2004@20

We tend to make commemorations based on decades; Don't forget the 16-year political cycles. (In 4 presidential cycles, someone is born and starts driving).

2004 was the year that I started keeping blogs, including this one (The First Post). Obviously, they existed before then, but they became popular in the summer and fall of 2004. Most blogs were for political purposes.

***

Here are some excerpts from my 2004 diary in the lead-up to the presidential election of that year.

4/1/2004

Interesting: “tombstone technology”--technology created when catastrophe exceeds our tolerance for human pain and suffering and justifies the cost to solve the problem, or at least to give the appearance of being proactive. Everything the government has been doing in the war on terrorism is a tombstone  technology. A war on terrorism has never been started because it never passes the cost-benefit analysis. You could never sell an expensive salvo against terrorism to the American people because they wouldn’t want to pay for it.

4/14/2004

Tribune headline: “Bush: Iraq Is No Vietnam”, yet when every day you hear the tally of how many troops died,  and when the hostage crisis is counted in days (a la Iran), you can’t deny parallels with Vietnam.

4/25/2004

Bush and Cheney testify before 9/11 Commission. (Not under oath and not recorded). You could lie as much as you wanted in that scenario. I was surprised they thought they would prevent others from doing so. 

There was a letter in the Tribune about apologies that Bush should give (or not give). “He must really love us”--just as in Erich Segal’s book Love Story--”Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” It was ambiguous. The formal citation of the book made it look literal and formal. My cynicism about Bush loyalism makes this the perfect Bushism: “He is here to protect us--he can do no wrong.”

If Presidents had to apologize for mistakes, they’d always be apologizing. Leaders generally don’t apologize because it makes them look weak. A forced apology would seem smarmy. The Clinton mea culpa worked because he did it with shame.

4/30/2004

Sometimes we wrongfully assume the world is round, in a cultural sense, and we can easily transport our values to other countries. Then we discovered that the world is actually flat and we fall right off the edge.

Interesting: The clay in ancient pottery records the Earth’s magnetic field properties at the same time it was created. (The “tree rings” of pottery). The Earth’s magnetic field is a Dynamo or feedback loop of electrical charge and magnetic charge. The magnetic north can change over time and sometimes flip 180 degrees.

5/1/2004 - 5/10/2004

Weather frequently above-normal, 80 to 90 degrees, dry, no rain for weeks.

Gas prices out of control--to be $2.50/gal. by June. (The oil companies are just shoring up their profits in advance of a price cut at election time).

The prisoner abuse scandal is a cause celebre. I keep wondering why they took so many documentary photos and videos. (The photos are iconic now). It could all be staged to make the U.S. look bad. Iraq looks more and more like Vietnam.

5/13/2004

Be-headings!! It’s ironic that people flocked to see Mel Gibson’s Passion with its gruesome, almost  pornographic (Titanic?) depiction of crucifixions, but we can’t watch the news about Berg. If the Romans had digital cameras this would be old hat.

As a musician, I want to find new and surprising sounds that haven’t been heard before--instruments which sound like traditional instruments, but have an otherworldly quality, or sound like organic voices.

5/14/2004

Every day it seems there’s another anti-Bush book that comes out. First Clarke’s, then  Woodwards’, now Joseph Wilson (the guy that said the Nigeria-Iraq uranium connection was BS). The books are about the personality of the authors, not so much the content. The books are discussed more than they’re read.

5/18/2004

John Kerry was on TV criticizing Bush for putting too much emphasis on waging war and not enough on protecting Americans on U.S. soil against terrorist attacks on infrastructure. We need a smart president.

5/27/2004

Walked over to see progress on the Gehry bandshell. The bracing behind it is all exposed. This is where sculpture and architecture diverge, It is usually money that prevents the convergence.

6/5/2004

Ronald Reagan died at 93. It’s all over the news--you don’t even hear about Iraq. You really feel for Nancy--she had to live and care for someone who forgot who she was. 

6/7/2004

Transit of Venus across the Sun at 6:15, an event not seen since 1882. It has happened only 6 times in the  telescopic age--1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882. Next performance in 2012 and 2117.

6/8/2004

People have mixed opinions about Reagan. Some say “he’s the only Republican I ever really trusted”, and then they say they don’t like Bush’s policies, when, in fact, he is essentially a Reaganite.

