Notes on Immigration Reform

I've been listening and reading an awful lot of news about the immigration reforms being proposed in Congress, and the pros and cons of extending amnesty to the estimated 11 million immigrants already living in the US. Here in San Diego, junior high and high school students have been staging walk-outs and protests to the proposition to "round up and return" all of the illegals here and put them back in line for legal entry to the US. So, it's time to post.

On a news show Sunday, the roundtable was discussing the merits of illegal immigrant labor--"They take the jobs no one else wants." First, I don't doubt that no one else wants many of these jobs; however, there are many who would take these jobs if they paid at least minimum wage, i.e., the inner-city African-American population. A quick look at unemployment rates shows that for African-Americans, unemployment has risen dramatically--and this rise in unemployment rates coincides with the rise in illegal immigration--also, the unemployment rate of Latinos has declined dramatically--in almost perfectly inverse relationship. That is, illegals are taking "their" jobs.

Now, I don't suggest that African-Americans should be fighting illegal immigrants for these crumbs--it would be much preferable to enfranchise this segment of the population in a more empowering manner, but it does point to the fact that businesses here in the US take advantage of the illegal population to provide labor at slave wages. If you thought the minimum wage was unliveable, take a whack at living on the wages these illegals are paid. By shifting these jobs to illegal immigrants, you create a disenfranchised population--the lowest rung on the socio-economic ladder gets broken. As businesses can now fill the dish-washing positions, the janitor positions, etc., for less-than-minimum wage, the group that was previously filling those positions is left without any job or any wage. Moving up to the next stratus of employment--service positions, etc--take more investment in education/skills than is currently feasible for this population to provide itself, and more than the state is willing to provide to them.

The fact is that we don't have a lot of middle-class Mexicans sneaking across the border looking for employment. We get the most desperate, poorest segment who are willing to risk their lives--quite literally--to find any job in the US. This gives a distinct advantage to the businesses here in bargaining power over wages! And it leaves the impoverished citizens at a distinct disadvantage. How are workers at Wal-Mart expected to fight for health insurance when Wal-Mart can just hire illegals--who can't fight for benefits--to take their places? (yes, I know that from time to time illegals do protest/march/strike for better living conditions but it is a rare event for obvious reasons).

I imagine the businesses here in the US who do employ illegals are desperately hoping that amnesty isn't granted; the costs of their payroll would increase dramatically!! However, it just isn't feasible that the US government is going to be able to round up enough people to fill the state of Ohio and caravan them back to Mexico. And interestingly, it is by and large the small businesses here in the US who employ illegals--it has actually allowed them to compete with the more efficient big businesses.

I, myself, cannot propose the magic solution to the problem. When you have the wealthiest nation in the world jutting up against a third world country, you're going to have people trying to come over to improve their lot in life. And the labor situation is such that this nation's poorest (legal) population is further disenfranchised as a result. Will granting amnesty to the illegals already here re-enfranchise that segment? Perhaps a tiny bit. Will it stop the flow of illegals into this country? Doubtful. Will trying to round them all up and ship 'em back home fix the problem? Are you kidding?

A mess, indeed. But rather than focus our resources on shipping illegals back to Mexico, why don't we invest in the socio-economically disadvantaged citizens? Or work on helping Mexico's economy--if their unemployment rates decline and quality of education increases, then illegal immigration to the US will most likely decline. But of course, our system has never been into addressing the root of the problem--just the symptoms of the disease.

Who Wants to Marry a Genius?

Okay, B-Baltimore, in response to your post, I now offer reasons why Maureen Dowd may be onto something; i.e., I will now explain why many smart girls will most likely remain single.

My beliefs after years of updating:
1) I believe all smart girls want guys as smart or smarter than themselves.
2) I believe many smart boys want girls no smarter than themselves
(caveat: we're dealing with the homosexual population, and only those who want relationships)


I could go on with beliefs, but if you buy the two above, and throw in the fact that there are more girls than guys, then you see why we have frustrated intelligent women.

I have now been told on dates with three separate gentlemen, "You're too smart for me." I would never say this to a man--not even as an excuse to get out of a bad date! Not because I don't believe there are men smarter than me, but because I can't imagine too much of a good thing. In other words, my utility is monotic and increasing in boy's intelligence. Not so with many boys. There seems to be a threshold; Can she speak? Make sounds resembling the English language and not embarrass me around my parents and friends? Then check off the IQ box!

