Anyone have any interest in going to see any of these shows?
Broken Bells - Sun - 12/05 - 7.30 - Vic Theatre
The Black Keys - Thurs - 12/30 & Fri - 12/31 - 7.00 - Aragon Ballroom
The Decemberists - Fri - 2/04 - 7.30 - Riviera Theatre
Josh Ritter - Thu - 2/17 - 7.30 - Vic Theatre
Pete Yorn, Ben Kweller - Wed - 2/23 - 7.30 - Riviera Theatre
Girl Talk - Fri - 3/04 - 7.00 - Congress Theatre
Andrew Bird is already sold out.
11.18.2010
8.30.2010
8.18.2010
Addendum: In which Hedges is proven to be an Old Testament Prophet
Around the time that Hedges was publishing his book on war, the United States was invading Iraq. In 2003, after the invasion was complete, Hedges was asked to give the commencement address at Rockford College. In his speech, he strongly opposed the war and argued that it could never be a success. The crowd, in a paroxysm of patriotic furor, tried to boo him off stage. His mike was cut, and eventually two men rushed the platform. Although he was neither stoned nor burnt at the stake, he was forced out of his job at the New York Times in the aftermath of the incident.
8.17.2010
War is a force that gives us meaning
These days Chris Hedges is mostly writing about Gaza, but he cut his teeth in journalism as a war reporter in the bloody civil wars of Central America. In 2002 he published War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, a book that seeks to explain humankind’s predilection toward warfare. I would highly recommend this talk in which he summarizes the contents of the book, but to spare you the hour-long lecture, I would like to relate a few things from his talk that I thought were particularly remarkable.
In the first place, Hedges asserts that in our society war is pornography. He is unapologetic about the way that television images of war are fascinating and thrilling. Television news, in the interest of decency, shows war from such a distance that does not disgust us with its horrors, but instead titillates us with its power. Indeed, the sexual metaphor is the most fitting, as Hedges argues that the observance of modern warfare is almost always beautiful and erotic and violent, an indulgence in the lust of the eyes.
This very fact makes antiwar art conflicted. Even as they are put to use to attack war, images of war’s destructive power are perversely appealing. The enticing beauty of warfare is the reason that movies about war are so compelling, even if they are thematically opposed to violence. Hence, in their portrayal of warfare, antiwar films and documentaries contain within them the powerful seed of their opposite. As Hedges says, “The prurient fascination with violent death always overpowers the message.”
War engages the part of us that is self-destructive and destructive of others, and as we experience it, we come to depend upon it for relief. Hedges tells stories of both war correspondents and of soldiers who became addicted to war as if it were a drug. These people were often so changed by their experiences of war that they were unable to return to normal society and senselessly returned to areas of conflict. It is horrific how we can be intensely aware that war eats away at our humanity, but we continue to flirt with its release from the tedium of normalcy. “War is necrophilia,” Hedges claims.
Ultimately, Hedges seems to think that there is a component of the human being that is unable to turn away from the consideration of death. In The Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad calls this same desire "the fascination of the abomination." Again and again, humans look back toward the nothingness from where we came. Like the wife of Lot, we are unable to peal our eyes away from the spectacle of destruction.
In the first place, Hedges asserts that in our society war is pornography. He is unapologetic about the way that television images of war are fascinating and thrilling. Television news, in the interest of decency, shows war from such a distance that does not disgust us with its horrors, but instead titillates us with its power. Indeed, the sexual metaphor is the most fitting, as Hedges argues that the observance of modern warfare is almost always beautiful and erotic and violent, an indulgence in the lust of the eyes.
This very fact makes antiwar art conflicted. Even as they are put to use to attack war, images of war’s destructive power are perversely appealing. The enticing beauty of warfare is the reason that movies about war are so compelling, even if they are thematically opposed to violence. Hence, in their portrayal of warfare, antiwar films and documentaries contain within them the powerful seed of their opposite. As Hedges says, “The prurient fascination with violent death always overpowers the message.”
War engages the part of us that is self-destructive and destructive of others, and as we experience it, we come to depend upon it for relief. Hedges tells stories of both war correspondents and of soldiers who became addicted to war as if it were a drug. These people were often so changed by their experiences of war that they were unable to return to normal society and senselessly returned to areas of conflict. It is horrific how we can be intensely aware that war eats away at our humanity, but we continue to flirt with its release from the tedium of normalcy. “War is necrophilia,” Hedges claims.
Ultimately, Hedges seems to think that there is a component of the human being that is unable to turn away from the consideration of death. In The Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad calls this same desire "the fascination of the abomination." Again and again, humans look back toward the nothingness from where we came. Like the wife of Lot, we are unable to peal our eyes away from the spectacle of destruction.
