Updated Lists:
After I finished watching the Coen Brothers movies I had never seen, I decided to go back and watch some that I had not seen for years. I watched The Hudsucker Proxy before I even knew who the Coen Brothers were, and had seen both Barton Fink and Miller's Crossing only once almost a decade ago. After re-watching these and a couple of others, my lists have shuffled a bit.
Coen Brothers' Movies - Favorite
14. Intolerable Cruelty
13. The Ladykillers
12. The Man Who Wasn't There
11. The Hudsucker Proxy
10. Raising Arizona
09. Burn After Reading
08. Barton Fink
07. Blood Simple
06. The Big Lebowski
05. Fargo
04. Miller's Crossing
03. No Country for Old Men
02. A Serious Man
01. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Coen Brothers' Movies - Best
14. Intolerable Cruelty
13. The Ladykillers
12. The Hudsucker Proxy
11. Burn After Reading
10. Raising Arizona
09. The Man Who Wasn't There
08. A Serious Man
07. Barton Fink
06. The Big Lebowski
05. Blood Simple
04. Miller's Crossing
03. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
02. No Country for Old Men
01. Fargo
My list of Favorite Founding Father has also shifted slightly, after reading the biography of Alexander Hamilton. My impressions of AH had primarily come from the biographies of Jefferson and Adams, both of whom despised Hamilton. Hamilton's negative character traits were thus the most discussed aspects of him, and his positive character traits were downplayed. Whereas, after reading Jefferson's biography, I only disliked him more, after reading Hamilton's story he has risen in my esteem greatly.
Favorite Founding Fathers
5. Thomas Jefferson - Everyone on this list had flaws, sometimes major ones, but Thomas Jefferson's entire life revolved around thinking one thing, saying another, and doing a third. His hypocrisy and duplicity make it impossible for me to regard him with the same respect I once had.
4. George Washington - Washington did many great things and had many great attributes, not least of which was the foresight to realize that giving up power would gain him far more prestige and fame than hoarding it. But the more one reads about GW the more one realizes that there is no way to fully know, humanize, or understand him. He spent his entire life striking a pose.
3. Benjamin Franklin - Franklin is another one whose reputation (often false) is more knowable than the man. He never stopped joking around long enough to ever be entirely truthful about himself, and didn't believe in giving his opinions. He had the greatest timing of anyone, was one of the most intelligent, and probably the most outright charismatic.
2. Alexander Hamilton - His life reads like fiction. An adventure story. Young man born illegitimate in the Caribbean to a line of Scottish nobility, orphaned and persecuted at a young age, distinguishes himself in every way he can, is sent to America for education, arrives just in time for a revolution, becomes the right hand of the commander-in-chief, becomes a war hero, marries into one of the the richest families in his chosen state, has incredible political highs and lows, and is finally killed in a duel.
1. John Adams - Adams' downfall (in regards to posterity and his position within the American pantheon) was his unrelenting truthfulness, both with others and with himself. While Alexander Hamilton would be most comfortable with the modern world, John Adams was the most like a modern person. I believe that is why he is only now enjoying a surge of popularity and historical vindication, because until the present time people just hadn't caught up with the type of person he was.
John Dickinson remains my honorable mention, for all the same reasons.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
I just finished watching Intolerable Cruelty, which was pretty mediocre. Usually it would be a forgettable experience, but this was actually a momentous occasion, for IC was the last remaining Coen Brothers movie that I hadn't seen. To celebrate this feat, I've decided to rank their oeuvre. First by favorite, then by best.
Coen Brothers' Movies - Favorite
14. Intolerable Cruelty
13. The Ladykillers
12. The Man Who Wasn't There
11. The Hudsucker Proxy
10. Raising Arizona
09. Miller's Crossing
08. Barton Fink
07. Burn After Reading
06. Blood Simple
05. The Big Lebowski
04. Fargo
03. No Country for Old Men
02. A Serious Man
01. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Coen Brothers' Movies - Best
14. Intolerable Cruelty
13. The Ladykillers
12. The Hudsucker Proxy
11. Burn After Reading
10. Raising Arizona
09. Miller's Crossing
08. The Man Who Wasn't There
07. Barton Fink
06. A Serious Man
05. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
04. The Big Lebowski
03. Blood Simple
02. No Country for Old Men
01. Fargo
Coen Brothers' Movies - Favorite
14. Intolerable Cruelty
13. The Ladykillers
12. The Man Who Wasn't There
11. The Hudsucker Proxy
10. Raising Arizona
09. Miller's Crossing
08. Barton Fink
07. Burn After Reading
06. Blood Simple
05. The Big Lebowski
04. Fargo
03. No Country for Old Men
02. A Serious Man
01. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Coen Brothers' Movies - Best
14. Intolerable Cruelty
13. The Ladykillers
12. The Hudsucker Proxy
11. Burn After Reading
10. Raising Arizona
09. Miller's Crossing
08. The Man Who Wasn't There
07. Barton Fink
06. A Serious Man
05. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
04. The Big Lebowski
03. Blood Simple
02. No Country for Old Men
01. Fargo
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
I read a really good webcomic here about the BP oil spill. In the comments section, it became something of an argument about the difficulty of fixing a problem in space compared to fixing a problem under a mile of water. I wrote this in reply, but when I was done decided it would be better as a post here. This is the first time I've written anything about my feelings on the BP Oil Spill.
*************************
The question isn't "Is it harder to fix a pipe underwater than in space?"
The question is, "If they can't fix a problem under a mile of water, why are they messing around down there?"
The BP oil spill shines a light on the ravenous arrogance of the human being, especially the modern human. We rush headlong into situations and environments about which we know nothing. The consequences don't matter. It doesn't matter that something might go wrong, and we have no idea what to do then. All that matters is, "I have a dream!" or "I can make a buck!"
If humanity were capable of learning from it's mistakes, this would be a wake-up call. But it won't be. It's not like this is the first time something horribly tragic has resulted from human greed or arrogance. From Manifest Destiny to the atomic bomb to the BP oil spill and beyond, humanity will always just rush headlong into things to see if it can.
*************************
The question isn't "Is it harder to fix a pipe underwater than in space?"
The question is, "If they can't fix a problem under a mile of water, why are they messing around down there?"
The BP oil spill shines a light on the ravenous arrogance of the human being, especially the modern human. We rush headlong into situations and environments about which we know nothing. The consequences don't matter. It doesn't matter that something might go wrong, and we have no idea what to do then. All that matters is, "I have a dream!" or "I can make a buck!"
If humanity were capable of learning from it's mistakes, this would be a wake-up call. But it won't be. It's not like this is the first time something horribly tragic has resulted from human greed or arrogance. From Manifest Destiny to the atomic bomb to the BP oil spill and beyond, humanity will always just rush headlong into things to see if it can.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
In the past year or so, I've been drawn into the "torture discussion" several times whilst online, and I've responded in a manner more impassioned and articulate than my usual fare each time. So I've decided to write an essay on the subject. Not right this second, but I'm gathering here some of my better posts on the subject.
