Constitutionalism.

Hi folks, sorry about the recent lack of content. School has started again, obviously, and it is intense. I suppose that's what you sign up for though. Plus, I suppose I haven't lately felt very inspired to write much. I know society is descending into chaos without my album reviews, but you're just going to have to deal.

I'm listening to Horace Silver's "Song for My Father," and although I'm not willing to classify it as the "Album of the Week" yet, I would nonetheless highly recommend it.

I'm taking Constitutional Law this semester, and I have to say I do enjoy it. I've always had a bit of a soft spot in my heart for early American history. I think it'd be great to have dinner with James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, so long as they wouldn't kill each other across the table. The Constitution is such a fascinating document, and there's just so much thought that went into it. Too many people nowadays just see it as the civic religion would have you see it, as some kind of infallible "Yay us!" sort of charter. The reality, of course, is much more complex. Anytime you proclaim that your goal is to achieve a "more perfect union," while simultaneously counting a black person as 3/5 of an individual, you know there are some serious issues.

It's interesting to see how conceptions of the United States as a nation have evolved throughout the two-odd centuries since 1789. If someone asks you your nationality, I'm assuming that if you're from the United States, you'll probably say that you're American. We're so used to conceptualizing the United States as a single entity, of which the states are more or less units of administration. However, go back to 1795, and ask a citizen of the US what their nationality is, they would probably say Virginian, or New Yorker, or something to that effect. You couldn't say Minnesotan, because it didn't exist yet. To the founding generation, the "nation" was a group of sovereign states who agree to be identified as a single entity. And there was a lot of genuine fear of what would happen if the single entity would grow to become larger than the sum of its parts.

A lot of these Constitutional issues from the late 18th/19th centuries seem so obscure to us in 2009, because the Civil War settled once and for all the issue of how the country would identify itself. Sure, I'm Minnesotan, but I'm equal parts American. The federal government is a tangible element, for better or for worse, in all of our lives. We don't worry so much on whether Washington is infringing on our rights as Minnesotans. If they do, we throw a little hissy fit about local government. More often than not, we want Washington to give use money, after our dumbass governor decided it would be a good idea not to raise taxes. Funny how you end up with a $5 billion budget deficit when you put a strangle hold on income...

I mean, I'm not fully employed or anything, so maybe I'm missing something. But I get paid for my job, I see how much money is going to taxes. And to be frank, it really doesn't outrage me at all. For the good of society, that money taken from me is going to provide health care to those who need it, or to fix our crumbling national infrastructure, or to buy a laser-guided tank. Now, I don't necessarily agree with the tank, but a lot of that money is going to admirable causes. There's this cult of individualism in this country that often times is taken to the extreme. Call it socialism if you want, but everyone in the NATION should be required to collectively raise the quality of life for all.

I digress.

Point is, I love Constitutional issues, because at the heart, it's really a question of how do we live in community as free individuals. What freedoms are willing to give away for security and the good of the whole, and what are we determined to keep for ourselves? Really tough questions, when you get down to it. For example, right now, I have the freedom to laze about all night and watch TV, should I choose. But I've also committed to giving up that freedom in order to join Hamline University School of Law. That community demands I give up some of my freedom in order to contribute productively to an end goal of thoughtful legal education. To live under a constitution of any sort necessarily demands this sort of tension in everyday life, the tension between freedom and responsibility.

Now that we've established that, I have to go brief some cases.

But for your viewing pleasure, here are a few fun-filled Constitution-related photos of my brief time spent in Philadelphia this summer.




Here is my senior paper, which talked about the persistence of anti-federalism following the ratification of the Constitution in 1789, with Independence Hall.



Here I am, with said senior paper, in front of Independence Hall.



Here is the room in Independence Hall where the Constitution was signed.

Cannot get enough.

Had to post.

I just had to post this.

Editorial: Mr. President

This man is now the President. I already feel better.