6.18.2010
The Great Contemporary Terror is Anonymity
"But we no longer live in the modernist city, and our great fear is not submersion by the mass but isolation from the herd. Urbanization gave way to suburbanization, and with it the universal threat of loneliness. What technologies of transportation exacerbated -- we could live farther and farther apart -- technologies of communication redressed -- we could bring ourselves closer and closer together. Or at least, so we have imagined...But through the 70s and 80s, our isolation grew. Suburbs, sprawling ever farther, became exurbs. Families grew smaller or splintered apart, mothers left the home to work. The electronic hearth became the television in every room. Even in childhood, certainly in adolescence, we were each trapped inside our own cocoon...The child who grew up between the world wars as part of an extended family within a tight-knit urban community became the grandparent of a kid who sat alone in front of a big television, in a big house, on a big lot. We were lost in space."Under those circumstances, the Internet arrived as an incalculable blessing. We should never forget that. It has allowed isolated people to communicate with one another and marginalized people to find one another. The busy parent can stay in touch with far-flung friends. The gay teenager no longer has to feel like a freak. But as the Internet's dimensionality has grown, it has quickly become too much of a good thing. Ten years ago we were writing e-mail messages on desktop computers and transmitting them over dial-up connections. Now we are sending text messages on our cellphones, posting pictures on our Facebook pages, and following complete strangers on Twitter. A constant stream of mediated contact, virtual, notional, or simulated, keeps us wired in to the electronic hive -- though contact, or at least two-way contact, seems increasingly beside the point. The goal now, it seems, is simply to become known, to turn oneself into a sort of miniature celebrity. How many friends do I have on Facebook? How many people are reading my blog? How many Google hits does my name generate? Visibility secures our self-esteem, becoming a substitute, twice removed, for genuine connection. Not long ago, it was easy to feel lonely. Now, it is impossible to be alone."
"This is what the contemporary self wants. It wants to be recognized, wants to be connected: It wants to be visible. If not to the millions, on Survivor or Oprah, then to the hundreds, on Twitter or Facebook. This is the quality that validates us, this is how we become real to ourselves -- by being seen by others. The great contemporary terror is anonymity. If Lionel Trilling was right, if the property that grounded the self, in Romanticism, was sincerity, and in modernism it was authenticity, then in postmodernism it is visibility."
The End of Solitude, by William Deresiewicz
5.31.2010
Bucket List
Micah and I found out that it's possible to make t-shirts with spray paint. Hello, new activity of summer 2010.
5.04.2010
3.14.2010
As it turns out, it was just a clever ad for cigarettes.
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"According to Friendly, the journalist’s job is ‘to make the agony of decision-making so intense that you can only escape it by thinking.’ Given his view of the crucial role of the media within a functioning democracy, there was witness-bearing consistency in his decision to resign his position, in 1966, when network executives cancelled live broadcasts of testimony on the subject of Vietnam before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, opting instead to air sitcom reruns.
Like Rod Serling, Friendly believed that television was an almost unimaginably powerful tool for positive social change, but it also had to potential to become nothing more than a hi-tech totem pole of mass hypnosis that could serve the ends of multinational corporations and the nation-states that serve them, with airtime handed over to whatever forces will pay the most to colonize brainspace.”
Dark, The Gospel According to America
3.05.2010
Ken Ham takes aim at Calvin College
Ken Ham, the president of Answers in Genesis, has recently directed several attacks at Calvin College for its teaching of theistic evolution. He has also singled out other Christian schools, such as Point Loma Nazarene, in San Diego, and the BioLogos Foundation, founded by Francis Collins, for similar perspectives on evolution. Ham slams these organizations as promoting heresy, all while asking for donations so he can build more plastic dinosaurs.
