The Singer Solution to World Poverty

My freshman year I was hanging out with my transition friends (the kids that you find the first week of school who you know aren't really well suited to you, but you hang out with them just the same because they're all you have for the time being.)
And this hippie girl was with us, and she got sbarro all over her face. Being the polite young woman that I was, I offered her a napkin.
Being the impolite young woman that she was, she made a face that I can hardly begin to describe, but it was somewhere inbetween disgusted, annoyed, and revolted.
"I don't believe in napkins." The sentence exited her mouth, rushed and urgent. I was astonished.
I wanted to say "Well I don't believe that pizza sauce was intended to be on your face, and I am holding in my hand the solution to this problem. Secondly, how is it that you can believe in a corporate pizza chain and not napkins? Thirdly, how can you not believe in napkins? What does that mean? I believe it exists...I'm holding it in my hand, it's here I can feel it."

What does this have to do with "The Singer Solution to World Poverty"? Absolutely nothing, it's true. But for some reason, reading it brought the story to mind, so here we are.

OK, I just reread it twice. (Which took alot of will power) and I really don't know what to say about this essay, besides the point that it could have ended alot earlier than it did.
It's like seeing the movie "Monster." phenomenal movie, really drove it's point home, I could barely make it through it, and I would rather never see it again. Although I encourage everyone to see it just once.
The thing is, we all get his point. It's one of those rude awakenings that everyone needs once in a while, but that doesn't make it enjoyable in the least.
I would like to see Peter Singers' home and see how comfortable it is. What kind of car he drives, how large his wardrobe is. Does he have a TV? How many channels does he get? Is his couch uncomfortable to sit on, if he even has one? Does he eat on tupperware or does he have fine china. Is his coffee chock o' nuts or Starbucks?

On Seeing England for the First Time

So when I think of Carribean Islanders, I do not think of bitterness and resentment and the assimilation of a culture during the colonial period.
I think of sunny beaches, cheerful dispositions, and good music.
So this essay was a real eye opener. Because the voice of the colonists is a voice that is rarely heard over the voice of the people doing the colonizing... if that makes sense. Jamaica Kincaid had a completely unique perspective that I had never even thought about before. And her point is so valid.
It's proposterous to try and instill the culture of England (where it's predominately cold, rainy, and grey) on the Carribean Island of Antigua (tropical climate, where they probably never would have come up with tea and crumpets to their life).

"But this breakfast business was Made in England like almost everything else that surrounded us, the exceptions being the sea, the sky, and the air we breathed."

Sadly, this is precisely what happened, but this isn't a travesty we hear about. We hear about people dying every day, we hear about North Korea's nuclear threats, and wars in Bahgdad, but when a Western Civilization assimilates an entire culture of people, no one seems to notice.

"I did not know then that this statement was part of a process that would result in my erasure, not my physical erasure, but my erasure all the same."

And the effect that it can have is stunning.

"England was to be our source of myth and the source from which we got our sense of reality, our sense of what was meaningful, our sense of what was meaningless, and much about our own lives and much about the very idea of us headed that last list."

Cultural Criticisms

This Essay is my nemesis.
Seriously. I have been brainstorming on this for so long and I've got nothing.
Let's take a moment to quote Stan Sollars, a man who day by day is becoming more and more of a hero to me.
"Somedays you get the bear. Somedays the bear gets you, but if it's one of those days where he's gonna get you, damn if you're not gonna take a peice of the sonuvabitch down with you."

He's so poignant.
So this is me taking a peice of the sonuvabitch down with me.

The only somewhat half decent idea I've had about this essay is my beef with the pressure our culture puts on recent college graduates, because I've seen so many of my friends fall victim to it, and suffer because of it.
But whatever could I mean?
What I mean is this.
Sherman came home two weekends ago and we started to talk about all of our friends who are getting married for the wrong reasons. Yes, there are a few that are going about it correctly and they will more than likely do very well (Tiffany! Jason!). But it really bothers me that I don't have enough fingers to count the number of couples who have gotten hitched but I have more than enough fingers to count the number of months that they've known eachother. It seems like they are succumbing to the unstated pressure of graduating college and the necessity for choosing some 'direction' towards something solid.
I'm all about impulse, but really, this is a life long commitment, or atleast it should be. This is a right that people are fighting for, gay america wants to get married too, and all of us straight folk are just sitting around abusing the privelage. Not many people seem to be taking the institution of marraige seriously anymore. It's not 'til death do us part' any more, its 'til we get sick of eachother and then we take advantage of the prenup.'
Come on.
Why can't we be more like geese? (I'll expand on this later).
Besides getting married, it seems like college graduates have a very limited number of options presented to them after they take off the cap and gown.
THE THREE GOOD OPTIONS
1. get a good job (good luck)
2. go to grad school (oooh yay, more loans!)
3. get married.

These three options give us some esteem from our elders to that they have something to brag about in the yearly christmas letter update that they send to relatives who only show up at weddings and funerals.

THE NOT SO COOL OPTIONS
1. Move back home to get an 'alright' job to save money to move somewhere else later, when really we all know you'll stay there.
2. Stay in your college town with your college job until you're either
a) a townie
b) you move somewhere else

These are the options where your parents sugar coat your actions and make it sound like you're being alot more accomplished than you are.
I know these letters, we get them every year.

I'd say that there's a token 1% of achievers out there who actually just GO and DO what they really want to. They're the ones who everyone else goes to visit and live vicariously through.

