sudan, the Congo, Zimbabwe, Mexico, and the list can go on. All of these wars have to do with a conflict of powers. People are taking to the streets, blowing each other up. For what? Well, in the end that will be seen, but for now we can simply call it political leverage.

There are also other wars that are going on in place like Cambodia, Nepal, and even the United States. These are more silent wars -- wars against human trafficking -- no one is blowing things up. No one is shooting. In Louisiana, New Orleans to be specific, poor black folks who have owned their homes for generations after their ancestors worked as slaves for rich white folks. With Katrina they were damn near eliminated and are fighting to maintain what is theirs. It may not be in a desirable place, but it's home and it was attained litterally with blood, sweat, and tears. Their fight, as well as mine, is against racism that emanates from our social structure. In Cuba, the people suffer as a result of a nearly half-century long blockade against their government.

All of this is happening, but where we live we barely feel the effects. Why aren't there any bombs going off in the US? Why aren't people trying to forcefully eliminate those who are in power, maintaining the false legitimacy of government?

The problem is that our civilization as a whole does not value humanity. There are some who do, but the vast majority has been pacified by the perks of modern society -- a hot wife with nice new tits, the event of meeting celebrities and feeling like you too can be one someday, or simply the thought that if you don't live like everyone else you will be a complete outcast.

Maybe pacifism isn't a choice by those of us who may claim it, but a larger plot to encourage us to take peaceful, futile actions against those who wish to stay in control. Maybe we should be blowing shit up. Maybe someone should be out there blasting away at corrupt politicians. Everyone else is doing it. That's what happens in a revolution -- you kill those who are the opposing force. Maybe a revolution doesn't start with a huge violent movement, but rather with small, calculated actions.

Who knows.

But, it's sure fun to think about.

Pictures and Thoughts...I'll have more

You stand, for what seems like an eternity. If it's late it seems worse. Normally when you're underground it's cool, like in a basement. But not in the subways. It's hot, humid, and full of people you don't know. Aahhh! I love it!! The light comes around the bend like in a bad indi film. For some reason you doubted the train would come...but it did. ---the way the light appears in the dimness of the subway tunnels is and oddly comforting thing. It's nothing like I've experienced in other cities like DC, Boston, or Chicago where the ground blinks or an announcement happens when the train is arriving---I LOVE IT!



Here are some pictures of things. Some are of a view that I absolutely love in Central Park...others are of my neighborhood at night.



One side note that I'd like to add is about the buses. I've been riding the buses a lot lately. There are certain things you can do to get around without actually knowing what you're doing around here and that's what I've been doing. On the bus, a lady gets on with her kid. She can't quite get her shit together before the bus takes off. She hands her kid to some lady who is sitting in the seat right in front of her. She doesn't know the lady, nor does the kid, but the kid and the lady play until the mom gets settled. It could be a female thing, but it only seems to happen inthe "ghettoer" parts of town (among black/latino folk) so I am going to read more into that aspect. It's a weird sense of community on public transportation that I have never seen before in a big city. As with everything before, I LOVE IT!!

Harlem Journal

Below is a link to an article in today's New York Times about the neighborhood I'm living in. It's kind of funny to see first-hand the effects of the gentrification that's going on here. A few years ago I had a professor who is now the mayor of Santa Cruz. One day his classroom was covered in fliers calling him a "pro-gentrification" douche bag. I guess I just always assumed that most people like me are opponents of gentrification but a lot of white people that I've talked to here are very much for it. Considering this is the notorious Harlem I am on the side of making it a safer place and if that takes building expensive buildings, then go for it. But this guy, Ray, who works at the bakery down the road is having to find a new place in a cheaper part of town because he can no longer afford to stay here. He and his son have been living in a building in which many of the tenants are crack heads but he can't even afford to stay there. He loves the neighborhood because he grew up here and was here through the worst times of Harlem but can't stay anymore. He's going to have to move to a neighborhood that is less safe and will have to commute to his job which means he will be less available to his son or have to put in fewer hours so that he can maintain his close involvement in his son's life. It's interesting to see the bad side of this stuff being lived by people that I meet.

Anyway, here's the article.

That was quick

Less than an hour and a half ago it was super hot and humid. Now it's really cool outside and raining super hard. I just thought it was weird how fast it changed.

Poor people with no anus

There is a strong correlation between the amount of ice cream sold and a rise in crime rates. I had to read a short study about that for a research methods class last semester. Really, the amount of ice cream sold is directly related to the heat. And there is a decent causal relationship between the temperature and an increase in the crime rate. All of that to say that it is really really hot in New York right now -- in the upper 90s with really fucked up humidity.