6/9/2004

They are already talking about putting Reagan on the $10 bill. I think it’s premature. It’s sort of like retro: you have to wait 20 or 30 years for people to reintroduce it into the cultural oeuvre. I say put Kennedy on it.

6/11/2004

Reagan funeral proceedings. Margaret Thatcher’s eulogy was so interesting, in a stuffy kind of way. 

As Reagan said, a “quiet faith” is what I believe in.

6/16/2004

Interesting article on the stigma of the Midwest. Once people envision a place or perceive a place, it’s difficult to change their minds. They would say things like, “it’s a good place to be from, but not a good place to be,” this is the problem with Texas--its perception coming from the TV show Dallas. (We go to places in our minds, and somehow we're convinced we’ve been there).

Reagan forgotten again because he’s not in the media. Even if you have the same stories in the news every day, even the important ones, people would get compassion fatigue. You can only have so many orange alerts. The mind is always throwing away common information. (exformation)

6/18/2004

9/11 panel finds no Iraq-Al Qaeda link. Bush disputes it: “the reason I keep insisting there was a relationship is that there was a relationship.” (It depends on what the definition of “was” is…)

Another beheading of an American in Saudi Arabia. It’s not surprising but you still don’t want to believe it. Do they use a guillotine?

6/20/2004

Technology frees us from the physical, tactile senses, such that it is no longer necessary to play a musical instrument to make music. It also frees us from having to remember things, as they are relegated to stored data rather than encoded memory in the brain. (Amnesia is easier if your brain is a "hard drive"). Software will obviate our natural abilities and will devolve from the species. When there’s no need to remember something, you won’t.

Prince: “People are starting to realize I’m a musician.”

6/21/2004

Private rocket goes to the edge of the atmosphere. (Boundary exploration). Even though most of us will never experience it, it’s good to know someone’s done it. Possibility creates possibility.

6/23/2004

Went to see the Michael Moore documentary, Fahrenheit 911. There’s a real anti-Bush buzz of this film, but it’s largely preaching to the choir. It’s doubtful it is going to change anyone’s mind. (I liked Fog of War better). As I watched it, I was thinking about the power of context or lack thereof. There’s more to critical thinking than a Michael Moore documentary. You’d better spend your time with Chomsky, Hersch, or Woodward, but if you read some of those books, Moore’s work can amplify your views. The power of film is in the power of the edit and the editorial. The film should have had a bibliography, list of sources.

6/25/2004

Iraq handover, two days early. This is a cunning strategy: set a date certain, then do it a few days early, i.e. create tension and release it prematurely. This is largely a symbolic act. The Iraqis only have a virtual freedom. 

6/29/2004

Interesting: Sam Raimi, director of the Spider Man films is building the “Century Cam” placed above all major  American cities and shoot one frame, a 24th of a second of film per day for a thousand years. (Like time-lapse photography, but over an outrageous amount of time. The cameras would capture human rebuilding and demolition. (Stewart Brand would love this).  Viewers could watch decades of change in minutes. https://www.today.com/popculture/sam-raimis-dream-1-000-year-camera-wbna5263267

New wrinkle: “Branded entertainment” (the program and the commercials, advertisements as one product...no need to have a commercial because it’s suffused in the program). It is also called convergence, a paradigm shift.

New wrinkle: “New Urbanism” movement in architecture. The goal of the movement is to revive urban  planning from the past when cities were a melange of homes, shops, restaurants--and away from strip malls and office parks. Basically, you have “outposts” (Stops on the rail lines) communities develop around it.

Bob Dylan reluctantly accepts honorary degree. That’s like making an atheist a bishop. You don’t need high degrees in order to make substantial contributions to culture. In fact, too much education stops you from doing just that.

7/1/2004

Saddam Hussein interrogated in Court. “This is all theater!!”,  he said. (And he’s right). This is the “comeback look” for the Islamic world.

7/2/2004

Marlon Brando died at age 80.

It’s important to be bored. It makes excitement more of a possibility.

TV always wanted to simulate reality and Americans bought the idea.

7/3/2004

Weather very cool and rainy. Very unlike the Fourth of July.

What the Democrats are saying (and Michael Moore) is “stand up for the little guy.”

Article in paper about “coalition costs” spiraling out of control. Halliburton employees staying in $700 per night hotel rooms. (The rationale is that the American people are now safer, the Iraqi people have freedom, but in reality, they are indentured servants, as the United States has a big reparations lean on their oil.)

