The Contentious One was struck (struck, but not killed--ho ho) by a story in the January 12 issue of Newsweek titled, "Remains of the Day." It turns out that to this day, there are people who are still collecting, storing, cataloguing, and DNA-matching pieces of flesh from the remnants of 9/11. And Mr. CI (quit referring to yourself in the third person--a sure sign of mental illness!) made special note of the following: "What's left of the terrorists--which, all told, likely amounts to less than 24 pounds of flesh and bone fragments--are sequestered at undisclosed locations in New York and Virginia. They are 'stored as evidence in a refrigerated locker in sealed containers and test tubes,' says Richard Kolko, a spokesman for the FBI." And, surprise, surprise: no one quite knows what to do with these 24 pounds of flesh and bone.
Like many other endeavors in life, this one has its gruesome qualities. I can't imagine what it's like to be a mortician, or a coroner, or a slaughterhouse worker, or an EMT, or a surgeon, where the "physicality" of things is right in your face. When Madonna sang that it's a "material world," she was right in ways that she probably didn't even realize. In the U.S., many of us are largely shielded from the "grittiness" of things--e.g., pieces of individuals strewn about in a cafe by a suicide bomber in Israel, urine and bowel movements in plain view on a sidewalk in India, chickens being killed right in front of you at a wet market in Malaysia (a personal gruesome moment!), public beheadings in Saudi Arabia, and so on. The enormity of it all leaves one with only coping strategies; as noted in other posts, I have given up trying to change the world significantly--there's just too much to change. My youthful idealism has given way to a combination of (a) resignation and (b) quiet optimism that sometime in the next couple of centuries things will get better. But right about now, all I can think about is what those 24 pounds of flesh must look like, and how ghastly and bizarre a sight it must be.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
My own MLK tribute
OK, tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day in the U.S. I sort of wish it wasn't always in the throes of winter, but that's the way it is. (King was born on January 15, so we must always celebrate his day in the deep freeze.)
When people commemorate the day, the focus is on race--as well it should be. This nation has made significant strides forward in that regard. Hard to believe that at a certain point in my lifetime, race could dictate which water fountain you could use, which restaurants and hotels you could patronize, and which part of the bus you could ride on. As many have said, the inauguration of Barack Obama moves us up a notch even higher with respect to the status of people of color.
But, I'm a white guy. Thankfully, I didn't have to struggle with these things. So the most important personal influence of Martin Luther King for me did not involve his ultimate goals, but his persuasive tactics. What I owe to Dr. King isn't a better understanding of the need for equality (gosh, I think I've always understood THAT), but a lifelong appreciation for and belief in the value of non-violence.
I read King's Stride Toward Freedom way-back-when. It chronicles the struggle to fully integrate the bus system in Montgomery, Alabama. After that, I read Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? In both books, King explains how he was influenced by Gandhi, and the need to resist, nonviolently, and not to stoop to the level of one's oppressors. Such a stance takes immense courage and self-control. I cannot even begin to appreciate what a price people paid for non-violent resistance in the 1960s. But I can appreciate its impact.
King led me to Gandhi. Gandhi's authobiography led me to an even deeper belief in non-violence. That in turn led me to vegetarianism. And all of that led me to become a Conscientious Objector to the war in Vietnam. One could easily argue that without Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, I would be quite a different person today. And so, Dr. King, I thank you for helping us all to understand that violence and hate can never win in the long run. You are a role model to me not because you advocated for racial equality, but because you showed how that advocacy needed to be done.
When people commemorate the day, the focus is on race--as well it should be. This nation has made significant strides forward in that regard. Hard to believe that at a certain point in my lifetime, race could dictate which water fountain you could use, which restaurants and hotels you could patronize, and which part of the bus you could ride on. As many have said, the inauguration of Barack Obama moves us up a notch even higher with respect to the status of people of color.
But, I'm a white guy. Thankfully, I didn't have to struggle with these things. So the most important personal influence of Martin Luther King for me did not involve his ultimate goals, but his persuasive tactics. What I owe to Dr. King isn't a better understanding of the need for equality (gosh, I think I've always understood THAT), but a lifelong appreciation for and belief in the value of non-violence.
