Pragmatism... not Idealism

After listening to more canadian music, I have come to the conclusion that the accordian is an obligatory part of any Canadian song. Also, the banjo hasn't been in that many songs lately so I take back my last post.

Man, what's up with the accordian and the banjo. They're coming back in alt music with a vengance. That's fine by me.

Again, I recomend checking out The Stars. I really like the video, but the sound quality is poor at MTV.com.

MP3

We played a game of hall tug-o-war tonight. That got old so some of the guys dragged me around the hall while I held the rope. Then I tried sitting in a trash can while the pulled me but I got stuck. I was hoping they could drag me around the quad but my fellow Rhos didn't seem to keen on that idear.

Read this post only if you care about politics and don't mind hearing a rant about GW and the Fed.

GDP figures are out, and they look good for GW's poll numbers and re-election chances. He's about the only one who will benefit though. Sure, a few more people will get jobs for a while, but chances are they'll get screwed in the end. People don't know jack about economics in this country. For example, I read a NYT article article wherein the reporter claimed that the California fires were good for the economy because spending will increase. What a freaking moron. Property was destroyed, people are spending large chunks of money to gain what they once had. Sure, GDP figures will go up, but what about the losses insurance companies are taking. Since costs are socialized in insurance, the damages will be spread out across policy holders who will in turn lose some of their income that they would have spent, saved with the intent of spending, or invested. The same goes with disaster relief aid. All taxpayers are having a chunk of their income taxed away and spent on something that probably won't benefit them. The fact of the matter is most everyone loses and society has lost over a billion dollars worth of wealth.

On to Bush (this ties into the GDP figures.) Sure, the economy has experienced a growth spurt. Is it sustainable? No. Will we be left worse of by the policies of his administration and the Federal Reserve? Yes. So the Fed decides to decrease interest rates and increase the money supply. What does this do? By making the interest rates lower than what they would have been if the free market were allowed to take reign, more people are going to borrow money than before. This means they'll take that money and spend it now on large purchases they likely would not have purchased before but will now because they can afford to finance it. So they go out and buy cars, houses, expand businesses, etc. The increase in spending increases GDP. Yeah, the economy is healthy again!

If you define being healthy as causing a surge in immediate that screws you over in the long run, then yes you are correct. However, we now have mal-investments. Their preferences have been artificially modified by the state. They bought things that wouldn’t have been very high on their value scales. This is too bad you may think. However, because demand patterns have been changed artificially, it necessarily follows that production patterns will change to meet those demands. So carpenters expand their businesses and buy more equipment. Car manufacturers buy more machinery to produce cars, etc. What happens when the fed decides to raise interest rates? What happens when people stop spending at such high rates and start paying back creditors? Eventually they’ll need to pay back creditors. People stop buying as many houses, cars, etc. Now, carpenters are left with unused equipment and car manufacturers with equipment that they still owe money on (Actually, they’d probably stop using their oldest equipment first but still we have an unproductive investment.) And now, to add to the injury, we have laborers who were hired to meet demand laid off or fired. Now they have skills they can’t use anymore. Now they have to find a job in another industry for less money since they don’t have the skills they would have accrued if the free market had forced them into a job with a higher chance of long term employment.

So point one is that the Fed’s short-sighted fiscal policy causing an artificial increase in spending that will lead in a decrease in spending later. However, it has also caused mal-investment and the inevitable bust portion of the business cycle. Or to be more brief, the fed is screwing us over.

Another way in which the GDP figures are deceiving are because they factor in government spending. Sure, the economy is helped out today by the purchase of more weapons. However, those weapons will need to be paid for by the taxpayer (assuming the gov. has heard of paying debt.) This leads to a decrease in income and a decrease in spending. At best we have a re-distribution of wealth. At worse, we have an act of legalized theft by the government and unsustainable patterns of production. A better example would be farm subsidies. We now have a super abundance of crops flooding the market because the least capable sellers are being kept in the market by government subsidies. This artificially high number of producers will produce an artificially high amount of goods which will lower the market price which will reduce the income of the farmer. Now we have goods people don’t want and many farmers and society are left the poorer. Why do I say this? People would have spent that money on other more urgent needs. They would then have something that would increase their perceived wealth and the patterns of production would be more sustainable.

Point number 2- Gov. spending is an inefficient use of private capital and their spending only hurts us. Or to be more brief, Bush is screwing us over.