Now, I agree that there are smart boys who are also looking for girls as smart or smarter than themselves--I think I've dated one, and I wasn't smart enough for him. Updating my beliefs about the distribution of males as a result was the one consolation in being dumped. However, this is a very screwed-up matching problem. Even if we could somehow pin a vector sum of every individual's qualities to their chests, the boys with the highest "scores" won't necessarily seek out the girls with the highest scores. The distribution of preferences regarding the weights of different attributes, I believe, is quite different for the female and male populations.

Now, as regards Ms. Dowd's column, B-Baltimore makes very fine points that the statistics presented are deeply flawed. However, I believe the whole research design was flawed--so pointing out the true meaning of these statistics is about as helpful as telling me she flat-out lied. It still provides no insight into the true state of the world. Asking boys to commit to a box on an anonymous survey is entirely different from asking them to commit their weekends to a brainy girl. I just don't think surveys are going to work here--nor, for that matter, will using a blunt proxy for intelligence such as level of education to measure "marital success" of "smart" girls.

Now, taking this argument into account, and throwing things like "chemistry," "sexual compatability," and "not bitter" into the equation, it's no small wonder that the brainy girls ever find their mates.

Bingo! You Pretentious Ass...

While I don't know the identities of the people from Chile, China or Australia who apparently read my blog, I have strong beliefs most of the people who read this have either been in or are still suffering through academia. Therefore, I feel this entry, more than any other entry I've yet written, is a great boon to my audience.

*We've* all sat through seminars given by academics which seem to have no content whatsoever. That's right--they're light seminars, content-free or reduced-content at best--and similar to diet foods, these seminars have little taste. But the packaging--whoa, the packaging--is quite colorful. Call it "painting the pig" if you will, but these speeches (and lamentably, many published papers) are dripping with the buzz words of the day. That's why your university invited them to speak; that's why the editor over at Le Journal Academique accepted their paper. And now, you're stuck suffering through a soliloquy on *blah* with only a few stale cookies and some lukewarm coffee to comfort you.

But wait, dear friends! You can take charge of this situation! Read on for your redemption.

My friend took last night's dinner as an opportunity to share with me a game he's invented called academic bingo. And now, friends, I share it with you.

We all know the buzzwords for our discipline. And we also know that these are often times used as the paint on our little pig--the verbal condiments to hide the taste.

1) Draw a 5x5 grid onto a sturdy piece of paperboard.
2) Leaving the center space blank, write the buzzwords into the squares
(Examples from my friend's bingo board: capitalism, patriarchy, feminist, diaspora)
3) You can get creative with your bingo markers, but I suggest something with a rubber backing so they don't fall off mid-seminar.
4) Every time you hear one of the buzzwords, you get to place a marker on that square. Just because you hear 5 of these words does not give you a bingo...you have to get five in a row to really win.

Now, my friend, as an undergrad, actually called out bingo to the speaker before asking a question/making a comment. When they asked what he meant by bingo, he would explain his game, and tell them which words gave him the win.

I imagine getting your pals to join in might make it a bit more exciting. "oh, you arranged contagion effect next to consolidation networks! that was clever!!"

I'd love to hear the buzzwords from other disciplines; you never know when I'll have to attend a reduced-content seminar in another field...

When Crazy is Funny: Case 1.

Case 1: Multiple personality disorder
Crazy is funny when your dog exhibits signs of multiple personality disorder. Not so when your mom does.

Seriously? No, SERIOUSLY?!?

Back to ranting.

I was watching This Week with Stephanopoulis and they aired snippets of interviews with Harvey Mansfield and Naomi Wolf. While they could have probably interviewed any woman not from the conservative right wing, Mansfield is really the heart and soul of this story. A Harvard prof (tenured and everythin'), he has written the book Manliness (a review of which appeared in the NYT book review last Sunday), which is about as archaic as the title suggests.

My favorite from the interviews this week:

Mansfield: "Politics is a field of competition, and women are less interested in competition, just as they're less interested in sports. And, indeed, I think their interest in sports goes together with their interest in men more than in sports or in politics directly."

Uh, that's because the sports guys play on t.v. are mostly boring--no one cries, no one threatens suicide; walk down any junior high's halls as a thirteen year old girl with the wrong pair of jeans, and you'll understand the term "blood sport."