I read King's Stride Toward Freedom way-back-when. It chronicles the struggle to fully integrate the bus system in Montgomery, Alabama. After that, I read Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? In both books, King explains how he was influenced by Gandhi, and the need to resist, nonviolently, and not to stoop to the level of one's oppressors. Such a stance takes immense courage and self-control. I cannot even begin to appreciate what a price people paid for non-violent resistance in the 1960s. But I can appreciate its impact.
King led me to Gandhi. Gandhi's authobiography led me to an even deeper belief in non-violence. That in turn led me to vegetarianism. And all of that led me to become a Conscientious Objector to the war in Vietnam. One could easily argue that without Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, I would be quite a different person today. And so, Dr. King, I thank you for helping us all to understand that violence and hate can never win in the long run. You are a role model to me not because you advocated for racial equality, but because you showed how that advocacy needed to be done.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Keeping your head up
One of the challenges of this time, or any time, is to find a way to keep your sanity and your optimism in the midst of all that life throws at you. Right now, it's the middle of winter--BLAH! Two of my most influential professors--Scott Nobles at Macalester and Ernest Bormann at the University of Minnesota--have died in the last couple of weeks. The economy is tanking. Things in Israel/Gaza really suck. Job responsibilites and financial pressures are everpresent. And dysfunction and craziness abound: I read the cover story in this month's National Geographic about the horrific lives of the men, women, and children around the planet who try to make a living by mining for gold; I didn't realize how unhealthful and depressing their lives really are, and all built around finding little pieces of metal. So in the midst of all this crap, what's one to do?
I'd like to say that religion provides some sort of answer, but it simply doesn't. (Why a loving, omniscient, omnipotent God would tolerate even half of this mess is totally beyond me and beyond anyone with half a brain.) I'd like to say that politics provides an answer, and it may, to some extent--but I am quite powerless to make anything meaningful happen; if I were Mr. Obama, my mindset would be different. I would hope that education can provide an answer, but education is a slow and often agonizing process--exactly what's needed in the long run, but quite ineffective in the short run. I'd like to just forget or ignore some of these things, but that's not really possible either. And (perhaps unfortunately?) drugs are not an easy answer either--when used, they tend to be more of a problem than a solution.
So again, what's a fellow to do? People have been searching for answers to this problem for centuries, so, hard as it may be to believe (ha ha), Contentious Introvert is not going to be able to magically solve this one. It's not as though Maslow's "peak experiences" are an everyday occurance. But I can say that I have at least one coping strategy, which may be silly and hackneyed but seems to help: every day I try--in a very intentional way--to find or make at least one or two "positive" things happen. It may be a long run around the lakes, and the feeling that comes with it. It may be a thank you card to a long-lost person. (For example, such a note to my 8th-grade social studies teacher paid off in a big way.) It may be going a little out of my way to help a student. It may be just one special moment with a person who is special to me. The key for me is to make it a conscious strategy, not just something that happens by accident. Now all of this still doesn't do one thing to change the world, but it enables me to keep on truckin'. And at times--maybe most of the time--that's the best that I can do.
I'd like to say that religion provides some sort of answer, but it simply doesn't. (Why a loving, omniscient, omnipotent God would tolerate even half of this mess is totally beyond me and beyond anyone with half a brain.) I'd like to say that politics provides an answer, and it may, to some extent--but I am quite powerless to make anything meaningful happen; if I were Mr. Obama, my mindset would be different. I would hope that education can provide an answer, but education is a slow and often agonizing process--exactly what's needed in the long run, but quite ineffective in the short run. I'd like to just forget or ignore some of these things, but that's not really possible either. And (perhaps unfortunately?) drugs are not an easy answer either--when used, they tend to be more of a problem than a solution.