In my opinion, the oil in Iraq is better left in the ground. Pump it all out, sell it and burn it and you have environmental catastrophe. Why not invest more in the “brains” of Iraq (a Clinton idea).

The cost of each American taxpayer for the Iraq war is $3500. If you give that money to an Iraqi citizen directly what would they buy with it? (Guns made in the U.S.)

7/13/2004

Show on TV about vintage film museum in Evanston. Interesting: “Cinerama” (use of three projectors) started in the 1950s and caught on quickly and everything became a “rama” (phenomenarama). It was an attempt for a  “surround” visual (like surround sound). They had a film camera in the 1920s that cut a vinyl record while the tape rolled. (Interesting: the idea of being able to play the record by itself.)

7/16/2004

Chicago’s Millennium Park opening today.

7/26/2004

Blogging is such a big thing now. News is now more opinion than fact (which can be more interesting because it  engages people to speak freely.)

They’re now calling Al Qaeda a stateless operation. (That’s how I always understood it.) And there are so many versions of it which don’t need direction or allegiance to specific groups, middlemen, lone wolves.

7/30/2004

Segment on news magazine about musical savants. Everyone is capable of being a savant, but reasoning gets in the way. They also found that music somehow rewires the brain. The brain can be “rearranged” and lots of different ways.) Music is different in that it has a transcendental quality (if you let it) which goes back to the problem in the paradox of reason: music can develop the capability to reason, but in the process can make music too analytical. The best composers were able to work around this paradox. There was another show where they talked about the “spongey”’periods in your life (13-16 and 20-24) and when I think back, this is when I studied music more intensely.

8/1/2004

This is the coolest summer I have ever experienced. (Global warming Is actually producing local Cooling).  #weather

Interesting: Archivists are trying to preserve and copy the only known sound recording of gunshots that killed Kennedy, which has fueled conspiracy theories. The recording is very degraded and faint. (What happens to the sound, and its context, when you restore or otherwise treat or manipulate it?)

8/11/2004

Cold! Only 60 degrees!  The summer-less summer.

Watched film: The Human Stain. This is a case where a book works better than a film. If the casting, acting, and editing are not done well the narrative and substantive issues are not properly addressed. It was hard for me to believe that the young white Jen is somehow black and being played by Anthony Hopkins. (There are always clues in visual appearance and mannerism. Cultural identity that is never fully opaque. Watch again.

8/12/2004

Watched documentary on North Korea. Like all documentaries, you detect bias, in this case a European bias (conciliatory,  not antagonistic). Interesting: a sense of loyal collectivism reflected in public art--none of it for the sake of individualism (or elitism).

“National Gymnastics”--stadiums of people doing the wave, holding up signs--you wouldn’t get this lock-step anywhere else--a state of complete devotion (and it’s so beautiful). And yet, beauty is only to be beholden by the Beloved (the dictator).

They want to “rid this land of U.S. imperialism”,  even after 50 years.

People always have the “state radio” on in the background (one channel--“ambient ideology”.) It’s interesting that no one feels repressed. Even peasants are in high regard. People live on praise when they are starving otherwise.

Interesting: The fall of Saddam Hussein inspired people to go out and do graffiti. They have a guy over there that’s tracking it. (Amir Nayef Toma al-Sayegh).

One thing that the war on terrorism can learn from art is cunning--the use of metaphor and cross-discipline influences. “Surgical strike” is overused. How do insects solve disputes?

8/15/2004

Reading 9/11 Commission Report. Interesting: It was the media that gave the most accurate details of the attack. All you need is to turn on the TV (Reality TV in the truest sense). In fact, in the future, TV watching will be “ surveillance”. People are saying the book reads like a novel. (9/11 was like a film).

8/17/2004

My friend Henry, 82 years old, said he’s never experienced a Chicago summer where he had to put the heat on.

On the new Scion XB: They left out all the curves, what one would expect in auto design--with stunning results.

8/18/2004

Watched documentary on Julia Child. Things I liked: Her early shows were in black and white (How can you show food with no color?); French food is a collaboration/theater; the French had “attitudes” about food integrated into the culture; She flunked The Cordon Bleu cooking school (more evidence that you don’t need school); it took her 40 years to find her true passion; the “Betty Crocker” method (step-by-step); cooking is  “elemental”.