-------------------------------------------
"If nothing we do matters, all that matters is what we do."
I think this relates a lot to Hindu belief that one must disregard the fruits of one's actions, and focus on the actions itself. The result that you want, or that you plan for, isn't guaranteed. Often the results you get are entirely opposite of what you wanted. Angel got "After the Fall" instead of the kamikaze last stand he wanted. So people like Wes in Season 3 or Angel in Season 5, and other big picture thinkers, are sullying their souls, doing things they don't want to do...for no reason at all.
Since there is no big picture, the argument goes, one should only act in accordance to one's personal ethical code regardless of the situation or the possible outcome.
--------------------------------------------
Well, your "Lost" example kind of lends itself to the other side of the argument. Regardless of whether Sawyer took Shannon's medicine or simply used the situation to his advantage, the solution was Sun finding the base plant behind the medicine. If Jack hadn't been wasting his time torturing Sawyer his medical training might have kicked in and he could have come to the same conclusion as Sun. Whether or not torture would have worked, or is moral, or whatever, there was a different, much better, solution.
That is usually the case, I believe.
But, to face your hypothetical head on: no torture ever. There will either be a different, much better, solution than torture or one will just have to live with the consequences. There's no guarantee that torturing someone will prevent the tragedy, or that being tortured is not part of the prisoner's plan to keep you occupied while the tragedy gets closer to happening, etc. Torture is not a magical solution that always works. Quite the opposite, in fact. Setting aside all moral arguments, using torture just seems illogical.
Bringing back the moral argument: the prisoner might also give up the information if I kill his child, rape his wife and mother, or drop a nuclear bomb on Australia, but I'm not going to try any of those things in order to achieve my goal.
+=+=
I do believe that in most situations there is a different, much better solution. But, in the hypothetical situation where there is none at all, I would not torture him, and I would live with the consequences. My reasoning in bringing up murder, rape, or genocide was to illustrate that there are certain things that are considered a 'no-brainer' in terms of what you should not do in order to achieve one's goal. For me, torture is another.
+=+=
Yes. But, you seem to believe that my answer of "I won't torture anybody" means, "I will do nothing, try nothing." That is simply not true. You also seem to believe that if I torture someone, I'll definitely be able to get what I want. This, also, is simply not true.
Lets say I did decide to torture this guy (and, again, I'm setting this in the real world). I torture him, falling victim to the fallacy that doing violence to prevent violence somehow makes sense - there's no guarantee that it will accomplish anything. Maybe the prisoner holds out just long enough. Maybe there's no way to stop the bomb. Maybe the guy has no idea how to stop it. Regardless, I've just tortured somebody and a million people are still dead (in large part because I've just wasted all their time pointlessly torturing someone).
Instead, I could have disregarded the guy entirely and tried to figure out another solution. Maybe I could save the million. Maybe not. At the very least I could let people in the city know that there's a bomb about to explode. And if ten, or five, or even one person gets to safety because of me that would be better than any other action I could have taken. I would have saved one person, and destroyed no one.
--------------------------------------
Those advocating torture always seem to take a couple things as given: 1. that torture absolutely will succeed (and is usually the only solution to a problem), and 2. that not using torture is tantamount to admitting defeat, to doing nothing (and usually results in the 'destruction of civilization').
Take this scenario: someone has planted a nuke in a city. You have him in custody, but he won't reveal the location of the bomb. The bomb will detonate in an hour (or ten, it doesn't really matter).
Those advocating torture insist that the suspect must be tortured. The assumption is that torture will result in the suspect giving up the location of the bomb. This is, as I've said, taken as a given. But it's not. The outcome of a situation is never a given (which is why "The Greater Good" is such a pernicious and dangerous thing. There is no greater good, there is only your individual actions and an uncertain future). And anyone who has the conviction to blow up a city can probably stand up to torture.
To those who would refuse to torture the suspect, those advocating torture usually respond with something like, "So you would let all those people die to keep your hands clean!?" And the answer is...no. I would do many other things, trying to save as many lives as I could - all of them, if possible. At the very least, I would announce to the people of the city that there was a bomb about to explode and that they should probably get out of town. There are always other options.
Then there's the ever popular rationalization that, "Sure, torture is bad, but in this situation you should try to save lives by any means necessary." Buuuut...people who say that never really mean it. Staying with my terrorist/nuke scenario, and accepting for the moment that we should use Any. Means. Necessary...why not bribery? I mean, if we're considering all the options...why not a million dollars? Or a roll in the hay? Or the state of Utah? I guarantee that these tactics will have a far higher success rate. But, of course, that is unacceptable. There are lines that just cannot be crossed.
-------------------------------------
Hopefully sometimes soon I'll synthesize these comments, as well as some ideas about the morality behind such arguments, into something worth reading.
-------------------------------------------
"If nothing we do matters, all that matters is what we do."
I think this relates a lot to Hindu belief that one must disregard the fruits of one's actions, and focus on the actions itself. The result that you want, or that you plan for, isn't guaranteed. Often the results you get are entirely opposite of what you wanted. Angel got "After the Fall" instead of the kamikaze last stand he wanted. So people like Wes in Season 3 or Angel in Season 5, and other big picture thinkers, are sullying their souls, doing things they don't want to do...for no reason at all.
Since there is no big picture, the argument goes, one should only act in accordance to one's personal ethical code regardless of the situation or the possible outcome.
--------------------------------------------
Well, your "Lost" example kind of lends itself to the other side of the argument. Regardless of whether Sawyer took Shannon's medicine or simply used the situation to his advantage, the solution was Sun finding the base plant behind the medicine. If Jack hadn't been wasting his time torturing Sawyer his medical training might have kicked in and he could have come to the same conclusion as Sun. Whether or not torture would have worked, or is moral, or whatever, there was a different, much better, solution.
That is usually the case, I believe.
But, to face your hypothetical head on: no torture ever. There will either be a different, much better, solution than torture or one will just have to live with the consequences. There's no guarantee that torturing someone will prevent the tragedy, or that being tortured is not part of the prisoner's plan to keep you occupied while the tragedy gets closer to happening, etc. Torture is not a magical solution that always works. Quite the opposite, in fact. Setting aside all moral arguments, using torture just seems illogical.
Bringing back the moral argument: the prisoner might also give up the information if I kill his child, rape his wife and mother, or drop a nuclear bomb on Australia, but I'm not going to try any of those things in order to achieve my goal.
+=+=
I do believe that in most situations there is a different, much better solution. But, in the hypothetical situation where there is none at all, I would not torture him, and I would live with the consequences. My reasoning in bringing up murder, rape, or genocide was to illustrate that there are certain things that are considered a 'no-brainer' in terms of what you should not do in order to achieve one's goal. For me, torture is another.
