Hurricane Gustuv

Just to let you know, Sunday my AmeriCorps Team evacuated New Orleans to 40 miles NW of New Orleans to Covington, LA to a Red Cross Station.

eg hove

Lawyers in Politics

Since politics seems to be in the air currently on this blog, allow me to posit the following:

• Wouldn't it make more sense if politicians (legislators/congress folks mostly) had shorter careers and then went in to the field of law afterward, rather than studying law in order to become a politician? I think it would make our laws easier to understand, plus the ex-pol lawyers would be able to say, "I wrote that law Mr./Mrs. Judge, I think I know how it's supposed to be interpreted."

I suppose I'm biased on the subject though, because I've always thought politicians should limit their terms. I think the upside would be decreased corruption and a more involved public (because we'd need to fill the vacancies). Possible downsides include less effective legislation and oversight.

Well, I'm posting yet another commentary written by Glenn Beck, partly because I like his over-the-top way of covering this next issue, and partly because Kiel kind of doesn't :)

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/23/beck.obama.media/index.html

The editorial facetiously describes the unequal amount of media coverage Obama has been receiving recently, compared to McCain. This has been a topic of interest in the last couple months, not just to my friend Mr. Beck and me, but also to some other bloggers I've read.

An interesting point that this and other commenataries have made is that coverage of Obama sells. In the linked article, Beck talks about magazines with Obama on the cover selling. In another source I read, Access Hollywood showed enormous ratings hikes (20-30% increases in some demographics) for the week it aired it's Obama interviews.

I think Barak Obama is easily the most exciting presidential candidate that we have experienced. Although I don't necessarily agree with parts of his platform, he could probably win my vote by flashing me that pretty smile and saying something charismatic in his smooth baritone voice.

Glenn Beck's rediculous editorial aside, it does seem like the media is showing Obama's face (and maybe not his political face...) more often than McCain's. Is this to sell more media and rake in the profit, or has the media already declared Obama the next President? [I know, a bold statement, but maybe it'll stir up some ideas... :) ]

**I'VE UPDATED THE LINK TO THE CORRECT ARTICLE**

Here's a link to a commentary found on CNN.com:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/17/beck.che.guevara/index.html?iref=24hours

I found this commentary interesting, as it was a topic of conversation earlier this summer. It points out the absurdity of people in the US wearing Che Guevera t-shirts, trying to show how left and revolutionary their mindset is.

I'll leave it up to y'all to check it out.

I'm in Elk River...

I'm in Elk River until July 8th. If you're around and want to see me before I go to China, call me.

956 266 4892

Kiel.

Rural China Education Foundation

As some of you may know, I'll be living and working in China next year. I'll be a volunteer with Rural China Education Foundation (http://www.ruralchina.org/). Currently, RCEF is raising money through the Global Giving website. They are trying to raise $4,000 from 100 different donors by May 13th. If they can meet this goal, they will be given a permanent spot on the website. This will translate into a lot more money because people often donate to non-profits they find on that website.



Anyways, if you would like to help out, go to this link: http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/2100/proj2063a.html



They've already reached the $4,000 mark, but they need another 24 donors to qualify for the permanent spot on the website.



Thanks!

US Public Service Academy

On Friday, April 25, I attended a NCCC symposium in Annapolis, Maryland. One of the speakers was Chris Myers Asch, a Teach for America alum who is trying to start the U.S. Public Service Academy.

As Asch explained it, the U.S. Public Service Academy would be a civilian counterpart to the existing five national military academies. It would provide free undergraduate instruction to 5,100 students and, in return, these students would be required to serve five years in public institutions like health care, law enforcement, education, emergency management, and other fields.

A host of Senators, Representatives, and other political figures are already on board.

I would write more about it, but the couple sitting across from me in the Sebring Library are having a bitter argument about marriage infidelity. Check out the website at http://www.uspublicserviceacademy.org

Let me know what you think.

Extavagent Birthday Parties?

Here's a link to a CNN.com article about the rising trend of parent's throwing over-the-top [expensive] birthday parties for their young children. We're talking thousand-dollar custom cakes, goody bags with more than most kids receive for Christmas, and the whatnot (use your imagination).

From what I've read previously, it seems to me that these extravagant parties are rooted in the desire in so many American adults to 'one-up' everyone else. Parents want to throw their own child a crazy-expensive party to be more over-the-top than the last kid's party.

Oddly enough, there has a been a study or two done that shows many American adults base their perception of their own happiness on how their house/belongings/income/parties compare to those of their peers. In my opinion, a rather unsettling idea and probably much of the reason most Americans today overextend themselves and end up swimming in credit card debt.