Send Students to Calvin College to Be Indoctrinated in Evolution
Compromising Professor Receives Accolades from Secular World
State of the Nation 2 Address
Here is a one response:
Ham uniformed, embarassing
Send Students to Calvin College to Be Indoctrinated in Evolution
Compromising Professor Receives Accolades from Secular World
State of the Nation 2 Address
Here is a one response:
Ham uniformed, embarassing
2.27.2010
Non-Answers Part 1
| Questions My Son Asked Me, Answers I Never Gave Him Nancy Willard | |
| icantdotabs | 1. Do Gorillas have birthdays? Yes. Like the rainbow, they happen. Like the air, they are not observed. 2. Do butterflies make a noise? The wire in the butterfly's tongue hums gold. Some men hear butterflies even in winter. 3. Are they part of our family? They forgot us, who forgot how to fly. 4. Who tied my navel? Did God tie it? God made the thread: O man, live forever! Man made the knot: enough is enough. 5. If I drop my tooth in the telephone will it go through the wires and bite someone's ear? I have seen earlobes pierced by a tooth of steel. It loves what lasts. It does not love flesh. It leaves a ring of gold in the wound. 6. If I stand on my head will the sleep in my eye roll up into my head? Does the dream know its own father? Can bread go back to the field of its birth? 7. Can I eat a star? Yes, with the mouth of time that enjoys everything. 8. Could we Xerox the moon? This is the first commandment: I am the moon, thy moon. Thou shalt have no other moons before thee. 9. Who invented water? The hands of the air, that wanted to wash each other. 10. What happens at the end of numbers? I see three men running toward a field. At the edge of the tall grass, they turn into light. 11. Do the years ever run out? God said, I will break time's heart. Time ran down like an old phonograph. It lay flat as a carpet. At rest on its threads, I am learning to fly. |
2.12.2010
2.06.2010
Chase's View on Valentines Day
Valentine's Day: A Historical Approach
As Valentine's Day rapidly approaches, I yet again find myself drowning in the misery of this ridiculous holiday. The main reason for my disdain is the fact that this day FORCES innocent people, such as myself, to come up with creative, romantic plans that are supposed to convey feelings of adoration to a significant other (or a random person if you're that bold). Those of you who are reading this and are feeling a sense of betrayal to your glorious holiday may be saying, "Why, Chase is just lazy and he doesn't want to get off his butt and do anything." To those people I cry, "That's NOT true!" (Much like Coach Gundy of Oklahoma State University) My reasoning, as stated before, is that this day forces males (emphasis on males) to be romantic, while most of us go out of our way to be romantic once in a while anyway. For example, let's say a man buys a dozen roses this Valentine's Day for his girlfriend. Is she not expecting this? Is there not a little hint of, "I totally saw this coming?" in her voice when she says thank you? Now let's look at another setting. It's a Thursday night, much like any other Thursday night, when she hears a soft tap, tap, tapping on her door. As she opens the door she is greeted by a warm hug and a dozen roses by that special man in her life. Now I ask, "Is she not seven million times more surprised AND pleased by these flowers than the ones she got on Valentine's Day?" All I'm trying to say is that Valentine's Day is sucking out the romantic surprises that are so few in the minds of men, not to mention the money out of our wallets.
And now on to a second complaint that I have about this atrocity that is ever apparent in our lives. Why is Valentine's Day basically an extra birthday for every woman in the world? Why is it the men who have to be creative and romantic Valentine's Day in and Day out? Why have us men allowed this activity to go on for so long? Well, I have an answer for you and to explain, I will be taking us back through the annals of history...
According to Wikipedia (my favorite, and most accurate, historical archive), Valentine's Day was established in 496AD, which means that men have been subjected to this female tyranny for about, well, let's just say forever. As we fast forward through time, we stumble upon a social phenomenon known as The Women's Rights movement (in America), which really got noticed in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention, and finally achieved Women's Suffrage in 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment was put into action in the U.S. Constitution. By looking at this portion of our history, I realized that for the past ninety years, Valentine's Day (and its female disciples) has been forcing men all over America to break the law! By submitting to the norms set forth by the women in our lives, us men are completely ignoring the Nineteenth Amendment by not allowing women to have equal rights in the romantic creativity and planning that forms the foundation of Valentine's Day. Therefore I say let us stand up for Women's Rights and ban together and allow the women to plan this year's Valentine's Day and the next eighty-nine Valentine's Days to provide reparations for our insensitive acts over the past century! So I encourage you men who have stuck through this long-winded note to stay on that couch, play your video games, watch the Super Bowl, and mentally prepare for the Olympics while your women call for restaurant reservations, buy you a bacon bouquet, and clean your house out of the kindness and affection in their hearts!
Footnote: Do not be surprised if you see another note by me in the next week or so explaining how my life is going while I accept being single again, and most likely for the rest of my life.
And now on to a second complaint that I have about this atrocity that is ever apparent in our lives. Why is Valentine's Day basically an extra birthday for every woman in the world? Why is it the men who have to be creative and romantic Valentine's Day in and Day out? Why have us men allowed this activity to go on for so long? Well, I have an answer for you and to explain, I will be taking us back through the annals of history...