Gas-powered Leapfrog

I've been ranting a lot. So, today, I'll share a *funny story*. A warning to the reader, my definition of funny diverges quite dramatically from that of the average American citizen. Or Ghanan. Probably Australian, too.

So my friend and I both had crazy parents. this makes for a great catalogue of funny stories. I'll be going back and forth between our stories, sometimes writing hers down, sometimes mine. I'll let you figure out which ones belong to whom.

My mother worked as a stripper, and many times, while at the strip club, she had affairs with men. Of course, I never put any of this together until I was much older. What I did put together is that for some reason, Mommy being at that place pissed Daddy off all to hell.

One night, my father decided to punish my mother by "stealing" her car, thus leaving her stranded at the strip club, which was about 15 miles away (oh, not a lot of public transportation or cabs near the strip club). The problem, of course, is that my brother and I were too young, and therefore too short to reach the pedals to help him execute this plan. But we were already there, so...

Dad got out his car, and then drove my mom's car about two blocks, walked back to us, and drove his car about four blocks. Then he walked back to her car, drove her car about two blocks, etc, etc, all the way home.

It took him the whole evening to get the family cars back to our house, but I think he was really proud of his problem-solving skills under duress.

After that, leapfrog in the schoolyard just seemed a lame imitation of my father's much grander game.

Hedging Like a Bush

This post flows a bit from my comrade's post regarding her observation that female graduate students tend to hedge their comments much more frequently than their male counterparts. Well, there's a certain grad girl here that is famous for beginning every comment made in seminar with one of the following:
1) I could be completely wrong here, and someone please tell me I am, but...
2) Perhaps I'm not understanding what (blah) said, and if so, please let me know, but...
3) Just to build off of what (fellow grad student's name here) said...[important note: the following comment never builds off of FGS's comment--this is a way of borrowing credibility for her own comment}
3.5) She finishes every comment with Does that make sense?



Reasons this stings me like a two-tailed bee:
Well, first, word economy is always appreciated in a seminar setting. These intro phrases do not make me more sympathetic to whatever her comment might be, but rather, protract the moment of suffering. Secondly, it makes me uncomfortable. It's such a sign of weakness, and displays such an utter lack of academic confidence. I have to disagree with Dagger Aleph's comment that this encourages discussion, or somehow invites me to disagree with her should I desire to do so. I will debate her comments if I find them incorrect whether or not the invitation is made explicit by these hedgings. That invitation is just assumed in an academic setting.

Finally, these hedges flat-out piss me off because they are used in an attempt to absolve her of any responsbility for an incorrect statement. "Oh, well, I said I didn't know...No one can really take me to task, if I admit this up front." Perhaps. If she used that sort of intro sparingly; however, wrapping every statement she makes with this sort of safety blanket makes me want to smother her with it. It's the academic equivalent of crossing your fingers behind your back while you speak.

I agree that females tend to do this much more frequently than males--and having been in three disciplines, the two which are predominantly male (econ and polsci) seem to encourage this behavior much more frequently than in the less so (anthro). But I find it entirely demeaning--and I believe it encourages a lot of the ego-centric and misogynistic males in academia (and there seem to still be a plenty) to discount all women's comments. And, maybe I'm wrong, and I didn't understand why she is always doing this, but it makes me want to punch her in the neck. Does that make sense?

Giving Back

Okay, after that post about using math as a jazz hands type of distraction, I now offer something amusing to those random readers...Another gem brought to our attention by my pal and yours, B-Baltimore.

by IAN FRAZIER

Issue of 2002-12-09
Posted 2002-12-02

According to a study just released by scientists at Duke University, life is too hard. Although their findings mainly concern life as experienced by human beings, the study also applies to other animate forms, the scientists claim. Years of tests, experiments, and complex computer simulations now provide solid statistical evidence in support of old folk sayings that described life as "a vale of sorrows," "a woeful trial," "a kick in the teeth," "not worth living," and so on. Like much common wisdom, these sayings turn out to contain more than a little truth.

