Saving Old Glory

Innauguration attendees trample American flags while watching President Obama's address

After witnessing President Barack Obama’s inaugural address, I have to wonder if anyone else within in the sea of millions that the flooded the National Mall in Washington D.C. actually listened to what he said. During his address, he stressed selflessness and sacrifice, a return to common-sense values and a dedicated work ethic so that we as human beings, not just Americans, can halt the damages being done to our world. I was moved, touched by the voice of one of the most inspirational leaders of the twenty-first century, but I was disheartened and dismayed, absolutely appalled, when the crowd began to thin. I was upset because Obama’s address had seemed to fall upon deaf ears, I was upset because the historic, record-breaking crowd of supporters left a record-breaking pile of garbage in their wake, and none of them seemed to care.

One-hundred-thirty tons of garbage, to be precise. 130 tons of half-eaten hot-dogs, gloves, blankets, over-priced hand-warmers, disposable coffee-cups, miscellaneous Obama memorabilia and small American flags blanketed the grounds of the National Mall. One always expects trash during a party, and with 1.8 million people in attendance, this was without a doubt the largest crowd present for an inaugural address, but the plethora of trash left behind behind was absolutely absurd. Under the shadow of the Washington Monument, newspapers blew with the frigid winds like tumble-weeds rolling across an Arizona desert while little reproductions of our national colors were trampled by the mass of tourists and D.C./Metro area residents alike.

I still could hear the words of our new President echoing in my ears as the hordes elbowed their way out of the Mall, “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.”

So, instead of incoherently screaming the man’s last name like some drunkard at a football game or buying a cheap, bootleg hat from a career crackhead, I looked at my feet and picked up the small American flag that I had been unknowingly standing on and I held it in my hands. It had been ripped in half, it was dirty; full of some mysterious muck that made me grimace in disgust, but I did not drop it. Instead, I knelt down and picked up another even filthier flag.

They were grimy, sullied and soiled; their once majestic white was now an ugly brown. Splotches of black shoe-markings were scattered, in no particular order, across their stars and stripes equally. I was unsure of what to do with them. I didn’t want to carry a couple of nasty looking flags around all day, but I couldn’t just let them fall back to the ground where they would continue to be carelessly trampled upon, or worse, thrown away and forgotten about like common pieces of trash. These were flags.

I looked up at the thinning crowd as I was shoved, prodded, and penetrated, and noticed that these small flags lay all about about the mall, broken, slightly shredded; already forgotten. They had been a symbol of pride and unity for about an hour, only to be be discarded like common pieces of refuse once Obama had finished his Inaugural Address and retreated to the relative safety and warmth of his new Presidential limousine. No one seemed to notice that the Capital now looked like a landfill for our symbol of patriotism, and the cruel ironies only multiplied as the veritable army of media-professionals began to pluck mindless “HOPE”-filled bystanders from the crowd, scrapping the bottom of the quotable barrel to fill a three column spread or a ninety-second televised report.

Just then, something came over me. Call it pride, nationalism, supernatural possession, whatever your word ‘de jour, but I had an armful of ugly little flags before I’d even noticed Aretha Franklin’s skull-devouring hat. Some still had their two-cent wooden poles, a lot of them didn’t; most simply hung by a thread or two. They were all weathered and beaten; my face twisted and contorted in every imaginable position with each flag I knelt down and dug bare-handed through piles of rubbish to rescue. I suppose that they were technically trash, but this trash wasn’t just my treasure, they were our treasures. A flag is a symbol, an image of who we were, who we are, and who we hope to be. Thirteen stripes to represent the original thirteen colonies, fifty stars to show our solidarity as an ever growing union of states that, despite varying locales, still hold the same ideals to be just and true.

I scoured the grounds of the mall looking for anything with red, white and blue. I dove head first into bristled bushes and over-flowing trash cans, scrapped through gutters and the sea of frantic sycophants that had swarmed the MSNBC mobile studio (which easily held the biggest trove of mangled flags and shredded newspapers). Every flattened cardboard box, every poster, every sign was overturned in my effort to collect every last flag I could find. I wasn’t even sure what to do with them all, I only knew that these flags were far from trash and no-one, under any circumstance, is to ever let a flag touch the ground.