+=+=
Yes. But, you seem to believe that my answer of "I won't torture anybody" means, "I will do nothing, try nothing." That is simply not true. You also seem to believe that if I torture someone, I'll definitely be able to get what I want. This, also, is simply not true.
Lets say I did decide to torture this guy (and, again, I'm setting this in the real world). I torture him, falling victim to the fallacy that doing violence to prevent violence somehow makes sense - there's no guarantee that it will accomplish anything. Maybe the prisoner holds out just long enough. Maybe there's no way to stop the bomb. Maybe the guy has no idea how to stop it. Regardless, I've just tortured somebody and a million people are still dead (in large part because I've just wasted all their time pointlessly torturing someone).
Instead, I could have disregarded the guy entirely and tried to figure out another solution. Maybe I could save the million. Maybe not. At the very least I could let people in the city know that there's a bomb about to explode. And if ten, or five, or even one person gets to safety because of me that would be better than any other action I could have taken. I would have saved one person, and destroyed no one.
--------------------------------------
Those advocating torture always seem to take a couple things as given: 1. that torture absolutely will succeed (and is usually the only solution to a problem), and 2. that not using torture is tantamount to admitting defeat, to doing nothing (and usually results in the 'destruction of civilization').
Take this scenario: someone has planted a nuke in a city. You have him in custody, but he won't reveal the location of the bomb. The bomb will detonate in an hour (or ten, it doesn't really matter).
Those advocating torture insist that the suspect must be tortured. The assumption is that torture will result in the suspect giving up the location of the bomb. This is, as I've said, taken as a given. But it's not. The outcome of a situation is never a given (which is why "The Greater Good" is such a pernicious and dangerous thing. There is no greater good, there is only your individual actions and an uncertain future). And anyone who has the conviction to blow up a city can probably stand up to torture.
To those who would refuse to torture the suspect, those advocating torture usually respond with something like, "So you would let all those people die to keep your hands clean!?" And the answer is...no. I would do many other things, trying to save as many lives as I could - all of them, if possible. At the very least, I would announce to the people of the city that there was a bomb about to explode and that they should probably get out of town. There are always other options.
Then there's the ever popular rationalization that, "Sure, torture is bad, but in this situation you should try to save lives by any means necessary." Buuuut...people who say that never really mean it. Staying with my terrorist/nuke scenario, and accepting for the moment that we should use Any. Means. Necessary...why not bribery? I mean, if we're considering all the options...why not a million dollars? Or a roll in the hay? Or the state of Utah? I guarantee that these tactics will have a far higher success rate. But, of course, that is unacceptable. There are lines that just cannot be crossed.
-------------------------------------
Hopefully sometimes soon I'll synthesize these comments, as well as some ideas about the morality behind such arguments, into something worth reading.
Monday, May 10, 2010
List, Updated
I've decided to name this list the Awesome List. Why? Because.
The Awesome List
Done: Anabaptism, The Schleitheim Confession, Islamic Monasticism
Added: Petr Chelcicky, A. Phillip Randolph, Stonewall, William Lloyd Garrison
Vaclav Havel
A.J. Muste
James Farmer
Bayard Rustin
Trappist Monks
Thomas Merton
Origen
Tertullian
Rene McGraw
Ronald Neihbur
Vinoba Bhave
Jayaprakash Narayan
Fred Hampton
William Langland
John Gower
The Gospel of Matthew
The Sermon on the Mount
Bodhisattvacharyavatara
"Moral Man and Immoral Society"
"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"
"Piers Plowman"
"The Lover's Confession"
Islamic Monasticism
Petr Chelcicky
A. Phillip Randolph
Stonewall
William Lloyd Garrison
-=-=-=-=-
I had "Islamic Monasticism" on the list because I heard the term used and found it strange. My curiosity was mostly about whether or not there actually was such a thing. I like monks and ascetics in general, so I thought I would have heard about Islamic Monasticism before then. It turns out I was essentially correct. Since it's pretty short, I'll just copy and paste what Wikipedia had to say on the subject:
While most Muslims do not believe in monasticism (emphasizing the Qur'anic injunction [Qur'an 57:27] in which Allah says that monasticism is a man-made practice that is not divinely prescribed), various Muslim Sufi orders, or "tariqas" encourage practices that resemble those of monastic brotherhoods in other faiths.
Dervishes—initiates of Sufi orders—believe that love is a projection of the essence of God to the universe. Many of the dervishes are mendicant ascetics who have taken the vow of poverty. Though some of them are beggars by choice, others work in common professions; many Egyptian Qadirites, for example, are fishermen.
All genuine dervish brotherhoods trace their origins from two of the close companions of Muhammad, Ali ibn Abu Talib and Abu Bakr. They differ from spiritual brotherhoods of Christianity in that they usually do not live together in a 'monastery' setting; it is actually a stipulation that they have families, and earn an ethical living.
Whirling dance, practiced by the Mevlevi order in Turkey, is just one of the physical methods to try to reach religious ecstasy (majdhb) and connection with Allah. Rif'ai, in their mystical states, apparently skewer themselves without engendering any harm. Other groups include the Shadhili, a gnosis based order who practice the 'hadra' or 'presence', a dance-like breathing exercise involving the repetition of divine names. All genuine brotherhoods and subgroups chant verses of Qur'an, and must follow their form of sharia, or sacred law.
Traditionally monks in Sufism have been known as fakirs. This term has also been applied to Hindu monks.
The Awesome List
Done: Anabaptism, The Schleitheim Confession, Islamic Monasticism
Added: Petr Chelcicky, A. Phillip Randolph, Stonewall, William Lloyd Garrison
Vaclav Havel
A.J. Muste
James Farmer
Bayard Rustin
Trappist Monks
Thomas Merton
Origen
Tertullian
Rene McGraw
Ronald Neihbur
Vinoba Bhave
Jayaprakash Narayan
Fred Hampton
William Langland
John Gower
The Gospel of Matthew
The Sermon on the Mount
Bodhisattvacharyavatara
"Moral Man and Immoral Society"
"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"
"Piers Plowman"
"The Lover's Confession"
Islamic Monasticism
Petr Chelcicky
A. Phillip Randolph
Stonewall
William Lloyd Garrison
-=-=-=-=-
I had "Islamic Monasticism" on the list because I heard the term used and found it strange. My curiosity was mostly about whether or not there actually was such a thing. I like monks and ascetics in general, so I thought I would have heard about Islamic Monasticism before then. It turns out I was essentially correct. Since it's pretty short, I'll just copy and paste what Wikipedia had to say on the subject:
While most Muslims do not believe in monasticism (emphasizing the Qur'anic injunction [Qur'an 57:27] in which Allah says that monasticism is a man-made practice that is not divinely prescribed), various Muslim Sufi orders, or "tariqas" encourage practices that resemble those of monastic brotherhoods in other faiths.
