The Brass City Brew Fest will be held in Waterbury on Saturday, Sept 13 and is just what the beer loving Nutmegger has been looking for.

I went last year for the first time and went home more then impressed. You want to get there early and pay the $10 extra dollars to get into the Belgian beer tent. There is one place you can get pretty much every Belgian beer that crosses Connecticut’s borders, plus some.

The four-hour festival is set at Library Park in Waterbury, just across from the courthouse and under a beautiful clock tower. For all you hear about Waterbury it was a beautiful setting with plenty of grass to mosey around in.

The American selection is mostly from the Northeast but you get the big guns there such as Dogfish Head, Boston Beer Co. and Allagash. The west coast sends over Anchor Steam, Ballast Point, Eel River, Lagunitas, North Coast and Sierra Nevada.

You also get to sample the best beers from this so-called poor state for craft beer. Connecticut will put its best foot forward with the outstanding Cambridge House, BruRm@Bar, Carlson Craft Brewery, Cottrell, Farmington River, John Harvard's, New England Brewing Co., Olde Burnside, SBC (Southport Brewing Co.), Thomas Hooker and another Connecticut great brewer the Willimantic Brewing Co.

Tickets are $30 in advance and can be purchased at http://www.brasscitybrewfest.com/ or $35 at the gate. The event only runs from 1 to 5 p.m. but that is more then enough time to sample everything you want. I would suggest getting there early and beating the crowds.

What I have had and liked this month

Review: Captain Lawrence Captains Reserve

An Imperial/Double IPA brewed by

Captain Lawrence Brewing Company

Pleasantville, New York USA

ABV: 8%

Glassware: Tulip

Had the Captain Lawrence Double IPA on tap at Delaney’s In New Haven. It pours a dark yellow or off orange - it is hard to put your finger on this color. The head is amazing and the lacing is sick. The lacing literally follows you down the glass to near perfection. It smells hoppy but not in a way that will blow out your senses because it appears to be well balanced in both aroma and taste with a nice malt and citrus backbone. This is probably one of the smoothest Imperial IPAs I have ever had. It is bitter but that malt backbone keeps it from ripping your taste buds apart. Outstanding.

Beer Advocate food pairing suggestions: Cuisine (Barbecue) Cheese (peppery; Monterey / Pepper Jack, sharp; Blue, Cheddar, pungent; Gorgonzola, Limburger) Meat (Game, Grilled Meat, Salmon) 

My ratebeer.com rating: 4.2

Jerrod Ferrari is editor of The Stamford Times and Wilton Villager. He is also the operator of It’s The Beer Talking blog at http://beertalking.wordpress.com/

Here's a view of the patio I took yesterday from just inside the entrance. Just out of site below the frame is the fountain/sculpture that Federico is working on. It connects to the low wall that curves off to the left. The building in the back has Gallery #1, and as you can see it still needs quite a bit of work, although, most of the front wall had been repaired by the end of today. The building on the right has Gallery #2 and Gallery #3. This is the building we are concentrating on getting ready for the October opening, along with the patio itself, a small cafe in the back patio and the portales of Gallery 1.

The garden of the patio has changed a lot; just a couple of weeks ago it looked like a jungle. The area in the foreground will be a tea garden, with fresh teas grown there for the small café that will be in the back patio. The roses are almost done blooming, and when they are we will trim them back; something that hasn't been done in a long time. The poso at the far right will be redesigned to be more elegant (couldn't really be made to look less elegant). Federico is working on a design for that now. The three columns on the building to the right (Galleries #2 &#3) were finished today and I started working on the three square columns on the building on the left (Gallery #1).

I'll try to post a picture of the patio each week until it is finished so that you can see the progress.

Okay. The Democrats are getting a little sensitive about this.

Their retort to all the criticism they've been getting  about this grandiose stage is, "The important thing is the speech, not the setting that it's given in or on."

If that's so, why not stay at the convention center instead of moving to a football stadium?

"Well, we want it to be open to more people than the convention delegates."

Okay. 75,000 isn't everyone so why try? Don't you recall that 200,000 adulating Germans looked a little like pre-World War II Nuremberg? All you have to do is replace the term, "fascist" with "socialist".

And what's with all of those columns? Are they Doric, Ionian, or Corinthian? You say the back drop is based on the Lincoln Memorial. Frankly, it reminds me of a movie set from "QuoVadis", "Ben Hur ", "Fall of the Roman Empire" or "Gladiator".