As for the crime, i don't know.

I think I mentioned last time that I go to this coffee shop just to talk to people because no one ever really talks to you -- especially when you go into chain places like starbucks or staples. I bought some stuff at a small bodega by my house the other day and i was a buck short. The guy said I owe him. The next day I walked in to buy something else and paid him back his dollar and he was really impressed. He started talking to me. I've been buying lunch at this pizza place by my office for the last few days and today the guy wanted to give me a 'fist pound'... you know, like the terrorist signal the Obamas use. It's pretty insignificant but it's amazing how you can be surrounded by so many people and have zero interaction.

I went out with my roommates the other night. We went to a house party here in Harlem then migrated to mid-town among the yuppies, got kicked out of a bar that we fought our way in to. So, the next day I ran into one of the guys we were with on the street by his house. He came up to me and it threw me off because the only people that talk to me on the street are asking for change or cigarettes...since i wasn't expecting it, it was a really akward conversation.

Today I got the use the "You people?! Aah, I'm calling a house meeting y'all" line with some of the black folks that work in my office. They thought it was the funniest damn thing. We always make jokes about what white people and black people...usually one getting beaten by the cops the other not. One lady said "the day that shit is worth anything poor people will be born without an asshole." Good times.

Still no pictures. I was going to last Saturday but had to work for most of the day. It was cool though. I was in the south Bronx all day manifesting material on a bus and barbecuing. And, hanging out on their stoop...which is a New York poor people past time...it was neat. The people whose house it was at told me to come back whenever I want just to hang out and have food. It was just like Scotts Valley, except in one of the worst neighborhoods in the US instead.

That's it for now. Pictures soon, maybe.

Adjusting

I still haven't taken any pictures. There really hasn't been much time to come home, get my camera, then go out again...plus I hate looking like a tourist. But, in the meantime, here's a bit of what my life here is like.

It's musical. As I type, there's a group of teenagers walking down the road singing a really bad hip hop sing-along as if it were an irish bar song. Along those lines, people act in public as if it were the privacy of their own home. I used to just think that people who talk to themselves on the street are crazy...not so much. Here, you get the sense that the street is their home, although sometimes it does feel like a competition to see who can be the craziest. Since home is boring, there are no yards to be private in, and you can never get a moment alone, you might as well talk to yourself. It's kind of like the sidewalk or the subway is your living room.

Black people don't talk on their cellphones here the way they do in CA - the talk directly into the mic then hold the phone about a foot from your ear maneuver. Just an observation, no conjectures as to why.

I rarely see my roommates and that's kinda wierd; I always saw jon and mike. Although there are only three guys in our apartment, ours in the "home base." The guys/gals on level two and three all all really good friends with my roommates so they always come down to our place because of the TV and cable. I like that. But, no one ever wants to go out during the weeknight because they all work so late. I've been putting in nine hour day's but I start at 9:30 or 10 so it's not as intense as their 6 or 7 start time (that means they have to leave earlier). Hopefully this weekend some of them will be around to go places.

Work is pretty fun. I do menial shit. Mainly I've been put in charge of putting together the boxes and route packets for the various bus route leaders that will begin their journey's to McAllen, TX in a week or so. After a few days of bitch work they realized that I'm not an idiot so I have a few other things to do now. That's kinda nice. Unlike the construction work I do, I can't just see what I have to do and be on my own for a while...well, I do, but when my boss is giving me a task I have to anticipate later problems and ask for the solutions, so I disturb him as little as possible later. It's pretty intense right now with all the last minute problems being taken care of, which to me equals fun. Everyone in the office is really fun - that's it for that aspect.

Tonight after work i went to a place that has half price drinks every weeknight from 4-8. It also had an outdoor patio which is weird in my neck of the woods...ya know, 'cause you'll get shot. This place is on the Upper Westside. There is about a five block strip of Amsterdam that has a shitload of cool bars. I had a couple of drinks on the patio and just got to sit and watch people be weird. There was this old man who walked so slow (because of ailments, not like the crazy pink guy in santa cruz) that he was having significant conversations with people as he walked past the sidewalk seating. I also noticed a lot of Jewish folks - redundant I guess because, after all, it's New York. One super Jewish guy got caught by his wife as he was looking down the shirt of a hot Latina while walking by her table. That was awesome.

Hey! Do you know what the difference between a jewish baby and a normal white baby is?... The jewish baby is obviously jewish - that's not really a joke - they have jewish noses as infants.

Other than that I haven't explored much of NYC. Went to try to see David Sidaris (sp?) last night in Union Square, but it was a packed house. This weekend, if I'm not busy working I'll get to do touristy shit.