Dervishes—initiates of Sufi orders—believe that love is a projection of the essence of God to the universe. Many of the dervishes are mendicant ascetics who have taken the vow of poverty. Though some of them are beggars by choice, others work in common professions; many Egyptian Qadirites, for example, are fishermen.
All genuine dervish brotherhoods trace their origins from two of the close companions of Muhammad, Ali ibn Abu Talib and Abu Bakr. They differ from spiritual brotherhoods of Christianity in that they usually do not live together in a 'monastery' setting; it is actually a stipulation that they have families, and earn an ethical living.
Whirling dance, practiced by the Mevlevi order in Turkey, is just one of the physical methods to try to reach religious ecstasy (majdhb) and connection with Allah. Rif'ai, in their mystical states, apparently skewer themselves without engendering any harm. Other groups include the Shadhili, a gnosis based order who practice the 'hadra' or 'presence', a dance-like breathing exercise involving the repetition of divine names. All genuine brotherhoods and subgroups chant verses of Qur'an, and must follow their form of sharia, or sacred law.
Traditionally monks in Sufism have been known as fakirs. This term has also been applied to Hindu monks.
Friday, May 7, 2010
American Revolution Thoughts, List Item 1a
A related list item to Anabaptism that I forgot last time: The Schleitheim Confession was a declaration of Swiss Anabaptist belief in 1527. That Baptism should only be administered to adults who could understand what they were undertaking was the main tenet, with non-violence and refusal to take oaths also being included.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
I just recently finished Joseph Ellis' biography of George Washington "His Excellency", and I really liked it. Ellis really brought the man alive for me. This was read in a continuation of a general revival of interest in the Revolutionary Generation. When returning "His Excellency" I checked out the McCullough biography of John Adams, as well as a recent biography of Abigail Adams. In line with all of this, it just seems proper that I post a list!
Top 5 Founding Fathers
5. Thomas Jefferson - Joseph Ellis is almost solely responsible for turning my opinion about Jefferson. A couple of years ago, he might have been at the top of my list instead of the bottom. His radical, revolutionary rhetoric is right up my alley, and judging him just by the Declaration of Independence, his theories of the earth belonging to the living, and how a government should be overturned about once a generation he's my kind of guy. His duplicitous nature and his role in bringing about the Party Wars, the way he betrayed Washington and Adams (and then refused to acknowledge doing so), really turned my opinion of him.
4. Alexander Hamilton - Likewise. I can respect him for his genius (arguably the most genius of all the Founders) and his pragmatic nature. But his part in the Party Wars and his...well...his insanity and his insatiable ambition and appetite for power were his downfall. He ranks slightly above Jefferson because he never made any attempt to hide his nature nor made any apologies for it, but the potential he wasted away is mind boggling. Imagine how much could have been accomplished had he and Jefferson put their heads together instead of butted them constantly.
3. George Washington - What is there to say about Washington? He made a career of giving up power when no one expected him to do so. He could have been the American Napoleon at the end of the Revolution, he could have been King for life after having been elected, but he wisely realized that relinquishing power would set him apart from almost all other men in his position throughout history. And he was right. He is third because I have an affinity for philosophical men rather than military men, but my respect for the man is not slight.
2. John Adams - I'm just another part of the John Adams revival that we're in the middle of going through. Adams' learning, his philosophy, his relationship with his life, his revolutionary virtues...I love it all. It was unfair that history focused so much on people like Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington because their personalities and places in the Revolution were easier to pigeonhole, and it's especially unfair that Adams recognized while he was still alive that that was the way it was going to go down. Thankfully that's being remedied.
1. Benjamin Franklin - Ben Franklin was simply a pimp. The ultimate self-made man, anything this guy set his sights on he accomplished. He was amazingly progressive for his time, he was funny as hell, he was one of the smartest men to ever live, he was like a walking aphrodisiac for the ladies (even if he didn't sleep with very many), and he was always rose above the petty squabbling and hypocrisies of his peers.
Honorable Mention: John Dickinson - I have a fondness for this guy because he's often painted as almost villainous (in the John Adams miniseries, in 1776) because he was so ardently against declaring independence. But he argued against the war for religious reasons (he was a Quaker, and thus staunchly against War) and out of interest in the safety of his fellow Americans (the idea of fighting the revolutionary war still seems like suicide today, even though we know that they won). He wanted independence in a less violent way. He argued till the bitter end, then abstained himself when it became apparent that everyone else was going to vote for Independence...then when it was declared he jumped on a horse and went off to lead a militia. You've got to respect a man so staunch in his beliefs, yet so ardent in his belief in the American cause. In fact, his revolutionary credentials outshone pretty much everyone, including everyone on my list. He was one of the very, very few people involved from the very beginning of the revolution to the very end. He was a major player in the Stamp Act Congress, the Continental Congresses, and the Constitutional Convention. When he died Jefferson wrote of him, "A more estimable man, or truer patriot, could not have left us. Among the first of the advocates for the rights of his country when assailed by Great Britain, he continued to the last the orthodox advocate of the true principles of our new government and his name will be consecrated in history as one of the great worthies of the revolution."
Dickinson proves the exception the the general rule of the American struggle for independence: that rule being that there were three waves, each borne of separate ideas about America and independence, and that the main players of one wave rarely contributed to the others. The first wave, beginning around 1764, was that of the initial agitators. People like Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty, who were probably considered to be terrorists by the English. These were the very first people to call for independence from Britain. Sam Adams, John Dickinson, John Hancock, Caesar Rodney, several others...these were men who had been agitating for a decade, these were the most respected delegates at the Continental Congresses. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Ben Franklin...these guys were either complete unknowns (Jefferson), or absolute newcomers to the cause (Franklin had been a complete supporter and a RESIDENT of England until a few months before). Men like Hancock were made president of the Continental Congress, Sam Adams was an honored delegate; the men of the first wave were given the cushy, prestigious positions, while the newcomers became symbols of the War.
At the end of the war, those with the lengthiest revolutionary credentials again were given the choicest positions. Sam Adams became governor of Massachusetts, John Dickinson became president of Delaware (and Pennsylvania), etc. The major newcomers (John Adams, Thomas Jefferson) were given some pretty good jobs as well, but nothing of that caliber. All the major players of the first two waves had been justly rewarded and were busy with the business of running their new government, secure in their place in history.
Unfortunately for them, some even newer newcomers(Alexander Hamilton, James Madison) were convinced that the Revolution wasn't quite over yet. They staged what was essentially a coup, and replaced the existing government entirely. Most of the major players in the first wave were either long out of public business or at the heights of power, the chief players of the second wave were either across the pond (Adams in England, Jefferson in France) or figureheads (Washington was president of the Constitutional Congress and hardly said a word, Franklin was a participant but was nearly eighty years old at this point), and it was Hamilton and Madison who did all the major legwork and they eventually reaped the rewards.