I cannot imagine holding the office President Obama now holds. Least of all in his situation. Before even assuming office, he has become iconic, a symbol of hope and optimism. He is a celebrity politician in an age of celebrities, towering over all of them. We, the people, have chosen him to help get us out of a shithole that seems as cavernous as that cave in Mexico that people BASE jump into. Stuck in two wars, the economy is going to hell, our standing in the world has diminished, etc., etc., etc. It's a challenge, a huge challenge with no quick fixes or magic words. President Obama cannot ride in on a unicorn, wave a magic wand, or sprinkle magic hope dust on the stock market. It is hard work, that will likely get worse before it gets better.

But I, for one, am willing to trust this man. I think he has the wisdom and leadership to help us get out of this. And for that which he lacks expertise, I think he has the same wisdom to consult others who do. For too long, the Executive has ignored the opinions of others and charted a course without regard to pragmatism. For too long, we have been subject to ideology. It's time for a new way, and I feel a lot better now.

People are cynical and frustrated at our politics, and rightfully so. Look at our situation. But the President was right in invoking Washington's words, that when our situation is dire, we need to rest on our hope and our virtue. I get kind of irritated with folks who always seem so negative, since I'm typically an optimistic person who prefers to see the better side of things. Of course Obama cannot heal all of our ills, I realize that. But it is no help to harbor defeatism at a time that calls for optimism and determination. We need this hope, we can no longer afford the slash and burn fragmentation of years past. Confronted with vast challenges, we need to hope and work towards that hope.

I really appreciated President Obama's bit in his inaugural address that talked about community service and common purpose. It has inspired me, for one, to find a place where I can help. There has to be something out there I can contribute to. He is right when he says that we want to be able to tell our children that we stood up to the crisis of our times.

Of course, this is a moment of great historical significance for our country. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream Speech." To think that 46 years later, on the other end of the Mall, an African-American man takes the oath of office, it is simply incredible. Obviously this is a special moment for African-American's, especially those who fought for civil rights. But this is an equally proud moment for all Americans, regardless of color, class, or creed. We have shown the world that we are committed towards making the more perfect union embodied in our Constitution. Although the fight is not over, this is a reminder of the tremendous progress that has been made, and everyone in this country should be proud of what we have done. Nowhere else in Western society does a black man be elected President. Maybe it's a testament to our character, or whatever cliché you want to use, but I was overcome to the point of tears at the sight of it. We talk so much about justice and the words that all are created equal in stark contrast to our sordid history of race relations. The sight of Mr. Obama taking the oath of office was incredible.

The Presidency is a glorious burden, something to be bestowed upon great individuals who we hope will rise to the occasion. Sometimes they do, sometimes they do not. I'm hoping and praying that President Obama will be among those that rise. I think he will. It cannot be easy to have the hopes of 350 million Americans on your back, but if anyone is equal to the task, I think Obama is. God help him prove me right.

MLK Day

I don't think a more eloquent call for justice has yet been made. This truly is a great man, in the purest sense of the word.

As we prepare to celebrate a great moment, it's a good idea to celebrate the giants upon which it stands.

Haircuts

I decided to get a haircut today, as a sort of prize for surviving round one of dentistry hell. Yes, round one. It blows. I'm sure he's bringing out some sort of medieval torture device for tomorrow's fun. I think most dentists have to be sadists at heart.

I go to this haircutting salon near my house, also coincidentally near the dentist's. I'm the only man I've ever seen inside of it. As a result, I think I'm some sort of curiosity amongst the usual clientele of old women getting their hair permed and such. And the middle aged ladies who actually cut the hair. Kind of like that one white kid on the basketball team. Typically Carol cuts my hair, but she went home early today. So instead I got Therese, whom I've never had before.

Getting a haircut, to me, is just a very pleasureable experience. First of all, I cease looking like I rolled out of a bottle of whiskey, or a pedophile. Second of all, there's something soothing about having your hair combed by someone else. It's like a tiny massage for your head. Like a million little elves are doing a jig on your head, except that it's a comb.