And what's with all of those steps leading up to that round area at the end of the runway? Is that what's supposed to get Barack "closer" to the "common man"? Are they going to have people or even better a bunch of small children sitting on the steps so it will look like the "Sermon on the Mount"?

I think that's what they're shooting for ... some kind of hybrid between "Imperial Rome" and the "Sermon on the Mount". Interesting.

On his radio program yesterday, Rush Limbaugh said that since the temples in ancient Greece were built as homes for the gods, Obama has taken his Messiah status one step further and now believes himself to be God.

I hate to be the one to burst the GOP bubble, but I guess a little history lesson is in order. Today is the 45^th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s "I Have a Dream" speech, which was given in front of the structure pictured here, better known as the Lincoln Memorial. Note the columns.

Here is a photograph of Dr. King taken during a portion of that speech. Again, take notice of the columns in the background.

So you see my Republican friends, the stage is not set up to portray Obama as some sort of Deity, it has an historical context. Oh well, back to attacking Obama’s patriotism and smearing him by taking his remarks on Iran and Israel out of context.

I might, however, suggest an appropriate setting for John McCain’s acceptance speech. Maybe in front of a mock-up of a crashed fighter plane, or in light of his many references to his time in captivity, a re-creation of the Hanoi Hilton. He is a former POW, you know.

Violencia es también amagar a la población diciendoles que el año siguiente tampoco habrá crecimiento y que, es más, nos las vamos a ver más negras aún. A ver, ¿Por qué esos grandes empresarios no salen a las calles y claman por la mejora sustencial en las garantías de los trabajadores?. No me imagino que esos hombres del dinero gasten millonarias sumas de dinero a favor de marchas en contra de las muertas de Juárez, ni a favor de el pedimento de justicia por Ernestina Ascensio. Ni tampoco los he visto organizar una marcha a favor de los chicos muertos del News Divine. no, esos señores son hipócritas. Ellos sólo velan por sus intereses y por los suyos, y está bien que lo hagan, peor lo que no está bien es que se ostenten como autoridades morales y como voces ciudadanas cuando sus fortunas las han logrado al amparo de gobierno corruptos. Es decir, el gran amigo de Salinas, Nelson Vargas, ahora manda a su señora a gimotear su pena por el secuestro de su hija. Que pena por la chica, pero más pena que estos señores sólo hagan válidas las voces ciudadanas cuando sus intereses han sido afectados.

Yo no me veo en congraciado por sus dotes de seres humanos nobles y empáticos con las causas sociales si acaso me llegasen a secuestrar.
¡Patrañas!, los ricos se han alejado tanto del pueblo que les ha dado fortuna y poder que ahora buscan en ellos también solidaridad. ¡Vamos, ya ni la burla perdonan!. Antes de pedir las renuncias de los gobernantes esos riquillos deberían también pedir la justa distribución de las riquezas para así eliminar las desigualdades que son el motor principal de la violencia en el país. ¿Acaso esa doble moral tampoco es violencia?
Por otra parte el narco ya lanzó sus mensajes en mantas llamando narcomandatario a Calderón, digo, esos narcos saben de su negocio y ellos saben de lo que hablan y sería poco inteligente no atender esos mensajes.

Apparently the conservative partisans have too much time on their hands now that they've figured out solutions what's wrong with the economy, health coverage, gas prices, Russia, the Taliban and more. Maybe they even figured out why bees keep dying and Dutch Elm Disease keeps spreading.

Wait. Their "solutions" are just rehashed versions of the same failed policies America's been grappling with for the past 8 years?!

Dagnabbit. Foiled by the Chewbacca Defense again!

Of course, these complaints are actually about a half-built stage so the Republicans don't even know what the final design will look like. Not that launching an attack despite not knowing all the facts has ever stopped any Republican. ;) Then again, it might end up looking like a church instead of a temple, and then they'll be real mad.

Here's a quarter for the clue bus: Republicans use stages for their talks too. It's not as if Sen. McCain has never used columns as a backdrop anyway... let alone spoken from a TV set designed to look like a church pulpit during the 2004 GOP convo.

Y'all are clearly running away from the Epic. Failure. of conservative policies over the last 8 years. All you've got left are these silly namby-pamby whines.

