Santa works for the Salvation Army

Because I've only been back in the states for about 4 years now, I'm still amused to come across the Salvation Army Santa’s ringing their bells on the streets or (much more happily) in the mall. The image is so culturally ubiquitous that renditions appear in the Simpsons, Family Guy, and Seinfeld, which is where I first saw them.

Originally known as the “Hallelujah Army,” the Salvation Army was first founded in 1867 by William Booth and ten followers. Since then the organization has ballooned to include programs for missing persons, adult rehabilitation, and Christmas Charity.

While the usual bell and bucket routine has been effective for more than a century, this year they’re doing something new. Attached to the usually bucket swinging tripod is a credit card reader. Yep, even the Salvation Army now accepts plastic, so you have NO EXCUSE.

Another innovation that’s been around a while is the Adopt an Angel program, and this year I participated. All you have to do is choose an angel from the tree at one of several locations (I went to NorthPark). You slip of paper will have a person’s name, age, and gender, and also a “need” and “wish.” This year I bought presents of a one year old girl who needed some warm clothes and a new toy. Bring your gifts, unwrapped, back to the same Salvation Army station and they will be safely delivered to your chosen child or adult. I had a great time shopping for this little girl, and I look forward to doing it again every year.

Comments

I have replied to two posts in Different Ideas' blog. One on the post "Modern Day Hitler" and the other on the post "Gay Marriage?"

I have also replied to Mrs. John Mayer's post "Sarah Palin: Queen of Controversy Re-Visited."

The Land Is Kind

For class we've been asked to pose and answer a question on a reading from William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways.

Q: Discuss the following passage:

"[John Smith] thought heaven and earth had never agreed better in framing a place for man. He said it best in four words, "The land is kind. Somewhere in America they should cast those words in bronze. Cast them big. THE LAND, MY FRIENDS, IS KIND" (389).

A: In this passage Miz Alice tells Heat-Moon the story of John Smith, the first white man to visit the Island. He named them after himself, the Smith Islands, and spoke of the rich variety of animal life.

I think the line "the land is kind" holds great significance for the whole novel. Heat-Moon spends a lot of time talking about nature and what it means to relate to nature, live in nature, use and misuse nature. He explores places where people still live much closer to nature, as is the case with the Hopi he meets, as well as Miz Alice.

But why "kind?" I don't know. It seems to be he has already struggled against nature when he is trapped in a snow storm, but he does survive: perhaps nature was forgiving. I think the theme of conflict - as in the oyster wars, the indian wars, his own internal conflict - may have something to do with this idea that the land is kind. Maybe it is we who are not.

Go-Bama!

Whoo hoo! It's about midnight, and of course Barack Obama has won the 2008 presidential election.

John McCain gave a gracious and respectful concession speach, saying that Barack Obama had accomplished something great for America. He thanked his supporters, but scolded his audience when they booed his former opponent. Senator McCain spoke of national unity, and loyalty to the new president-elect, and promised his allegiance and assistance in the years to come.

Listen to McCain's Concession Speach. Or, you can read a full transcript at NPR.

Barack Obama, president-elect, spoke of his former opponent's integrity and grit. He thanked his many supporters, and promised to remember that this victory was theirs, too. He thanked his wife and children, his campaign strategist, and various others. He spoke of a "united" states, a reference to the landmark key-note speach he gave at the DNC four years ago which helped catapult him onto the national stage.

He addressed not only American's, but all the people across the globe who were listening "huddled beside radios" and promised to usher in a "new era of American leadership." His tone was conciliatory, but even as he spoke of victory and celebration, he reminded us also that their is a lot of work ahead.

Obama spoke of the soldiers who would wake up tomorrow, still in Iraq and Afghanistan, and still fighting. He spoke of the economic crisis, of families trying to pay their bills, stay in their homes. And he told the story of a woman of 106, child of a slave, who yesterday voted for the first African American president of the United States. Finally, he spoke of "restoring prosperity" and reclaiming the American Dream.

Listen to Obama's Victory Speach. Or, you can read a full transcript at NPR.

Cash Covers "Hurt"

I was listening yesterday to one of my favourite covers of one of my favourite songs by one of my favourite bands: Johnny Cash covering Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" .

I've always loved Trent Reznor of NIN, as far as I'm concerned everything he touches turns to gold (musically speaking.) "Hurt," though popular, is an extermely anomalous piece for the Alt/Industrial band. The song is full of nuanced tonality and beautiful melodic lyricism. You can see immediately why the song appealed to Cash.

You can watch and listen to Nine Inch Nails perform "Hurt" on Youtube.

