I miss this place

This is Spain. And I miss it. I miss the land. I miss the smells, the food bathed in olive oil, the cavernous museums lined in famous art, the beauty of the language, having conversations in spanish with random old men at train stations, watching my friend John pee right in the middle of the town, and the idiosyncratic nature of the spanish people. I think what I miss most, though, is Spain's slowness, their ability to sit back and enjoy life a bit. Maybe Spaniards see life from a vantage point that is impossible for those of us who move at constant break-neck speeds. Maybe we should all slow down a bit, open our eyes, observe, and actually try and understand what's around us.

A Few Shots

Amy and Matt
This weekend, Camille and I traveled to Mississippi to shoot Amy and Matt's wedding. I've placed some of my shots below.

She looked absolutely gorgeous, and I probably heard 50 different people remark about how happy they looked together. I would have to agree.

Big Blue Elephant

Need to clean the urinal....well just back this giant blue robotic elephant up to it, and she'll do the trick. She'll have your urinal shined up to a glistening white in a jiffy.

Materialism

Today in a very interesting NYTimes article, David Brooks discusses an article called, "“C. S. Lewis and the Star of Bethlehem,” by Michael Ward. Brooks comments that he has often looked longingly at this article on his desk as he has incessantly written concerning the presidential campaigns. He has felt thus because for him, the article offered an escape from the tunnel-like atmosphere of incessant campaign coverage into the mystical world of medieval thought. He says, "There’s something about obsessing about a campaign — or probably a legal case or a business deal — that doesn’t exactly arouse the imaginative faculties." "We tend to see economics and politics as the source of human motives, and then explain spirituality as their byproduct — as Barack Obama tried artlessly to do in San Francisco the other week. But in the Middle Ages, faith came first. The symbols, processions and services were vividly alive."

Brooks goes on to point out that in a world of business, politics, blackberries, and high speed internet, it's nice to stop for a moment and imagine that the our modern empty, black, and unfeeling universe is actually filled with, "creatures, symbols, and tales."

Though he finishes a bit weak with a kind of plea for more imagination in our technological and scientific world, his journey to the conclusion is well worth a second look. I agree that with the expansion of science, both in the areas of physics and biology, and in the area of economics and politics, we have tried to explain everything in terms of science. This is the legacy of materialism and the industrial revolution, and I will say with Schopenhauer that, "materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take into account himself."

Brooks writes, "The modern view disenchants the universe, Lewis argued, and tends to make it “all fact and no meaning.”" Materialism attempts to do just that, make everything fact. Lewis made no attempt to discredit the developments in the world of science, but what he did try and do was point out that if materialism is true and everything is just fact, life has no meaning.

In that case I believe we will all find ourselves in the position of Mr. Ramsey from Virgina Woolf's To The Lighthouse:
"It was his fate, his peculiarity, whether he wished it or not, to come out thus on a spit of land which the sea is slowly eating away, and there to stand, like a desolate sea bird, alone....and so to stand on his little ledge facing the dark of human ignorance, how we know nothing and the sea eats away the ground we stand on."

We all search for significance, for meaning beyond mere facts. Might that be because we were all imbued from the beginning with a desire that nothing on this earth can satisfy?

The Circus

I've continued to think quite a bit about the issue of identity (see my earlier post) and the things to which we look for validation. As I said before, we are voracious scavengers of sources for validation, and any particular person will search for any available platform onto which he can climb and claim superiority (even if subtly). The thought reminds me of Donald Miller's collection of essays called, "Searching for God Knows What," in which he recounts a story about a circus sideshow. He described a group of deformed and rare individuals who comprised the "freak show," and what I discovered as I read his telling story was that in this group of people, what gave them validation was being the "biggest freak." I read about a world that was inverted relative to my own, a world in which i would have been lowest on the totem pole because of my "normalness." Were I a person with a third arm and only one leg, I might have been given some due status. But as I am, I would be a nobody were I part of this group.

Doesn't this say something about us? That we'll use anything, be it a good education, a higher income, better looks, or a third arm in order to climb the social latter in front of us?