Go ahead, keep whining about completely irrelevant malarkey. In the end it'll only serve to highlight the fact that Obama's the only one with workable solutions and the capacity to put them into action.

Coincidentally, today is also the 45th Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream Speech" which was delivered in front of an audience of nearly 250,000 people... Dr. King was, of course, standing on the steps of a Greek Temple (in the Doric style, for those keeping tracking) the Lincoln Memorial while giving that inspirational talk.

If asked, candidate McCain may be unsure if any of his homes are designed in the style of a Greek temple; although at least one of his "modest" homes has a small fireplace or two or three or four and looks like a home fit for a Spanish conquistador, not some Greek-column resting Senator, which is clearly way more Republicanner than uppity Greek columns.

Curiously, one of the McCains' dining room tables (the one in the Sedona mansion) is actually resting on Greek columns.

Whoddathunkit?

--

UPDATE: Really?

Are the McCainiacs really this afraid of talking about his woeful flip-floppy record and the failure of conservative policies over these past many years?

McCain's campaign just took this "Freedom Fry" idiocy to new lows. It's fitting that what their complaining about is an acceptance speech being held in a sports arena... This constant namby-pamby complaining about unimportant baloney has them looking like whiners on the juice.

Island Packet — I am trying to imagine a scenario in which, at any point in my athletic history, I would have been disqualified from participating in something because I was too good at it. I am now trying to imagine bringing up this scenario to anyone I know and not watching them explode in a fiesta of vigorous snort-giggling.

I can imagine the opposite situation happening, but that’s mostly because it wouldn’t be “imagining” so much as “recalling in horror.” There was the Unfortunate Incident of the Junior-High Gymnastics Competition That We Had For Some Reason, which culminated with my being punched out pretty effectively by a pommel horse.  There was the Freshman Year Soccer Game Of Hideous Terror, during which I had to be appointed goalie because I kept using my hands to do things, apparently a pretty make-or-break thing when it comes to soccer. And there was, of course, the Great Rec League Basketball Fiasco of 2007. “Everyone on this team has a role,” a teammate told me mid-season, “You’re not a shooter.”

(Literally, I quit high-school cross country in the first week of training, when I was startled to learn that practices involved a pretty decent amount of running. I also remain convinced that several of my Little League teams growing up would deliberately tell me the incorrect location of our upcoming games, which was especially cold, since my Dad was the coach.)

I bring this up because apparently my opposite, my reverse doppelganger, the mathematical reverse of everything I’ve ever attempted in sports exists in New Haven, Conn., and he’s 9. His name is Jericho Scott, and he’s a right-handed pitcher who can throw 40 mph heaters, which are entirely too scorching for his Youth Baseball League, which has asked him if he wouldn’t mind not showing up to play baseball anymore.

Well, that’s one side anyway. According to the New York Times, which admittedly is known for its anti-9-year-old bias, the league says it broke up Jericho’s team, his coach says the team is refusing to disband, parents and players are holding rallies and protests and the whole situation smacks foully of that thing where weird, directionless glued-in-high-school adults start interjecting themselves into kids’ sports leagues and ruining them.

For example, league attorney Peter Noble — I’m gonna do that one more time: the YOUTH BASEBALL LEAGUE ATTORNEY, who spends most of his time battling claims of players using performance-enhancing juice — says “facing that kind of speed is frightening for beginning players.”

Now this I can vouch for. In the fourth grade I was sent up to bat against a corn-fed Indiana monstrosity named Mike Bragg, a pitcher who was terrifying for three reasons:

1. He had fire-red hair.
2. He was in the sixth grade.
3. It took him exactly one pitch to bean me with a screaming fastball in the left side of the helmet, which created the sort of sound effect you’d hear if you dropped a hubcap on a stack of filing cabinets. Needless to say, I spent the rest of my baseball career setting up about 10 feet outside the batter’s box, or as removed as I could be from home plate while still appearing to be sort of part of the game. But I didn’t petition the league and ask for Bragg to be banned from the league, I didn’t call the New York Times and I sure didn’t involve a lawyer. I did what anyone else would have done: I got terrified and fled the sport immediately until the next summer, when I started trying to learn about soccer.

Most of us would shout now “Why shall I settle for less? I know what I want”. But is this really true? Is the reason for us being so picky our exquisite preferences and high demands or is it simply the fact that we do not actually know what we want?  