I digress.

I recall one of my later childhood birthday parties (by later I mean at the age when playing with GI Joe was still appropriate), I gathered a handful of friends in my basement and had a quite extensive, all-out GI Joe war for hours on end, long into the night. I hope that one day my child(ren) will celebrate their birthdays in a similar fashion.

Sebring, Florida

The AmeriCorps is shipping me off to Sebring, Florida, on April 26. If you plan on being in south-central Florida during May and June, look me up.

Harell and Newsweek

Here's a photo of Kiel on the Border Wall March used in an online Newsweek article.

Border Fence Article

Here's a link to an article in Time regarding the building of the border fence. It describes how certain legal waivers are now being employed in order that officials can bypass certain laws to erect portions of the fence with fewer hurdles.

One quote at the end of the article I found odd:

"[Homeland Security Secretary Michael] Chertoff has said the fence is good for the environment because immigrants degrade the land with trash and human waste when they sneak illegally into the country."

Ameri-Blog

For those of you who want a better idea of what I've been doing as part of my service with AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps, check out my team's blog.

Moveable Feast

This weekend, I had the opportunity to volunteer with Moveable Feast, a not-for-profit that delivers meals to people in Maryland living with HIV/AIDS and breast cancer. I've shared a story about their move on SSB.

On May 17th and 18th, Moveable Feast in sponsoring their 6th annual Ride for the Feast, a bicycle race through Baltimore City to raise funds. If you would like to sponsor a rider and donate money ($20 provides a week's worth of meal), click here.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

[Correction: The original post listed March 17th and 18th for the annual Ride of the Feast. It should have read May 17th and 18th.]

Border March Update

Here are links to some news articles about the Border Wall March that Keil helped organized:

Border fence opponents join 9-day march against wall in South Texas by Dianne Solis of The Dallas Morning News, 15 March, 2008.

For border walkers, past is present by Laura Tillman of The Brownsville Herald, 14 March, 2008.

Group Marches Against Border Wall by Michelle Macias of KVEO, 14 March, 2008.

Spring-breaking down the border fence by Zack Quaintance of The Monitor, 12 March, 2008.

Dream Job

Whenever I was asked about my dream job, I used to joke that I wanted to work in a white, spherical room, and solve problems. Well, it turns out there's a company out there who wants to give me (and the rest of the world) just that opportunity.

The Innocentive Open Innovation Marketplace
http://www.innocentive.com/

Not Guilty by Reason of Civil Disobedience

I am resolved to put some of my down time here at "the Point" to constructive use by drafting an article on the need for a plea of Not Guilty by Reason of Civil Disobedience in American jurisprudence.

I haven't done any research on this thesis as of yet, but I plan to hit the Perryvilled Community Library next Saturday. I'll post later on my progress.

Below are my tentative arguments for establing a please of Not Guilty by Reason of Civili Disobedience.

1. It is generally accepted that what is lawful and what is just are not always one in the same.


2. The United States has a tradition of venerating those who engage in nonviolent civil disobedience in order to push the letter and spirit of the law toward greater justice.


3. The jury box is the most direct, law-abiding means a citizen has to decide whether or not a law and its application are just.


4. Juries already make determinations about the motivations and mental states of defendants. Why, then, would they be unable to weigh in on a person's moral convictions and the law the defendant considers unjust?

Player Piano Anyone?

BBC's website was featuring this article about intelligent machines. As a recent X-barista who is disgusted with the increased use of automatic espresso machines slowly taking all the brain-work out of the profession, I'm a little unnerved. I was always comfortable with the idea that a monkey could make a mocha, because I knew that the cappuccino is the true dividing line between humans and beasts... but it appears that one day the machines may take over the mocha and the cappuccino. And I'd rather be lumped in with the beasts than with machines.

quotes from the article:
"I've made the case that we will have both the hardware and the software to achieve human level artificial intelligence with the broad suppleness of human intelligence including our emotional intelligence by 2029," Kurzweil said.
"We're already a human machine civilisation; we use our technology to expand our physical and mental horizons and this will be a further extension of that."

link to article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7248875.stm

Everything is Illuminated

I finished Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated recently. Below is a passage I particularly enjoyed.

They say that people who live next to waterfalls don't hear the water.

They say that?

They do. Of course, your great-great-great-grandmother was right. It was terrible at first. We couldn't stand to be in the house for more than a few hours at a time. The first two weeks were filled with nights of intermittent sleep and quarelling for the sake of being heard over the water. We fought so much to remind ourselves that we were in love, and not in hate.