Maybe we should give up climbing.

Heart of Stone

This song by Preston Lovingood pretty much sums up how i feel right now, so i'll just put it down here:

"Kid"

When the throne of grace seems so far away,
when all I see is yesterday,
when I've forgotten how to pray,
create in me a song of faith.

When my cold heart is turned to stone,
and fear and doubt are all I know,
when all my scars become un-sewn,
my body aches for you alone.

Here's my heart Lord; I don't want it.
Here's my heart Lord; can you use it?
By your blood there's healing now.
By your blood there's no guilt now.
There's no guilt now.

When I am haunted by the future,
And I have no place to go,
When all my friends have cursed my name,
Come be this orphan's home.

Here's my heart Lord I don't want it,
Here's my life Lord can you use it?
By your blood there's healing now.
By your blood there's no guilt now.
There's no guilt now.

I know you are my Father,
You've called me a kid.
Fought and laughed with you for hours,
you are my closest friend.

I want to see you as a lover,
feel your heart beat once again
lay down with you in flowers
come and burn me with a kiss.

Absolution

So a while back I read this F. Scott Fitzgerald short story called, "Absolution." And then I wrote this poem in response to it. I don't know if its any good, but here it is. I also don't know if it will make any sense for those of you who haven't read the story. But o well; here it is anyway.

THINGS GO GLIMMERING

"When a lot of people get together
in the best places, things go glimmering."
Those bright blue eyes won't fill that
room with laughter and shiny stars.

You'll have to find that in another place,
because the brightness doesn't live here anymore,
But it'll find you, I promise, I promise!
if you'd just abandon the obscured version we invented.

You think you know where it hides,
beyond the wall of those cold tears of yours.
But you'll only find part of it there,
where they have lights "as big as stars."

Get rid of "the garnished front" and "conventional flag."
Get rid of it.
lay yourself down,
your private reservations.

Gotta get me one 'a these!

Just in case you find yourself in need of some privacy,
put your computer in one of these!

Guns! Guns! Guns!

According to the New York Times, many states are debating legislation that would make it more difficult for criminals and the mentally ill to obtain guns. Backers of the legislation argue that at the moment, the nation's instant check system doesn't include enough information to protect against these possibilities. I pray these bills pass!

At the same time, these pieces of legislation come at a time during which the N.R.A. is pushing legislation that would allow for weapons on college campuses and weapons in parking decks.

I'll be honest here... I don't know what to think. Citizens have the right to bear arms according to the second amendment. But pushing for legislation to allow guns on college campuses??? Whatever for? How could this possibly be a good idea? Does the N.R.A. really think that this sort of legislation will help anyone? Will there be less Virginia Tech incidents? I think not.

To quote comedian Eddie Izzard: "People always say that guns don't kill people; people kill people. Well....I think the gun helps."

What do you guys think???? I'm in serious need of some dialog on this one!

The Question

To ask the hard question is simple:
Asking at meeting
with the simple glance of acquaintance
To what these go
And how these do;
To ask the hard question is simple,
The simple act of the confused will.

But the answer
is hard and hard to remember:
..
..
-W.H. Auden

I think here Auden asks us to consider the simple social question and, at the same time, its simplicity and ridiculousness. "How are you doing?" "Where are you headed?" These are simple questions, four words each, and direct. But are they easy to answer? Auden says no, the answer isn't so simple. We hardly ever give the questions any real sort of answer, for they ask too much of us, ask us to dig too deep. Far better to keep with the social norms and give a simple and evasive white lie in response.

"And ghosts must do again
What gives them pain."

Bill Vaughan

"We learn something every day, and lots of times it's that what we learned the day before was wrong."

I wanna hear from you!!!

I want to lay down three facts, and then I want for you to take from them what you will. Then respond and let me know what you think. It’s a completely open forum. Say what you will.

1. Senators Obama and Clinton have both organized similar plans for how they will help homeowners who are struggling to make payments in the current financial crisis.