Authors of the twelve-hundred-page study were hesitant to single out any particular factors responsible for making life tough. A surprise, they say, is that they found so many. Before the study was undertaken, researchers had assumed, by positive logic, that life could not be that bad. As the data accumulated, however, they provided incontrovertible proof that life is actually worse than most living things can stand. Human endurance equals just a tiny fraction of what it should be, given everything it must put up with. In a personal note in the afterword, researchers stated that, statistically speaking, life is "just too much," and as yet they have no plausible theory how anyone gets through it at all.

A major disadvantage to living which the study called attention to is, of course, death. In fact, so obvious are its drawbacks that no one before had thought to examine or measure them empirically. Death's effects on life, the scientists pointed out, are two: First, death intrudes constantly and unpleasantly by putting life at risk at every stage, from infancy through advanced adulthood, degrading its quality and compromising happiness. For individuals of every species, death represents a chronic, worrisome threat that they can never completely ignore.

Secondly, and far worse, death also constitutes an overwhelmingly no-win experience in itself. Many of life's well-known stress producers—divorce, loss of employment, moving, even fighting traffic—still hold out hope of a better outcome in the future. After all, one may end up with a better spouse, exciting new job, beautiful home, or fresh bottle from the drive-through liquor store. Death, by contrast, involves as much trouble as any conventional stress, if not more. Yet, at the end of the medical humiliations, physical suffering, money concerns, fear, and tedium of dying, one has no outcome to look forward to except being dead. This alone, the study found, is enough to give the entire life process a negative tinge.

Besides dying, life is burdened with countless occurrences that are almost equally unacceptable to active and vital individuals. In many cases which the scientists observed, humans no longer functioned properly after the age of seventy or seventy-five. A large majority of subjects in that age range exhibited significant loss of foot speed, upper-body strength, reflexes, hair, and altitude of vertical leap. Accompanying these impairments were other health glitches, sometimes in baffling number and variety. Such acquired traits carried the additional downside of making their possessors either "undesirable" or "very undesirable" to members of the opposite sex in the key eighteen-to-thirty-fivedemogra

phic. Researchers were able to offer no credible hope for the development of treatments to deal with these creeping inadequacies.

Somewhat simplifying the study's collection of data was the natural law first discovered by Newton that things are rough all over. Thus, what happens to you will always be just as bad (relatively speaking) as what happens to anybody else. Or, to frame it another way, no problem is effectively "minor" if you yourself have it. One example is the mattress cover, or quilted pad, that goes over the mattress before you put on the fitted sheet, and that pops loose from one corner of the mattress in the middle of the night nearly sixty per cent of the time, experts say. After it does, it will often work its way diagonally down the bed, taking the fitted sheet with it, until it becomes a bunched-together ridge of cloth poking up at about kidney level. The problem it represents to the individual experiencing it at that moment is absolute, in the sense that it cannot usefully be compared with difficulties in the lives of people in China or anywhere. The poke in the kidneys and the press of bare mattress against the face are simply the accumulating misery of life making itself known.

Nine out of ten of the respondents, identified by just their first initials for the purpose of the survey, stated that they would give up completely if they knew how. The remainder also didn't see the point of going on any longer but still clung to a slight hope for something in the mail. Quitting the struggle and lying face down on the floor was a coping strategy favored by most or all. Situations like having to wait an entire day for a deliveryman to deliver a breakfront and the guy didn't say exactly when he would be there and in the end didn't come and didn't even bother to call were so pointless and awful that the hell with the whole deal, many respondents said.

Interestingly, the numbers bear them out. The point, or points, of going on with existence, when charted and quantified, paint a very grim picture indeed. Merely trying to get a shoe off a child has been shown to release a certain chemical into the system which causes a reaction exactly opposite to what the task requires. Despite vigorous effort and shouting, the thing won't come off, for Christ's sake, as can be seen in the formula written out in full in Figure 7. Furthermore, that level of suffering doesn't include the additional fact that a person's spouse may not consider what the person does every day to be "work," because he or she happens occasionally to enjoy it; so what is he or she supposed to do, get a job he or she hates, instead? From a mathematical standpoint, this particular problem is an infinite regression.

Flammia Brothers Pharmaceuticals, which paid somebody to say it paid for the study, frankly admits that it does not as yet have the answers. In the interim, it offers a wide array of experience-blocking drugs, which consist of copyrighted names without pills to go with them, and which certainly might work, depending on one's susceptibility, financial history, and similar factors. Hundreds of thousands of notepads with the Flammia Brothers' logo and colorful drug names at the top of every page are already in circulation in doctors' offices and examining rooms, and a soothing poultice may be made of these pages soaked in water and driveway salt from Ace Hardware. (Most health-insurance plans may or may not cover the cost of the salt, excluding delivery.)