Anyways, Therese was the haircutting equivalent of those Asian massages with the extra surprise at the end that you see advertised in the City Pages. I now feel what my dog feels like when I sit and absent-mindedly pet his head for hours on end. This woman, as haircutters do, would randomly stop cutting and yak at her fellow haircutters. But while she was doing that, she kept petting my head. It was very strange. But I can understand why dogs like it, it was quite calming. Hell, I wish she was petting my head right now. Everything she did seemed to take at least twice as long as Carol. She probably clippered me about 50 times, washed my hair for about 10 minutes, etc, etc, etc. I'm going to assume it was all an attempt to seduce me. Rejected Therese, you're not my style. I sure did like your cardigan though.

I think the strangest part was when she asked if I wanted my beard trimmed. I said I could take care of that at home. Then she asked if I wanted my eyebrows clipped. I just kind of turned and looked at her with supreme confusion on my face. I don't know how else you respond to that.

Reading Update

As I may or may not have mentioned in my post about the new year, I had this grand ambition to start reading more. I'm happy to say that resolution has already started to fall flat on its face. Hit the proverbial wall.

I think part of my issue is that I attempt to read these extremely heady works. Like, I had been reading "The Wretched of the Earth" by Frantz Fanon. It's this anti-colonial political/philosophical tract written by a Martinique born doctor who sympathized with the Algerian nationalist movement. Malcolm X read it, so did the Black Panthers. And it is interesting, it makes some quite thought-provoking claims about the nature of colonized peoples. Needless to say, it's kind of eye opening to read it from the perspective of the Western "colonizer."

The other book I've been working on is "The Birth of Tragedy" by Friedrich Nietzche. It's supposedly his case for the necessity of art in life. I bought it a few years ago, thinking it'd be interesting. And it is. But I also forgot that the last time I read a piece of philosophy, it was in a philosophy class, with a philosophy professor to help me make sense of what I had read. I am desperately missing that aspect of this book. I read a few pages, and I have absolutely no clue of what just went through my brain. I thought it would help if I listened to Wagner while I read it, because Nietzche loved Wagner. Instead, I just found myself getting more distracted, because I'd start focusing on the music instead of the text, which screwed me up even farther.

On a sidenote, I picked up this LP box set of Columbia recordings that Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic did of Wagner orchestral works. I play them on my new turntable, which basically cost my life savings and a kidney. However, it is magnificent. As you may surmise, this is the Wagner that continually distracts me when I attempt to read Nietzche.

I keep asking myself whether I read this stuff because I'm actually interested in it, or whether I'm just reading it to tell other people I'm reading it. I think the answer to this lies in saying that I am interested in it, but the pretentious factor doesn't hurt either. It's true. Of course, it doesn't really help me when I have no idea of what I read.

I think most of this stems from some sort of unconscious desire to live in some sort of super intellectual 18th-19th century artistic circle. A world of grand ideas, salons, revolution, yada, yada, yada. It's too bad we can't do a "Real World" sort of thing where I live in a trendy urban loft with Tom Paine, Beethoven, Mark Rothko, Kirby Puckett, Bill Bryson, and John Coltrane. Probably Keira Knightley too. She could stay in my room.


I'm watching Lost in Translation. For those of you who haven't seen it, I would highly recommend it. Especially if you've ever traveled to Japan. Or ever felt very alone. Great film, great soundtrack too. A lot of My Bloody Valentine-esque tracks. And some great cinematography. One of my very favourite shots is when Bill Murray goes golfing, and they do this single take of him milling about a tee box in the shadow of Mount Fuji before teeing off. The whole thing lasts around 40 seconds, is one uninterrupted shot, and it is simply mesmerizing. The acting, especially Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, is fantastic.

Alright, I'm going to go. I'm having lunch tomorrow at a Malaysian restaurant. Cannot wait.

Book Review: Blink

I know, it's quite amazing. I actually read a book written by someone other than Bill Bryson. I mean, it only took around 4 months, but who's counting.