So again, what's a fellow to do? People have been searching for answers to this problem for centuries, so, hard as it may be to believe (ha ha), Contentious Introvert is not going to be able to magically solve this one. It's not as though Maslow's "peak experiences" are an everyday occurance. But I can say that I have at least one coping strategy, which may be silly and hackneyed but seems to help: every day I try--in a very intentional way--to find or make at least one or two "positive" things happen. It may be a long run around the lakes, and the feeling that comes with it. It may be a thank you card to a long-lost person. (For example, such a note to my 8th-grade social studies teacher paid off in a big way.) It may be going a little out of my way to help a student. It may be just one special moment with a person who is special to me. The key for me is to make it a conscious strategy, not just something that happens by accident. Now all of this still doesn't do one thing to change the world, but it enables me to keep on truckin'. And at times--maybe most of the time--that's the best that I can do.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Slow-blogger: that's me
The Contentious Introvert is not exactly "trendy." The digital age has in many ways passed him by. He doesn't have a single body piercing. He thinks "blackberry" is a pie flavor. And his clothes are not exactly on the cutting edge of anything, except maybe the mid-1980s. So it should come as no surprise that yours truly WAS surprised to learn that he's at the vanguard of a new trend, a trend that I heard about on a talk show the other day, a talk show whose name escapes me. But, according to whatever cultural observer was being interviewed on this show, a current fashionable trend is: slow blogging.
OK, now you've gotta ask the question. (Ask it, already!) What is "slow blogging," you want to know? Well, I THINK it's sort of what I've been doing here for the last year. Rather than running the reader through every boring and trivial detail of my life (I ate peach yogurt for breakfast, I met my friend Biff for coffee at Caribou, I watched the latest episode of CSI Miami, I picked my nose twice, and so on--I guess this is "fast blogging"), slow blogging involves relatively short but focused mini-essays on something of substance. Further investigation revealed that there is even a slow-blogging website (surprise, surprise) that writes about this approach more elegantly:
"Slow Blogging is a reversal of the disintegration into the one-liners and cutting turns of phrase that are often the early lives of our best ideas. Its a process in which flashes of thought shine and then fade to take their place in the background as part of something larger. Slow Blogging does not write thoughts onto the ethereal and eternal parchment before they provide an enduring worth in the shape of our ideas over time." (ooh---heavy) [http://toddsieling.com/slowblog/?page_id=10]
Translation: slow-bloggers don't tell you if they took a bath or took a shower, if they ate Bruegger's bagels or Einstein bagels, if their navel is an "inney" or an "outey"--these things should not be part of "the ethereal and eternal parchment." In many ways, that's what I've been going for. Little did I realize that I'm out in front of something that's been identified as trendy! Good to know.
By the way, for breakfast I had strawberry yogurt, for lunch I had vegetable-bean soup with melted cheese, and for supper it was a noodle/tofu/zucchini/green pepper stir fry. And I've picked my nose at least three times. And Einstein bagels actually are better than Bruegger's. But I also believe that the American lifestyle is wasteful in ways that we can only begin to imagine, understand, or appreciate. And I think we have a lot to learn from Buddhism. So there--hail to all of you fellow slow bloggers!
OK, now you've gotta ask the question. (Ask it, already!) What is "slow blogging," you want to know? Well, I THINK it's sort of what I've been doing here for the last year. Rather than running the reader through every boring and trivial detail of my life (I ate peach yogurt for breakfast, I met my friend Biff for coffee at Caribou, I watched the latest episode of CSI Miami, I picked my nose twice, and so on--I guess this is "fast blogging"), slow blogging involves relatively short but focused mini-essays on something of substance. Further investigation revealed that there is even a slow-blogging website (surprise, surprise) that writes about this approach more elegantly:
"Slow Blogging is a reversal of the disintegration into the one-liners and cutting turns of phrase that are often the early lives of our best ideas. Its a process in which flashes of thought shine and then fade to take their place in the background as part of something larger. Slow Blogging does not write thoughts onto the ethereal and eternal parchment before they provide an enduring worth in the shape of our ideas over time." (ooh---heavy) [http://toddsieling.com/slowblog/?page_id=10]
Translation: slow-bloggers don't tell you if they took a bath or took a shower, if they ate Bruegger's bagels or Einstein bagels, if their navel is an "inney" or an "outey"--these things should not be part of "the ethereal and eternal parchment." In many ways, that's what I've been going for. Little did I realize that I'm out in front of something that's been identified as trendy! Good to know.
By the way, for breakfast I had strawberry yogurt, for lunch I had vegetable-bean soup with melted cheese, and for supper it was a noodle/tofu/zucchini/green pepper stir fry. And I've picked my nose at least three times. And Einstein bagels actually are better than Bruegger's. But I also believe that the American lifestyle is wasteful in ways that we can only begin to imagine, understand, or appreciate. And I think we have a lot to learn from Buddhism. So there--hail to all of you fellow slow bloggers!
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