Let’s face it – our views on the perfect partner are distorted by the breath-taking Hollywood mass productions and only slightly affected by our individual experiences. We have a few explicit but, with it, a long list of implicit standard requirements. And then it happens – we meet the commonly agreed upon Mr. Right. He is good looking, charming, comes along with your friends, listens, cares, pays attention to details, is not arrogant, and still, despite his “perfectness”, tries hard to make everything even better. And? We do not feel a thing.  Why?  From here, there are two ways to go. Either, one takes the easy way out and says “Well, then he was not the right one”, despite the perfect match with your expectations, and keeps on looking at another location for an exact copy of him, or one starts to wonder about the own emotions. What do we really want? Who do we really need? Maybe, our Mr. Right has been beside us for a long time. Maybe, we are incapable of realizing, or even accepting, our true feelings towards the right person for us, simply because she or he is not the right person for everybody…?

Post from Lydia Lindsey's Blog:

There is a misread on the columns in Invesco field. The columns are not associated with the Greek gods. The gods come down from mountains on high. This SPIN is WRONG! The columns are identified with the birth place of western democracy. The columns are identified with the Republic– the common good! Plato’s Republic and how government can serve the people. How government can work for the welfare of the people. Obama is trying to restore the Republic after the long nightmare of the imperial presidency.

What should be said that it looks like a Greek agora, forum, the public square rather than a Greek temple! The forum is the bastion of democracy!

(Well no wonder the Republicans are confused. "Democracy" is not part of their vocabulary.)

From ThinkProgress:

The schedule I used was based on 14 hours of wakefulness followed by 7 hours of sleep.  You will see how well this worked.  The following are my journal entries for the week.

MONDAY

AWAKE -> 10:00-00:00

23:30 This day was fairly normal.  Things will become a bit strange by tomorrow.  I haven't been up at seven in the morning since - I can't remember when.  The girl who I am subletting my room from just came in and told me about the 25 year old artist she works for as an assistant who is making tons of money and having her do all his boring and tedious work.  Great for him, but kind of annoying information to fall asleep on all the same.

TUESDAY

AWAKE -> 07:00-21:00

07:45 I am on the subway right now.  I have once again done my two for one ticket deal where I don't stamp my ticket the first time, and, if caught (which happens fairly regularly), just claim ignorance of the stamping protocol.  In fact, when you buy a ticket the time is stamped on it anyway, so they can see that I am traveling on a recently purchased ticket.  Then the next time I use it I actually stamp it.  I don't feel bad about this one bit since it is such a dumb system to begin with.  Why in the world do you need to stamp the time on a single use ticket that already has the time of purchase stamped on it?

I had to use the small bowl for my cereal this morning.  I hate that.  We only have one semi-reasonable cereal bowl and a number of roommates who aren't exactly gangbusters about doing dishes.  I think I may have left my Kiehl's shampoo in the shower.  Shit.

I'm feeling okay.  I feel like I am getting a jump on the day.  I feel a bit dumb that I never get up this early.  Everyone on the subway, almost without exception, is reading right now - newspapers, magazines, novels.  I have NEVER seen this before.  It's as if a whole new category of people occupy the city at this time of day.

11:53 I am starving and am going for lunch.  Very strange to go for lunch at noon.

20:35 I worked like gangbusters today.  I kind of feel ready for bed as I watch Olympic highlights on Eurosport.  I love that they show Olympics 24 hours a day on this channel.  Then during the day there is another channel (either 1 or 2, it switches according to the day due to some strange licensing logic) also playing non-stop Olympics.  Right now on Eurosport they are doing this strange daily mash-up where they play clips of Olympic athletes making strange faces/actions alongside music cues that are meant to be funny.  Or sometimes they just play sound effects.  Right now they just played the sound of a horse  whinnying and pawing the ground with a clip of a javelin thrower making a similar motion with his feet and blowing his lips in a way that sort of matched.  Actually, that was kind of funny.

WEDNESDAY

AWAKE -> 04:00-18:00

04:35 Waking up in the dark never feels natural.  I had a bit of trouble falling asleep last night but got there after perhaps 90 minutes.  I am working from home until the subway starts running.