2. Last month, Senator McCain had this to say about the issue: "I have always been committed to the principle that it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers."

3. This month, after unveiling his new plan called HOME, which will allow borrowers struggling to make their payments get new more affordable mortgages, he had this to say, "Let me make it clear that in these challenging times, I am committed to using all the resources of this government and great nation to create opportunity and make sure that every deserving American has a good job and can achieve their American dream."

I would love to hear some ideas. What do you make of all this?

Higgs Boson (The God Particle)

Say you happened to be taking a walk through the French village of Crozet and you happened to have a rather large shovel with you. Say you then took your rather large shovel and decided to dig 300 feet down. What you'd find would be a giant tunnel 17 miles long, filled with the most advanced in scientific gadgetry, pipes, magnets, and sensors. If you walked around in this tunnel for a bit, you might look up and see this:That's a seven story tall detector called Atlas housed at CERN, the mysterious underground European laboratory (European Organization for Nuclear Research), and you'd be inside something called the Large Hadron Collider. Many towers like these (one weighing more than the Eiffel Tower), along with sensors like this,
will be used to examine the spray produced by collisions of hadron particles at almost the speed of light. Basically, they'll crash stuff together at high speeds and see what comes out.

Remember Einstein and his theory of relativity? Remember the new and baffling theory of the space time continuum (Back to the Future?), in which two events can never be said to be simultaneous? Remember that, "Matter bends space; space directs how matter moves. Light is both a particle and a wave. Energy and mass are inter- changeable?" Remember that matter is constructed by atoms, that atoms are made of protons neutrons and electrons, and that protons and neutrons are made of quarks and gluons? The interactions between these particles are what sensors like these will examine. They have spent upwards of 5-10 billion dollars in order to examine these relationships and discover the makeup of our physical world. And it won't be long until the largest particle accelerator in the world will be turned on.

If you think this stuff doesn't matter, realize that the computer you are using uses microprocessors that function because physicists discovered the relationships that govern the odd things we call quarks, that the internet, the very instrument you used to access this site was invented at CERN by Tim Berners-Lee, that these physical relationships govern your every move.

As magnets half the size of basketball courts guide particles around this 17 mile tunnel at almost the speed of light, one thing that scientists will be searching for is the so called Higgs boson particle (the God particle). What is this particle? Why look for it? Scientists want to answer the following questions:

"How does an infinitely dense universe become a vast and spacious one? And how is it filled with matter? In theory, as the early universe expanded, energy should have condensed into equal amounts of matter and antimatter, which would then have annihilated each other on contact, reverting to pure energy. On paper, the universe should be empty. But it's full of stars and planets and charming French villages and so on. The LHC experiments may help physicists understand our good fortune to be in a universe that grew with just enough more matter than antimatter." (National Geographic)

What is the Higgs boson?

"Most physicists believe that there must be a Higgs field that pervades all space; the Higgs particle would be the carrier of the field and would interact with other particles, sort of the way a Jedi knight in Star Wars is the carrier of the "force." The Higgs is a crucial part of the standard model of particle physics—but no one's ever found it. Different fundamental particles, he[particle physicist] says, are like a crowd of people running through mud. Some particles, like quarks, have big boots that get covered with lots of mud; others, like electrons, have little shoes that barely gather any mud at all. Photons don't wear shoes—they just glide over the top of the mud without picking any up. And the Higgs field is the mud." (National Geographic)

How fascinating are the relationships that take place within our very body, the physical properties that allow us to watch a good movie, enjoy a sweet kiss, or eat a good meal. Take a good look below the surface and the mundane becomes alive and beautiful. God created physical relationships that baffle us and should prompt us to worship. We have to build 10 billion dollar structures the size of the Eiffel Tower to delve into the smallest of physical components. Totally amazing and humbling.

What do you guys think about spending so much money and resources on endeavors like this?

Good Ole Mitch

"I like an escalator because an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporarily out of order sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience." - Mitch Hedberg

Who Am I??

