Our eternal Messiah complex

H.G. Wells on FDR:

[For] some months at least before and after his election as American President and the holding of the London Conference there was again a whispering hope in the world that a real “Man” had arisen, who would see simply and clearly, who would speak plainly to all mankind and liberate the world from the dire obsessions and ineptitudes under which it suffered and to which it seemed magically enslaved. ...

[...] Everywhere as the Conference drew near men were enquiring about this possible new leader for them. “Is this at last the Messiah we seek, or shall we look for another?”

Every bookshop in Europe proffered his newly published book of utterances, Looking Forward, to gauge what manner of mind they had to deal with. It proved rather disconcerting reading for their anxious minds. Plainly the man was firm, honest and amiable, as the frontispiece portrait with its clear frank eyes and large resolute face showed, but the text of the book was a politician’s text, saturated indeed with good will, seasoned with much vague modernity, but vague and wanting in intellectual grip. “He’s good,” they said, “but is this good enough?”

(Courtesy Andrew Sullivan)

We just really, really, really want Messiah's, huh. Or is it because we wish that we were Messiahs?

Seriously

Excerpt from Politico's "Ten Ways to Recoup the Bonuses":


4) Rescind the contracts: If the bonus recipients won’t renegotiate, simply withdraw the contracts under which they received the bonuses. “Every first-year law student learns that a court can invalidate a contract’s ‘unconscionable’ terms, rescind it or reform it,” James P. Tutill, a lecturer at the University of California-Berkeley law school blogged over the weekend. “If these bonus contracts benefiting the very people who have destroyed incalculable amounts of wealth in the pursuit of their own personal greed don’t warrant revision, rescission or reformation, then our legal system is seriously deficient."

(emphasis mine)

This will wake you up

There's nothing quite like the mother of all funk to get you out of bed in the morning.

I was at a buddy's house tonight, and I was enjoying myself for the most part. I drank a coupla beers before I left, but by the time I got there I was done. It was sweet to see these old friends, these familiar faces that kept me buoyant during high school when I felt that everything just wanted to drag me down the bottom of the sea. I was made content by those faces.

At one point, though, I was crossing into a room of personal creativity and individual production; my buddy Will was rhymin', goin' on some 15 minutes at that point, while Brock and, well, I don't know the name of that other kid, well, they were workin' on some art in the street art discpline, if it can be called that. I suppose that its more of a tradition, now. Definitely more of a tradition.

Anyway, feeling that I had nothing to offer myself, but eager to remain and appreciate their creations, I looked for something to pretend to do while I took in their beauty. I saw that the Metro section of the Journal Sentinal was laying on the dinning room table, so I picked it up. Usually that paper is such a rag, I musta thought, there's no way that it'd say something that I would be interested in.

Wrong. I was wrong. I was so wrong.

"Shorewood man arrested in Whitefish bay teen's drug death."

My mom told me about this story two weeks earlier, and that night the whole family talked about it. I knew next to nothing about the details, but I remember making a point to tell my little brother "to take this very seriously." I see enough of my friends doing perscription drugs illegally, and since this story, I've learned that I would know nothing about telling the difference between someone passing out 'cause they had too many and passing out 'cause they were about to die.

All that I knew was that I didn't know how to tell if someone was going to die, and I wanted to make sure that my little brother didn't ever, ever feel comfortable around these kinds of drugs, despite whatever bullshit the people who take them tell you. Its much, much better to overreact, then to underreact.

And this time, I realize it. To anyone who reads this blog who takes offense to that statement, I don't give a flying fuck. I'll take your indignance, I end a friendship. I will not, under any circumstances, believe you if you try to tell me that illegally consumed perscription drugs shouldn't be treated seriously, very seriously.

Yes, the system's not perfect. Whatever. I'd rather more people live unhappy, in the hopes that they will find the opportunity to find their value, rather then hear some bullshit about how its really ok for people to take those kinds of risks themselves.

There's no such thing as putting your life in serious danger yourself. The number of people who could die without leaving some one behind marks less then one hundreth of one percent of this population, so I won't here you bullshit. I don't give a fuck if you don't realize that the rest of us care about you. This is a selfish thing. I will not stand by and let you kill yourself. My opinion of you matters too.

Well, as you can tell, I read that article, and barely got through the first 3 paragraphs before I couldn't read anymore. It was too much, for me. I value life too much, contemplated death too often, to come to terms with it. I needed to get outside.

I through on my boots, and fell onto the porch steps behind two of my buddies, and they were talking about MF Doom. Will was out there, the one rhyming, and Alex. Two kids that I consider my closest friends. My earliest memory of Alex dates back 12 years, but I've known him longer. Will and I have lived across the street from each other since high school, then we moved to college and we're still living next to each other. Crazy.

I was sitting there aware of their conversation, but that story was burning in my head. I waited for their conversation to die down, and as I waited I appreciated the cold biting my skin, reassuring me of my life, my vibrancy. A hole openned up, and I told them what I thought.

I was told that that kind of thing happens with black people the time. Asked when the last time I responded like that when a poor person died this way. Told that people make a big deal when white people die. "Too socially aware," one said, "not a bad thing, though." Then why do I feel so incredibly bad for not feeling this way when it happened to the kid in the hood, the kid who had no college hopes, or at least society said so?

I felt so confronted, still feel so confronted, with my inablilty to care for all people, to fight for all causes, to stand for everything that is right. Its so hard, somedays, to believe that the things that I fight for could be wrong, that the things I feel could be corrupted by my very luck of being born into a family with finacial stabililty.

Why is it that our aspirations can be corrupted by our position, yet our actions can be so corrupted by our location?

That is the world that I think we can create, with a healthy balance of self-interest and social interest. I damn confident that I'm right too, even though I'm not ready to argue it. But everyday I go and I see more and more that is right with world, even when I see what is has gone wrong, I see what is right, and I'm convinced that we can create a world that takes no creation at all, that is inherently everybody's world. Fuck you, I'm an idealist. Fuck you, I'm going to fight for what's impossible, and I don't care if my impossible kills other people's dreams. I believe that my impossible is better than your possible any day of the mother fucking week, and beyond that, I'm pretty damn sure that it has room for your impossible too. You just gotta be ready to believe in the impossible.

Its been an emotional week.

Courtesy Brock Teter

Why I don't feel so bad about losing my Student ID

Two days ago, an accident occurred during Colleen's backpacking trip in Patagonia.

You can read about it http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/133105

I talked to some of you about this today, some of you I didn't, and I'm sorry for that. But I just got off the phone with Colleen's mom, and she spoke with Colleen last night, on the telephone. I wanted to make clear a couple of things.

Colleen reports being both physically and emotionally healthy. She expects to that the trip will go on: Outward Bound is sending in additional staff, they're going to spend a lot of time figuring their shit out, but Colleen said that the group remained strong, actively dealing with the tragedy.

My apologies for the dryness of this post. To write any other way would be too hard. I hope to capture the depth of pride and love and compassion and gratitude for Colleen, for the family of Travis Lizotte, and the role of the dice, but right now, I can do it no justice.

UPDATE: If some of you check this post before 3:45 PM, then you saw a different article then is up now. The new article tells a lot more about Travis Lizotte, the man who died.

UPDATE 3:50: Its not clear whether or not Colleen fell in the Crevasse. She did not, she was not one of the students who went to the hospital.

My lovely printer

Every time I have a deadline, I think "Today's the today!" My heart fills with hope and I plug my printer into my computer believing that there will be no problems.

Every times its more like this:


Mistabishi - Printer Jam from Hospital Records on Vimeo.