“Old Glory” was not the only set of colors that I found that day. A Bahamian flag, a Texan flag, an Iranian flag and a Brazilian flag each found their way in to my collection. I had eventually amassed so many that I began searching for large bag, which I found fairly quickly by simply bending over and reaching deep into sewer drain on Independence Ave. Pretty soon however, my “Bed, Bath and Beyond” bag of patriotism needed to be upgraded too as it became so full of holes from the small, wooden dowel rods that a few of the raggedy flags had begun to simply fall out and float away whenever a strong gust of icy wind would charge down the grounds, forcing me to shield my face and my flags. It wasn’t long until I came across a standard milk-crate, so I carefully set my bag inside and stuffed a few of the more loose flags deeper inside. I then lugged my colorful crate of tattered greatness around in my mission to find any and all flags until I could no longer walk. I fell to my knees and hung my head low, my long hair hiding the over-whelming disparity and filth that were now etched upon my chapped, weather-beaten face.

Over the course of my voluntary quest, I was mocked by soldiers, aristocrats, children, and tourists alike. However, it was these same types of people that would later come up to me during my darkest and filthiest hour (dusk) to personally thank and encourage me to continue on. A few shook my hand, others would ask for a flag, so I would happily look for the cleanest in my collection, a task which more often than not, took several minutes of digging and poking. My numbed, cracked and dry hands were left with an ample amount of splinters that I’ll be picking at for the next several days, but it seemed worth it to when Private First-Class grabbed me by the shoulder, and said, “Thank You” as he plucked a blackened and weathered flag with pride.

I was photographed several times by tourists, a photojournalist, and a woman who called me, “inspirational”. I was told them all that I was just, “doing a dirty job”. At the end of the day though, I still felt just as beaten and tattered as the flags that I cradled. I had collected hundreds of flags, but I still did not know what to do with them, so I resolved return them to the American Legion trailer that sat on the north-eastern side of the Mall, opposite the Smithsonian, as they were responsible for their original distribution.

As I carefully set down my crate of withered flags, I found an aide and asked what would happen with all the flags that didn’t get passed out, as well as those that I’d rescued.

“Oh, we’re probably just going to burn them later,” the aide replied casually as she shoved the remnants a hot-dog in her mouth, tossing its checkered, red and white wrapper to the ground.

The picture above was taken by Jonathan Miano, a photojournalist living in Chicago and originally appeared Jan. 20th, 2009 in the Naperville-Sun Times.

My crate of flags resting in the American Legion storage container at the end of the day.

Prelude to the Inauguration

On Tuesday, Barrack Obama will be elected as the 44th President of the United States and I plan on braving the frigid D.C. cold, 4 million tourists, and an unprecedented display of security and media professionals. Anyone who’s lived in D.C. long enough is used to these things, but I’ve never experienced them all at the same time. Obama is seen as a quasi-political messiah, he’s already got worthless coins endorsed by Montel Williams and cheap plates made by under-privileged Chinese children to prove his messianic authenticity. This coming Tuesday forgot change my address.

Sure, I donated $20 to Obama in February because I liked the calm and collected black guy that had the tenacity to begin running for president a full year before the party primaries had even begun. I’d never donated to a political campaign before; I’ll probably never do it again because I honestly despise getting physical mail, and these pan-handling bastards have more Spam than Hawaii on Christmas. Why the hell do they feel the need to harass me for Dollar after Dollar when the plethora of hand painted, uncirculated Obama coins are actually worth more on E-Bay? Couldn’t I just get a couple of those gold Washington/Obama/Double-Eagle’s and “donate them” to the Democratic Caucus, thereby calling the whole debt “square”? My television tells me that they’re family heirlooms, so that must make them more valuable than the Dollar now, right?

I’ve planned out a fantastic adventure. A trip that will take me in to the heart of the city for a bevy of interviews, videos, write-ups and live-blogs, except I’m not technically invited to anything. How typical. Sure I’m an American, I was born in this country and I even voted for the guy, but just like everything in America (and especially in D.C.) unless you have some serious cash to spend, you can’t really get anywhere.