I feel that I am naturally an introvert, but this place makes me realize how moderately introverted I am. I find myself going to this particular coffee shop that's really close to my house on the way to and from work, only because the girls who work there are really nice and talk to me. It's not that GIRLS are talking to me, but that ANYONE is talking to me. I sit in there and just absorb the niceness.

New York - day One

I arrived in New York City today. So far, it's a pretty cool place. A little intimidating, but cool. Across the street is a pit bull locked behind a gate. I went outside earlier to go for a walk and saw this lady rubbing her ass in the dogs face. Suddenly she decided that she wanted to piss on the dog. Down went the pants and out came the pee.

I'll have pictures of the area when I get comfortable enough to take them.

I went to the Frederick Douglass in Southeast DC a few months ago and realized that I was the only white person. At the risk of sounding like a racist, that's a little scary. It's not the black people, it's the fact that when any one ethnicity (other than white folks) are concentrated in one area it tends to be a poor, crime prone area. Harlem isn't that bad, but it's pretty damn close.

There's a difference between nice/urban and nice/suburban. A row of shops that we would consider trash in Scotts Valley are welcome signs of economic prosperity here.

Fighting fire with wind...and crickets

I took a bunch of stuff to my dad's house this week. It was the longest that I've stayed in my hometown in a few years...I was there for three long days!

I show up to my dad's house on Wednesday and immediately got in a fight...with a fire. The wind was blowing like crazy. It was pretty fun. i haven't done something like that in a while. I the process all of the mice and squirrels and gophers that were running from the fire were going toward my dad's house and we all started stepping on them. it was kinda fucked up but kinda fun too. It was like that game at Chuckee Cheeses where you knock the gophers on the head with the bat.

I went to an old friends house...he's an older guy. He was having a little bible study which was pretty painful to sit through but the guys were funny. One of the guys just let 10,000 crickets into his school as a senior prank. At one point i mentioned this softball team we used to play with called the Pink Pounders. The kids started laughing because they didn't think we got the joke. Then, the guy that had been on the team was talking about how they would get drunk and balls would hit them in the head. It's true, I saw it once, but the guys couldn't stop laughing about the pink pounders and balls hitting foreheads. In that way it was an entertaining bible study.

Other than that I just did my best to make my fundi family realize how absurd their beliefs are. It's fun for me...not a fight anyone can win but it's still fun.

Hmmm...balls on head, pink pounders, crickets, gopher stomp, fire fighting, fundi fighting...over all the best time I've spent in my hometown since i've moved away, well, sober at least.

To be or not to be: what a gay ass question

So, I'm in this mood right now. Kind of a nostalgic thing. It's because I packed up most of my belongings into my car to take to my dad's house to store for the next year...since I wont be needing them. I guess I don't really need them anyway, considering I never use them...but books and things, you can't let those go.

Ok, that was a tangent.

There are things that I wish I could be, but am not. I wish I were a red head. I heard once that by 2050 there will be no fully redheaded people -- I'm talking genetically. I'm attracted to red-head chics, so it would be great to meet up with one and carry on the genes if I were a red head too.

I also wish I was black. Now, I don't try to act like a stereotypical black person. I don't listen to gansta rap either. But, I'm a pretty smart guy and I think it would be cool to be a smart black guy that makes something of himself. To break the mold. That's not to say that there aren't successful black men, in fact there are tons, but they aren't the majority or even the common perception of what black men are.

Being a woman would be pretty cool too. Well, with the exception of the warewolf effect that goes in cycles with the moon...or however that menstruation stuff works. Mostly though, for the same reason as I'd like to be a black dude. I'd break the "glass ceiling" and all that fun stuff -- but not like Hilary Clinton, I'd do it like a gentleman would.

There is the rare occasion that I wish I were a cancer patient. Only on my conditions though. I would go to the hospital and they would say that I only have a few months to live. I'd go do some things, break some bones, do a shit load of blow, and all kinds of other stuff. But, when I was finally too weak to be out of bed I would be laying in a hospital. President Bush would grant my last wish of meeting him...probably because of some guilt that he feels about killing all those boys and girls in Iraq. I'd pretend that I was too weak to talk loudly but that I had something really important to say. He'd lean in. Then, without warning I'd slap the shit out of him. Not only would that be awesome, but it would be cool to see a bunch of Secret Service agents beat up a bed ridden, cancer patient.

It's kind of a bummer being a normal white dude. I mean, sure there's the whole 'greater ability to succeed' thing. But, everything is pretty much handed to you. I didn't grow up in a wealthy family, barely even middle class. But, I go places and have done some crazy shit...but I'm just a white guy so who really cares.