But the next weeks were a little better. It was possible to sleep a few good hours each night and eat in only mild discomfort. Your great-great-great-grandmother still cursed the water, but less frequently, and with less fury. Her attacks on me also quieted. It's your fault, she would say. You wanted to live here.

Life continued, as life continues, and time passed, as time passes, and after a little more than two months: Do you hear that? I asked her on one of the rare morning we sat at the table together. Hear it? I put down my coffee and rose from my chair. You hear that thing?

What thing? she asked.

Exactly! I said, running outside to pump my fist at the waterfall. Exactly!

We danced, throwing handfuls of water in the air, hearing nothing at all. We alternated hugs of forgiveness and shouts of human triumph at the water. Who wins the day? Who wins the day, waterfall? We do! We do!

Vanity: A Paperweight

Below is Chapter 1 from my first draft at my novel, Vanity: A Paperweight. Thanks for reading.

Chapter 1-The End Will Be Televised


The Monk and I watched the world end like the rest of the human race, live on satellite television, on February 14, 2054. It made sense. Television had nursed me. It dreamt dreams of fame and fortune for me. It taught me to love people who had never lived. Television told me secrets I was never brave enough to make my own. Television told me what to say to women who shared my bed It took me places I would never see—rainforests, deserts, the deepest trenches of the oceans, the highest peaks in the world. Television renewed my will to live whenever hope dried up. For all television had done for me, I felt I owed the thirteen-inch screen in my kitchen my last hours on Earth. There was nothing else on.

The commercials were outstanding. I thought they were better than the ad spots during the Super Bowl. The Monk disagreed and I turned to a station where the Pope addressed the world on a sixty-second ad spot. A toll-free eight hundred number flashed at the bottom of the screen. He said there were legions of priests, nuns, and monks manning phone lines beneath the Vatican, waiting for my call. They were waiting to give viewers worldwide absolution, waiting to give each and every caller the Last Rites, just pick up the phone and you, too, would live on in the hereafter. I turned the channel. Click.

A car salesman in New Hampshire begged viewers to call him. He had a large inventory of the last year’s models he needed them to go-go-go. It was the End of the World Sale. No money down. Just pick up the phone and call now, before, they’re all gone. You don’t pay a cent unless we make it through this. And then, only with an unbeatable financing plan. “Remember,” the salesman said, “I can’t take it with me, but maybe you can.” Click.

A Baptist preacher broadcasting from Arkansas extolled his followers to brace for the Rapture. It was coming any minute now so baptize yourself, “with toilet water if you got to.” Before the missiles launched. Before the automated drones carrying all manner of virulent airborne pathogens took wing. The preacher, wearing his finest double-breasted suit and gold rings, suggested we all put on our Sunday best and cracked a smile. Everybody’s a comedian. Click, click.

A cigarette company aired a commercial it had produced just for the occasion, disregarding a century-long prohibition on televised advertising. A man stood on a hill covered with daisies as he watched a city in the distance vaporize beneath a mushroom cloud. He turned to a gorgeous brunette with livid green eyes. “Smoke ‘em if you get ‘em,” he said, rippling his jaw muscles in stoic distress. The brunette took his hand. There would have been hell to pay from the Federal Communications Commission, American Cancer Society, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and various Congressional committees if we would have made it to tomorrow.

On a different station, the Monk and I watched a short spot for an age-defying wrinkle cream. They were giving out free samples of the concoction, made from embryonic stem cells and aloe vera, nationwide. No woman wants to leave an ugly corpse. Disgusted at this fear mongering, I changed the channel.

We watched another short spot, this one from the American Ad Council, showing a continuous collage of pretty children while a seductive British woman begged via voice-over: “Whoever has set the Doomsday Device in motion, please, consider these faces. These are our children. Whatever is wrong, whatever has led you to call in and activate the Device, let the world try and fix it. If you won’t do it for us, do it for them. Please.” Click.

A television actor, famous for his starring role in a boilerplate courtroom drama, sold life insurance policies for just dollars a day. Representatives were standing by to take my Visa or MasterCard information. I didn’t watch the rest. I had seen this commercial often enough before.

A longer spot, a plea from the Dalai Lama, live from London, urging viewers to be completely aware in these final hours. It’s your only hope, he said, of breaking free from the circle of death and rebirth. He implied that if viewers failed to do this, we might be reborn as rats or cockroaches or ugly deep-sea fish because they were the only creatures likely to survive. I got the impression the fifteenth incarnation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, after generations of choosing to come back to help the human race attain enlightenment, was finally ready to get the hell out of Dodge.