I don’t mean to crash “the party”, I mean to get my story. I’m sure that somewhere, within the ludicrous number of people stupid enough to come to Washington D.C. in January, the media circus that’s undoubtedly going to antagonize anything with the faintest pulse, and the powerful presence of Police designated to intimidate, that I’ll find something moving enough to bang out about seven-hundred words of eternally useless, literary dribble. I’ll be the really estranged guy, over-caffinated, walking around in tattered leather jacket from a second-rate department store, chain smoking cigarettes without a sunny disposition or press-pass, but still calling himself a journalist, holding a pen and paper instead of video-camera.

Put This In Your Pipe & Smoke It

Barack Obama is the President of the United States and whether or not he plans to quit smoking is not our business. If you spend more than half a second caring about the Presidents smoking habit, or lack thereof, you should be hauled off into a darkened dungeon and shot for attempting to create an Idiocracy (read: High Treason). The consistent reports of people feeling that he needs to set such a healthy example for children is absolutely absurd.

It doesn’t matter if the President smokes a cigarette. If Obama can create peace in the Middle East, I’ll be the first person offering him a smoke and a light. This man is the President, and if he wants to smoke a cigarette because Congress has been dragging it’s fat, lethargic ass on some issue of national importance, you should turn a blind eye. He’s not a child, he’s not your boyfriend, he’s the President and you should excuse him as he’s been busy saving our overly critical asses from psychotic religious fundamentalists who want nothing more than to curb-stomp the civil liberties and personal freedoms you’re taking for granted.

There’s more than 200 years of tradition behind Presidents smoking in the White House. Maddison, Grant, FDR, and JFK were avid smokers. Hell, Grant smoked so much that people actually mailed him cigars when they heard that he was smoking a cigar during the Battle of Fort Donelson. In fact, Grant’s smoking habit was so prominent that it was used as a campaign theme. Due to FDR’s triskaidekaphobia, or fear of the number 13, he believed it to be bad luck to light 3 cigarettes with one match and even chastised a man in Hyde Park for doing so. On the eve of the Cuban embargo, Kenndy had an aide purchase nearly 1,200 H. Upmann Petit Coronas. Even Nixon, who wasn’t a regular smoker, would ritualisticly smoke a cigar with other forgien leaders in a gesture of respect.

Smoking used to be as American as apple pie. It was customary to offer guests a cigarette after a meal, and American Presidents were no different. The Eisenhower’s, in continuing a tradition started by Elanor Roosevelt, would offer coffee and cigarettes to their guests after meals. There were ashtrays, cigarettes and matchbooks embossed with the Presidential Seal, thanks to the Kennedy’s. They were complimentary for guests of the White House, Air Force One, Marine One, with each pack having a location specific engraving. It wasn’t until 1988 that Presidential Cigarettes were discontinued, and later prohibited in the White House by First Lady Hillary Clinton, “because of the atmosphere…and the age of the house, [and] the furnishings.” (a)

While I would certainly love to fault the extreme irony in relation to the Clinton’s and their use of tobacco in the White House, I have to reluctantly admit, that in keeping with the preservation of historical artifacts, we should continue to enforce the indoor smoking ban in the White House. Despite this, however, whether or not the President smokes really isn’t any of the public’s business. The transparency of government shouldn’t necessarily go so far as to tell the President how he is allowed to literally live his personal life. I don’t care what kind of cigarettes Obama smokes, whether or not he uses condoms, or if he prefers apples to oranges, and neither should you because it doesn’t really matter. If the man wants to smoke a cigarette once in awhile, that’s fine because there are far more important things to obsess over than the message he is sending to children when he smokes. If your kid sees the President smoking, tell them the truth: “The President just saved the damn world, but that still doesn’t make it O.K. for you kids to smoke.”