If only I could be a red headed, black hermaphodite who gets diagnosed with terminal cancer -- oh how glorious it would be!

A Song - Oooh how artsy!

You're gonna sink wearing that heart of gold
You're holding fast son you better let it go
The weight of guilt son's gonna drag you down
You better let it go else you're gonna drown

A heavy cross'll make a brighter crown
You carried the burden now just set it down
The weight of guilt and a tired soul
Too great a weight to carry on your own

If you can bear no cross you can wear no crown

By Ben Nichols
Lucero

Aaaahhhhhh!

When I moved back to Santa Cruz in 2003 I started volunteering for Young Life. I also worked with the middle school ministry -- WyldLife. In 2004 I took over as the coordinator for WyldLife because the girl who was on staff left. In May of 2006 I went on staff. Last night, 1 May 2008, was my last club. I still have some office stuff to finish up in order to earn my monthly wage, but other than that I'm done!

It's one of the best feelings ever!!! Before I started with Young Life I was a volunteer leader for a church youth group in my home town. To sum it up, my entire adult life has been spent working with middle school kids in the realm of Christian ministry. So, my excitement about leaving staff and no longer even working with Young Life doesn't come without some apprehension. It's not that I'll miss the work but that I have apparently reached some big milestone.

I've never been too excited about preaching to kids but for some reason it was important to me for these kids to have some decent role model in their life. Not that I'm necessarily a great person, but I'm not their parents, I'm not their friends, I'm not their teacher, and I'm not a drug addict. I am something that falls in between all of those. I'm the guy that a kid can actually talk to and act normal around because there is no need to impress me, keep me happy, or stay out of trouble.

Over the years I decided that that aspect was more important than anything. And I still think that.

There is two aspects that I want to write about in reference to why I'm so happy about leaving: the Christian part and the "burn out" part.

CHRISTIAN: The short version of the section below is this: It's not that I don't believe in God anymore, it's just that I don't really give a FUCK!

When I first started working with YL I was attracted to the way they did the gospel thing. Later I would realize that this was a local thing as opposed to a YL in general thing. Then, YL was just about hanging out at Club (the weekly youth group aspect) and bowling or whatever other activities we would invite the kids along for. In a way, our goal was to just make the kids part of our life...like friends. From a Jesus standpoint I liked it because I thought that their way of talking about sin was different with the typical church -- i hated the church and I still do. What I mean by "the church" is the popular view of most Christians have about the relationship of God and Jesus and the people of the world...and then how the rules, traditions, and images that we must maintain fall into all of that bullshit.


When I went to camp with a group of kids the first time I learned that I hate alter calls. What I saw was the lemming effect: one kid (who may or may not have had a genuine God experience) proclaim that they found the Lord. Then another, then another, another, and so on and on. At some point you get the feeling that it's just an image thing...and the trap of Christianity begins.

A year or so later I decided that the formerly "progressive" (or so it seemed to me when I first bought into it) explanation of sin, as a separation from God and not necessarily the badness that we do, was complete shit. I have another explanation for sin and what I think a healthy relationship with God might look like...but I've posted about that before so I wont waste time here.

I also began to have a hard time figuring out how Christianity can make a damn bit of difference when a kid has been abused, is on drugs, is poor, can't read, has a bad home life in general, or any other shit that the kids have to deal with. On top of this, I couldn't understand why, when kids have to deal with so much, we would want to put all this pressure of living up to some institutionalized Christian standard.

But, I stuck with it for a long time because I still felt that it was important to be part of the lives of the kids and this was a great way to do it.

Eventually I completely changed the way we present the gospel to our middle school kids. Within a year or two so did a group in North Carolina, which led YL to issue THE NON-NEGOTIABLES OF YOUNG LIFE. This was a set way that the Gospel had to be presented - no ifs, ands, or buts about it! Before that I was on the verge of considering going off staff but that set it in stone.

There is no way that I'm going to work for an organization who claims the name of Christ as its leader and then does that kind of shit. Unfortunately there is no one way to understand the bible. If there was we'd be much better off. But YL was determined to make sure that people learned stuff their way. Their way of interpreting the gospel I find to have the potential of being harmful to anyone who isn't smart enough or jaded enough to think through shit for their self.


BURN OUT: The short version of this section, and it sounds a little bit boastful or something like that, is that I care too much and I don't want to do it for a while.

