Distracted

Not really, but The Loved Ones have a new album coming out on February 3 titled Distractions; their new single Distracted is already up on MySpace.

Week In Review: All in all it was a pretty good week; classes are good. I have 2 awesome classes (National Defense & Intelligence Policy, and Metaphysics) and 2 so-so classes (Astronomy, and Theology). The classes seem to go ok with my job schedule, so everything should work out! I'm also in the midst of serious research for my summer in Europe. A friend of mine helped me find some super cheap airline tickets so the next step is to plan an itinerary and figure out where to sleep!

Everything in the world seems to be at a lull right now. President Obama just took office and I think all interested world parties are taking a break to figure out how to deal with the new administration. There's still plenty of regional conflict of course, but nothing like the scale of conflict that we saw on the run-up to January 20th.

My Little Social Experiment

So it should be no secret by this point that I'm pretty easily entertained...here are the reactions from 2 friends with very different personalities when I decided to share "just a little too much" in an IM conversation. Let's call them "Friend A" & "Friend B". "A" was definitely more entertaining, but "B" had me ROFL'ing:

Friend A
(9:55:17 PM) MinimalistHobo: i just took a dump
(9:55:19 PM) Friend A: umm
(9:55:22 PM) Friend A: I don't need to know that
(9:55:27 PM) MinimalistHobo: No, it's ok..i don't mind.
(9:56:07 PM) Friend A: i do
(9:56:10 PM) Friend A: i mind
(10:04:38 PM) MinimalistHobo: oh
(10:05:20 PM) MinimalistHobo: ok, i thought we were the type of friends that "shared"
(10:05:25 PM) MinimalistHobo: my bad
(10:49:45 PM) Friend A: share is one thing
(10:49:58 PM) Friend A: imagary associated with what comes out of your ass
(10:50:04 PM) Friend A: thats for married people
(10:50:53 PM) MinimalistHobo: i'm sorry..i guess I thought we were close enough to share those kinds of details..i must have misjudged our relationship...I didn't just take a dump then.

Friend B
(9:56:13 PM) MinimalistHobo: i just took a dump
(9:58:06 PM) Friend B: thats insane
(9:59:09 PM) Friend B: where did you take it from?
(9:59:23 PM) Friend B: the cat turds?
(9:59:29 PM) MinimalistHobo: hahaha....bravo!
(9:59:41 PM) MinimalistHobo: i'm testing reactions of my friends
(9:59:54 PM) MinimalistHobo: to the phrase "i just took a dump"
(9:59:58 PM) Friend B: i win

COME FOR ME!!!!!

hahaha...I just cant get the line "Come for me!" from Peter O'Toole's portrayal of King Henry II in the film The Lion in Winter out of my head. That film is a masterpiece and I just can't understand how O'Toole has never won an Academy Award. I have now moved on to another O'Toole portrayal of the first monarch from the House of Plantagenet in the earlier film Becket...good stuff.

Something else I can't get out of my head lately is Anberlin's Adelaide...I know, I know, Anberlin is totally lame, but I do like that song. (also check out the new music on my iPod list)

I'm working on law school apps this weekend and I think I've turned a corner; for this very morning I finished my personal statement!!! Of course I'll be noodling it 'til the very moment I submit it to the Law School Admissions Council, but I'm done with the major edits, so that's a milestone! Next item on the list? -- Resume!, and college transcripts, and finalizing recommendation letters, and putting the finishing touches on the actual applications, and...

I'm also excited about applying to the joint JD/Masters program at UT Law. I think I'm going to go for a Master's degree in Global Policy.

School starts Tuesday. I found out on Friday that I need another Poli Sci credit to graduate which really pissed me off. If I had known I needed another credit I surely would have done the study abroad in Taiwan...I hadn't been that mad in a loooong time. I'm over it now and ready to get my last semester over with. Here's the line up:

* Theology: Pentateuch (Old Testament)
* Philosophy: Metaphysics
* Poli Sci: Federalism & Intergovernmental Relations
* Physics: Astronomy II

...should be interesting...

In case you haven't heard I'm sick...

...and tired of trying. I'm sick and tired of trying to rationalize an irrational situation; sick and tired of feeling helpless while witnessing what may the height of human folly. I heard a guy on NPR state something similar to the following:

Hamas permeates Palestinian society; from the college professor to the cab driver. Hamas is not an organization, it's an idea; and you can't bomb an idea into submission.

This statement reminded me of a question on my International Politics final. The question was something to the effect of "With decades of the Arab-Israeli conflict why have there been no political theories to address said conflict. My answer was as follows:

The reason that there has been no coherent IP theory to address Israel/Palestine is because up until very recently the prominent Political Science theories have been rational theories. Rational Theories focus on rational actors meaning state actors. Everything boils down to the state and the power of the state. What you have in Hamas is a non state actor. Hamas is the idea of the Palestinian homeland, the idea of freedom. So for there is no framework for rational theories to build upon.

Hamas cannot be bombed into submission like a state government can be. Hamas cannot be subdued by the power of realist theory, unless there is genocide. Which seems the be the path that Israel has set themselves upon.

Liberal political theory wont work either. Hamas cannot be a partner for trade because Hamas has no economic structure, no viable land or natural resources. the only thing that Hamas has to export is ideology and a hunger for freedom; an ideology of winning this freedom at any cost. And for every Palestinian killed that ideology is being exported at an increasing rate.

