red fuzzy jesus

SHINY WHITE PRIZES

I am officially a douche bag.  You may have thought I earned that title long ago but no, today it’s official.  I am sitting in a Starbucks on a Saturday morning drinking a grande iced mocha latte and typing on a laptop.  If only there were someone with me so I could make some contemptuous comment about music/art/film.

Last weekend I upgraded my life – hyperbole intended – with a new computer.  It’s a glossy, white Mac-book that I love.  My PC has been sputtering into old age (it’s almost 4!) for a few months now and I’ve wanted to switch from Mac to PC for even longer.  Something about those, “Hi, I’m a Mac, I’m a PC,” commercials pushed me over the edge (damn you, clever marketing!) and I set out to claim personally, I’m a Mac.  Of course if you’re going Mac hunting you want to bring an expert.  And I couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather go Mac’ing with than my good buddy Dave – the definitive expert on such things.  So last weekend I traveled down to DC and Dave and I found my baby; a little 13” Mac-book I named Tundra.

Not only did Dave help me pick out the new computer, he gave me good advice on options and helped me pick out additives like a slick black Mac bag and a lock to keep it from being swiped.  We’re adding more memory to make it faster and I’m still looking into ways to have internet access in more places. 

Needing a new computer wasn’t the only reason I made the switch.  My summer training to enter into the jungles of New York City’s public school system has been – shall we say – intense.  I teach a group of repeatedly failing, degenerate but lovable, true juvenile delinquent “students” in summer school during the day then take a full load of education classes at night.  In spite of the marathon-a-day schedule it’s really quite exhilarating.  But with the commute and gaps I found I wasn’t being very productive.  My new laptop allows me to write papers on the subway commute, plan lessons while I get lunch, and check my email while sitting in class. 

I like what I’m doing in spite of its drawbacks.  And when I focus this intently on something I enjoy I tend to neglect more mundane things in life.  I woke up this morning, fully rested for the first time in a while, and surveyed my life.  What happened to my bedroom?  Did I pay that bill? When was the last time I did laundry?  I’ve slipped into the worst of habits including eating out of vending machines and “forgetting” to go to the gym.  Being productive is so nice.  Can I blame Tundra for my Snickers bar sustenance? 

I’ve got to do a little catch up and clean up this weekend – starting with my intestines.  I’ve eaten more than anyone should but had few real meals.  So this Saturday and Sunday I am eating nothing but fruits and vegetables, drinking only water, and taking vitamins to get my body back on track.  I’m picking up and packing up my bedroom in preparation for an ill-timed move, and begrudgingly accepting that I look like a douche bag while I catch up on email, Vox, RedFuzzyJesus, e-bill pay, and other things Tundra is kind enough to help me with. 

Looking forward to August I can’t help feeling a little giddy.  I’m also anxious and anticipatory about the next few weeks even though they remain a bit of a mystery.  The blanks in my plans add to the giddiness.  I think I’m traveling to Amsterdam.  That’s the plan even though the last two weeks have been a mountain goat head-butting contest between my travel agent and me.  (Pretentious coffee shop question - Why is it so hard sometimes to get what you want?)  I’m moving but exactly when and how I haven’t figured out yet and I may be facing another storage unit and brief homeless period.  I’m starting a new job that has a lot of mysterious components including, among other things, how much I’ll get paid.  There are other little pepperings to add a little excitement.  I’m taking the entire month of August off from formal labor but in no way will it seem like a break.

In the midst of all these changes I feel myself becoming even more organized and streamlined.  I’m getting more done with less anxiety than ever before.   Finally having a laptop is part of that.  But it may be having some questionable side effects.  Case in point – while typing away this morning I noticed I was enjoying song after song here in Starbucks.  And impulsively I got up and bought the CD I had been enjoying.  That’s right people, not only am I sitting in a coffee shop working on a laptop, I now own a Starbucks sampler!  I need to snap this thing shut and head on home.   The wireless internet access is not going to help me locate my soul. 

WHY THE "DR." IS SICK

While I struggle to keep up with my crushing summer school schedule (a full semester of classes crammed into 4 weeks plus student teaching in the morning) I continue to borrow from a few other blogs.  Here's a post this week that explains a lot about James Dobson, the godfather of the current theocratic movement in America.  The author of the post pieced some facts about Dobson's childhood from stories he tells in his books.  This creates a rough sketch psychological profile that may explain why Dobson has made an empire out of using the government to regulate anything and everything having to do with sex. 

Most disturbing is the description of his mother beating him with her giant girdle.  Being beaten severely with any object for ordinary, childhood misbehavior is bound to screw you up.  But when the object used to whip you is your mother's underwear you start to get a clearer idea of why Dobson expouses such hatred toward gays and why he hates to see any sexual content in the media.  Poor man. 

You can read the full story here. 