(a) BURROS, MARIAN , Hillary Clinton’s New Home: Broccoli’s In, Smoking’s Out, The New York Times, February 2, 1993

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE7D6143DF931A35751C0A965958260

[12/10/08]
(b) Anthony, Carl Sferrzza, Our Presidents and Cigars: A White House Tradition is in Danger of Disappearing,Cigar Aficionado, Autumn 1993,

http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar/CA_Archives/CA_Show_Article/0,2322,817,00.html

[12/10/08]
(c) “Alex”, Presidential Superstitions, Neatorama, March 10, 2008,

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/03/10/presidential-superstitions/

[12/10/08]

What’s Wrong with Public Transit?

This idiotic hubris that we as Americans have, the notion that we are some how better then everyone and everything that has or ever will exist has go to stop. If we Americans have any trait in them that separates us from every other human being,  it’s the ability to take credit where no credit is due, then feign ignorance when our faults are spelled out in front of our up-turned noses. Our economic collapse is proof positive that we have seriously screwed up somewhere, it’s proven by the falling stock market, and it’s proven by our need to debate whether or not to bail out one of our biggest manufacturing industries that didn’t listen to a change in consumer demand.

Don’t let anyone fool you, this is another bail out, not a loan. A loan would give us a return on our investment, and most of these companies are lax to do anything really substantial. Detroit really screwed the pooch this time: they gambled on S.U.V.’s and mass-marketing strategies in an age of rising fuel prices, urban sprawl, and cultural enlightenment. This mess that they’re in is their own damn fault and for them to ask anyone for a handout is more than laughably absurd, it’s down right insulting! We asked them for more smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles and instead, we got Hybrid Escalades on 22′s. Honestly, what the fuck is wrong with you? A pig is a pig, regardless of how man feathers you can tape to it, don’t try and call it a damn eagle when it’s still rolling in it’s own filth and oinking.

Now it’s one thing to sit and bash these people for their stupidity and it’s another thing to do something about it. Now that Detroit has admitted it’s so completely screwed, let’s do something productive with this once in a lifetime opportunity. Sure, we can tell them to make hybrid vehicles that are smaller and more practical, but building personal vehicles alone will not solve this problem.  These are massive manufacturers, Americans need jobs, so let’s start building mass-transit systems.

Let’s face it, not everyone can afford a car, especially when most are barely able to afford a roof over their head. Blindly throwing money at this problem with the auto industry is only going to make things much, much worse. We’ve got these crooks right where we want them for once, and we can’t just hand them another blank check, a bulleted, action-item list and then tell them to, “Get out there and be somebody!” Instead, we should be demanding that they make something worth buying (or at least using), so not why force them to retool, and mandate that cities put in new public transit systems? Instead of building S.U.V.’s, Detroit could build buses and subway cars for the cities and towns that should have already expanded to a mass transit systems.

New transit systems don’t have to be the horrifying urban sprawls indicators that some would lead you to believe. We could free up highways and roadways, reduce polution, and create jobs by making mass transit systems a viable option for more people. If cities suddenly demand new public transit systems, someone will have to build the vehicle first, after that someone will have to opperate it. How many jobs could we create in one small town if there were just a few hybrid-bus’s running along several major roadways?

DC Metro is expanding it’s services to accommodate the rise in ridership with more trains, and a new line to Dulles, but the system map is still inefficient and it can take two hours to go from Shady Grove to New Carrolton.  In two hours, you can drive there and back, with time to spare. We shouldn’t have to go through DC just to cut across two counties, instead, we should build another line that connects the ends of the stations, like a circle.

The effect of getting people from “A” to “B” is exponential. Sure, having a nice car might get you some sex appeal, but if you can’t afford to put fuel in it, how do you plan to register the car or repair the car when it breaks down?

Wind Blows into the District

Change is in the air. The righteous wind that blew at the backs of President Elect Barack Obama and his supporters for the past two years has also sailed the Democratic Party to full control of both the House and Senate. Many still can not believe the momentous historical events that have propelled the Junior Senator from Illinois, who began as a community organizer in Chicago’s South Side, mainly because of the surreal circumstances that have surrounded his campaign.