Ironically, of the people most responsible for the Revolution, those men who initially rebelled against the Empire and worked for over a decade to turn public support against the British, which resulted in the Continental Congresses, the Declaration of Independence, and the American Revolution, not a single one is remembered as one of the chief Founding Fathers. Most are hardly remembered at all.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
I just recently finished Joseph Ellis' biography of George Washington "His Excellency", and I really liked it. Ellis really brought the man alive for me. This was read in a continuation of a general revival of interest in the Revolutionary Generation. When returning "His Excellency" I checked out the McCullough biography of John Adams, as well as a recent biography of Abigail Adams. In line with all of this, it just seems proper that I post a list!
Top 5 Founding Fathers
5. Thomas Jefferson - Joseph Ellis is almost solely responsible for turning my opinion about Jefferson. A couple of years ago, he might have been at the top of my list instead of the bottom. His radical, revolutionary rhetoric is right up my alley, and judging him just by the Declaration of Independence, his theories of the earth belonging to the living, and how a government should be overturned about once a generation he's my kind of guy. His duplicitous nature and his role in bringing about the Party Wars, the way he betrayed Washington and Adams (and then refused to acknowledge doing so), really turned my opinion of him.
4. Alexander Hamilton - Likewise. I can respect him for his genius (arguably the most genius of all the Founders) and his pragmatic nature. But his part in the Party Wars and his...well...his insanity and his insatiable ambition and appetite for power were his downfall. He ranks slightly above Jefferson because he never made any attempt to hide his nature nor made any apologies for it, but the potential he wasted away is mind boggling. Imagine how much could have been accomplished had he and Jefferson put their heads together instead of butted them constantly.
3. George Washington - What is there to say about Washington? He made a career of giving up power when no one expected him to do so. He could have been the American Napoleon at the end of the Revolution, he could have been King for life after having been elected, but he wisely realized that relinquishing power would set him apart from almost all other men in his position throughout history. And he was right. He is third because I have an affinity for philosophical men rather than military men, but my respect for the man is not slight.
2. John Adams - I'm just another part of the John Adams revival that we're in the middle of going through. Adams' learning, his philosophy, his relationship with his life, his revolutionary virtues...I love it all. It was unfair that history focused so much on people like Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington because their personalities and places in the Revolution were easier to pigeonhole, and it's especially unfair that Adams recognized while he was still alive that that was the way it was going to go down. Thankfully that's being remedied.
1. Benjamin Franklin - Ben Franklin was simply a pimp. The ultimate self-made man, anything this guy set his sights on he accomplished. He was amazingly progressive for his time, he was funny as hell, he was one of the smartest men to ever live, he was like a walking aphrodisiac for the ladies (even if he didn't sleep with very many), and he was always rose above the petty squabbling and hypocrisies of his peers.
Honorable Mention: John Dickinson - I have a fondness for this guy because he's often painted as almost villainous (in the John Adams miniseries, in 1776) because he was so ardently against declaring independence. But he argued against the war for religious reasons (he was a Quaker, and thus staunchly against War) and out of interest in the safety of his fellow Americans (the idea of fighting the revolutionary war still seems like suicide today, even though we know that they won). He wanted independence in a less violent way. He argued till the bitter end, then abstained himself when it became apparent that everyone else was going to vote for Independence...then when it was declared he jumped on a horse and went off to lead a militia. You've got to respect a man so staunch in his beliefs, yet so ardent in his belief in the American cause. In fact, his revolutionary credentials outshone pretty much everyone, including everyone on my list. He was one of the very, very few people involved from the very beginning of the revolution to the very end. He was a major player in the Stamp Act Congress, the Continental Congresses, and the Constitutional Convention. When he died Jefferson wrote of him, "A more estimable man, or truer patriot, could not have left us. Among the first of the advocates for the rights of his country when assailed by Great Britain, he continued to the last the orthodox advocate of the true principles of our new government and his name will be consecrated in history as one of the great worthies of the revolution."
Dickinson proves the exception the the general rule of the American struggle for independence: that rule being that there were three waves, each borne of separate ideas about America and independence, and that the main players of one wave rarely contributed to the others. The first wave, beginning around 1764, was that of the initial agitators. People like Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty, who were probably considered to be terrorists by the English. These were the very first people to call for independence from Britain. Sam Adams, John Dickinson, John Hancock, Caesar Rodney, several others...these were men who had been agitating for a decade, these were the most respected delegates at the Continental Congresses. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Ben Franklin...these guys were either complete unknowns (Jefferson), or absolute newcomers to the cause (Franklin had been a complete supporter and a RESIDENT of England until a few months before). Men like Hancock were made president of the Continental Congress, Sam Adams was an honored delegate; the men of the first wave were given the cushy, prestigious positions, while the newcomers became symbols of the War.
At the end of the war, those with the lengthiest revolutionary credentials again were given the choicest positions. Sam Adams became governor of Massachusetts, John Dickinson became president of Delaware (and Pennsylvania), etc. The major newcomers (John Adams, Thomas Jefferson) were given some pretty good jobs as well, but nothing of that caliber. All the major players of the first two waves had been justly rewarded and were busy with the business of running their new government, secure in their place in history.
Unfortunately for them, some even newer newcomers(Alexander Hamilton, James Madison) were convinced that the Revolution wasn't quite over yet. They staged what was essentially a coup, and replaced the existing government entirely. Most of the major players in the first wave were either long out of public business or at the heights of power, the chief players of the second wave were either across the pond (Adams in England, Jefferson in France) or figureheads (Washington was president of the Constitutional Congress and hardly said a word, Franklin was a participant but was nearly eighty years old at this point), and it was Hamilton and Madison who did all the major legwork and they eventually reaped the rewards.
Ironically, of the people most responsible for the Revolution, those men who initially rebelled against the Empire and worked for over a decade to turn public support against the British, which resulted in the Continental Congresses, the Declaration of Independence, and the American Revolution, not a single one is remembered as one of the chief Founding Fathers. Most are hardly remembered at all.
Monday, May 3, 2010
List Item #1
I have a tendency for fascination, and in some cases admiration, toward the most extreme variations of a thing. I’m interested in serial killers and in saints, I find fascism and anarchy compelling, I find scripture fascinating and I love blasphemy, my favorite Hindu scriptures are the Upanishads, and my favorite early Christians are the Desert Fathers. When I first studied the Reformation, I was instantly drawn to the Anabaptists, among the most radical of all the reformers.