10,000 SPOONS

(from AmericaBlog)
                  White House paying $100,000 salary to "Director of Lessons Learned"                   
                  by John in DC - 7/12/2006 11:25:00 AM                   
                  
                  Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) offers a few more lessons learned:

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the President said we continue to be wise about how we spend the people's money.

            "Then why are we paying over $100,000 for a 'White House Director of Lessons Learned'?

"Maybe I can save the taxpayers $100,000 by running through a few of the lessons this White House should have learned by now.

"Lesson 1: When the Army Chief of Staff and the Secretary of State say you are going to war without enough troops, you're going to war without enough troops.

"Lesson 2: When 8.8 billion dollars of reconstruction funding disappears from Iraq, and 2 billion dollars disappears from Katrina relief, it's time to demand a little accountability.

"Lesson 3: When you've 'turned the corner' in Iraq more times than Danica Patrick at the Indy 500, it means you are going in circles.

"Lesson 4: When the national weather service tells you a category 5 hurricane is heading for New Orleans, a category 5 hurricane is heading to New Orleans.

            "I would also ask the President why we're paying for two 'Ethics Advisors' and a 'Director of Fact Checking.'

            "They must be the only people in Washington who get more vacation time than the President.

            "Maybe the White House could consolidate these positions into a Director of Irony."

KEEPING CONNECTIONS

This entry is the first in my new Vox account.  Vox is a newer, shiner, snazzier version of Live Journal where I typically write about goings on in my life and post funny links.  It’s also the place where I can set up one ‘friends’ page and read similar posts by a large contingent of my friends; near and far.  But it’s more than that.  All of this is actually a lot more than just random postings and self-centered chattering.  It is one of the solutions technology offers for the growing problem of a lack of interconnectedness.

Apparently in contemporary society we have become quite fragmented.  Group identity means less and less.  Fewer people are marrying.  Social institutions that used to foster camaraderie among like minded people have become so compartmentalized, specialized and worst of all, bellicose that they no longer provide the bridges to others they once did. 

Where am I getting all this?  Well, for one, the latest General Social Survey has been in the news quite a bit and the results are quite disturbing; especially for my age group.  The GSS is a large Sociological (not political) study published once a generation in the American Journal of Sociology.  Since it was last published 19 years ago, America has become a lonely bunch of people.  On average, the number of people in which an adult felt s/he could confide has gone from 3 to just 2.  More surprising, a whopping 25% of respondents said that they have no one in their lives with whom they can discuss their problems or triumphs.  One fourth of the adult population in the United States has no one they feel they can have a real conversation.

A new segment of society is developing.  They are labeled “unrelated individuals.”  These are people who – as the title implies – aren’t connected at all with others.  They have no close friends or significant family ties.  They are unmarried and the highest level relationships they experience are coworkers.  And, since the last GSS, the number has jumped from 6% to 16% of the adult population.  And the problem is not uniquely American.  Comparable studies in The Netherlands and Hungary have produced similar results.  We are becoming a society of loners. 

The first book I read for a graduate school course was Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam.  I thought it was odd for this to be the first selection in a Political Science class because it didn’t have much to do with politics.  But, au contraire, it has everything to do with politics.  What is liberal democracy if not a social contract system where we all get together in a spirit of commonality and decide what rules will govern our lives?  Not surprisingly, the GSS correlates with other findings showing a sharp decline in altruism and political participation. 

Bowling Alone built an argument around the premise that people don’t join bowling leagues anymore.  Bowling leagues used to provide a social function where families and singles, the athletically inclined and the klutzes, and everyone else could get together, play a game, drink some beers, and feel like they were part of a group.  From the GSS survey, people my age (18-35-year-olds) don’t have as much of an interest in joining any group or another.  They go to work, because they have to, but they don’t sign up for bowling leagues.  I was fortunate that my group of friends in DC cemented a lot of connectedness via a hockey team but not everyone is that lucky.  The past twenty years have seen the end to the 9-to-5 work day and the forty-hour work week too making the growing number of people who only interact with coworkers sad but not surprising. 

Enter Live Journal… and MySpace, and Friendster, and Vox, and Typepad…  Are these the new bowling leagues?  Are these a new generation’s attempt to maintain some form of social connectedness while working long hours.  Add to that online gaming in which whole groups of friends can get together virtually and visit each other’s little towns or go slay a beast.  Robert Putnam backs his research on the breakdown of group behavior with solid research but Putnam is an older gentleman and something tells me he didn’t consider the value of a buddy list. 