According to Wikipedia (my favorite, and most accurate, historical archive), Valentine's Day was established in 496AD, which means that men have been subjected to this female tyranny for about, well, let's just say forever. As we fast forward through time, we stumble upon a social phenomenon known as The Women's Rights movement (in America), which really got noticed in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention, and finally achieved Women's Suffrage in 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment was put into action in the U.S. Constitution. By looking at this portion of our history, I realized that for the past ninety years, Valentine's Day (and its female disciples) has been forcing men all over America to break the law! By submitting to the norms set forth by the women in our lives, us men are completely ignoring the Nineteenth Amendment by not allowing women to have equal rights in the romantic creativity and planning that forms the foundation of Valentine's Day. Therefore I say let us stand up for Women's Rights and ban together and allow the women to plan this year's Valentine's Day and the next eighty-nine Valentine's Days to provide reparations for our insensitive acts over the past century! So I encourage you men who have stuck through this long-winded note to stay on that couch, play your video games, watch the Super Bowl, and mentally prepare for the Olympics while your women call for restaurant reservations, buy you a bacon bouquet, and clean your house out of the kindness and affection in their hearts!
Footnote: Do not be surprised if you see another note by me in the next week or so explaining how my life is going while I accept being single again, and most likely for the rest of my life.
12.13.2009
11.23.2009
"Hand of Gaul"
Thierry Henry has always been a favorite of mine. Very classy "footballer" who I always felt was exciting to watch, and supportable in that he was not a dirtbag. Then Arsenal traded him to the Spaniards in Barcelona, and he thusly dropped off the face of the Earth as far as America is concerned because the USA is too stupid to appreciate any team aside from Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, and whoever is playing those three.
Lo and behold, yesterday I saw actual footage of a soccer game being played on CNN. The replay showed a "French soccer player" (according to the very female, American anchor) performing a blatant handball to set up a goal for France. Now the French are in the World Cup, and the Irish are out. This is quite the controversy in Europe, so I decided to check out the foreign news on it.
Great Scott! That's no mere Frenchman, that's Thierry Henry! By the beard of Zeus, the likes of Diego Maradona may resort to this sort of low-down skullduggery, but not my beloved Thierry...
Yet another reason to subscribe to satellite television.
Read the story
Lo and behold, yesterday I saw actual footage of a soccer game being played on CNN. The replay showed a "French soccer player" (according to the very female, American anchor) performing a blatant handball to set up a goal for France. Now the French are in the World Cup, and the Irish are out. This is quite the controversy in Europe, so I decided to check out the foreign news on it.
Great Scott! That's no mere Frenchman, that's Thierry Henry! By the beard of Zeus, the likes of Diego Maradona may resort to this sort of low-down skullduggery, but not my beloved Thierry...
Yet another reason to subscribe to satellite television.
Read the story
10.28.2009
Updated Hunting Tally
As most if not all of you know, I killed a 16 point buck on October 18, 2009. This is the latest in the body count of the 09'-10' season. This Saturday is opening weekend for ducks and geese so the kill count should begin to rise as we hopefully have a great year at Ackerman Outfitters.
10.05.2009
Organa's Record is Exemplary
Last week, Calvin's weekly student newspaper, The Chimes, filled up some whitespace with this facetious news brief:
Princess called to apologize for ‘hurtful’ comments
Leia Organa, candidate for Chief of State of the Rebel Alliance, came under fire Tuesday, once again accused of making “insensitive” and “elitist” comments.
Organa, formerly the princess of Alderaan, reportedly claimed that nerf herders were “stuck up,” “half-witted” and “scruffy-looking” in an offhand conversation with newly commissioned Rebel officer Capt. Han Solo.
“This just shows, once again, that Princess Leia is completely out of touch with the working classes,” said Taarek Bel’noor, president of the Fennessa Nerf Herding Council. “Her comments are especially hurtful, considering Alderaan was the birthplace of nerfs.”
This is the second major public relations snafu for Organa in the last week. On Sunday, the princess made an official visit to Kashyyyk and apologized to the Wookie ambassador for comparing his species to “walking carpet[s].”
According to the latest polls, Organa trails incumbent Mon Mothma by 14 percentage points.
In response, I wrote this letter to the editor. We'll see if it gets published.
Organa's Record Exemplary
I would like to express my deep displeasure at the underhanded mischaracterizations of Princess Leia Organa in last week's Chimes. In this time of galactic upheaval and uncertainty, Organa is providing the Rebellion with the visionary leadership that will bring liberty from the Empire's machinations. We all know the sacrifices that the Princess has made for the sake of her cause, giving up a life of privilege on Alderaan and her position as an Imperial Senator to fight in the trenches for the cause of freedom. In light of her track record, the Chimes' backhanded attack on the Princess is disgraceful in this time of crisis. Now is not the time to play petty semantic games, but to unite and work tirelessly for the overthrow of the Emperor's corrupt regime.
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