(Ir)religiosity

This piece from Lorelle on Wordpress just made my blogging experience much easier.  If you use Firefox and the Greasemonkey extension it’s simple: just install the user script, restart FireFox and you’re good to go.  Now you can use the “preview” link at the bottom of each feed to comment on blogs, articles, etc without opening up another tab.  Wonderful!

Part I: Only Americans Matter
Part II: We Draw Our Circle too Small
Part III: Patriotic Fixations
Part IV: Media Violence and the Ease of Abstraction

I suppose it’s time to wrap this series up.  It’s been a couple of weeks since I posted on this topic, so let’s revisit a few things.

In Part one, I introduced the overall thrust of my thought: in the western world — particularly in the US — nations tend to suppress, ignore, and even omit non-domestic acts of war, violence and terrorism.  The most obvious and visceral example for me as American — there are of course numerous such examples, too many to recount in a single post really — is the recent and ongoing lack of coverage and general unconcern en masse about the occupation of Iraq. Read the rest of this entry »

George Orwell will become a blogger in about ten days.  According to this article in the Telegraph, Orwell’s diaries will be published online exactly 70 years after they were written: “Running until 1942 the diaries cover the start of the Second World War as well as Orwell’s own travels to Morocco following the illness and injuries he sustained while fighting in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War.”  You can find the blog here.  Should be pretty cool.

The White House released their predictions for the next fiscal year yesterday.  The federal deficit will once again break the last record topping out at $482 billion.  Only eight years ago Bush inherited a $128 billion surplus.  The administration has posted a federal deficit every year since.  ”If they gave out Olympic medals for fiscal irresponsibility, President Bush would take the gold, silver and bronze; with his eight years in office, he will have had the five highest deficits ever recorded.”

Friday
 

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Friday was a long day. Longer than we had anticipated and just shy of 500 miles.  We left Erie, PA in the morning and drove north of Buffalo, NY to see Niagara Falls.  Even though we didn’t visit the Canadian side — which would’ve been much more beautiful — it was still well worth the trip.  We were able to see American Falls which is the smaller one and we did the wet and windy Cave of the Winds tour.  Finally, we walked out to Terrapin Point to see the massive Horseshoe Falls. It was amazing. Here are a few pictures. Click here if you have problems with the slideshow. Read the rest of this entry »

Tuesday

 

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A little over 300 miles. We stopped in Hastings, Michigan to visit Bonnie’s aunt, uncle, and cousin. Got there late in the afternoon. The weather was absolutely perfect. We walked around town a bit and spent the rest of the day visiting and resting. Pretty uneventful, but very relaxing. Read the rest of this entry »

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Well, that’s it. That’s what day one looks like on the map. Right at 500 miles. And we only had to fill up once! Gas was $3.79 when we left Oklahoma, $3.86 in Missouri, and $3.99 in Indiana. I don’t want to think about what we will pay tomorrow.

We left around 9:30 this morning, said our goodbyes, and hopped onto the interstate. Tomorrow we’ll go other 300 miles or so through Indiana into Michigan to visit some family.

We have pictures, but I haven’t uploaded them yet. Hopefully tomorrow after some rest.

It has arrived.  Tomorrow morning Bonnie and I, with everything we own riding behind us, will bid Oklahoma farewell and begin the trip up to Boston.  It is the beginning of a grand adventure.  I’m hoping to update here every day or so with pictures, maps, etc.  I’ll be twittering for sure.  You can follow me there in the event we don’t have internet access.  Or you can do both.  

We’re planning to leave Vinita by 10:00 CST in the morning and stay somewhere north of St. Louis tomorrow night.  

I’m declaring this Dropkick Murphys tune the theme song for the trip:

Part I: Only Americans Matter
Part II: We Draw Our Circle too Small
Part III: Patriotic Fixations

Last time, I mentioned the problem of patriotism and its synonymic relationship to nationalism and ethnocentrism the by-product of which is the arrogance of American exceptionalism not to mention the sorrows of empire itself.

The final reason for this cult of indifference and triumphalism — at least when related to non-domestic acts violence in the manner I have for this series — may be perhaps the least obvious of the three and its influence, while subtle, is very damaging.  This phenomenon as less to do with media coverage and national pride and more to do with our unconscious reaction to violence in the globalized information age.

The reality is that we have become desensitized to violence in general have little to no reaction when faced with actual violence perpetrated in acts of war. Read the rest of this entry »

Bonnie and I have recently become vegetarians.  It was tough at first, but I think we’ve assimilated pretty well.  Makes me glad when I read things like this about new molecular discoveries in red meat: “Eating these foods could trigger inflammation and, over the long term, heart disease, certain cancers and auto-immune illnesses.” Yikes.