I’m not so calloused that I think the funny picture posted on my LJ can substitute for a good hug or that a Google chat can replace a face-to-face conversation.  But a lot of the people I care the most about live in another state if not another country.  Whereas a pre-internet generation accepted the loss of friendships through adulthood due to distance I’m not giving in so easily.  My LJ friends page (and all the others) allow me to remain in someone’s life in real time even if I can only physically see them a couple times a year.  Not only that but they aid in reestablishing old friendships.  In the past few months I have found old high school pals to whom I had not spoken in almost a decade.  And with a few clicks of the mouse I’ve been able to have conversations that catch me up on their degrees, marriages, jobs, and overall changes. 

I think it’s sad that 25% of adults have no one close in their lives.  I think it’s more sad that 16% have no one at all.  To me that’s sick and symptomatic of something else seriously wrong in society that I can’t quite identify or describe.  At one level it is indicative of a great degree of personal sadness while at another there’s demonstrable evidence of political-civil-social fracturing and dysfunction.  It may require the diagnosis of future generations to explain how we as a people grew so far apart.  I’m also thankful that I have a lot of people in my life both on a day-to-day, in person basis and online. 

I get agitated sometimes when a friend goes too long without posting on LJ or, worse, cancels their account because it takes me out of the loop of their life.  I want to know how your job is going.  I want to see pictures of your kid.  I want to know it’s your birthday.  I don’t want to wake up one day and find I meet the criteria for unconnected or unrelated. So with that in mind I am simultaneously posting this first Vox entry on my webpage, RedFuzzyJesus, my LJ account, my MySpace account and Friendster.  And with that I hope more people buck the trends of personal isolationism and post, chat, email, call, get together, hug, and care, too.       

News stores on the GSS:
Good Friends Getting Harder to Find
http://www.health24.com/news/Mind_Psychology/1-930,36435.asp

Mediating Democracy: What Robert Putnam Wouldn’t Tell Us in Bowling Alone
http://www.epluribusmedia.org/columns/20060707gabbard.html

America’s New Lonliness Epidemic
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11018/BLI/misc/index.htm

Addresses for my various web outlets:

Livejournal      http://ediblemouse.livejournal.com/
MySpace      http://www.myspace.com/gabrielisthebestest
RedFuzzyJesus      www.redfuzzyjesus.com
Friendster      http://www.friendster.com/user.php?uid=1701334
And now, Vox     http://narwhal.vox.com/

LOSE/LOSE

Tomorrow, Wednesday July 5, the New York State Supreme Court will likely rule on same sex marriage.  I am a bit apprehensive because I anticipate a lose/lose situation. 

If the court rules in favor of same sex marriage like Massachusetts did two years ago it could send a strong message that banning gay marriage is a violation of the equal protection clauses in state constitutions.  And they’d be correct in that finding.  But, with the midterm elections around the corner that could be the gasoline necessary to turn a smoldering fire into a raging inferno.  The usual fear mongers will command their sheep to stampede the ballot boxes.  And they’ve already promised to push laws and state amendments banning not just gay marriage but gay adoption and, in one state, prohibitions against gay public school teachers and librarians; sort of a don’t ask, don’t tell policy for the state school system. 

As a matter of pure constitutional precedent and case law to me it is obvious that the state-sanctioned CIVIL (as opposed to religious) understanding of marriage should be gender-neutral like every other aspect of civil law.  No church or religious person should be forced to recognize, endorse, or attend any wedding they don’t want to.  But in terms of civil contract law people deserve the same rights and benefits regardless of their gender or sexual orientation.  This is an easy case to make to justices.

The challenge is not the basic interpretation of law but the political fallout.  It is so easy and popular right now to depict judges as super-governing elitists that overthrow the will of the people.  But that understanding of judicial review is just backwards.  Judges are always aware of the political climate in which they hand their decisions.  And Supreme Court justices in New York are aware that what they say in Albany can be manipulated by political opportunists in Alabama.  So, if we win, we lose.   

But that’s not to say I want them to rule against same-sex marriage in New York.  Even a strict, plain text reading of the law without accounting for issues of fairness still leaves the door open for gays to marry.  My concern is that the justices wouldn’t even use that door but will instead apply some sort of consensus-intention interpretation and make a legal argument that no state law ever meant for gays to be married.  If they do that, then it will set a dangerous precedent that could be cited in other state cases. 

Ideally in indigo New York you could have some sort of state referendum and accomplish gay marriage more politically than judiciously.  If they would just hold on I think they could get that passed in the state legislature if not through a ballot initiative.  Elliot Spitzer is running virtually uncontested in New York’s governor’s race and he has made it clear he supports marriage equality.  If we could just wait till after November when there would be no political fallout from an unpopular decision and we would have the people in power to make the Court’s decision unnecessary then that would be so much better.  But no matter how the Court decides tomorrow – if they decide at all – there is the potential for repercussions that outlast several election cycles. 