8/24/2004

Read Edge article “A Self Worth Having” by Nicholas Humphrey. He was the first to demonstrate the existence of blindsight after brain damage in monkeys. Once the brain (and perhaps the body) have learned how to see,  it creates the memory of sight. You also have to want to see, for the absence of desire hastens atrophy: if no one wants to make music with melody and harmony, no one will be around that knows how to do it. But the capacity to learn, the capacity for blindsight, ensure that the seeds of knowledge are always there.

9/5/2004

Read article in paper about 20/20 video screens, acute as human vision with nine million pixels. If there were any more pixels, the brain wouldn’t be able to process the information. Once you reach information saturation, you have to subtract information so that people can comprehend it. Anything beyond perceptible reality is either fake or spiritual. #exformation

9/6/2004

Edvard Munch’s The Scream was heisted from its gallery--an art-jacking. If art is made to be seen, why hide it?  If everyone has already seen it and is in the cultural pantheon, why does it matter? Why have an old 45 of  Beatles’ Love Me Do if you can’t play it or sell it as an antique?

Interesting: When art is stolen they keep an empty frame in the gallery as a proxy. Also, once stolen art is retrieved, and the thief is still at large, the art continues to be held as evidence.

Making people cry is easy--making them laugh is harder.

First blog post on “Reasons For Kerry”:

As more nations become democratic, and their economies grow, the greater the energy needs to sustain growth. China is one of the fastest-growing economies. With more people tapping into energy resources to drive cars, run air conditioners, and run an endless glut of electronic devices, the more the thirst for oil and coal. This is not sustainable, and will eventually lead to precipitous climate change--not to mention contributing to a more volatile geopolitical struggle and potential for more terrorism. Save for the intervention of some natural cause (a volcanic eruption for instance), global warming is a certainty. The United States needs to take the lead in developing alternate energy sources and begin the process of replacing the old oil infrastructure, such that in twenty years' time we will be able to fuel cars with hydrogen, right at the pump. A Texas Republican will want to perpetuate dependence on oil (for obvious reasons) but I believe Kerry can create a change in perception of the United States as a leader in new ideas, with a global benefit. In my opinion, the new Republican party with neoconservatives at the helm will wind up stalling these new developments, even when they promise otherwise--as the old-boy network is a cornerstone of the party. Also, its penchant for nation-building will entice even more developing nations to take the road to fossil fuel dependence.

9/9/2004

Hurricane Ivan, a deadly Category 5 storm to hit Jamaica around 9/11.

Watched a documentary on PBS Sacred Ground about design plans for the World Trade Center site. Daniel  Libeskind (the ‘artiste’) and David Childs (the pragmatist) were forced to collaborate, coming out with a  contrived, ugly design. Collaboration is generally a good thing, but too much compromise can kill it. At the end of the film, they show the bereft son, peeking through the gates over the World Trade Center crater. The message was, “ how can you honor the dead and their grieving relatives with a piece of crap design, the product only of bickering and a forced compromise.

The 1000th American Soldier dies in Iraq.

The interesting thing about camera phones [That's what we called them in 2004] is that they put mobile surveillance cameras everywhere. The fact that they are digital devices increases the possibility of destroying context and even the truth.

9/11/2004

9/11 Year 3. Interesting context collision:  Hurricane Ivan decimates Jamaica, headed for U.S. Gulf.

They had a candlelight vigil at the lakefront here in Chicago, honoring the war dead. It was almost totally silent. You got the impression that something was not right here. This war shouldn’t have been.

Thoughts on Ron Reagan’s article The Case Against George W. Bush”:

To some, this might appear shamelessly blasphemous, but to speak the truth from atop your father’s grave is not blasphemy; it is evidence that the truth has been spoken. No one could be so vile to say these things if they were not in fact true. It is also evidence that the Bush administration is merely a shadow group of true Reaganites. It’s Bush that’s spitting on Reagan’s grave.

Full article at: http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2004/040729_mfe_reagan_1.html

9/13/2004

The most active hurricane season in 30 years. (Global warming or global cooling?)

Idea: a photo blog.