Anyways, I read this book. "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell. It's written in a very strange style. Typically, you divide literature into fiction and non-fiction. Non-fiction tends to have a very straightforward, information packed style of presentation. That's one thing that was odd about this book. The book is not fiction, it's non-fiction. But it's written in a kind of narrative style. To be honest, I found it a bit unnerving. But then again, I read from the perspective of a person who has spent the past four years of his life poring over dense history texts, and more recently, equally dense casebooks and case opinions. So you could say, in the realm of non-fiction, I'm more used to a blander, straightforward style. I suppose there's a reason that the general public isn't in the business of reading history monographs or case opinions for fun. To wrap it up, Gladwell attempts to write non-fiction with some oddish narrative/fiction style. Proceed at your own risk.

The whole point of the book is about snap judgments, that gut feeling you get when you know the answer to something, but you can't quite explain why. Basically, Gladwell argues that snap judgments can be more effective than analytically thought out judgments. I suppose I can see his point. Everyone's had experiences where this sort of snap judgment has worked out for them. I can't think of one at the moment, but I know I've had them. Gladwell describes this whole act as your brain "thin slicing" multiple aspects of a situation at once, enabling you to come to an instantaneous conclusion.

The tagline to the book is "The Power of thinking without thinking." I think that's a bit misleading. Basically, Gladwell spends the whole book explaining how in essence, snap judgments are the products of thought, but mostly on an unconscious level. And some of his stories weren't really about "snap" judgments at all. In one chapter, he talks about this psychologist who interviews couples on tape, and after reviewing the tape, can predict with 85% accuracy or whatever whether they'll be together in 15 years. But he's not making a snap judgment, he's just closely studying the tape for non-verbal clues to the inner conscious of the individuals. So it's more an exercise in observation more than a "snap" judgment.

I think the better tagline would have been something like, "How to Tell Lots of Stuff About People By Paying Close Attention To What They Do." A lot of the book is about how you can tell a bunch of stuff about people simply by close observation. The kind of close observation that is far too advanced for 95% of society. There's a fairly interesting chapter about reading facial expressions, and how this pioneer in the field could basically tell you everything about a person just by studying their facial expressions. I did find that interesting, but Gladwell's incessant use of medical terms for the facial muscles used got very tiresome. If he's not going to include an anatomical model of the human face, the name dropping doesn't mean anything except that the author is in love with his vocabulary. That's how I felt, at least.

I did enjoy the bit about New Coke. It made me want to drink a Coke. Going along with that, the whole bit about how people judge food in different containers made sense as well. I suppose that explains why folks are convinced Coke is better in a glass bottle.

Of course, I loved the end of the book, which focused on a female trombonist auditioning for the Munich Philharmonic, and how shocked the conductor was when he discovered the best trombonist was a woman. Lawsuits followed, all hell broke loose, blah, blah, blah. I just thought it was interesting, they talked about how traditionally, the world of classical music was solely the domain of men. However, with the advent of screened auditions, where one can be judged on sound and musicianship alone, so many new faces are playing music professionally. When I went and heard the Vienna Philharmonic, it was a perfect illustration of this old guard. Old white guys played most every instrument, save "feminine" instruments such as flute.

Anyways, I digress. All in all, "Blink" was a fairly good read. I don't think I would like Malcolm Gladwell in person, he seems like a person fairly in love with himself. And sometimes, the book kind of made me go "Really?" But, I'd say it's an interesting read if you're looking for some pop-science to read on the bus.

Sports Journalism

I made the mistake yesterday of listening to about 10 minutes of the Vikings game on the radio. Now, one would think that it's hard to screw up a radio broadcast. As I learned yesterday though, it is quite easy to make something that seems so simple be so offensive.

The Viking's radio man sounded like the kind of guy that lived on the floor above me at Luther (The Football Cluster). He didn't so much broadcast the game as shout it, kinda sounding like he was going through some sort of neverending roid-rage. He peppered his play by play with absolutely pointless commentary, supplemented by some sort of color man with equally pointless observations. In sum, he was like practically every person I've ever met who plays football.