Obama stood as a true Underdog at the beginning of the race against Senator, and former First Lady, Hillary Clinton. “The Clinton Machine”, as the massive support base for the Clintons’ is commonly referred to, has held an unmatched power in Washington for the past two decades, rallying supporters and unifying Democratic Party members in the media and the various branches of government across the United States. On top of this unwavering support stood a mountain of potential political capital, a run-away money train that could shell out staggering amounts of campaign finances to lobby representatives to a particular cause. When Hillary Clinton announced that she would run for office, few doubted that any other Democratic challenger had a even a remote chance against the seemingly unstoppable “power-base” that already existed in more than just the far corners of the Union: Southern Democrats, Hollywood & media elites, North-Eastern Super Liberals, and the The Beltway Power Circle, already numbering in the millions and they were donating money by the thousands. There was little hope for the Junior Senator from Illinois onthe cold February morning in which Obama announced his candidacy on the steps of the Old State Capitol building in Illinois.

Throughout the campaign, Obama’s lack of Executive experience was brought up countlessly, first, and most notably by Clinton. Her argument that she would be “ready from Day One” was eventually bested by Obama’s message of Change. When John McCain won the Republican nomination he immediately reminded voters of Obama’s inexperience. In fact, many of McCain’s “tactics” involved recycling Clinton’s most successful attacks on Obama, such as her infamous “3AM” ad, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s history with 60′s radical Bill Ayers, and Obama’s penchant for “healthy eating”.

Despite Obama’s lack of traditional Washington experience, many of his supporters found his views more appealing because he appeared to not be a part of the D.C. power circle. His message of bringing a change to the government was seen as more sincere and substantial specifically because his opponents were unable to paint him as just another D.C. Insider. What set him aside from his colleagues was his advocation of working from the ground up. Where Clinton and McCain wanted to change Washington from the inside-out, Obama advocated change from the outside-in. Obama made it clear that we were not just voting for him, we were making a decision to go to work, putting the pieces of a shattered nation and broken world back together for the betterment of society.

The increase of negative campaigning only served to bolster his credentials in the long run. While Hillary Clinton was busy trying to knock Obama’s credibility in the primaries, she only served to give him more when he stood fast and didn’t falter. When she introduced Jeremiah Wright in an attempt to highlight Obama as a typical activist in the vein of Al Sharpton or Jessie Jackson, Obama hit back with a resounding speech on the state of race relations in the U.S. Her plan to paint Obama as just another angry black man backfired, giving him the reputation of being calm and collected, a natural leader with a steady hand whose race served him more as an advantage than as a handicap.

Later, when Obama was pegged as “Pallin’ around with terrorists like William Ayers,” and being called an “arugula-eating-elitist”, it became clear that there was little anyone could do to stop Obama’s mammoth rise to Pop-Culture Icon. Instead of playing to solely to his base, Obama began to campaign in GOP states like Virgina and North Carolina. He even went on MTV and said, “brothers should pull up their pants…You are walking by your mother, your grandmother, your underwear is showing. What’s wrong with that? Come on. Some people might not want to see your underwear – I’m one of them” Despite this resounding fashion advice, it remains to be seen whether or not today’s youth will take his suggestion.

He is the New Blood for a generation of apathetic youth, the down trodden and the forgotten. A living symbol of hope to look to for insight and leadership. Now, as the world looks on with great anticipation, Obama is tasked with what is easily the toughest job in the modern world, leading a society out of its downward spiral and into a new age of hope and prosperity.

Ruminations of a Political Junkie

I’ve been glued to the 24 hour cable news cycle for the past year, anxiously wolfing down super-sized servings of spoon-fed news from the plethora of blathering “experts” that help to fulfill my ever growing addiction to politics and the news. I’ve set up my laptop in front of the t.v. to read blogs, columns and news articles during commercial breaks or sports reports as I know somewhere, someone is saying something worth noting. Since the election, however, I’ve found that the great, interactive reality show that is the news business has begun to slow to a dull and lackluster pace, and I can’t help but wonder what will happen to all the pundits, columnists and news junkies now that there’s no election to cover.