So great! GDP went up 7.2%. That’s just a short term fix that will create more damaging long term problems. But that’s all Bush needs, a short term fix so he can get elected. I’m sure he thinks he’s helping. Of course, he just loves the short-term benefits. That’s all politics is, short-term solutions to problems. Most politicians just can’t seem to see beyond the next election.

I had new life tonight. My bible study didn't go to well. It was disjointed and repetitious and hard to apply to their lives. I just couldn't hit a flow. Dr. Smith sat in which def. didn't help take off the pressure. I kept hoping he wouldn't sit in my group but sure enough he did. The whole time I kept thinking he's probably tearing my message apart in his head, which only made things worse. The one on one time went extremely well. A new guy named Jose came so I talked with him. He was so open about everything, it was really refreshing. In 10 minutes I learned why he was there, a good chuck of his family history, and what his worries in life were. I wish I could have quality conversations like that more often. Apparently he's back in George Junior because he shot himself in the leg playing with a gun while high on X. He has a year and a half old boy back home (this kid didn't look older than 16!) His grandmother just recently passed away, the first death in the family he's ever had. He seems to be ashamed about his station in life. After his last stay in GJR, he prayed to God to help him through it. He went back home and went back to his old ways. This time through he feels like a hypocrite since he promised God he would live for him so he's stopped talking to God until recently. I didn't have any good advise or any real comforting words for him. I tried empathizing with him but all these boys have gone through more than I could ever imagine.

Man, those crazy canucks. I've been listening to the new Broken Social Scene album. It's pretty amazing. I wouldn't recomend it to most people since it's not too accesible. It's not too often I come across an album that makes me forget about analyzing it and just listen. As Dr. Rittenour would say if grooving is my end, this cd is my means. Every song is different. 15 talented artists contributed to the album so there's a lot of ideas floating around. Of course, it's not always a good thing to have a cd that goes so many different directions, but it works here.

Ok, that last post was idiotic, but I wouldn't blame other countries for thinking we're a threat. Bush has definitely polarized the political landscape. "You’re for us or you’re against us." That seems to be the message. Screw indifference. Never mind the fact that Sept. 11 isn't a matter of world security. It's a matter of US security. Do you really think Germany, Poland, Belgium, Denmark, etc. are really afraid that terrorists are going to come after them? In fact, by opposing the US’s Middle Eastern policies, the substantially reduce their risk of terrorist attack. And so what if other countries aren't so eager to waste resources fighting a war that's of little strategic concern to them. So what if other countries don't want to rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure we destroyed. Seriously, why would they want to? Humanitarian concerns? These countries of having enough economic and political problems of there own to occupy them. I mean, Europe has hardly any cash to give away. They need it all to support their cradle to grave health care programs. I guess what I mean is the US went in there with little support so our leaders should have figured other countries wouldn't want to clean up our mess.

Bush world tour, the world can hardly wait

My friends,
I must inform you all of a sinister threat from out "friends" up north. Free trade with those canucks threatens to take the jobs of hard working American fringe artists, particularly from Montreal. The specter Quebec nationalism for a 1/4 century, the city's political and economic uncertainty and cultural insecurity have created an area ripe for musical innovation. No longer should we allow the bombastic pop of the New Pornographers or the infectious riffs of Broken Social Scene. Now we have the stars trying to take jobs from hard working American artists. Nevermind a Silver Mt. Zion, Godspeed and Stars. Send money to the special interests in Washington, write your local congressman, tell them we need tariffs and import quotas. We can't let them destroy our music scene.

The kiss that brought it all down

I'm sure you all are familiar with "the kiss." You know, the touching moment when Madonna kissed Britney and Christina thus insuring they'd all go down together. Face it, no one really likes lesbian artists all that much. They become a circus show of sorts. To back up this statement, I would like to point back to the fates of Ellen and Rosie. Ellen came out, her ratings skyrocketed and then people got tired of the show and moved on. Rosie came out, enjoyed a surge in ratings, and then passed into oblivion (I hope, at least.) To be honest, I can't really think of one really popular lesbian that has enjoyed long-term success. I suppose you could point to Melissa Etheridge, but she only had two real hits that I know of and the only reason she’s still relevant today is because she went out with Anne Heche. Face it; no one wants to picture her singing “Come to my Window” to another woman.