9/17/2004

Kofi Annan said that the war in Iraq was “illegal” because Washington and its coalition partners never got Security Council backing for the invasion. Bush said he had no regrets: “I was hoping diplomacy would work, “ Bush said Thursday while campaigning in Minnesota. “Knowing what I know today, even though we haven’t found the stockpiles of weapons we thought were there, I’d still make the same decision. America and the world are safer with Saddam Hussein sitting in a prison cell.” How so? The Baathist regime in  Iraq went beyond Hussein himself. Again, this is the fallacious assumption that if you kill the animal, the species will be dead. To truly combat terrorism you have to eliminate the reasons people want to do it, not just put them on trial like Scott Peterson.

9/19/2004

They arrested Cat Stevens on the flight from London to the U.S. as a terrorist suspect. Funny, I’ve gone into more stores and coffee shops that always seemed to be playing Cat Stevens songs as a form of protest.

The interesting thing about blogging is that you can highlight interesting collisions of opinion and fact, which get published in newspapers.

9/30/2004

On the Whirling Dervishes: They see everything in the world as rhythmic, and the twirling and dancing is a symbolic gesture of a circadian nature of planetary life, prayer in motion.

10/2/2004

The problem with a free culture is that there is no longer an incentive to spend lots of time on something. That could be why there is so much sameness in music: cut/paste, revise and plagiarize because it provides instant gratification.

In 1979, Steve Dahl, a Chicago DJ staged the “Disco Demolition” at Comiskey Park in Chicago, as a protest against the “attack” of disco on American music. It’s like a war against terrorism: You can vehemently hate something, and militate against it when ultimately it will still exist as an idea. It is chilling to think of the analogy: the idea of terrorism, with all its ability to proliferate and mutate, has the limitless possibility for prevailing into perpetuity. You can blow up a bunch of records in an attempt to rid the world of ideas or ways of life you don’t like, but the seeds of those ideas are deeply hidden in the ground. Disco had a profound effect on the development of pop music as we experience it today.

10/4/2004

Interesting: Regional contexts, “birds of a feather“ effect explains how Bush can be such a popular president in the face of such vehement opposition. 

Browsed at Barbara’s bookstore and there must have been almost 100 Bush-bashing books.

10/6/2004

Photographer Richard Avedon died. He was one of the first to admit that still photography is a “ sin of omission”. It’s a cropping of time and context. Something always gets excluded and sometimes it’s the part that’s true.

Vice presidential debate--Cheney/Edwards. 

U.S. report doubts Iraq’s WMD capability. It was written by the chief weapons inspector there. This is so poetic on the heels of Edwards’ claim that the Bush Administration is lying to the American people.

10/8/2004

Martha Stewart reports to “Camp Cupcake”.

10/10/2004

Christopher Reeve died at age 52. People often say that a human birth is such a miracle. It’s survival that’s a  miracle. It’s ironic too that Superman is such an oxymoron. Interesting: Reeve’s “dream of walking”.

10/12/2004

Article in paper about Salvador Dali’s 7 secrets for creative success: blow your own horn; keep up with current events;  collaborate with the best;  make new friends;  expand your horizons-- don’t just do one thing;  dream big;  believe in yourself.

People want to vote for Bush because they want to preserve the “afterglow” of 9/11 jingoism. (An unmitigated sense of revenge against the rest of the world).

Watched Frontline documentary about the impending election. I thought it was excellent. You could see how a  9/11 could happen. It was amusing how they put it in context: While Kerry was going to war, Bush was at kegger parties on hot afternoons, playing horseshoes. It was like peering into someone’s high school yearbook. [Facebook!]

10/13/2004

Third and final Kerry-Bush debate. Kerry looked regal, which I guess Bush supporters cringe at. 

10/17/2004

Interesting: With only three weeks until the election, one would expect things to get even more bitter but now but both Bush and Kerry have started the “smile” campaigns in hopes that they’ll make a good impression, such that voters might be swayed by white teeth alone. That aside, Kerry looks impressive. 

10/18/2004

You can’t have a true democracy without a Muddy Waters, Elvis, and The Beatles. (What would happen in Iraq if something similar occurred?)  True democracy also always involves dissent.

10/19/2004

Interesting: When you go through affluent suburbs you tend to see more Bush-Cheney signs in front of houses  (mansions) for obvious reasons. But you also see Kerry-Edwards signs. They are both in the same tax bracket, but what makes one more in favor of Kerry? (Sometimes supporters aren’t necessarily voting their pocketbook).

10/23/2004

Warm, 72 degrees. Unusual for late October.