The commercials kept coming. Thank God it wasn’t an election year.

The news coverage was less thrilling. A young man reported live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. He gushed on about the bravery of the dozen stock brokers, “these Christs of commerce,” still yelling out trades, just in case the world didn’t end.

A woman reported from a bridge over the New Jersey Turnpike. Her cameraman panned over the freeway below. Thousands of cars moved at a crawl, west out of the Megalopolis.

“What a way to go,” the Monk said, “stuck in traffic, listening to Top 40 stations.”

“Poor bastards,” I grunted.

On another channel, a reporter wandered the bustling floor of a manufacturing plant in China. Hundreds of men and women kept working for the day’s wage of five dollars to make plastic toys for American children. This reporter expressed amazement at the “selflessness of these men and women, here in China” doggedly assembling plastic ponies that neighed and pranced on robotic legs for children who would be dead in a matter of hours, if all went according to plan.

A news anchor in New York informed viewers that his staff had been trying to reach me to ask how I felt about the impending demise of the human race, but had been unsuccessful. He promised to keep trying. “Ha!” I laughed at the television screen. “Good luck. I disconnected the damn telephone.” I felt better after saying it, though the Monk looked displeased. I’d be damned if I was going to apologize on air.

Some intrepid producer thought to arrange an interview with the woman astronaut on the International Space Station, all alone in the lifeless heavens, conducting an isolation experiment. “How do we look from up there?” the reporter asked.

“Beautiful,” the astronaut replied seconds later. “Blue and green like a virgin prom queen.”

The Monk and I caught a quick glimpse of a thousand people huddled together in Times Square, braving the February cold to watch the world end on the largest television screen in New York. Click.

A reporter, eager for a different angle, broadcasted live from a maternity ward in Cincinnati. She held a new born baby in her arms. “This young baby boy was born just hours ago,” the reporter said as she cooed softly at him, the camera zooming in on her face. “It’s difficult to think about this,” she said, “but this little boy won’t make it to see his second day on earth.”

On another station, we watched footage of myself accepting the Nobel Peace Prize three years earlier. I looked like hell. The news anchor narrated over the clip as viewers watched me shake hands with Norwegian royalty. “This, folks, is the man who brought us to this. Hailed as the greatest peacemaker to ever live for his creation and implementation of the Universal Democratic Doomsday Device, for quote, ‘forcing the entire world to care about the suffering of each and every human being, or else.’ He has now doomed us all. I’m generally above begging, but not in circumstances like this. Please, whoever called in to activate the Doomsday Device, please whoever you are, whatever injustice you have suffered, please let us help you. Please, let the world help you and save us all. And Mr. Hove, if you’re out there watching this, know that you’ll meet your end with the rest of us. If you are able to stop this madness, please do so.” I turned the channel.

“Can you even stop it?” the Monk asked.

“No,” I replied. “It wouldn’t be fair.”

The Baptist preacher was in another ad spot. He reminded the viewing public that the Rapture was close at hand, just keep faith, and keep baptizing. “And don’t you all worry about whoever caused this and that man who made it possible. Pray for their souls.” The preacher smiled wryly. “They’re gonna need it.”

With five minutes left until certain apocalypse, the television networks held a moment of silence in a preemptive memorial for the human race. I used the lull to unplug the television from the kitchen counter.

“Are you happy?” the Monk asked.

I smiled. “Like a kid on Christmas morning.” The Monk turned away. I flipped up the rug in the hallway and opened the trapdoor hidden underneath.

“Wait,” the Monk said. “Where are you going?”

“My bunker,” I said with a wink. “You coming?”

“But—” the Monk sputtered.

“Look, I don’t want to end like this. Do you?”

The Monk looked shamefaced at the floor.

“I didn’t think so,” I said. “Now grab the T.V. from the counter and follow me.”

The Best Sentence I've Read Today

"We will not solve social problems if we pretend that they are caused only - or even mostly - by the mad, the stupid, and the morally degenerate."

--From Tim Hartford's The Logic of Life, as quoted by Bryan Caplan.

Alternative Spring Break: "Stop the Border Wall"

The Secure Fence Act of 2006 allows the government to build a wall along our Southern border. As someone who lives in the Rio Grande Valley, I think this is a silly and damaging idea. Along with my two roommates and a group of local activists, I'm organizing a walk along the border from Roma, TX to Brownsville, TX (120 miles give or take). We'll be walking the proposed route of the border wall as it applies to the Rio Grande Valley. The walk will take place on March 8th through the 16th. We'll be going door-to-door distributing information to landowners about how they can resist the federal government.