My point is, If that little MTV publicity stunt that was supposed to act as a defibrillator pulling the careers of three doomed pop divas out of cardiac arrest, it ain’t happening. To conclude my case, look at the monstrosity know as the Madonna/Spears video “Me against the Music.” What a fitting title. What a fitting end to a career that’s left no one the better. The material mother in an attempt to salvage her dying career after the American Life debacle has hitched her fate to another falling star. What do you expect though, it’s not like the Strokes would have let her in their new video. Holy cow, I still cannot get past the title. Is she nuts? Well I don’t care. Lay out the blankets, grap your honey and look towards the sky, because this meteor shower is going to be great.

Old man winter, hurry up

Man, I can't get to sleep. That song is still running through my mind and I can't settle down. I know that sounds stupid, but I really like my music. I've been rethinking since this last semester started how I want to engage in relationships with people in my life. I'm sick of people being courteous and polite. I find it almost insulting. I want people to confront me, to challenge me. If you don't like something I did, come up to me and tell me. Life is too short for us to try being courteous. I want to get to know people, really know them. For much of my life, I tried to be as nice as possible to people. I'll still want to be, but I think I come of as cold sometimes when people ask me about my beliefs.

My new goals have become complete honesty and transparency in my relationships. What I would really like right now is to have a relationship with someone I'm completely comfortable with, a person who can tell me when she thinks I'm acting like an idiot or something. A person whose not scared away of the darker side of me.

I was watching MTV at 4am this morning when a realization hit me like an anvil while watching The Stars video "Elevator Love Letter." Here's a link to an online mp3. My generation is growing up! Gone are the days of sugary pop that would make you want to vomit if you consumed too much one sitting. We're finding ourselves. Actually we're probably realizing that we're not finding ourselves. We're asking more questions and becoming more sophisticated. In a day when bands like the strokes, hives, flaming lips, and wilco can get played on MTV, things in the music world are pretty exciting. Perhaps the best thing for my generation's music tastes was the recession. It seems like it always happens- the economy goes bad and music gets better. Reading new music reviews is so exciting. There's so much happening right now. There's so much innovation, I can't come close to following it all. I've been watching MTV a lot for the past 24 hours in an almost an academic fashion. Most of the programming is crap, but there is something happening. I'm not seeing the revolting over-sentimentality that we had during the late 90s. People realize the backstreet boys and n'sync were full of crap. The music's message still isnt overly positive but it is honest. But that's great; I don't want to listen to positive music. "I won't cry on roads that are paved by men who behave like they know where they're going." They're full of crap and I don't want to listen to them. Face it, we all have questions and doubts we don't tell anyone. Take the song that caused this revelation (I hope time proves me right.)


I'm so hard for a rich girl.
My heels are high, my eyes cast low
And I don't know how to love.
I get too tired after mid-day, lately.
I take it out on my good friends,
but the worst stays in or where would I begin?

My office glows all night long.
It's a nuclear show and the stars are gone.
Elevator, elevator, take me home.

I'm so hard for the rich girl,
her heels are high and my hopes so low,
'cause I don't know how to love.
I'll take her home after midnight
and if she likes, I'll tell her lies
of how we'll fall in love by the morning.
I don't think she'll know that I'm saying goodbye...

My office glows all night long
it's a nuclear show and the stars are gone.
Elevator, elevator, take me home.

Don't go. Say you'll stay.
Spend a lazy Sunday in my arms,
I won't take anything away

Sure, they're still lusting and fornicating, but they're dealing with it honestly and searching for answers. It seems like she’s saying that things aint doin it for her. She can find no joy in what is going on about her (eyes cast low.) She doesn’t know how to love. Why? She can’t even find herself. How the heck is someone supposed to love her for who she is when she doesn’t even know. Because of her distaste for life, she takes it out on her friends. They have no idea about the darker side of her. She wants to reveal herself, but where the heck would she start. Even things which universally represent hope for a brighter future (stars) have faded. Gone are the days of her youth when it seemed like anything was possible. She has become entrenched in life. She doesn't have options and all that stuff about her being able to do whatever she wants in life isnt true. I never figured MTV would have the cahones to play stuff like this. Hopefully they stick with it.