Trent Reznor's accompanying video is classic NIN: over the top and intentionally provocative, but not necessarily deeply meaningful. Still, he skillfully moves between volume extremes, at times almost whispering. The melody alternates between a haunting, minor scale accompanyment to the verses, and a satisfying major key for the simple, repetitive refrain.

Reznor himself is quoted as saying that the song means much more coming from Johnny Cash, and frankly I agree. In fact, listening to Cash you can hear the pain of regret in his voice, and see in his eyes both bitterness and nostalgia. The words seem appropriate for an aging musician with a storied past.

Click here to see Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt" on YouTube.

Cash's choice of acousitc guitar (Reznor has a recording in acoustic too, incidentally) and piano lends itself well to momentum of the piece; Reznor's pounding, repetitious chords are brought to life under Cash's sensitive musical touch. Cash, I think, exhibits greater asthetic sensibility when choosing how to move between loud and quiet: and where NIN's version tends to drag, his coaxes. He paces himself, thereby pulling the listener through the song as it ebbs and flows, compelling you forward to a rising crescendo. And when Cash, his voice pained, sings the line "If I could start again, a million miles away / I would keep myself... I would find a way" the crest falls smoothly into silence.

Re-Write: Two Weeks Left

I remember the last presidential election vividly.

I had just moved back to the U.S. and had just started my freshman year at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. The Red Sox had just won the World Series for the first time in 86 years. The movie Garden State came out that fall: The Shins and The Postal Service followed me everywhere I went.

Jon Stewart and his team at The Daily Show (almost none of whom are still on the cast now) were covering Indecision 2004.

It was my first year to vote.

Steph, my roommate, drove all the way home to New Jersey during early voting because she felt her vote would matter more down there. I crawled home on Monday after a four day Halloween bender at Hampshire College, and voted on Tuesday afternoon, in the miserable drizzling cold of a November in New England. Briefly, it seemed like we had a chance.

I remember staying up to watch the election with my roommate. There were election watching parties going on all over, but we opted out, largely because we both just had a feeling it wasn't going to go our way.

As soon as it was obvious Bush had been reelected, we just turned off the lights and lay there, talking about we felt excluded, pushed aside by all those big bossy red-states trying to impose their "values" on everyone else. I felt like I didn't belong in a country hijacked by stupid close-minded xenophobic religious nuts. I still feel that way some times.

But I refuse to let them ruin America for me. The truth is, I love this country for all the things they hate about it. I love Massachusetts and California for allowing gay-marriage. I love Colorado for decriminalising marijuana possession. And I'm thankful for organizations like the ACLU and Amnesty International and the NAACP who are working to keep America fair and safe for everyone.

And I mean everyone, even the people at the Yearning for Zion Ranch - even they have freedom of religious expression. Separation of Church and State, and limited government, is not just for me or people who holds views like mine, it's for everyone.

Two Weeks Left: A Reflection

I remember the last presidential election vividly. I had just moved back to the U.S. and had just started my freshman year at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts (and I still have trouble spelling it!) The Red Sox had just won the World Series for the first time in 86 years. The movie Garden State came out that fall, and the soundtrack was playing everywhere: The Smiths and The Shins and The Postal Service followed me everywhere I went. Jon Stewart and his team (almost none of whom are still on the cast now) were covering Indecision 2004, and it was my first year to vote.

They said "people are turning out in record numbers" and "young people are getting involved more than ever before." People talked about the winds of change, about making a difference.

I remember staying up to watch the election with my roommate. There were election watching parties going on all over, but we opted out, largely because we both just had a feeling it wasn't going to go our way. Steph, my roommate, had driven all the way home to New Jersey during early voting to vote in her home state because she felt her vote would matter more down there.

I had crawled home on Monday after a four day Halloween bender at Hampshire College, and voted on Tuesday afternoon, in the miserable drizzling cold of a November in New England.

As soon as it was obvious Bush had been reelected, we just turned off the lights and lay there, talking about we felt excluded, pushed aside by all those big bossy red-states trying to impose their "values" on everyone else.

Three weeks later, when Thanksgiving rolled around, I just couldn't bring myself to stay in the U.S., the idea of a national holiday just depressed me, so I went to Canada. I was so dissolusioned. I felt like I didn't belong in this country. That I had nothing in common with a country that has been hijacked by stupid close-minded xenophobic religious nuts. I still feel that way some times.

But I refuse to let them ruin America for me. The truth is, I love this country for all the things they hate about it. I love Massachusetts and California for allowing gay-marriage. I love Colorado for decriminalising marijuana possession. And I'm thankful for organizations like the ACLU and Amnesty International and the NAACP who are working to keep America fair and safe for everyone.

SNL: Laughing all the way to the polls

NBC's Saturday Night Live has recently upped the ante of their political satire with some of the best impersonations and timely sketches since the 2000 elections.