I've learned things about kids that nobody else knows about them. I've seen sides of kids that they never let anyone else see. They always have to put on some kind of front for their parents or their friends or whomever. The more I got to know kids, the more helpless and worthless I felt. What could I do?!? The kid that can't read, I can help. The most I could do for a kid whose home life is completely screwed up but not illegal, is be there for him to vent to -- yes that's important, but it's hard to know that's all you can do. According to YL I could also offer him God's love...how precious!

I have piercings, I don't dress like a square. When people look at me they probably don't think "oh, I would love for my kid to hang out with that guy." But, I'm a pretty nice guy...and I'm not a moron. Of course this following statement isn't always true, I think it's faily accurate: because of the fact that I'm not very refined, when people learn that I'm okay, they really like me. It's like they expect one thing and when they get another they are so excited that I'm one of the greatest people ever.

That leads in to this. I have got to know a ton of people. Some very well, others just kind of well. This is both parents and kids. I've observed things in families that a teacher, pastor, coach, or family friend don't get to observe. It's wierd! The more people I got to know and the more kids that got to know me, and I them, the more of their shit I had to deal with. My biggest character flaw is that I care too much for other people and not nearly enough for myself. I live with other people's pain. I think about it when I go to bed...it keeps me up.

I tried really hard to encourage my leaders to hang out with kids. Not everyone is cut out for it. But, when a kid couldn't get ahold of a leader they wanted to hang out with they'd call me. I generally have a lot of time to kill so I would hang out. Then I'd learn about them. I'd get to know their folks. And the same story continues.

Eventually you start to shut down. You can't stand to get to know more kids so you don't do much anymore. The kids who you wish you didn't know because they aren't the kind of person you generally like to hang out with are the next to go. Before you know it, the kids and families who you know the best and spend a lot of time with begin to get to you. You shut them out. What your left with is sitting at home. Wishing you could drink yourself into oblivion. But you still have to hang out because it's your job. Now, you're faking it. You realize that you're not being as sociable as you used to be so you force yourself to act like you used to.

Try to live that...it's gets old fast. It's not that I don't care anymore. I still lose sleep over other peoples' problems. I still meet new people and love every minute of it. But I'm tired.

.........................................

Basically, the story is this. What was once a turning point in my life became a thorn in my side. Because I don't care about the Christianity thing and don't find much importance for it, I want to distance myself from it. I don't want that to be the foundation for my relationship with the people I know and care about. It's as simple as this: I know the people I live around and they know me; they're fucked up and I'm fucked up -- and sometimes that's fine; we don't need to fix each other and we don't need to tell each other how to live; we just need to be there for each other with no strings attached. If not just because I know so many people, I will always work with kids in some way. I'll always care for people too much. But at least I won't be bound by the rules and expectations of a morally debased organization.


It's awesome!!!

The only thing I want to make sure of is that I don't simply react. That my relationships with people don't become based on the fact that I used to by tied down by YL and I now am not. I want to make sure that I am just Rob without YL...nothing more. I'm not sure if that makes sense to anyone who will read this, but it makes sense to me.

How do you feed the poor?

Do you give the poor fish, or teach them how to fish? Let's say it's going to be a government sponsored program. The taxpayers will say that you teach him how to fish so that he can provide for himself so he doesn't become dependant on our tax dollars. With this new skill though, he may find that he is an incredible fisherman and get all the fish so that there aren't enough for everyone. Then, if teaching people to fish ends up not working because of lack of resources, there must be a system to make sure that everyone has enough. It's liberty versus equality. If everyone is free to do what they want then not everyone will have an equal opportunity to provide for themselves. If you make sure that everyone has the proper resources to provide for themselves then you limit the liberty of people to do as they wish.

If we're talking about larger social problems like unemployment, lack of skills, and so on, where do you start? I would say with education, so you can give everyone a fairly equal start to then do what they can with their abilities. They can proceed into college, into a trade school, or choose to get into a job that requires little or no real training...like fast food. In my state, we're facing an across-the-board budget cut, which means that programs that are guaranteed a specific percentage of the budget, like education, will lose a ton of money. In my town we're looking at losing almost 1,000,000 dollars each year which translates to upwards of 30 teaching positions. This turns into a larger teacher/student classroom ratio. With kids who speak a first language other than english, this is going to mean less attention thus less success. For kids whose first language is english, this has several consequences; they range from less extra-curricular activites, to potential resentment of the ESL kids if they put this all together. If test scores become lower as a result of California's budget cuts there will be less federal funding. It's a downward spiral.

The only reason I write this is to get it out of my head. I just had a conversation with a guy and I took it to the point of questioning a bond measure that is going to raise money to build a new middle school - considering the financial state that our district is going to be I think this bond measure is a bad idea. I'm trying to develop a good argument against the bond measure so I can have a conherent conversation with people as to why I think it's a bad idea. And, that's why you just read this. Haha...thanks for wasting your time!