Every morning has been the same, I wake up and I flip on the t.v. MSNBC’s Morning Joe has been the apex of morning news shows, important people saying important things at an ungodly hour of the morning. Deep down though, I can’t stand Joe Scarborough, and would like nothing more than for him to be booted from his own show again, yet I still watch every morning and send anonymous comments to the shows producers. Regardless of my bias against Scarborough, his show is still most entertaining thing on t.v. from 6am to 9am, and it usually contains the most substantive arguments and note-worthy figures of the day.

After Morning Joe, I usually rifle through all the other 24-hour news channels: Fox, CNN (HN & IN), BBC International, and C-SPAN House & C-SPAN Senate. None of them usually have anything new or interesting to say that I haven’t already heard (sans C-SPAN). Unless it’s an exclusive or a breaking story, it’s usually just a rehash of the same crap I just heard, or watered down version of something I’m already reading. Special Reports are old news to me because by the time a network runs the story, I’ve usually already read the most meaty bits on-line. This is usually a standard, bloggers get the story first and make a post, upload it to some sort of News Aggregate like Digg, Reddit, or Yahoo Buzz, the mainstream press then validates it and crafts a legitimate report. The only problem is that by the time a major network runs the story, it seems like old news to me because I’ve already seen the same damn story on the net a week ago.

When the Enquirer ran the story about John Edwards affair with Riley Hunter, the net was already buzzing about it, hours before NBC or CBS went public with the story. When Ron Paul was breaking the Fund Raising records, Reddit & Digg were the first websites to have stories up (to be fair, the links were usually just redirects to the Paul’s website). When Hillary Clinton gave her infamous “sniper fire” remark, bloggers were all over that farce like flies on shit, with links to Youtube videos and archived stories from the Washington Post to prove it.

I have to wonder what this bombardment of information might do to me. The constant vein-slapping injection of news into my brain is accompanied by a tremendous cup of black coffee and a hand-rolled cigarette (a pairing I’ve carefully concocted over several months). Black coffee just works better, there’s more caffeine, there’s more taste, more antioxidants; what used to be a casual jolt in the morning is now like being hit by a run-away freight train. The hand-rolled cigarettes have served as my “zen garden”, with each cigarette being meticulously crafted for the perfect smoke while I wait for the anchors to change and commercials to finish. A smoke-break is one of two forced breaks from my information ingestion, the other being to use the bathroom, respectively.

What really worries me is how the quality of news casts is already changing. Fox has already mandated that it won’t air consistently negative stories about Obama, and MSNBC focus’s almost exclusively on politics now. The only channels with a variety of news reports are the BBC and CNN International, but they are in stark contrast compared to MSNBC and Fox. Where the latter substitute a variety of stories for flashy graphics, and sound effects in between wipes and segways, the former offer typical, bland, monotone reporters with a minimal amount of flare. I have to admit that I value the bland more than the flashy, but it’s the flashy ones that keep me hooked and entertained, feeding my addiction while some freak with a perfect haircut is calmly sending me subliminal messages to “panic” and buy war-bonds.

Guess I’ll have to tune in and find out.

An Irritating Sound

Those new Sirens that the D.C. Police use, the ones that make your brain vibrate, and your bones rattle are truly a modern marvel. The Rumbler Sirens maker says, “[its] vibrating tones provide feel with emergency warning sound” is seems like an absurd statement until your walking down the street and see a cop flying towards you, making you actually feel the dread of police presence instead of just the standard emotional drawback.

It makes me wonder, What’s next? Is this new siren capable of weaponization? Could tomorrows cops and G.I.’s be carrying Sonic-Rifles that make you compulsively shit your pants or rattle your brain until your head explodes? The thought of a weaponized “Brown Noise” is both hilarious and terrifying (unless you work for Fruit-of-the-Loom or sell washing machines that is).

I can see the merit that the police have with installing this on some their cruisers, though. I myself have grown accustomed to the high-pitched whines of emergency-service crews racing through city streets. It’s just something you inevitably adapt to when living in an city ripe with urban sprawl (if not you’ll probably go insane and begin shouting at innocent people from some umpteenth-story apartment window). More over, as people today tend to become lost in an audio abyss as they carry out their commute listening to iPods and car radios with sub-woofers, it seems pertinent to gain the attention of distracted motorists and mildly-deaf pedestrians for the benefit of society as a whole by any means necessary. It’s an emergency, after all, so wake up and get the hell out of the way.