If you watch ESPN at all, you know that 95% of what they say on Sportscenter is stuff they just kind of pull out of their ass. But it just seems to me that football shows, like pregame shows and NFL Tonight or whatever, they're more like 99% bullshit. And I don't quite know what it is, whether it's the result of some sort of massive testosterone imbalance or what. You can automatically tell that there's a football show on TV though, even if it's muted. There will always be the following characteristics.

1- Unneccessarily large wraparound microphones
2- Unneccessarily large tie knots
3- One African American commentator (probably a former player) arguing with a white commentator (not a player, just some guy) while an older white guy looks on amusedly

Never fails.

And don't think I'm just attacking football because of my apathy towards the sport. I cringe every time Fernando Vina and John Kruk open their mouths on Baseball Tonight. At least they can be said to have some modicum of loyalty. I think my all-time least favourite sports broadcaster is Anthony LaPanta of FSN North here in Minnesota. He does have a whiny voice, but the ultimate sin is his appearance on Twins Live in the summer, Timberwolves Live, and Wild Live. Did you hear that? He dares to split his loyalty amongst three teams? He brings his little cronies along with him too, Telly Hughes and Marny Gellner. I can't stand him. The nerve. Where is the loyalty? That's what it's all about.

I can respect broadcasters with loyalty. Herb Carneal, now he had loyalty. All he did was broadcast Twins baseball for some 40 years. John Gordon, he has loyalty. So do Dick and Bert on TV. You might notice that all of these folks are in some way connected by the Twins, but it's their fortune to be connected with the perfect game, and thus mentioned on my blog.

There used to be an excellent blog called Fire Joe Morgan that took ridiculous sports stories (mostly baseball) and ripped them to shreds in hilarious fashion. Unfortunately, they shut down a month or so ago. That's a shame, it was a great site.

Jan. 1

Happy New Year's folks, hope you all celebrated in style. I had a relatively subdued evening, but that was a hell of a lot better than the violent illness I experienced last new year's.

I was trying to think if I had any notable New Year's resolutions. I don't know, it seems to me that New Year's resolutions are typically an exercise in futility. There's something so concrete, so definite about them that just sets one up for failure. I think one of mine for the last year was to read more books. Maybe a book a month. Well, I failed horribly in that regard, meaning I do not have a neat stack of 12 completed books anywhere. However, I did read a few, which is a positive step.

In keeping with that, I think instead of making resolutions, I'll just think of areas where I need to expand a bit. I think the top of my list this year is going back to living a more healthy lifestyle. Although realistically, I probably will not get the regular workouts of the hard body plan, I can do my own exercises and watch what I eat. When the weather warms up, I can start riding my bike to school again, which will be positive.

Again, I would like to expand my reading. I got a gift card to Barnes and Noble from my friend for taking care of his rabbit while he's in Mexico, so I went and purchased a collected volume of four of E.M. Forster's novels. I think I'll read those. I'm actually in the middle of Fanon's "Wretched of the Earth" right now. I found it in the Luther library book sale last year, remembered talking about it in my civil rights course, and thought it'd be interesting. It is. I also want to read The Motorcycle Diaries, finish Founding Brothers, and maybe start in on Dark Continent. It's about Europe's twentieth century, it was actually a book assigned for a course I took in England but (cough) failed to read (cough). It looks interesting though.

I think I also want to be a bit more exploratory. Admittedly, I'm somewhat of a creature of habit. I enjoy routine, familiarity. But in such a vibrant community as the Twin Cities, I should really take advantage of different opportunities. That would also require a re-prioritization of funds I suppose, but that'd probably be okay. I could sacrifice a few CD's for a ticket to an orchestra concert.

Going along with that, it would be nice to be a bit more socially exploratory. Maybe reconnect with some older friends I've fallen out of contact with, hopefully make some new ones. I think this will be the most challenging area of expansion.

I had a hellish week at work. Pharmacy is not my life's passion, nor is retail. Just have to get through today, then I'm done for a while. My cousin is in town this weekend, so I'm hoping to hook up with him and maybe grab some lunch or something. Have to feed this stupid rabbit, etc, etc, etc. I think on Monday, I'll spend the day drinking coffee and watching Seinfeld. Unless something more exciting comes along.