Thoughts on the world and politics

I've recently been wrapped up in developing an opinion about the conflict in Darfur. Of course on the face of things it seems like it is an aweful mess and should be stopped by force immediately. Well, that's not so simple, of course. As part of my learning of this issue, I've learned about another crisis that is going on in Africa. Sure, there is Kenya and Cameroon and all the civil unrest for political reasons in many countries, but I'm talking about the Congo. In the last decade, since 1997 (1) 5,000,000 people have died. That's holocaust scale death. So, I found it funny this morning when reading through the NY Times that there was a story about the Congo when there normally isn't. It was about how the logging industry might be endangering sea turtles. SEA TURTLES! ...FIVE MILLION PEOPLE! One of those is a more important issue...I'll let you guess which one.

Your current president is an amazing man. He criticized Barak Obama for wanting to develope relationships with the leaders of 'enemy states,' like Raul Castro. First, it's amazing that he could think that way when he encouraged Abbas and Olmert to have monthly meetings and their favorite pastime is blowing eachother's people up. If guys like that can find it in them to get together, I'm sure the leaders of our country can find it beneficial to talk with Castro. Not to mention, the policy in Cuba of not talking with their leader has obviously failed for the last 40 years.



(1) This is the year following the genocide in Rwanda. That whole thing was a convoluted cluster-fuck but part of what made that Congo thing erupt. Rwandi Tutsi began chasing Hutus who had fled to the Congo and it stirred up a whole mess of issues.

War games?

Something on NPR today got me thinking. A while ago China tested and anti-satelite missle. The other day the Bush administration announced that it had successfully shot down a failed military satelite. I'm not sure if we had already tested any anti-satelite missles yet. If not, was the case to shoot down this satelite last week just a way to make sure that we had the same capabilities as China? With that, is it possible that the whole "failed satelite" with dangerous liquids thing was just a front to be able to test this technology? I'm not into conspiracy stuff but this seems like something fun to look in to.

So, go reasearch this for me and figure it out.

Marxism and Christianity

---I didn't take the time to edit this for sequence, so ignore the fact that it may seem to wander---


A number of years ago I started re-evaluating my religious standing. Whether or not I believe in a god and so on. Eventually I stopped believing then came back around to it. Through this, however, I decided some things about what Jesus, God, and their other pal want the world (and their presence in it via their followers) to be like - nothing like it is now or really has ever been since...I guess only a few years after Dr. J had left the earth.

Reconciling this with my work, youth ministry, is not an easy thing to do. As ill informed as my thoughts may be, I do believe that they are accurate but no modern Christian wants to hear what I have to say because it turns everything around. So, I'm in the season now where I introduce Jesus to the kids. Last semester I introduced God. I didn't grant any credibility to the OT (creation story) being really true, but that was something to be understood in it.

Basically how I set it up was that God created us and had 3 things in mind. 1) Love 2) Community - he realized that one person wasn't enough so put another and said "Multiply". 3) Trust - when he set us loose in the 'garden' he pretty much said "everything here is yours...GO NUTS!" This comes into play as an atribute of God that we should emulate but have chosen not to.

The caveat was then that there was this tree. When we ate from that we basically took matters into our own hands. Instead of trusting him, we decided that we now know what is best, and would rely on our own judgement.

I made that point with a story (though admitedly not the intent of the parable) about a dad who asked one son to work in the field. The son said Ok but didn't work. Dad went to the other son and said go work and the son said no but later changed his mind. My point was that we get to make decisions and sometimes they end up good but sometimes they don't. Essentially, we create the reality that is around us by the things that we do.

So I come to the point of my talk tonight. I thought through that last point: Do we do things that create our reality or do the things that happen to us and things that surround us create our reality. Of course this is a neverending debate but I feel pretty secure in thinking that the former option is more true.

When I was thinking about this, I realized that it is basically Marx's idea of "mode of production", that the things that people do are what makes a society work, not that the society working (via trade, property rights, etc.) makes the people because ultimately we get to choose whether or not we partakein such things. This is definately oversimplified by the point stands.

Tonight I focused on the idea that what other people say don't matter - in terms of Jesus, people had a lot of different names for him but he really only chose two to describe himself as - so say the scriptures: Son of God and Son of Man. I wont get into why I think that is important here, but it is.

Next talk I'm going to talk about what Jesus did and how that effected the world around him.