Other large drug manufacturers, while not willing to go quite as far, still substantially follow the Flammia Brothers' program. The fact that life is beyond us has been firmly established by now. All the information is in, and no real dispute remains. But with the temporary absence of lasting remedies, and looking to a future when they won't be necessary, the manufacturers' consortium suggests that consumers send them money in cash or check, no questions asked. Major health organizations have unanimously endorsed this goal. Originally, the consortium explained that the companies might need the money to develop a new generation of drugs narrowly focussed on curing many previously uncured problems. More recently, however, they have backed off of that.

Why we were brought into the world in the first place only to suffer and die is an area of research in which much remains to be done. Like other problems thought impossible in the past, this one, too, will someday be solved. Then anybody afflicted with questions like "Why me?,'' "What did I do to deserve this?," "How did I get in this lousy mess?," and so on could be given a prescription, maybe even through diagnostic services provided online. The possibilities are exciting. At the same time, we must not underestimate our adversary, life itself. Uncomfortable even at good moments, difficult and unfair usually, and a complete nightmare much too often, life will stubbornly resist betterment, always finding new ways of being more than we can stand.

Uh, Someone Dies. Look at my equation.

I'll spare myself from writing the full tale here, but suffice it to say that a very notable professor gave a talk here the other day, and i was entirely incredulous. The talk was crap, the math was a thin veil with which he attempted to hide the fact that he simply had no content--no contribution at all in this paper of his.

The paper was supposed to model the transition to democracy, or the stability of the democratic state after transition or the purpose of elections. These are three very different concepts. But he wasn't sure which one he was speaking about. Huh.

Question from colleague:
"So, you're saying that elections serve to coordinate the electorate to rebel if the leader 'misbehaves,' and without elections, the citizens wouldn't be able to stage a revolt. Well, then, sir, why would leaders ever allow elections? Doesn't that open the door to rebellions and accountability on his part?"

His reponse:
"Um, Someone dies."

Now, I wouldn't have been so affected had this guy been a lowly graduate student, or perhaps a struggling junior professor, or perhaps a senile tenured professor who is just delivering papers to get the free airline ticket to San Diego. But this guy is huge in our field. And only about 40 years old--so senility ain't the problem.

Now why does this upset me so? Well, his paper is crap, but it is filled to the brim with worthless--though pretty and delightfully complicated--math. He is huge, respected, published, tenured. I do not write crap papers. I keep my math as simple as possible, and only use it to actually further my understanding of a problem. Perhaps I am not what the rest of the field is looking for.

But also:

When I was an anthropology student in dear old Saint Louis, I was often angered at the use of language, or academic-speak, to obscure the argument being made by the author. In other words--hopefully simply enough that everyone can damn me if they disagree--most of the seminal works I had to read seemed entirely devoid of content, but 'gussied up' with verbal condiments to hide the taste. As though the author thought, "If I use more complicated language, and extend the length of all of my sentences, then perhaps they will be confused into believing that this something worthwhile." And what is most disheartening is that the trick has seemed to work in a great many areas for a great many authors.

Now, when I decided that one major wasn't enough, I picked up economics. I found more egregious sins there. Not so much as applied to straight micro/business problems, but rather, when economists attempted to flex their mathematical muscles in other fields of inquiry--read: political economy/political science. Building fancy mathematical models into one's work seems to buy credibility--whether it is deserved or not. How often have do social scientists report statistics that are in no way significant, or strategically omit the information which would report significance, banking on the fact that most people see the statistical tables and their eyes glaze over, their breathing becomes regular and deep, and drool peaks out the corners of their mouths, therefore leaving the audience catatonic enough to "buy" the piss-poor argument bolstered by shit-poor statistics? Too often.

While it may be merely irksome that academics are flexing this kind of muscle to confuse other academics, many times, these works have real policy implications. For instance, The Bell Curve, which basically told America that race is the sole determinant of intellectual capability, and well, no amount of education can change the rankings (which, the book claimed were: Chinese>White>Black>Latino), became a NYT best seller! But while other academics, at the very least, are responsible for weeding out the bullshit (read: looking through the appendix, and noting that all the statistics are absolute crap), the authors knew that the rest of America would feel no compunction to grab a statistics text to enrich their reading of the book. However, the numbers, and the manner in which they were presented to the ignorant citizenry, actually convinced people to swallow this jaw-droppingly stupid argument.