Anabaptism was essentially a movement within a movement. Every other major split of the Reformation (Lutheranism, Calvinism, Anglicism, etc) was essentially a centralized religion unto itself. Anabaptism, however, was a broad movement of people who wanted to break from Catholicism but found no satisfaction among the mainstream dissidents. Therefore, when speaking of Anabaptism one speaks of a mishmash of several things: religious movements, radical theologians, charismatics proclaiming themselves prophets, and seminal events. Because of its very character, there could be no centralized theology or broad popular movement. Even that which is most identified with the remaining descendents of Anabaptism (the extreme pacifism of the Amish and the Mennonites) cannot be universally applied to the formative Anabaptists. In fact, two of the most violent and militant incidents of the early Reformation, the Peasant’s War and Muster Rebellion, were carried out by Anabaptists.
However, the crazier elements in the early stages of Anabaptism eventually self-destructed, and what prevailed was one of the purest forms of organized Christianity since the early Church. Their non-violence, their radical and anarchic views toward society and cultural mores, and their willingness to separate themselves from the world of material things aligned them as the true heirs of the spiritual wealth of Jesus Christ and the Desert Fathers.
What I’ll Research Because of Researching This: Petr Chelcicky, a fourteenth century theologian and anarchist who was a forerunner of Anabaptism, who I had read about before in Tolstoy’s “The Kingdom of God is Within You” but whose name I kept forgetting.
Anabaptism was essentially a movement within a movement. Every other major split of the Reformation (Lutheranism, Calvinism, Anglicism, etc) was essentially a centralized religion unto itself. Anabaptism, however, was a broad movement of people who wanted to break from Catholicism but found no satisfaction among the mainstream dissidents. Therefore, when speaking of Anabaptism one speaks of a mishmash of several things: religious movements, radical theologians, charismatics proclaiming themselves prophets, and seminal events. Because of its very character, there could be no centralized theology or broad popular movement. Even that which is most identified with the remaining descendents of Anabaptism (the extreme pacifism of the Amish and the Mennonites) cannot be universally applied to the formative Anabaptists. In fact, two of the most violent and militant incidents of the early Reformation, the Peasant’s War and Muster Rebellion, were carried out by Anabaptists.
However, the crazier elements in the early stages of Anabaptism eventually self-destructed, and what prevailed was one of the purest forms of organized Christianity since the early Church. Their non-violence, their radical and anarchic views toward society and cultural mores, and their willingness to separate themselves from the world of material things aligned them as the true heirs of the spiritual wealth of Jesus Christ and the Desert Fathers.
What I’ll Research Because of Researching This: Petr Chelcicky, a fourteenth century theologian and anarchist who was a forerunner of Anabaptism, who I had read about before in Tolstoy’s “The Kingdom of God is Within You” but whose name I kept forgetting.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Non-Violence Essay
I wrote this essay for my aforementioned non-violence class. It's not the best essay (it's the first I've written for a grade in several years), but I think it makes some interesting points.
**********************************************************************************
The Albany Campaign
On December 15th, 1961, Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in Albany, Georgia at the behest of Dr. W.G. Anderson, leader of the Albany Movement. King had planned to only stay a short while in Albany, but was arrested the next day along with about 700 others. This began a series of non-violent protests and subsequent arrests. On August 10th, 1962, Martin Luther King Jr. called off all demonstrations and left Albany for the last time. The non-violent campaign discussed in the following paragraphs, however, is not that of Martin Luther King Jr., but that of Chief of Police Laurie Pritchett, who studied Gandhian and Kingsian non-violent tactics and tried to subvert them. This essay will discuss why Pritchett’s tactics were a resounding success as well as why they occupy a unique position within the history of non-violence.
“I did research - I found his method was non-violence, that his method was to fill the jails -same as uh, Gandhi in India.” So says Laurie Pritchett in a 1985 interview; ten years earlier, in another interview, Pritchett explained his actions thusly, “Well, as you remember, we had information that Dr. King was coming...And you know his philosophy was non-violence. So we were going on the same philosophy as that. My men would train on non-violence…The men were instructed that if they were spit upon, cussed, abused in any way of that nature, that they …would act in a non-violent approach in that.” Before we begin, it should be said that there were some violent incidents perpetrated by Albany police officers during this period. However, if this is to be used as an argument to invalidate Pritchett’s attempts at non-violence, then the same argument must be used against King. And Gandhi. And Jesus Christ, for that matter. No one of these was, or claimed to be, a perfect controller of human beings. There were violent incidents from both sides in Albany, and there are violent incidents in every non-violent campaign. Another argument leveled against Pritchett is that he was not truly non-violent because he did not practice non-violence as a way of life. I would respond that there is no “true” non-violence. I personally find Pritchett’s actions all the more interesting in that they were used purely as a political strategy, stripped of the usual moral, religious, or ethical accouterments. This is how most young people today perceive non-violence. With that out of the way, I will discuss Pritchett’s specific tactics.
To begin with, the police officers under Pritchett’s jurisdiction actually received formal non-violent training. No matter what they were not to use overt violence, no matter if they were spit on, verbally abused, targeted by thrown bottles, or what have you. In fact, Chief Pritchett adopted the methods used by SNCC to train his officers. Pritchett also prepared himself to subvert the usual tactic of filling the jails. Prior to King’s arrival, Pritchett sat down with a map and made a list of every jail within a sixty mile radius. He then negotiated their use, and though he arrested over two thousand demonstrators his jail was almost always empty. To ensure the safety of these demonstrators, Pritchett sent over his own officers trained in non-violence to keep in line those who had not been trained. With the police acting non-violently, King was denied the media and national attention that Gandhian non-violence requires and that King’s later campaigns in Birmingham and Selma provided in abundance. With the jails never full, Pritchett never reached a point where he was forced to acquiesce to King’s demands due to a negated capacity to arrest anyone. Pritchett also arranged once for King’s bail money to be paid, then required King to leave, thus taking away another staple of modern non-violence: that of the prisoner of conscience. Stymied at every turn, with no significant help coming from the media or from the White House, King agreed to call off the demonstrations upon his third release from jail after an extremely short sentence.
King’s defeat in Albany has been described in terms ranging from “an embarrassing failure” to “a superficial assessment” to an outright victory…for those activists who had been in Albany before King and who remained in Albany after he left. Nonetheless, King considered Albany a failure and it weighed heavily upon his mind as he continued on to Birmingham in his struggle for civil rights. Albany resulted in a major shift in strategy from King, who resolved that, “The mistake I made there was to protest against segregation generally rather than against a single and distinct facet of it.” He decided subsequently to focus on specific, symbolic victories. Unspoken, but apparent, is that he decided subsequently to focus on towns and cities that would guarantee the violence, and thus the media frenzy, that modern, political non-violence requires to be effective.