Eventually I get to sin. What does sin look like here? We have effectively chosen to be our own God. By taking on the understanding the difference between good and evil we have set ourselves up to be the judges of the world around us. Sin, then, is the fact that we have taken our assumed responsibility and completely messed the world up. That the decisions we make as individuals translates into billions of people making similarly bad decisions and we have the world we have now. What we lack is knowing what truth looks like, so our judgement does us no good, only bad. Because by our nature we act as our own God thus choose our own truth and that truth is different for everyone so there is conflict. I don't buy into the typical Young Life (the organization I work for) notion that sin is a separation from God. Since God is supposed to be everywhere, he has given his gift to all people, and he apparently is involved in our everyday activites I don't see how this traditional approach to sin as an incurable separation really holds any weight.

So, this leads to Jesus how? Because he was sent to us as the Son of God (in the sense of "like father like son") in emulation of God, and the Son of Man (an instance in the human species - much like saying I am Ben Huffman's son and so is my brother and my other brother, so I am only a bit of my fathers collective SON), to show us a better way to use our "judgement", our knowledge of good and evil. By also emulating God and remembering that part of that is to trust - I guess, to trust He who actually knows how to use this distinction between good and evil properly.

It then comes back to us to make that decision to use his example wisely. And I think, this is how I will describe salvation. For example, in Matthew 19:28 (I think...it's in there somewhere) Jesus says that basically those who do what God wants will have a seat in Heaven next to the father. The arguement against this is that there is the part in the NT where it says that the wages of sin is death. I say to that, that the OT says that if you eat from the tree you will surely die. Obviously A and E didn't physically die, so it must be a spiritual death of some kind. From that I can assume that perhaps Paul is talking about a different death than physical too. Maybe even a different one of heaven versus hell. The death that Adam and Eve experienced was here on earth right? Being banished from the garden and having to deal with the consequences of trying to be their own gods. That is a death here on earth. I suppose that comes in the form of being unhappy, of the remorse over physical deaths, of going day to day without food, of experiencing loss, and so on.

As I type there are a thousand different things that pop in to my head as to why this approach also would not be attractive to kids. But that's not what it's really about for me. The truth is, I'm not scared for the kids' or anyones afterlife, so why do I really need to be concerned with whether or not they accept the gospel as I present it. What matters is that I present it the best way that I understand it to really be.

Some would say that I'm afraid of talking about sin because I don't want to hurt the kids' feelings. Though one who would make that claim would not believe me here, that's not an issue at all. It's that I truly don't think it's right. My thoughts and strategy here are much softer than traditional depictions of sin, but I don't think they are wrong. And I don't think that the traditional Sin is even an effective way to understanding what sin is...especially for these kids who don't have any grasp on the concept of consquences. It may seem at first glance that my approach is not dealing with those consequences that I speak of, those consequences that the kids don't understand. But on a closer look we see that we are presented with choices, those choices en masse create our shitty world, if we love God and trust God then we will do what is prescribed for us to do, otherwise our world will still be a shithole...granted, in the larger scheme of things it will still be a shithole, but in our more immediate surroundings we have the ability to create a "better world" so to speak, to create a better truth for our daily lives and those we encounter.

But I'm mandated by Young Life to present sin and other such religious abstractions in a very particular way. As the powers-that-be state, they are the Non-negotiables of Young Life. What this means, I do not really care.

For anyone who may read this, feel free to present me with counter arguements because it will help me work this out. Or even feedback on how to make it better. At this point I'm pretty set in this thought process. I'm really more concerned with how to present my talks in a way that the kids will actually care to listen, so that they can hear a different approach to the God that they may have grown up with.

No Anti-lent this year! It's the real thing!!

So, this year I'm actually aware of lent in time to remember to do it. I didn't grow up observing lent but it seems like fun to quit doing something that I do more than necessary just to see if I can. So this year, complaining. For the next 46 days (counting the Sundays) I will not complain. So I'm getting it all out here so I can look back and remember what it is that I miss so much.

I hate people on the bus who talk on their cell phones. Most people that have the lack of courtesy that drives them to talk on their cell phone in a confined public space are the type of people that only have one or two functionaing brain cells - people that shouldn't breed. Like this lady that spends every Tuesday and Thursday on the ride home talking to two or three different people about here medical conditions. The one she tells her sob story and he hangs up on her. The other, she tells about how the other guy hung up and then gives that same guy the same sob story with the exact same vigor. The third person, she tells that she needs a ride from the bus stop because, well, she has a medical condition and it involves...what?... the same shit that she just got done telling the other two guys.