Dang it Stars! Im so hard for the ___ girl, she looks great when goofing around on campus, but she, like every other dang person in my life is so mysterious. I take it out on my friends but my dark side I try to hide from even myself. I dont want to tell her lies either, but how can you be honest with her when you dont even know yourself? Stuff like this makes me want to leap for joy that someone shares my confusion and cry from despair at the same time. Stuff like this is what keeps me up until 4 in the morning.

I went to bed last night around 5 am. I was then woken up three hours later by my nephew and so here I sit trying to convince him that there are little people in the speakers playing The Wrens for us. That's what I thought as a kid anyways.

I'm back in home in Medina. I came back and my Father and I had one of those rare conversations we don't get to have too often. We talked about what was going on at school and about my new major. We then got into quite a discussion about economics, which was pretty cool. He's pretty free market, which is always good. I like his policy when it comes to voting, even if it isn't too sophisticated. "Never ever vote for a new tax." By implication I think that would also include not voting for people that raise taxes. The only point of some disagreement we had (actually, I don't even know if we disagreed) was on the military. I don't think we need a cold war style military capable of fighting two major conflicts at any given time. That's a bit asinine. We really don't need to be fighting except when we are in immanent danger. Given this, I doubt we would need such a large military. Militaries are horrible investments. Sure, some people will get jobs by building submarines, but if regular Joes would have been able to keep their money, they could have invested it thereby increasing the wealth of society or purchased goods thereby increasing his psychic income and promoting investment in non-military sections of the economy.

Well, eventually I got to doing my laundry. As I was putting in a load, I overheard my Dad talking about keeping my Grandmother in a nursing home. This was news to me. Last thing I knew, she was still living at home. The conversation that ensued went something like this:
Me- What’s this about keeping grandma in a home, are they thinking about putting grandma in one?
Dad- No, she's still in the nursing home.
Me- What are you talking about?
Dad- Well I don’t think she’ll be able to go home in her condition.
Me- What condition might that be?
Dad- She hasn’t really been able to function well since the stroke.
Me- What stoke might that be?
Dad-The one she had last week
Me- What!?
Dad-You didn’t know?
Me- No!
Apparently my 98-year-old grandma had a major stroke last weekend and no one thought of telling me about it. Apparently they all assumed I was on the e-mailing list, She’s doing better. From what I could gather, she hasn’t been able to function to well since the stroke. She doesn’t seem to know who she is and has problems with math. She thinks she’s 78 and that she was born June 43rd. Granted, my family isn't the best at communicating but this is insane.

Tonight was my 2 hour radio show. 2 hours is a long time. Unfortunately, no one in the show is motivated enough to try and think of creative dialogue. I played some Modest Mouse, Flaming Lips, Yo La Tengo, Wilco, etc. None of this is music one might hear on the radio normally but that's why it's a college station. Unfortunately, a lot of the people on WSAJ aren't too adventuresome or experimental in their play lists, but who cares. Hopefully we'll be able to get on the roster next semester on the real station.

One cool thing happened to me yesterday. I was elected co-chair of promotions for extravaganza, my housing group's big event for the year. I was hoping to get the music chair but it didn't work out. I just can't stand to go to many of the dances around campus. I think back to the street dance especially. I was trying to dance with this one girl, but they were playing "Rock your Body" by Timberlake or something. She assumed I didn't want to dance because I wasn't into it, but I just couldn't dance to such a horrible song. I felt like knocking my head against the wall while they played "Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous" by Good Charlotte. What a terrible song. Hey, I don't want to hear rich people complain, but I don't want to hear some moronic kid that has more metal in his face than my old Plymouth Sundance had in its engine complain about people complaining. Shut your yapper you whiney punks. Your eight years behind the times. It's post-punk now, get with it. Even that genre seems to have run it's course for now. Don't give me this stuff about a post-grunge, punk revival. It already happened. Corporate bands like Good Charlotte, Sum 41 and their ilk were made to capitalize on it, that's how you know any innovation there is over. What the heck though, at least it's not Brittney Spears. Her career is almost over though. Every album she takes off a little bit more clothes. As one of my professors said, she can't go much further until her career has met its end.