Sidenote: I'm dropping the whole "my thoughts today are these thing."  It's lame.  Plus, its already apparent that these are my thoughts. 

On with it:  I had dinner this evening with a few friends, some lovely people that I really appreciate.  One topic that was constantly mentioned was the question of image, that is, how we appear to others.  When we're not around, do people wish we were? How do they perceive us? What do they really think?

In part, I think this is what drives almost everything we do.  We are constructing an image, be it false or real.  We work arduously to produce something everyone will like: our humor, our dress, our speech, our occupation, etc.  We are creating an identity, and we tweak this identity as parts of it are accepted by our peers and others rejected.  

This sort of thinking is everywhere, even in my management book.  I was studying for a test that I have tomorrow, and what I learned was that managing teams is so difficult because people often feel insignificant, rejected, or snubbed.  Their egos become damaged, and they become unproductive.  Their ability to function in society is dependent upon the acceptance or rejection of their constructed image.

I think that existence is a question of identity.  In what do you find your identity? Who or what do you look to for validation? Family? Intellectual ability? Your fraternity? Your ability to make people laugh? The fact that you make a great deal of money? The fact that you are one of the "free ones" who doesn't need money? Everyone must ask this question.

I don't think many of us (including myself) really like to expend too much effort in thinking about the real makeup of our identities.  If we were to think too hard, we might actually discover what we'd hoped we wouldn't: an identity grounded in things that don't last.

As much as I fight against Him, as much as I push Him away and try and form my identity on my own, He remains faithful.  He tells me who I am.  When I try and prove I'm somebody on my own terms and the crowd laughs, He's there in the back saying, "I'll always wait here for you."  He's real like nothing else; He doesn't fade away.

Political Language

My thoughts today are these:

Paul Krugman has suggested in his NYTimes article today that cheap food, like cheap oil, may be a thing of the past. He points out that the world financial crisis is a big deal and has affected quite a few people, but he also suggests that the world food crisis that has emerged as a result of rising costs is an even larger problem affecting a greater share of people.

I enjoyed the first half of his article, as he adroitly pieced together the litany of factors that have resulted in higher food prices, a problem for African families that spend more than half of their income every year on food.

Krugman describes the contributing factors: farm-supplying countries limits on exports to protect domestic consumers; the need for more grain to feed cows in order to meet growing demand for meat in expanding countries like China, oil prices, bad weather(climate change), and lastly, the "rise of the demon ethanol" and the use of subsidies to support the venture.

The problem arises when he takes part of the problem and makes it the whole problem. He says, "People are starving in Africa so that American politicians can court votes in farm states." Is that really fair? Are children in Africa starving because Argentinian politicians have yielded to consumer pressure? The answer is, in part, yes. But is the problem that simple? No.

This sort of language strikes me as particularly reductionist, and I think its indicative of a fairly prevalent problem: the tendency to reduce large and complicated problems into inculpatory political statements. (Take Barack's and Hilary's use of NAFTA for example, or the blaming of the Bush administration for the financial meltdown)

Of course farm subsidies are part of the problem here, but he's made it clear that there are many other contributing factors.

So why make grandiose statements about how children are starving in Africa because of the ways of Washington? Don't get me wrong. I'm not defending the use of farm subsidies for votes' sake (or at all for that matter), but what I am defending is our need to understand tough problems without reducing them down to simple "politicisms." (if i may invent a word here)

The Purse

My thoughts today are these:  

I recently read an article on The New Republic, and what was pointed out to me was an obvious discrepancy between the government's treatment of main street and wall street.  Think about your political positions, especially with respect to government funds.  Then try and explain to yourself how the government can justify the manner in which it uses its funds.  Why will it open its rather large purse to save the rich and powerful (a troubled Bear Stearns) but piously ignores the same difficult plight with respect to your average Joe?

We all have our particular political positions, but I think that whatever positions we hold should be consistent.  We can't say on the one hand that we'll support a politics that bails out rich firms like Bear Stearns as they run into trouble and turn around and quickly zip up the purse when ordinary citizens come running.  It's simply inconsistent.