It's irreponsible, and it's pervasive in academia. And this is why, this week, I have been sad to be an academic, myself.

More Pretentious Masturbation

Today's post begins with one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite books (Giovanni's Room, Baldwin): "Now, from this night, this coming morning, no matter how many beds I find myself in between now and my final bed, I shall never be able to have any more of those boyish, zestful affairs--which are, really, when one thinks of it, a kind of higher, or, anyway, more pretentious masturbation." (p. 5)

See, most people just sound touched in the head when they say that kind of stuff; but Baldwin finds the sweet spot--and ends up sounding poetic while he reaches into your soul and enlightens you as to your condition.

Okay, now onto other matters.

Why I hate San Diego.

This has been a difficult question to answer for the last two years. But today, as I walked my usual route to the shuttle, punctuated by bougainvillea--those colorful flowers made of tissue, which hang like harlots from modest trees, and then sat through my shuttle ride to campus, the sunshine drenching the mountains and fields of green, the scent of eucalyptus mingling with lavender, and then onto my walk through campus up to my department--which is really a walk through a living postcard, complete with flowers covering the spectrum of Roy G. Bib's rainbow, palm fronds stretching out to stroke your face, it finally hit me. This place is too full of obvious beauty. I never feel like I've found a secret; a treasure which has surely escaped someone else's eye--that sight which probably feeds my aesthetic hunger, but leaves others starved...Nope. The beauty here just runs up and smacks you in the face. Nothing subtle. All obvious. Or the subtle is being bullied into submission by the obvious.

And to be honest, I don't dig obvious beauty. I'm never attracted to the Brad Pitts of this world, I don't find most actresses attractive, others' dream vacations are my nightmare paradises. I love walking through run-down neighborhoods, and imagining the all that must have contributed to its decay; the way an old house's porch sags with the weight of memories and conversations that must have stretched into the still-warm evening of that excrutiatingly hot July...the process of weathering, the process of life--an enjoyable sadness. That is what is beautiful to me. And that is what I cannot find here.

Mappin' the Love

And thank you, ttractor! Reminds me a bit of the Amish "friendship bread" that used to go around our town...

Hotter than a Whore in Church

My mother's side of the family is from the deep, deep South. We're talkin' Gulf Coast, kids. I hated going there for Christmas and summer vacations, because, well, the Southern stereotype of racist white trash was painfully applicable to my relatives. However, the one saving grace was the peculiar phrasing which, when I was young, confused the hell out of me. Now, however, I twirl these treasures over my tongue often and savor their goodness.

1) I'm hotter than a whore in church on Christmas.
2) I couldn't carry a tune in a lard bucket.
3) It's colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra.
4) It's slicker than pig's shit after a rainstorm.
5) I'm as fine as a frog hair split four ways.

Really, it's white trash poetry. And it is my heritage.

Grandeur of Delusions

I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm mildly dyslexic. Now why would I not endeavor to get tested and perhaps overcome this obstacle? Because holding onto 'my disorder' somehow lets me believe that I'm a true supergenius, hindered only by this pesky disorder. Were I to overcome it, surely I would master all of the dead languages, conquer every novel worthy of my time, perhaps write a few of my own novels, and surely, surely, advanced mathematics would reveal itself to me like Wonder Woman slippiling out of her invisibility cloak.

However, these dreams, or delusions rather, die once I am tested and broken the sad, sad news that I do not have dyslexia. See, currently, I have small bits of evidence (check out my profile--I switched the order of words--see? see???) to bolster my super-genius theory.

I ain't about to give that up, folks.

Die, Magic, Die!

I've recently taken to reading biographies. I'm currently reading "If They Come in the Morning" (autobiography of Angela Y. Davis), and a biography of James Baldwin and Miles Davis. (Yes, I realize that I am not black--I am not even easily tanned). Baldwin is my favorite author, Miles my favorite musician, and Davis's story--or more specifically, the story of the Black Power/Black Panther movement--puts both my favorite literature and my favorite music into a bit of 'street context.' So, this is my trifecta of biographical wonderment.