It eludes me. The rationale behind Israel's actions absolutely eludes me. How does the most hated state in the region think that the way to create a symbiotic relationship with its neighbors is to kill them? How does Israel think that killing Palestinian civilians will all of the sudden make Hamas' agents of terror see the error of their ways?

There's Just Too Much...

There's just too much on my mind these days. One of the most disturbing things I've been thinking about is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ramping up in Gaza. Israel has launched a HUGELY disproportionate response to Hamas' lobbing of rockets. According to Al Jazeera over 660 Palestinians have been killed and over 3700 have been wounded since Israel's December 27th assault began. To get a fresh perspective on the matter one must look beyond western news sources which are either unable or unwilling to show the sheer carnage of the conflict. The most alarming images I've seen from this round of fighting have been from China's Xinhua News Agency depicting images of children slain when Israel shelled a UN run school. Reminds me of a Rudyard Kipling poem, but I digress.

Also on my mind is work. I'm concerned that I'm spending too much time performing tactical tasks rather than focusing on more strategic initiatives. Oh well, this stuff must be done and I'm more than happy to pitch in as there is plenty to do...although I do conceive of a life more adventurous one of these days *sigh*.

One thing that I'm trying to not think about, but still seems to seep its way into my gray matter the way this winter rain seems to find every crack on the root splintered sidewalk is law school apps. My dead line is fast approaching at the end of the month and I'm thinking more and more that I'd like to join the military rather than spend another 3 years at school. I can't place my finger on it but it just seems like the right thing to do. I have a restlessness that I know can't be quelled by spending more time in class. I'm still applying to all of the schools that I want to go to though because it's good to have options, right?

One last thing on my mind is the death of Samuel Huntington on Christmas eve. No commentary; if you know who Sam Huntington is, then you know the mark that his theories left on post-Cold War liberal thought...and I just wanted to acknowledge that the world has lost one of the great minds of our time.

why "The Minimalist Hobo"?

So someone asked me recently "Why the whole minimalist attitude thingy?", and since I was just leaving a party with an open bar, I was unable to put together a coherent string of sentences to convey the minimalist philosophy; this entry is going to rectify that.

Minimalism as a concept is a reaction to the "Consumerist" mentality of modern society. There is a consistent belief in the Post Modern School of Thought that the genealogy of the discourse matters -- that is, the historical discourse that we have been told is fact and that we have accepted as fact is, in reality, the subjective point of view of the "powerful". Now this does not mean that there is a conscious conspiratorial effort to pull the wool over the eyes of the masses of society. Rather, this is a byproduct of the winners of any given conflict (whether it's a military conflict or a "conflict" in the market) being able to shape and control the discourse. Over time the discourse is predicated upon the prior premise and before anyone realizes it, society is trapped in a parochial mindset that is unwilling, or unable to question who is promoting the discourse and for what purpose.

To paraphrase Noam Chomsky "The New York Times is writing history". What Chomsky means is that when future scholars look to document and study history they will look to sources such as the New York Times archives to determine what important events occurred at any given time. This means that what is supposed to be a completely objective examination of history may viewed through the lens of an organization and reporters that may have a subjective interpretation. Ultimately this subjective interpretation will be regarded as "truth".

In all societies the manufacturers of truth are the powerful and in American Society the powerful are often those with commercial interests. These commercial interest have been successful in co-opting a mind share of American Consumers with their subjective messages therein forging an attitude of "buy! buy! buy!". In every magazine the reader is bombarded with ads for name brand crap, Television programs inundate with a string of commercials promoting the latest and greatest whatever. None of which can ever bring fulfillment or happiness. Minimalism is an attempt to question, analyze, or at least ignore the message of the day. The ultimate goal is to break free from the consumerist mindset which exhausts the monetary resources of a society. Buying things in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing--Inequality, however, is. Once a society is able to break free from the consumerist mindset excess resources (i.e., savings) can be used to promote development in underprivileged societies.

Now it was posed to me that this theory reeks of communism with the whole "wealth redistribution" thing. In actuality this is way different; Communism relies on a centrally planned economy which dictates how the resources will be distributed. In minimalist theory the consumer is free to earn what the market is willing to pay for their skill set; the consumer then chooses what to spend their income on. The minimalist should only purchase what is needed for survival and some minimal level of comfort and security. Excess resources, which are garnered by not giving in to the commercial demands, can be then redistributed to the underprivileged in the form of micro-credit loans. The difference in this form of redistribution is that the consumer has the choice of how when and where to distribute the resources; participation in microcredit programs is encouraged but the consumer may choose to donate money to NGOs or any number of development programs. So there it is in a nutshell...questions?

I Literally LOL-ed.

This Australian Guy, David Thorne, has a blog wherein he will sometimes send prank emails to people. This is some of the funniest stuff I've ever read. In one email thread he has a dialog with one of his new neighbors that sent him a notice that he was having a housewarming party. The intent of the neighbor was to let David know that he was having a party and to warn him about possible noise; definitely not an invite. Well David proceeds to invite himself and hilarity ensues! In another email thread David responds to an email notification from his bank...classic! Note the subject line on the 8th email in this thread, hahaha. This is good stuff.