My women's US history professor spends the first half of class talking about her in-laws and parents. Where they live, their past, what kind of herbs they grow (not even kidding), and what their migratory habits are in their retirement years. Now, I like hearing about women and a whole different view on history, but she is missing alot of things in her analysis of the role of women and why they have always been viewed the way they have. Apparently it's open-minded to think that way, but thinking only that way and ignoring all of the other important stuff doesn't seem to be very open-minded.

People who turn left on roads without a turn lane drive me crazy - especially during rush hour! Go to a light, make a U turn, and save us all some time so that we don't have to wait behind you while the world revolves around you! On the subject of driving, why can people not look around and see driveways where cars are trying to get in and out of (from a left turn lane) when they are sitting at a stop light. Look around and observe that you might want to leave some room for poeple to get through.

Cubans! I want to go on the same trip that I went on last year to Cuba, but the people that Pastors for Peace is working with in Cuba cannot figure out the exact dates and what theme they want for the trip. Meanwhile, I'm deciding when I'm going to be able to go on my summer skate trip/camp that all of the high school guys I work with are looking forward to, and I can't plan my trip to Greece. Work more than 6 hours for once and maybe you'll get it figured out...seriously Cuban friends...I love your culture and country and sense of solidarity, but make a damn decision!

The Scotts Valley post office. their hours are 9-4:30. Times when people are at work or in my case school. How am I supposed to buy stamps when you guys are never open?! I have a non-profit to keep afloat. I need stamps but I have to go to class too.

In the afternoons at school, the bus that I need only runs every 2 hours. So, if I get out of class late or have to take care of some quick business I'm stuck at school for another 2 hours. This wouldn't be so bad if maybe I went to a school where there were real people. I cannot even begin to describe the people that I go to a university with, but they are completely retarded! Words like HELLA! "So I was at this party the other day, hella drunk, and mike comes up with his pants hella saggin, and he hella was wasted, and hella said, 'hey do you wanna get some hella good food with me?' And I was like O-M-G i'm hella down aaaeeeight!" Maybe that's why people are more than happy to spend an ass load of money on private schools, because the people that can afford that have at least somewhat high self-esteem and aren't inbreed.

And on the subject of breeding. My roommates and I should be the only people on earth who get to decided who gets to breed and who gets to drive.

Girls - If you think I'm cute (which I assume all girls do, especially hot ones), then talk to me. See, we live in a world where women want more of a role in this patriarichal world. While this is happening, men, like myself, are becoming more and more pansie (if I can use that word as a verb). This is mainly directed toward this hot girl in one of my history classes.

Back to driving, my roommate reminded me of people that drive in the rain with their headlights off. In CA it's a law that if your windsheild wipers are on then your lights have to be also. Why? Safety. So i hear someone talking on local radio one day about how she's never had trouble seeing people like this. I was on my way to work the other day and it was raining. There was a lady behind me who had her headlights off. She had her blinker on because she was about to make a left turn on a road with no turn lane. I had to stop suddenly...so did she. And then there was a noise. She got rearended. I understand that her having her headlights off had nothing to do with that, but I just thought that was a fun story to tell. Mainly because it was a very slight bump. Her stupid high school daughter had this look on her face like her entire world came crashing down around her because her eyeliner was about to run and she was gonna have to get out in the rain and her hair would get frizzy. It made me laugh and I went on to work.

And just when i thought I was out... I'm in a political thought class. As you may know, these classes are magnets for egos. This particular class has about 7 people who were always trying to prove how smart they were in classes I shared with them last semester. And of course, they make it a point to make sure that the professor knows how much they know. In reality they know nothing. I'm not saying I do...my mind doesn't think like that...not good for political theory. But what I do know is that Machiavelli is wrong, Hobbes is wrong, Paine is wrong, Rouseeau is wrong, and so on. There is no such thing as a perfect political theory. some parts of theories are right and most parts are wrong. But my point was that these guys only speak because they want other people to think they are smart. Now, I personally think I am pretty smart...in some ways. But I realize that I look like a complete jackass when I try to one-up people in class, so I refrain. Plus, we all want to get out of class earlier and the less you talk the shorter class may be.

I think I'll end with this... Christians. When we study various societies in history we come to understand that religion has been a tool of the elite. Like political theorists, they are part correct and mostly not. But especially when Christians do the kinds of things that the church today sees as important, they are undermining what God and his little buddy Jesus actually wanted. It is my belief that the Christian church is itself subverting the gospel of Jesus, which one would think would be the most important thing to them, for their own worldly gain.

I'm done. Have a good lent as I'm sure I will. I wonder if all of this lack of complaining is going to actually change the chemistry in my brain and I will forever be an optimist after this season of lent. Maybe it will be like a godly prozac.