However, despite satisfying my hunger to contextualize everything (hello, anthro degree--thought I'd forgotten about you, huh?), I'm wondering if I'm actually killing the magic. I mean, once I learned how my microwave actually cooks things, I no longer got to believe that death rays were shooting through my campbell's soup for three minutes, setting off little bombs which cooked my tomato soup. Once I learned how my refrigerator worked, I could no longer pretend escaped eskimos had implanted magic ice cubes into giant boxes, thus keeping my leftover soup delightfully cool.
Really, learning about things can sometimes kill that delightfully magical and enchanted belief structure with which we have surrounded and explained those mysteries in our lives.

Now Baldwin's literature was a bit less of a mystery than Miles' music. Perhaps it is because, while conspicuously white, I identify with many of the themes contained in Baldwin. Miles, however, with his ever-changing and revolutionary music was always one of those wonderful mysteries. Placing these works--but Miles in particular-- into a broader social and historical context has brushed away that curtain, and I now see both the music of Miles and the literature of Baldwin in a more connected, more obvious (in the sense that it is painfully clear why they pursued their chosen arts in the way in which they did) way. But it's also killed a bit of that magic. They're both human, after all.

i found this quote today, reading about Bill Withers. It comes from a conversation he had, and his response is in regards to the interviewer's question of how he came up with his amazing songs: "I don't really want to know too much about how I do it. Because then it's not magic anymore. Early in my life, I was an airline mechanic, so my life was full of, you know, you attach this to that and you put so much torque on it, and this causes that to happen, and that causes the other, and your life is full of rules. And then you get over 60, and you can't eat nothing that's not green, and you got all of these things to deal with. So the one magical thing for me is when something comes from somewhere and I don't know where it came from. It just crossed my mind."
Ah, but disenchantment is always bittersweet ~ Weber.

List your favorite safety blanket

Mine happens to be lists currently. And so, without further adeu,

Things I miss from summers in a rural small town:

1) Lightning bugs. You just can't find a better, and grosser, ring for your finger.

2) Splinters. The marvel of pulling out a shard of wood from your body.

3) Bikerides. Down dusty roads with no traffic in sight.

4) Tag. Haven't had a good game of it in too long.

5) Wuffle ball. So much better than softball or baseball.

First thoughts

You know what I miss? Good quality instructional break dance videos. Now, if you have a rather pathetic, but preferrably non-chain video store, I suggest you try to rent "Breakin' USA". It's a 1982 instructional breaking video.

I grew up in a small town. Well, the first small town was population 1200; when we moved to the thriving metropolis with, gasp, a population of 5,000, complete with fast food restaurants RIGHT IN TOWN, my brother and I exclaimed with sincere excitement, "We're going to live in the city!" But I digress.

Small town, small video store. Don't be tryin' to find yourself those "artsy" videos--you'll face severe disappointment. But, should you find yourself in need of a splendid collection of 80's faves (think "The Dark Crystal", "Jumpin' Jack Flash", etc), you've found your video candy store.

I was home for Christmas break from college, and, well, it gets snowy in Indiana. REAL snowy. Right before the snow emergency was declared (and thus, all of the townspeople confined to their homes), my friend and I went to said video store and found "Breakin' USA." We quickly changed into our breakin' clothes--'cause when you're about to get down, you want to be able to move freely--and popped the video in.

As all of you know, I'm sure, this video ain't no Jane Fonda work-out. Those moves take much more strength and coordination than I ever imagined one person could possess. Especially the "kick out" move.

The kick out move is where one takes on the "crab position" (sit down, bend your knees, lean back on the palms of you hand, and stick your pelvis in the air), and then proceeds to rock to and fro, eventually simultaneously kicking out your right leg while throwing up your left arm.

Now, my friend and I can dance. I mean dance well.

We could not kick out. Rather, we kicked each other numerous times, and the video's narrator was frequently interrupted with "OW!" "HEY!" "WTF??" "Oh, my RIBS!"

About 13 promising bruises and a sprained wrist later, we decided to settle for learning the scarecrow.

Anyway, I often think about this video, and how I'd like to kick its ass like it kicked mine. And I really, really yearn to master that kick out move 8 years later. Alas, I live in a real city now with an astonishing plethora of fast food restaurants, but not one instructional break dance video.

Sigh.