Last night I should have been studying, but I decided it was about time some guys pull practical jokes on each other on my hall. I've been here for a couple months and nothing really funny has happened on the hall except the occasional showering which is actually pretty weak. I got some guys to paper a door with me. Basically, you cover a door with paper except at the top and stuff a bunch of balls of paper down the space in between the door so that when the guy opens his door in the morning, a bunch of paper falls in his room and he has to jump through the paper. Well, our paper wasn't big enough to stretch across the door and our tape wasn't strong enough to hold what paper we did have up. Unfortunately, the tape gave way after we had the door filled with balls so they all spilled out into the hallway. So we decided to shove them in the person's room really fast and run away. Well, I ran into the closest back suite (not mine) before the guy realized what was happening. However, I didn't think of how to get out without going through the hallway. Well, I eventually had to crawl out a window, jump across a 8 foot deep chasm to get to the sidewalk, climb up onto my roof and go through my suitemate's window. All in all it was pretty fun.

Oh, one cool thing happened to me today. I got the paper I turned in late to Dr. Ritenour back. I got a 94% which was technically impossible since I was supposed to get 10% knocked off the grade because it was late. Also, I took a test in his Public Policy class today, and it went fairly well. It was all essay and short answer. That's the first time I've had that since I've started at Grove City, and now I remember what I was missing. I hate multiple choice with a passion. If you ask me to explain something in my own words, generally I'll be able to. However, with multiple choice the meaning behind possible answers isn't always clear. Either way, I think I at least got a B on the test with a good chance at getting an A.

Oh, album of the day (ie, what I'm listening to right now) is Sigur Ros with �gaetis Byrjun.

Song/Album of the Day- Modest Mouse- The Moon and Antarctica

This past weekend was great. Paul was gone the entire time (that's not what made it great) kicking butt in a Taekwondo tournament in Orlando, Florida. Friday I went out to the cabin. There I carved a pumpkin for the first time in my life. It was interesting, but I don't get what the point of pumpkins are. Why do they exist? No one eats them except for the seeds. But sunflower seeds taste a lot better. I guess you can make pies out of them too if you were so inclined. It's seems like the only reason anyone grows them is so that people can scrape the junk out of them and make weird faces.

The next morning I hiked out to a natural bridge with some new friends. I tried exploring a cave there a little bit but quit after some spiders started crawling on me. I'm not fond of tight spaces anyhow. After I got out of the cave, we hiked down a steep hill to a little fast-moving creek. It was beautiful. The creek meandered through a rocky valley with a steep hill/cliff on one of it's sides. After I slipped into the river, the group decided to head back.
Since it's homecoming weekend, my housing group had a bunch of activities planned one of which being a trip to Dave and Busters in Pittsburgh. Luckily, I couldn't go. Apparently you have to be 21 to get in after 9 so you can consume mass quantities of their $4-5 a bottle beer. No thanks.
A bunch of New Lifers wanted to go to the corn maze and invited me. After a while, we got bored of randomly walking around and decided to have a little fun. We tried playing hide-and-go seek, but that didn't work out to well. We tried a game of tag with partners. The girls that were "it" chased my partner Matt and I for a while. We were sprinting down a row until we took a sharp turn. I had the inside corner so i turned and started running again. Matt didn't quite make it. When i turned, he got whipped around like the person on the end of crack the whip and went flying into the corn. I ran back to look for him, but he had flown about 10 feet into the corn. Once he got up, we were to busy laughing to remember we were being chased.
Once of the girls there lost her cell phone in the corn maze. I loaned her the headlamp I had and walked back to the cars to get a cell phone to call hers with. Thankfully, she found it. Unfortunately, her hair got caught in the headlamp. It took at least 40 minutes to get it out. Needless to say, it wasn't her night.
After further research, apparently people in the days of old actually ate pumpkins. It was a staple of the Native American diet. Supposedly they made mats out of the pumpkin innards. That’s what I need in my room, a good pumpkin mat.
Well, this was a long and uninteresting first real blog, but I'm not sure if I'm going to tell anyone I know about my new journal. I would rather have this be like a diary of sorts that complete strangers can read if they were of a mind to do so. Either way, I'm going to bed now.

huh? i am not a bum. i'm a jerk. i once had wealth, power, and the love of a beautiful woman. now i only have two things: my friends and my thermos. huh? my story? ok. it was never easy for me. i was born a poor black child...

watching the the jerk. huh? why don't i capitalize anything? i added that touch to be unique. unique people type in lower case.

I've decided to give into my conformist tendencies and become a "blogger" like everyone else. enjoy