I mean, I’d be kind of upset if I were laying in the back of an ambulance, hemorrhaging enough blood to rival old-faithful, while some prick in a Mercedes was too busy rocking down to Electric Avenue on a one way street.

Despite this, however, I can close my eyes and imagine police in riot gear shooting sonic waves at protesters. The scene would horrible: hordes of political dissidents shitting themselves uncontrollably as riot police bring protesters literally to their knees in puddles of their own crap. The smell would spread with wind, entire city blocks would be forced indoors as an irradiated stench smothers the senses.

“What if someones rectum prolapses?”, I wonder, “What if some poor old lady is shot with a sound wave and she just shits herself so hard that her anus literally falls out of her body?” Technically speaking, you can live if your rectum prolapses, but you’d undeniably be in a considerable amount of pain. Does this make it cruel and unusual punishment or effective, non-lethal crowd control? Is something that makes you wish for really death non-lethal?

An Exceprt from an Application

Stephen Hawking: Geek

The following was originally submitted as part of an application for a small club. One stipulation of the application was to explain why I might be considered pathetic. The following account is true:

When I was in the 8th grade I decided to play the Clarinet because a cute girl in my English class played the saxophone. I thought that if I learned the Clarinet, I’d be in another class with her, (and with enough practice) I could write a song for her, and then sh could be my girlfriend. However no one told me that you had to play your instrument on the first day, by yourself, in front of the class. When my turn came up, I started sobbing uncontrollably because I hadn’t practiced, I couldn’t read sheet music, and the only thing I could make the instrument do was produce a horrible, god-awful, ear-piercing shriek. Halfway through the first measure, I dropped my Clarinet, wiped the snot and tears from my face, and ran into the “band room” where I locked myself in a dark trumpet closet until everyone had left class. Later, I found I was given the last chair, and the girl I had tried to impress started dating the new kid from Puerto Rico who played the saxaphone in Advanced Band.

The End is Near: Start Bitching to the Right People

Your apathy will be the downfall of our entire society. Thanks to your ignorance on current events, our elected officials are allowed to run amok, doing as they please, with little repercussion. Were it not for the media which you regularly criticize, you wouldn’t even know what the officials you forgot to elect were doing with the money that you gave them for taxes.

I challenge any one with any grievance towards the political system, large or small, to write your representatives. Not an email, not a note, but an old fashioned, well thought out and properly edited letter.

Spend the thirty-seven cents it costs to buy a stamp, slap it on an envelope and mail it to their office’s, which, by the way, are all easily accessible on the Internet. It might sound archaic, but this is the best way to tell ‘the man’ what you really think about the country, state or county that you live in.

Think about it, your friends usually don’t know when you have a personal problem unless you open your mouth and say something, so how are your representatives supposed to know that the roads in your neighborhood never got plowed when it snowed?

Words have no faces or pictures. The only thing the written word has is the power to make you think. Based on your writing, someone can tell how passionate you are about something. If it’s something you feel that strongly about, why are you writing about it in a blog or complaining to your friends over diner? They might care enough to listen, but they probably don’t sit on any seat of power capable of doing anything about it.

There’s a fairly thought provoking focus on the Student Senate this issue and you’d do yourself a disservice not to read it. Keep in mind, however, that it’s up to you as the reader to draw your own conclusions. We’re a newspaper, we report the facts, you’re the reader, you’re supposed to react as a result of what what we’re reporting to you.

Your level of involvement in government will only take you as far as you let it. If you’re just upset that your neighbors have a rusting car parts in the middle of the yard, tell your neighborhood association if you have one; if you don’t, start a petition to create one.

If you think that the U.S. should get out of Iraq, write Congress and/or the Senate, don’t just go to the protest and pick up a button. If you think that you can do a better job than whomever is in office now, what’s stopping you from you from running for office? If you’ve got some type of idea on how to better run the government, speak up already!