I’ve said before and I’ll keep saying it.  The hard data on public opinion and gay marriage is changing so rapidly it would be a statistical aberration if gay marriage doesn’t start becoming legal in the next decade or so.  Some Southern states may take awhile to come along but Alabama actually just overturned their state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage a couple years ago.  (It was passed during the civil rights movement as a panicked response to changing political mores.  Sound familiar?)  Although I support the role of courts ruling to protect the rights of minorities, in some cases, even when they’re right they’re wrong.  Considering this, there may be no way for us to win.   

PRESIDING LIBERTY

This Independence Day holiday weekend finds me with a lot of work.  In the fall I will begin teaching a class about the Constitution.  Fortunately the material I’m preparing includes many pertinent Independence Day themes.  I’m told my students will be far from constitutional scholars meaning, they won’t have the academic background to delve into the nuances of Constitutional Law.  Fine by me because most of the mechanics of government laid out by the Constitution are simple principles for any American to understand.  Each unit will begin with a question then look to the design of the founders for the answer.  The one I’m working on this July 4th is, “What is the difference between the President and a King.”

The easy answer to that question is that a king inherits his power while a president is elected.  But that answer is incomplete because it only covers how a president comes into power leaving out restrictions once he (or she!) already has it.  In a liberal democracy a president can only propose bills to Congress to pass and enforce the ones they do.  There are other, more complicated executive powers both formal and informal but none give the president universal latitude to do whatever he pleases like a king.  The president is restricted by the rights specified in the Constitution and the other two branches.

This week saw a sharp slap to the President’s governing philosophy.  In the post-911 panic that engulfed the country George W. Bush gorged on power.  In the name of protecting us from the ever present color coded threat Bush saw no reason to be limited by the rights of privacy.  Warrantless searches were not out of the question.  Detaining people indefinitely without charging them with a crime at Gitmo was somehow justified.  And holding military trials in which the accused did not need to be present, represented, or even see the evidence against them is A-okay in George Bush’s America.  In short, the president was acting like a king. 

July 4th can be really significant if you allow it to mean more than grilling out and fireworks.  What exactly is the United States of America?  How was it unique and novel at its inception and what makes it so special today?  A brief list would include many of the things the current President would rather circumvent.  In America the government can’t snoop around in your home, medical or banking records without a warrant.  You have to be present to defend yourself when put on trial.  And you’re free and innocent until you’re convicted of a crime. 

After the Supreme Court’s decision on Gitmo this week the usual chorus came out shrieking about how the judicial branch is a terrible thing.  They yelped in unison about how the President should be able to do whatever he wants to “keep us safe” no matter how unconstitutional.  And of course they cloister these rants in thickly layered “patriotic” speech.  These same people pushed the hardest they’ve ever pushed for a constitutional amendment to ban political speech in the form of flag burning.  One has to wonder if they sat in my class in the fall would they be able to answer, “What’s the difference between a president and a king?”

The same people cried equally loud about the New York Times revealing yet another invasion of privacy by the Bush administration.  They’ve been secretly tracking people’s bank accounts without warrants.  Few would disagree that the government has an interest in how terrorist groups are funded or how they’re spending that money so the usual argument about keeping us safe would seem to apply.  But if the President’s interests only involved keeping us safe from terrorists then he should have no problem getting court approval to get into people’s financial records or submit to Congressional oversight.  But he won’t agree to these limits.  Bush and his subordinates can’t stand the idea of the rest of the federal government and citizens knowing what they’re up to.  He would rather act like a king.

And again, the same people come out carping about the Times revealing this latest infringement of basic constitutional rights by the administration.  And Bush himself comes out swinging wanting the supposed free press to be charged with a crime as if we lived in the Soviet Union, or, as if he were a king.  But again, in America the press gets to investigate the President and not only is it their right, it’s their job to let we the people know what those in power are up to.  If the government is hopping mad because the press revealed something about them it’s a very good sign the news media is doing exactly what it should. 

Perhaps then an even more important question would be to ask, “What’s the difference between nationalism and patriotism?”  Nationalism is the irrational belief that your homeland is superior to all other nations because it happens to be the division of dirt on which you were born.  Patriotism involves more than pride in a piece of international real estate.  It includes an appreciation of certain principles like open dissent, trial by a jury of one’s peers, a free media, and yes, a judicial branch that checks the president’s power - preventing him from acting like a king. 

The President has a critical and seemingly impossible job of keeping us protected from those who hate us.  While he does this job it is our responsibility to ask who protects us from him.  It’s not enough to continually sound the alarm about foreign threats without really thinking about what it is we’re protecting.  We’re not just protecting a group of people or a place on a map.  We’re protecting the ideas that make America what it is.  The Supreme Court’s termination of Bush’s limitless power to undermine American principles restores my faith again in a system designed with checks and balances.  On its 230th birthday that system works as well as ever giving us this holiday weekend all the more reason to celebrate.  I can imagine there’s quite a bit of sulking going on at the White House as they too are reminded in America, we don’t have a king.