Our generation grew up watching Darrell Hammond do a dead-on Bill Clinton, and lucky for him he's got another potential (is that too generous at this point?) president to spoof. Hammond has been doing a pretty good John McCain recently; my only qualm is that he hasn't really gotten down that creepy grimace yet.

Meanwhile Fred Armison, (who incidentally is also the go-to guy to play the likes of Steve Jobs and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) has been doing a bang-up job at playing Barack Obama. From his profesorial pauses, his nervous tic "well, look," to his upward intonation - Armison's got it down.

Watch: First Debate on Hulu.com

Tina Fey, first female head-writer for SNL and star of NBC's 30 Rock has returned to the sketch scene to play Sarah Palin, a character she debuted alongside Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton.

Watch: If Only I Had Wanted It More... on Hulu.com

So acurate and popular has been Tina Fey's Sarah Palin that the real Sarah Palin actually joined the show last week for two brief appearances.

Watch: Moose Killa on Hulu.com

Personally I think this is SNL at it's best.

VP Debate

The vice-presidential debate took place this evening.

Un-Popular Psychology

I've already outlined my misgivings about this bail-out package, but there is one thing I haven't mentioned. If you put aside all the technicalities there is still the matter of the psychology of the economy.

Over and over I have heard that the ultimate goal of this bail-out operation in to "restore confidence in the market."

That means the project has the potential to be merely symbolic. This was the argument for passing it right away in it's original form: that it doesn't matter what the package contains, so long as it appears to be a big move that will "restore confidence."

But the market psychology is the sum of a nation of individuals. And right now, those individuals are protesting, and not embracing this operation with open arms.

So answer me this, can congress confidently say that this bitter medicine will restore confidence if the people to whom confidence is being restored don't want it?

I think whatever congress passes will have to make at least one large noticeable difference to prove its efficacy. Otherwise I'm afraid the market will remain sceptical. I know I will.

If you like what you're reading

Take a look at this guys blog: Interdisciplinary World.

Obama, McCain Debate

I anticipate adding an entry here, but in the mean time here is the NPR summary of the first presidential debate for anyone who missed watching it tonight.

It's the Economy, Dumbass

Unless you’ve spent the last year lost in the arctic wilderness, or comatose, you will have probably followed the gradually mounting economic turmoil in New York and around the country. If you missed it, though, President Bush gave a completely useless Presidential Address, apparently aimed at the nation’s sixth-graders, telling the story of how we got to where we are now and announcing that something must be done. And then he walked off stage.

Notably missing from his address were answers to everyone’s most pressing questions: How much power will be conferred to the position of Treasury Secretary (an appointed position), and will there be oversight? Is buying bad debt really the only option? What will this do the national deficit in the long term? Will there be salary caps on CEO pay? How will this benefit ordinary Americans?

Yesterday, talks at the White House (which hopefully addressed some of the above concerns, amoung others) ended with no decisions, although Mr. Bush optimistically predicts that a deal will be passed anyway.

And then we went to sleep last night to news that JPMorgan Chase plans to purchase Washington Mutual after the FDIC seized it, just another in a growing list of failing banks and finance houses.

So, perhaps the invisible hand needs… a hand.

Despite some opposition (though ironically not from anyone in the “conservative” republican party) most people have conceded that this is, in fact, true. But in what way ought we to intervene? $700 billion taxpayer dollars to buy bad debt and hand out huge severance packages (as the original package prohibited any caps on CEO pay) is not, in my opinion, the way to go. And what about those unanswered questions?

According to the original package, Treasury Secretary Paulson would be given complete control over the bail-out package, and his actions would be “unreviewable.” You read it right, unreviewable. Apparently this administration learned a lesson from the failure of Alberto Gonzales’ “un-recall-able” tact.

And no, buying bad debt is not the only option. Thankfully congress is already planning on buying preferred stock in troubled companies, which can later be sold after the crisis abates. Another option is to take potentially bad assets as collateral against government loans. Companies are still obliged to pay back the loans, but it is they, and not the taxpayer, who is left holding the bag if/when those assets fail.

Still, a lump-sum bail-out would instantly multiply the national deficit, further endangering the value of our currency, and make us increasingly vulnerable to the whims of Sovereign Wealth Funds.

How will this benefit ordinary Americans? Well, we’ll be able to keep buying things we can’t afford. But economic growth that depends too much on a credit market is not actual growth, it’s future growth. The numbers are not real today, they are anticipatory. That is why, in my opinion, a recession might be better in the long run. As with oil prices, less availability of credit will mean fewer people use credit, and honestly, maybe that’s a good thing.

For more on the economy, read WWV’s entry Financial Crisis.