I find it strange that so many people my age were so eager to go out and explore and conquer when we were 18 and 19, but by the time that we're 22 and getting diplomas we get scared and rarely follow through with the dreams that we just spent alot of time, energy, and money chasing. The way I look at it, if you've spent the past four or five years hitting the books and studying a feild of work that you really want to get involved in, why not go for the gold?
Why do we feel this pressure? Why must our lives be chosen in our early twenties. Will someone please remind my generation that the odds are not in the favor of doing what you do in your first job forever?
Chasing what you really want isn't necessarilly going to be easy, you will more than likely have to start at the bottom of the totem pole and work your way up again, but the pay off of all of that hardwork I guarantee is 100% more satisfying than other options.
I think we're all just chicken shits.

"You just can't do anything right, can you?"

HOLY COW is a phrase that came to mind on this one. Debra Dickerson let it all out when she wrote "Who Shot Johnny". Throughout the peace there were some points that were so intense that I forgot to breathe.
I might be dramaticizing a bit, but she seriously gets her point across.
The shift segment is genius.

SEGMENT 1:
She just tells the story of her nephew being shot. The bitterness is alluded to, and she establishes her intellegence in the beginning, which is strategic. She is proud to be a Harvard Graduate, and she's not ashamed of being admitted through affirmative action.
The picture that she paints of Johnny is interesting also. She talks about him through contrast. She takes stereotypes and rebutes them. And plays on his strenghts, how he was never unconcious after being shot in the back, and how he never complains.
"Being black, male, and shot, he must apparently be involved with gangs or drugs. Probably both."
Law and Order doesn't help with this stereotype. Infact alot of TV shows that deal with crime don't. We draw conclusions based on our realm of knowledge, and alot of the kids that I know have never been shot. I've never even seen a gun outside of a bb gun, and even those scare me. But when I think of someone being shot at random, I automatically assume that there must be something bigger going on. I'm not going to lie, I would assume that something else had to have caused it, because who in their rational mind would shoot an innocent guy for jumping up and down and waving?
And she makes such a strong point, when she continues to rip apart the stereotype because of how much they disrepute her culture.
"We rarely wonder about or discuss the brother who shot him because we already know everything about him....he snatched my widowed mother's purse as she waited in predawn darkness for the bus to work and then broke into our house while she soldered on an assembly line....he kept us from sitting on our own front porch after dark and laid the foundation for our periodic bouts of self hating anger and raial embarrassment. He made our neighborhood a ghetto. He is the poster fool behind the maddening community knowledge that ther are still some black mothers who raise their daughters but merely love their sons."
WHOA.
That, my friends is a crescendo. Its effective because it is genuine, and it has been stifled for years, and her nephew getting shot was the final straw for Dickerson.
The shift to second person in the last few sentences is clutch. It leaves the reader feeling partially responsible for not voicing out against it as well, and it is directed at the shooter, and for everyone else who has made her feel this way over the course of her life and will continue to.

life

So. First things first.
I have a new computer, after a tremendously large cup of coffee attacked my last one. I'm trying to think of a name for this one.
But since my old computer died a ridiculously unexpected death, after some troubles earlier this summer, my entire music library was pretty much wiped. I'm in recuperation. I mourned my music library.
you have to understand, music is my life. And will be for a great while. There's a song for every occasion.
Sad: how about some feist? or some debussy? maybe even a little devendra?
Happy: What's going on cardigans? kings of convenience? lemon jelly? sufjan stevens?
melancholy: feist, good to see you. What's up tom waits, hanging out with rainer maria today?

So if you have enough free time to be reading this, feel free to make a contribution to my music library. Believe me, it would be appreciatted.

I came to the realization last night that I've successfully immersed myself in my music, school, and work. And hanging out with my friends. But that's pretty much what my life consists of.
I have no room for complaint.
Week to week I pretty much have life conquered:
Monday: class all day, harp lessons, work
Tuesday: laundry in the morning, class, work, bandpractice, workout
Wednesday: class all day, sometimes work, workout,LOST
Thursday: class in the morning, work, other band practice, Grey's Anatomy, workout
Friday: class, work, show
Saturday: work, show
Sunday: work, day to myself, sometimes church in indy

life is good. stable.
The thing about this is, as monotonous as that might appear, no day is the same. I've worked at the cup for over a year now, and not a single shift I have ever worked has been the same. And we have a really good crew now, and really good customers, so there's always something new. It keeps you on your toes. It's the same with shows. The ones this weekend could have been better, but it happens. It was still fun. And we're in the midst of writing new stuff. So, that's never a bad thing. And I love all of my classes.
and lord knows Lost and Grey's Anatomy are incredibly high quality.

yes.
more later, now class.

I went to Indianapolis yesterday.

Sarah and I went down to monument for circle and these were some of the results.

P.S: I played a show with my band last night in the Student Center ballroom, and it was amazing. Honestly, the best show we've ever played. It was fantastic. It felt great. No, it felt amazing.

Rewritten Paragraph

The ORIGINAL:
It took me forty awhile before I got there, and the apartment was a wreck.
There were beer cans all over the place. It was like a trash can. There were
cigarette butts spilling out of the ashtray and ashes were spread all over the
floor. From the living room, I went into the kitchen. There were more beer
cans. I wondered where my father was. His checkbook was open, but there were
only deposit/withdrawal slips. What had happened? I turned off the TV. I
looked around, at my father’s life.

My Version:
When I finally got to the apartment, I came to the harsh realization that it wasn't an apartment at all, it was a trash heap. The living room was decorated with countless beer cans, either empty or half-full, and full of cigarette butts. The smell of the place was putrid, but I slowly made my way into the kitchen, only to find more. The TV hummed with the background, probably left on for the sake of not feeling so alone than for entertainment. It was in here that I found his checkbook, his check-less check book, bearing only deposit and withdrawl slips. I couldn't help but wonder what had happened to make him live this way? Was this really my father's life?