We are promoting it as an "alternative spring break" so hopefully people will come down from the North to show their solidarity. I don't know if any of you guys are interested in this, but I posted a link below to a blog with more information on the event.

http://nonviolentmigration.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/alternative-spring-break-in-the-rio-grande-valley/

Sorry to be all political...

I'll Sure Miss Bananas

"It turns out, by the way, that the world's supply of Cavendish bananas -- the ones we eat -- is endangered by disease and many experts believe the entire strain will vanish. Most other banana strains are much harder to cultivate and transport on a large scale, so enjoy your bananas while you can. The previous and supposedly tastier major strain of banana -- Gros Michel -- is already gone and had disappeared by the 1950s, again due to disease."

--Tyler Cowen at http://www.marginalrevolution.com/

R.I.P. Bobby Fischer

Let's pour one out for chess champion Bobby Fischer who died on Thursday at the age of 64, managing to escape federal prosecution for playing an illegal chess match against Spassky in 1992.

Here's a link to the obituary on CNN.com.

Meth in South Dakota

Here's an interesting selection I came across. It's from the 2008 South Dakota Fishing Handbook (page 44), as issued by the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish & Parks.

If you encounter a Meth 'cook' or user while on your outing, remember they may be hallucinating, paranoid or violent because of the drug. Take precautions to keep yourself and your party safe. Keep in mind these six safety tips for approaching a Meth "tweaker" (user).

• Keep your distance. Coming too close can be perceived as threatening.
• No bright lights. If a tweaker is paranoid, bright lights may cause them to react violently.
• Slow your speech and lower your voice.
• Slow your movements. The tweaker may be paranoid and may misunderstand your actions.
• Keep your hands visible, or they may feel threatened and become unpredictable and violent.
• Keep the tweaker talking. A tweaker who falls silent can be extremely dangerous. Silence often means that his/her paranoid thoughts have taken
  over reality, and anyone present can become part of the tweaker's paranoid
  delusions.

If you are threatened, call law enforcement and tell them that this person may be under the influence of Meth or other drugs.

Justifying the Cost of Space Exploration

Below are two highlights from the Freakonomics Quorum "Is Space Exploration Worth the Cost?"


"It is true that, for every dollar we spend on the space program, the U.S. economy receives about $8 of economic benefit."
--G. Scott Hubbard, professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University and former director of the NASA Ames Research Center

"Still, for those who would moan that this money could be “better spent back on Earth,” I would simply say that all of this money is spent on Earth — it creates jobs and provides business to companies, just as any other government program does. You have to spend all of NASA’s money “on Earth.” There is no way to spend it in space — at least, not yet."
--Keith Cowing, founder and editor of NASAWatch.com and former NASA space biologist.

Hmmmmm...

When trying to uncork a wine bottle and you have no corkscrew, I strongly suggest you avoid trying to use a flip-open knife without a locking blade (i.e. a Swiss Army knife). The end result will just be a deep cut on your forefinger that bleeds for days and an unopenned bottle of merlot.

Instead, I recommend pushing the cork into the wine bottle and dealing with it. You're probably already too drunk to care about the small chunks of cork, anyhow.

Comments Are Open

My apologies for any inconvenience. Everyone should be able to comment on existing posts, now. If anyone would like to post new items for discussion, send me an email at eghove@gmail.com and I will invite you on as an author.

Art That Consumes Life

While drinking with Josh at Sweeney's (that establishment dear to all, even though the service continues its steady decline), we laid the groundwork for an art movement best described by its credo: Art that consumes life.

The aim of this proposed movement is to push the ratio of experience to creation closer to one. In other words, to create art that takes as much time to experience as it does to create. We propose doing this by producing long, uncut art films because film makes the most overt claim on the prolonged attention of an art patron. Below, I list three ideas for such films.

1. Traffic. Film the uncut experience of a trip to a major city during rush-hour using two cameras. One camera would film the "hood ornament" view of traffic while the other would film the face of the driver. When displayed, the two films would run screens set side-by-side.
2. Eye of the Stalker. Using an actress who has volunteered to be the subject for such a film, follow and film the subject for an uncut, 24 hour period without making contact.
3. Decomposition. Film the body of a deceased individual who has donated their body to art as it decays for a month in the wild. The exhibit would consist of a screen displaying the uncut, month-long film scored with the recorded oral history of the subject's life.
   

Consumption Factor

Paul found this article by Jared Diamond (author of Guns, Germs, and Steel) titled "What's Your Consumption Factor?" to be quite interesting. What are your thoughts?