Comments

I responded to Thyrston's post Reach for the Stars about choosing a major.

I also responded to WWV's (World Wide Viewer's) entry about gas prices. I recommend that anyone interested in what's going on in the economy today to read his blog, My Blog and Other Information.

Update

I posted a comment on Barry's blog entry about nationalized healthcare.

T. Boone Pickens has a Bone to Pick

T. Boone Pickens may not be the typical profile of an energy policy reformist, but like him or not, he is leading the way to the energy of the future; if only Americans would follow.

Pickens, born in 1928, heads the BP Capital Management (named for him, and unrelated to British Petroleum) and is ranked the 117th richest person in America. He is well known as a takeover giant, having orchestrated the purchase of a number of what he considered "undervalued" oil-and-gas companies in the 1980's. In short: he's an oil man. And he's also a politically active republican, providing support to the Swiftboat Vets, a group made infamous during the 2004 presidential campaign by their (unsubstanciated) claims against John Kerry regarding his service in Vietnam.

This election cycle he's putting his two cents in again, opposing the move toward off-shore drilling that was first advocated by the republicans and which the democrats have spinelessly conceeded to.

In July of this year, breaking with the republican party line, Pickens unveiled the Pickens Plan, a comphrehensive energy policy reform proposal encouraging the use of alternatives to oil. Amoung them: wind, clean(er) coal, and natural gas. The man and the plan are the cover story of the September issue of Texas Monthly. The author, Skip Hollandsworth, was on KERA's Think today, Sept 15th. To listen to a podcast of the show, go to Think and click There Will be Boone.

I'm glad to hear this man, a wealthy Texas oil-man no less, speaking sanely. I've heard democrats and republicans, pundits and analysts telling me that the problem is "we are too dependant on foreign oil. " But that is not problem. The problem is that was too dependant on oil. We should be investing in the energy of the future. Off-shore drilling would take a decade to contribute to our national reserve, and if we are still wholly dependant upon oil, no matter where it came from, in 2018, we will have been left so far in the dust there will be no hope to catch up with rest of the world.

Updates

I left a comment on CEC's blog regarding Sarah Palin's stance on sex-ed and abortion.

I also left a comment for Mrs. John Mayer regarding her post on the universality of sports.

Palin Pounds Back

Alaska governor Sarah Palin gave a land-mark address to the Republican National Convention tonight as the first ever female republican vice-presidential nominee. You may remember that there was once a female democratic VP nominee, Geraldine Ferraro, attached to the dismal failure that was the 1984 Walter Mondale ticket. As a woman I am at least a little pleased to see another woman who’s made it onto a national ticket. But that is as far as my loyalty to my gender goes. I did not support Hillary for president based on her gender either; I’m interested in the issues.

For me, it is a simple litmus test, and Palin doesn’t pass. I am a fiscal moderate, maybe even a fiscal conservative, but I am a staunch social liberal, and I vote on social issues. I will never vote for any candidate who is not pro-choice, and who does not support gay-marriage.

And Palin is more extreme than most: she even opposes abortion in the case of rape or incest, which are acceptable exceptions for most anti-abortionists. Her extremely right-wing stance on sex-ed, creationism, censorship, and global climate change are shocking. Read more at thinkprogress.org.

Moreover, her record as a “maverick,” which appears to have been a major selling point in her selection for VP, doesn’t hold up well to further scrutiny. On All Things Considered yesterday Elizabeth Arnold reports on her 20 months as governor of Alaska.

Never-the-less, you have to hand it to her: she delivered a knock out speech. Expectations were incredibly high given the continuous dribble of embarrassing revelations about her personal life, and she delivered. With sharp, dry wit and a comedic timing strangely reminiscent of Tiny Fey she delivered jab after jab at democratic her rivals Obama and Biden. Applause answered her as she slyly remarked that “this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state Senate.”

Peels of laughter rang out through the hall as she asked:

“But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed ... when the roar of the crowd fades away ... when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot — what exactly is our opponent's plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer is to make government bigger ... take more of your money ... give you more orders from Washington ... and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world.” (Official Transcipt )

Commentators on ABC called her “one tough cookie” as she left the stage, and they were right. If Obama wasn’t already regretting passing over Hillary Clinton as his VP/attack dog, he surely is regretting it now.

a new generation

There is something to be said for the freedom of an personal blog, to be sure, but I have decided against it none-the-less. I want to write about "the issues." So I plan to post links to podcasts of great NPR shows and other worthy sources (read: BBC rather than FOX) and write responses. Our local station, KERA 90.1, and NPR as a whole, have been a beacon to me in dark times; a clear, intelligent voice sounding through the fog of mass media. Let this be my tribute, then.