More even than Pritchett’s victory, or its subsequent effect on the strategy and future victories of the Civil Rights Movement, I find Pritchett’s actions in Albany to be worth discussing for two reasons. First, Pritchett’s Albany campaign is one of, perhaps the only examples of non-violence being used to fight non-violence. Second, this unique status reveals a fundamental flaw in Gandhian/Kingsian non-violence. Flaw is not quite what I mean, but it is the area that non-violence in the 21st century must refashion in order to be effective. The “flaw” is this: modern, political non-violence relies inherently upon violence. In describing Satyagraha Gandhi usually does so in terms of winning the heart of one’s opponent through one’s own suffering, of taking a blow but never giving one, etc. “To lay down one’s life for what one considers to be right is the very core of Satyagraha.” But what if one’s opponent is not inflicting suffering, not giving blows, not trying to kill?
In that case, it seems, the method flounders. King reeled in confusion when faced with a non-violent opponent, and then dove headlong into Birmingham, the most violently racist city in the country. Today there are hundreds of people and organizations in our country protesting non-violently, inspired by Gandhi and King, who are largely accomplishing nothing because the American government rarely reacts to them. Non-violence as a religious or moral way of life, of course, is not affected by these considerations. But non-violence as a political weapon, which is the defining characteristic of modern non-violence, must face this problem head-on if it is to remain potent in the 21st century.
Sources and Citations
1. “Interview with Laurie Pritchett”, Eyes on the Prize, 11-07-1985.
2. “Interview with Laurie Pritchett”, Southern Oral History Program Collection, 04-23-1976.
3. “Martin Luther King Jr.’s Style of Leadership” by Dr. Peter J. Ling.
4. Quote from Howard Zinn, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albany_Movement
5. King, Martin Luther. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. New York: Warner Books, 1998
6. Gandhi, Mohandas K. Gandhi on Non-Violence. New York: New Directions, 1965.
**********************************************************************************
The Albany Campaign
On December 15th, 1961, Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in Albany, Georgia at the behest of Dr. W.G. Anderson, leader of the Albany Movement. King had planned to only stay a short while in Albany, but was arrested the next day along with about 700 others. This began a series of non-violent protests and subsequent arrests. On August 10th, 1962, Martin Luther King Jr. called off all demonstrations and left Albany for the last time. The non-violent campaign discussed in the following paragraphs, however, is not that of Martin Luther King Jr., but that of Chief of Police Laurie Pritchett, who studied Gandhian and Kingsian non-violent tactics and tried to subvert them. This essay will discuss why Pritchett’s tactics were a resounding success as well as why they occupy a unique position within the history of non-violence.
“I did research - I found his method was non-violence, that his method was to fill the jails -same as uh, Gandhi in India.” So says Laurie Pritchett in a 1985 interview; ten years earlier, in another interview, Pritchett explained his actions thusly, “Well, as you remember, we had information that Dr. King was coming...And you know his philosophy was non-violence. So we were going on the same philosophy as that. My men would train on non-violence…The men were instructed that if they were spit upon, cussed, abused in any way of that nature, that they …would act in a non-violent approach in that.” Before we begin, it should be said that there were some violent incidents perpetrated by Albany police officers during this period. However, if this is to be used as an argument to invalidate Pritchett’s attempts at non-violence, then the same argument must be used against King. And Gandhi. And Jesus Christ, for that matter. No one of these was, or claimed to be, a perfect controller of human beings. There were violent incidents from both sides in Albany, and there are violent incidents in every non-violent campaign. Another argument leveled against Pritchett is that he was not truly non-violent because he did not practice non-violence as a way of life. I would respond that there is no “true” non-violence. I personally find Pritchett’s actions all the more interesting in that they were used purely as a political strategy, stripped of the usual moral, religious, or ethical accouterments. This is how most young people today perceive non-violence. With that out of the way, I will discuss Pritchett’s specific tactics.
To begin with, the police officers under Pritchett’s jurisdiction actually received formal non-violent training. No matter what they were not to use overt violence, no matter if they were spit on, verbally abused, targeted by thrown bottles, or what have you. In fact, Chief Pritchett adopted the methods used by SNCC to train his officers. Pritchett also prepared himself to subvert the usual tactic of filling the jails. Prior to King’s arrival, Pritchett sat down with a map and made a list of every jail within a sixty mile radius. He then negotiated their use, and though he arrested over two thousand demonstrators his jail was almost always empty. To ensure the safety of these demonstrators, Pritchett sent over his own officers trained in non-violence to keep in line those who had not been trained. With the police acting non-violently, King was denied the media and national attention that Gandhian non-violence requires and that King’s later campaigns in Birmingham and Selma provided in abundance. With the jails never full, Pritchett never reached a point where he was forced to acquiesce to King’s demands due to a negated capacity to arrest anyone. Pritchett also arranged once for King’s bail money to be paid, then required King to leave, thus taking away another staple of modern non-violence: that of the prisoner of conscience. Stymied at every turn, with no significant help coming from the media or from the White House, King agreed to call off the demonstrations upon his third release from jail after an extremely short sentence.
King’s defeat in Albany has been described in terms ranging from “an embarrassing failure” to “a superficial assessment” to an outright victory…for those activists who had been in Albany before King and who remained in Albany after he left. Nonetheless, King considered Albany a failure and it weighed heavily upon his mind as he continued on to Birmingham in his struggle for civil rights. Albany resulted in a major shift in strategy from King, who resolved that, “The mistake I made there was to protest against segregation generally rather than against a single and distinct facet of it.” He decided subsequently to focus on specific, symbolic victories. Unspoken, but apparent, is that he decided subsequently to focus on towns and cities that would guarantee the violence, and thus the media frenzy, that modern, political non-violence requires to be effective.
More even than Pritchett’s victory, or its subsequent effect on the strategy and future victories of the Civil Rights Movement, I find Pritchett’s actions in Albany to be worth discussing for two reasons. First, Pritchett’s Albany campaign is one of, perhaps the only examples of non-violence being used to fight non-violence. Second, this unique status reveals a fundamental flaw in Gandhian/Kingsian non-violence. Flaw is not quite what I mean, but it is the area that non-violence in the 21st century must refashion in order to be effective. The “flaw” is this: modern, political non-violence relies inherently upon violence. In describing Satyagraha Gandhi usually does so in terms of winning the heart of one’s opponent through one’s own suffering, of taking a blow but never giving one, etc. “To lay down one’s life for what one considers to be right is the very core of Satyagraha.” But what if one’s opponent is not inflicting suffering, not giving blows, not trying to kill?
In that case, it seems, the method flounders. King reeled in confusion when faced with a non-violent opponent, and then dove headlong into Birmingham, the most violently racist city in the country. Today there are hundreds of people and organizations in our country protesting non-violently, inspired by Gandhi and King, who are largely accomplishing nothing because the American government rarely reacts to them. Non-violence as a religious or moral way of life, of course, is not affected by these considerations. But non-violence as a political weapon, which is the defining characteristic of modern non-violence, must face this problem head-on if it is to remain potent in the 21st century.
Sources and Citations
1. “Interview with Laurie Pritchett”, Eyes on the Prize, 11-07-1985.
