That thing that happened today.

From the Ragtag Cinema website

It couldn't have just been the chill of Columbia's brisk weather that left shivers down my back as I sat watching the Inauguration of President Barack Obama. It ran up and down the streets as people asked each other if they would be watching the swearing in, it lingered around the journalism school at the university and it reverberated in the theatre seats of the Columbians who sat next to me at Ragtag watching live history on a wide screen. A screen that played scenes from Slumdog Millionaire and Milk the night before. Two movies that displayed the themes of progression and hope that come to fruition with the presidential inauguration today.

To see how far we have come you have to look at the past and also the present. I will view this event as it is, a historical milestone of progress, but the election of the first black president is not a fix for the problems of our past and present. I take comfort from something I learned in a recent class that looked at the media's coverage of politics. Members of the media tend to be more critical of those politicians they like than ones they don't, as if to make up for their personal bias...it's a strange phenomenon, but I hope it is true and the diligent effort of journalism, to watch over the government, prevails throughout this new era over Obama's celebrity during his campaign.

Just add origami

Alysha and Beck at Art Day

Art days have to be among the most stereotypical white, college student things I can plan, albeit dinner parties are up there, or at least worthy of a post on another of my favorite blogs "stuffwhitepeoplelike.com", but I'm a sucker for a good afternoon with nice friends and paint.  And if by calling it what it is "arts and crafts day for young adults" makes it happen, I'll be the one with the Polaroid snapping shots of your paper bag painting like a new mom on the first day of kindergarten. I'm not talented in that way. As Beck said today, "I just mastered the art of writing," hardly cursive. But most everyone can appreciate doodling or sketching or doing whatever you can to let the stress soaked into your brain seep out and allow your fingers to whimsically draw fairies and fold origami stars.  Meanwhile more important things can wait. Rent, the weather, economy, school or work be damned, I have to finish this collage of ice cream cones.

The woes of wayward channel surfing: conservative christian talk radio

A Christianusaurus-Rex of the conservativus talk radio hostus species lurking for prey on the airwaves. *almost extinct*

I was radio surfing. Okay, there was a long list of errors leading up to my final twitch of the digits that left my dial fatefully on FM 90.7 on my way through Missouri. 

Here so you can grasp my mistake medley, a list:

1. Not properly charging my iPod.

2. Failing to fill aforementioned iPod with enough

 This American Life and Radiolab to entertain men, an adult with the equivalent of a small child's attention span on coffee through 800 miles of midwest wasteland.

And, 3. Pulling my neck while dancing to Black Sabbath - of all the bands...

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= station surfing for talk radio in the Bible Belt of the U.S.of A.

More on this here

Resolving to revolve around the sun once more

Photo by Lorenzo D. Comolli

Another orbit and what have we done? New Year's resolutions have done for tedious weight loss programs what Valentine's Day did for Hallmark.  Growing up, January was feared as the month when mom and dad vowed to stick with their cabbage soup diet *insert your own, Atkins, liver detox...etc.* and forced the rest of the clan to suck down cabbage soup by the gallon with them. Sidenote: I have never had an iota of cabbage since that dreaded January. It's become a consumer ploy for capital as thick as VDay's.

Resolutions? Get to Africa before 2010. ...and change certain social behaviors I think need adjusting.

Why I write

Hark back to your basic 10th grade science class (for those fortunate enough to escape an evangelical-lead PTA education), remembering the part about two possible responses to danger: fight or flight, I've recognized from a few split decisions in my life the third option and opted for the more clandestine approach: observe. I like to hover on the outside, in the corner or just on the edge of something large stirring, to be nonspecific. Isn't blogging another arm of that urge to observe? An old African proverb says you don't test the river's depth with two feet, but I have no idea how to test out blogs without sinking both feet in.  Another science class comes to mind, will I sink or swim?

For fear of being left on my rear in the dirt, while my generation passes by at technological warp speeds, this is my first attempt at forcing my old 20 something self to adjust.  Afterall, if I can't get with blogging as a self-loathing member of the digital generation, I'll be outdated before I even start.