A column by Georgia Anne Geyer in the 10/22/04 edition of the Chicago Tribune. It’s always a better policy to make friends whenever possible, which averts the probability of the my-enemy’s-enemy-is-my-friend  phenomenon, where all of America’s enemies join in concert. Everyone should admit this is truth.

10/30/2004

As the polls would ostensibly indicate, the nation is divided 50/50. This is an illusion spun by the media to give the impression that Bush is still a formidable force. It would be “interesting”  to see how it all spins (unravels), and how 50% of the nation will deal with defeat.

11/2/2004

Presidential election. The pervasive feeling in America is that this is the most important election in 50 years. Half the country wants a fresh start, half wants the status quo. (There is a very sharp threshold here, a boundary, a line in the sand, an “isobar”).

Even when majorities prevail, the true profile of the constituent is a more accurate arbiter of who we truly are as a nation. It’s like an Ansel Adams print: a wide degree of tonal variation from total black to total white.

11/3/2004

Bush wins election with 54% of popular vote. While this may have no immediate impact, it does increase the possibility that the country may retain its polarization for years to come,  even beyond 2008, 2012 if conservatives pack the bench.

Thoughts: Regional effects-an area can be assumed to be conservative, but when you zoom in to the personal and more specific levels, you find such labels far apart. Hypocrisy always has its inimical effects;  invisible/shifting boundaries;  liberal sentiments/ developments (invasions); half the nation feels disenfranchised with a sense that power has been taken away; “just enough freedom”  to feel free.

11/5/2004

Watched film: Control Room. Things I liked: The toppling of the Saddam statue was a staged event; Why didn’t they use the Iraqi flag as a victory flag, but rather used the U.S, flag?;  Journalism has a duty to its people to frame the context in deference to values/goals (they do this everywhere--it’s universal);  People saying, “we’re just a small country--how can we stop them? 

“Being understood is more powerful than being right”. (That’s why they said Bush won). 

11/13/2004

Interesting: On the El on the way home from work, I got on a car where some kids were singing a capella gospel. They sounded excellent. When they got off, everyone clapped and cheered. One person said: “I can sing, but they can saaang!”  

11/21/2004

Watched Frontline documentary on PBS on the Walmart phenomenon. Interesting: collusion of Walmart and China dominate US economy;  George Bush in many ways is a protege of Sam Walton;  profit as religion;  Walmart as a “church”; “opening price points”, synonymous with Bush re-election soundbites, “passionate conservatism”.

Article in paper about an old woman in Mexico that makes art out of chewing gum. That part of Mexico (Talpa de Allende) is now known as the “ Cradle of Gum”. (They use it like clay). https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2004-11-19-0411190283-story.html

Patricia Barber on video of talking about her new album recorded live in Paris. Interesting: on lyric writing: the more complex the narrative the less complex the music. (Was she referring to density?)  She wrote the lyrics with the constraint of only using only two-syllable words.

11/23/2004

Massive demonstrations in Ukraine protesting against a “stolen election” by the Communist Party. (You see disputed elections everywhere now).

11/24/2004

5 years of American History is equal to about 5 minutes or less of antiquity. What seems like a sea change in modernity is really no perceptible difference in antiquity. Ergo, nothing has changed since 9/11, or even Pearl Harbor or World War 1.

Ed Paschke died. He influenced my “neon” style. He was just an ordinary guy as well, which goes to show you can do weird stuff and not have it dominate your identity.

11/27/2004

The war in Iraq is essentially a fight for verisimilitude, i.e. the appearance of being successful or unsuccessful, based on reporting in the media.

You have to consider all the social side effects that wars bring--like troops returning to civilian lives with their perception of life completely changed. 

12/10/2004

Prediction: The Iraq elections will “appear” to go well, but since there will always be some level of resistance from the Sunnis (even from outside of Iraq) the Shiite majority will be the target of suicide bombings. It will be a mirror of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the Sunni triangle as Palestine.

Extremism is a symptom, not a disease.

Americans are TV Heads--like that film by Godfrey Reggio.

12/13/2004

They had an interesting op-ed piece in the paper about the connection between intellectualism and liberalism. I wonder if there is a way to reconcile the differences between the study of complex subjects and simple faith. The former explores all the confusing gray areas, whereas the latter is black and white. It’s no surprise that most of America would prefer to have something easy to decide upon (black/white/binary) than the complex array of grays. America is partly based on the idea that things are easy or comfortable. Figuring out gray is just too much work.