2. “Interview with Laurie Pritchett”, Southern Oral History Program Collection, 04-23-1976.
3. “Martin Luther King Jr.’s Style of Leadership” by Dr. Peter J. Ling.
4. Quote from Howard Zinn, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albany_Movement
5. King, Martin Luther. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. New York: Warner Books, 1998
6. Gandhi, Mohandas K. Gandhi on Non-Violence. New York: New Directions, 1965.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
I am a huge music slut, so much of what I'll post about will be music-related. Here's my first offering in that vein:
Top 5 Jazz Artists
5. John Coltrane
4. Dave Brubeck
3. Charles Mingus
2. Django Reinhardt
1. Miles Davis
I'm not a Jazz expert by any means, but in the past few years my appreciation for it has greatly expanded. It all started with Miles Davis (it actually all started with the movie Swing Kids), and I doubt he will ever be displaced from my number one spot. Now I love The Grateful Dead, but they were more about the message and the experience. I love the Beatles, but I still think they're pretty overrated. I love The Velvet Underground, but they burned brightly and also shortly. And I love Bob Dylan to an unhealthy degree, and I think that for a short time in the sixties he transcended the title "musician", but besides those inspired few years his musicianship is really just standard 'above average'. So I would label Miles as the greatest pure musician of the 20th century. His duration, his variance, and his skill outmatched pretty much everyone.
Top 5 Blues Artists
5. Charley Patton
4. Robert Johnson
3. Lucille Bogan
2. Blind Willie Johnson
1. Mississippi John Hurt
I don't claim to be a great Blues expert, either, but I am a Blues purist. As soon as Blues became a genre of music rather than a way of life, I feel that the entire enterprise lost its impact. The reason the music was so powerful was because many or most of the artists were blind men living on the streets for whom music was their only way of staying alive or they were nomads whose chief way of living was going from bar to bar or they were dirt poor sharecroppers who escaped from the grind of life through their music. They didn't choose to be Blues musicians; their lives and their music gave birth to the Blues as we know it.
Top 5 Jazz Artists
5. John Coltrane
4. Dave Brubeck
3. Charles Mingus
2. Django Reinhardt
1. Miles Davis
I'm not a Jazz expert by any means, but in the past few years my appreciation for it has greatly expanded. It all started with Miles Davis (it actually all started with the movie Swing Kids), and I doubt he will ever be displaced from my number one spot. Now I love The Grateful Dead, but they were more about the message and the experience. I love the Beatles, but I still think they're pretty overrated. I love The Velvet Underground, but they burned brightly and also shortly. And I love Bob Dylan to an unhealthy degree, and I think that for a short time in the sixties he transcended the title "musician", but besides those inspired few years his musicianship is really just standard 'above average'. So I would label Miles as the greatest pure musician of the 20th century. His duration, his variance, and his skill outmatched pretty much everyone.
Top 5 Blues Artists
5. Charley Patton
4. Robert Johnson
3. Lucille Bogan
2. Blind Willie Johnson
1. Mississippi John Hurt
I don't claim to be a great Blues expert, either, but I am a Blues purist. As soon as Blues became a genre of music rather than a way of life, I feel that the entire enterprise lost its impact. The reason the music was so powerful was because many or most of the artists were blind men living on the streets for whom music was their only way of staying alive or they were nomads whose chief way of living was going from bar to bar or they were dirt poor sharecroppers who escaped from the grind of life through their music. They didn't choose to be Blues musicians; their lives and their music gave birth to the Blues as we know it.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
I was in my non-violence class yesterday. It's co-taught by a man named Sydney Burris and a Tibetan monk named Geshe Dorjee. Geshe is the highest rank amongst Buddhist monks. It takes about twenty years of trials and education to achieve, and Geshe Dorjee is the only Geshe in America to hold a regular position at a University. At the beginning of class yesterday they dropped a bombshell: His Holiness the Dalai Lama has agreed to come to my school (the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, AR). He'll be here May 11th, 2011, in our basketball arena which seats 18000+ but will no doubt sell out, and I don't care if I have to camp out for a week, I'm going to get a ticket. I never ever thought I would get to see the Dalai Lama in person. It's taken three years of work from Burris, Dorjee, and many others (and it will take another year of preparation). This was truly monumental news. I can't properly describe the atmosphere of the classroom when we were told, or the feeling I was left with afterward. I was floating, I was already affected by the mere news of his coming. It was incredible.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Today I was cleaning
and I found a piece of paper where I had written a list terms that had caught my interest while in class. There are several such pieces of paper floating about. People, works, movements, etc. Shit that came up in passing during lecture. Some I already knew a little about (Bayard Rustin, Anabaptists, Vinoba Bhave, etc), some I knew nothing about (Vaclav Havel, Jayaprakash Narayan, etc); but about each I wanted to learn more. Right now I'm going to transcribe the list here so that I can recycle the piece of paper, and later on I'll go back and write a little bit about each thing. So...
Vaclav Havel
A.J. Muste
James Farmer
Bayard Rustin
Trappist Monks
Thomas Merton
Origen
Tertullian
Rene McGraw
Ronald Neihbur
Vinoba Bhave
Jayaprakash Narayan
Fred Hampton
William Langland
John Gower
The Gospel of Matthew
The Sermon on the Mount
Bodhisattvacharyavatara
"Moral Man and Immoral Society"
"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"
"Piers Plowman"
"The Lover's Confession"
Islamic Monasticism
The Schleitheim Confession
Anabaptism
Vaclav Havel
A.J. Muste
James Farmer
Bayard Rustin
Trappist Monks
Thomas Merton
Origen
Tertullian
Rene McGraw
Ronald Neihbur
Vinoba Bhave
Jayaprakash Narayan
Fred Hampton
William Langland
John Gower
The Gospel of Matthew
The Sermon on the Mount
Bodhisattvacharyavatara
"Moral Man and Immoral Society"
"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"
"Piers Plowman"
"The Lover's Confession"
Islamic Monasticism
The Schleitheim Confession
Anabaptism
Friday, April 16, 2010
Hello
This is my first post. Isn't it pretty?
This blog will be the receptacle of any and all stray thoughts or top ten lists, but serious issues will also pop up from time to time. The most common will probably be religion, violence and non-violence, feminism, primates, philosophy, and history.
I hope I get a reader or two, and I hope they enjoy what they read.
This is a blog I wrote when I was a teenager, just in case you want to get to know me a little better. I haven't touched it in almost five years, which just makes me feel ridiculously old.
This blog will be the receptacle of any and all stray thoughts or top ten lists, but serious issues will also pop up from time to time. The most common will probably be religion, violence and non-violence, feminism, primates, philosophy, and history.
I hope I get a reader or two, and I hope they enjoy what they read.
This is a blog I wrote when I was a teenager, just in case you want to get to know me a little better. I haven't touched it in almost five years, which just makes me feel ridiculously old.
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