This world thrives on rebellion and change. The Earth as we know it today was formed through a series of changes over time, and the most notable changes in society stem from one persons problems with society’s direction. Racism was defeated because enough people spoke out, women and minorities were granted suffrage through bitter protest. Nothing ever stays the same for long because change is inevitable, but sometimes, change needs a catalyst.

This article appears in the seventh (7th) issue of the Montgomery Advocate, the student newspaper of Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland Wednesday, December 8th, 2005. It is an excerpt from my biweekly editorial and was posted with my permission.

Hundreds of Thousands Protest US Occupation in Iraq

Protesters represented varied causes, from anti-war messages to pleas for improved foreign policy and aid for needy countries. -photo by Tim Moraca

The following article originally appears in Volume 9, Issue 3, of the Montgomery Advocate , the student newspaper of Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland, Tuesday, October 4th,  2005.

On Saturday, September 24 hundreds of thousands of protesters descended upon Washington D.C. for the United for Peace and Justice Mobilization and the Operation Ceasefire concert, the largest anti-war protest since the start of U.S. Occupation in Iraq. The protest drew a number of powerful and influential figures including Rep. Maxine Waters (D) of California, former Presidential candidate Ralph Nader, Rev. Jessie Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton and Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq and leader of the Bring Them Home Now Tour, a traveling protest aimed at bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq, which coordinated it’s conclusion to fall on the same weekend.

“All of us have a central responsibility in America,” shouted an excited Nader to sea of thousands, “[George W. Bush] has neglected his responsibility…You are the opposition… It’s time to take that opposition [and] with laser precision, tell [your representatives] how you feel about the war. This is the first war opposed by a majority of the people…Here is a president who plunged our nation into the greatest quagmire in American history. George W. Bush must be held accountable [and impeached] for his crimes under Article 2 – Section 4 of the United States Constitution.”

“I am sick and tired of George W. Bush,” cried California Congresswoman Maxine Waters. “We are tired of being lied to,” she continued with a fist raised high in the air, “The U.S. doesn’t deserve a president who left poor people, black people, and white people stranded in New Orleans [to die].”

“Today is a call to action… he has lied over and over again,” Waters went on, “[He] lied when he said he would hold corporate C.E.O’s responsible,” referring to the Enron and Tyco scandals. “On 9/11 he tricked us into believing Saddam Hussein was responsible…I ask you, where are the weapons Mr. President? Then [he] lied again when he said we would be there for 6 months, we want truth Mr. President,” concluded Waters to a roar of applause, whistles and cheers from protesters.

The Rev. Al Sharpton spoke briefly and with a proud assurance, “There’s something wrong with our country when we send folks to help in places that don’t need [help]. We have problems that need [solving] at home…The question isn’t why should we walk out of [the] war, the question is why did we walk in to the war in the first place?”

Operation Ceasefire, a free concert that was held at the Ellipse on the same day sponsored by United for Peace and Justice and Act Now to Stop War & End Racism (A.N.S.W.E.R.), featured such bands as Thievery Corporation, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Le Tigre, and Bouncing Souls.

“I think the fact that they had a concert drew more people out,” said Sarah Owens, President of MC-R’s Philosophy Club, “[but] a lot of people may’ve just come for the concert. When asked if the concert helped the cause, Owens replied, “I think it was good in the sense that it helped people to see the message that a lot of the protesters had, I just think some people didn’t take it seriously.”

D.C. Police quoted the actual number of protesters as upwards of 150,000 people, but protest organizers claimed over 300,000. Some still think that screams and signs of protesters just weren’t loud enough. “I didn’t like the [lack of major media] coverage, Owens says,“With Katrina fresh on peoples minds, they used [hurricane] Rita to overshadow what was going on. There we other protests in other cities all over the world [that day], and [the major news media] kind of just said, ‘Oh, yeah, this happened today too.’ I just think it should’ve been a bigger deal.”

Despite the lack of coverage, many feel that overall goal was accomplished. When asked her opinion about the future of the war Owens replied, I’m really optimistic…I would hope it gets bigger, [but] it seems like people might get pissed off for a little while and then forget about it.”