07:45 On the subway now.  The lady across from me is doing a Sudoku puzzle that she cut out from a newspaper.  I've done Sudoku myself, but only because there was nothing else to do.  I would not, for example, ever buy a Sudoku book.  I think that if you are going to spend time working on a skill it should give you something above and beyond only the pleasure of successfully doing it.  For example: 

1. Social Interaction (sports for example)
2. Money (trading stocks for fun)
3. Physical Objects (carpentry)
4. Health (sports, cooking)
5. Knowledge (reading, taking classes)
6. etc.

Sudoku doesn't hit any of these.  It's even worse than crosswords, which are essentially in the same category - it's like television for nerds.  Sit back and disconnect.  Plus, I usually get the feeling when I see someone doing a crossword (especially when they are my age) that they are happy that I have seen them being so fucking erudite.

17:18 Another gangbusters day of work.  My productivity is through the roof.  Am going to have to stay up a bit "late" tonight as it is a friends birthday party at 18:00.  

20:25 Shit.  Just getting to bed now.  The 1am alarm is not going to be a pleasant sound.

THURSDAY

AWAKE -> 01:00-15:00

01:45 This sucks.  I hate it.  The roommates finished the milk and now I can't have any cereal and I have nothing else to eat right now and nothing is open except doner shops.  I don't know if I can handle a doner for breakfast.

02:27 I settled for a falafel.  It is actually pretty good.  In contrast to the eight day week.  I just made a little chart while waiting for my falafel and the eight day week officially sucks.  For some reason I thought that I would work five days and then have a nice three day weekend from Friday to Sunday.  But in fact my Friday is going to go from 10pm tonight until noon on real Friday, so I am going to be asleep from noon until 7pm on Friday.  So basically, I may as well have done a normal week and then just done an all-nighter on Thursday night and then slept from noon until 19:00 on Friday and I would be in exactly the same position.  And probably way less tired.  At least I am getting to watch some live Olympics.  I am kind of bored of watching the rowing though.  They have some many variations on the same theme.  One.  Two.  Four.  Eight. Kayak. Canoe. Boat. 500m. 1000m. And so on.  It seems a bit much.

17:20 Can't sleep.  It is a beautiful sunny day outside.  This was a terrible idea.

FRIDAY

AWAKE -> 22:00-12:00

22:22 Fell asleep for a bit.  Feel severely out of it at this point.  It is everyone else's Thursday, but my Friday.  Knowing this gives me absolutely no satisfaction.  The website I have been working on all week is just about done, but I just found a few more tweaks it needs from the flash programmer and there is no way to get her to do it before I go to bed tomorrow.

11:15 Just got back from a run - I am trying to tire myself out so that I might have a chance of falling asleep at noon.  Ran into a friend coming back home who was in a cafe having his morning coffee.

14:45 This is not working.  

16:50 "Saturday" is going to suck.

SATURDAY

AWAKE -> 19:00-09:00

19:10 I got about 75 minutes of sleep and feel delirious.  Now I have to go get dressed up in a suit for some kind of networking/party/swing dance event.  Philip sounded excited that he had gotten us on the list for it but I really can't wrap my head around what exactly "it" is.

04:38 I am laying in bed eating a doner now and watching the Olympics.  I am still not sure what I went to.  It was kind of like a normal party combined with a high-school dance for grown-ups.  It felt very "organized."  The highlight was the free food.  I am not sure why I feel like I must stay up until 9am but I am going to do it.  The US basketball team starts playing their semifinal in 3.4 hours.

SUNDAY

AWAKE -> 16:00-06:00

16:15 Finally some sleep.  I plan to do nothing remotely productive today.

05:30 Just got home.  Ran into a guy I knew from Montreal - Justin, who was a friend of a friend - at a bar tonight.  It was very bizarre running into him.  This is the second time this has happened to me in Berlin, where I am going out somewhere and I hear "Hey, Dan!" and turn and see someone who looks like they were just teleported in for dramatic effect.  We had a bizarre conversation, which I came out of understanding that either he was leaving soon or had no interest in hanging out or both.  It will still be semi-dark when I go to bed today.

EXTRADAY

AWAKE -> 13:00-03:00

13:50 I feel a bit more normal now, but these closing ceremonies are baffling me.  First they had the medal awards for the marathon winners and one of the guys - who won the silver - looked like he was going to fall over the whole time.  I don't know if he was nervous or exhausted or both, but it was strange.  Then there was that London-Beijing-London bus that drove in and all this weird shit started happening.  I guess it has to do with passing on the torch.  I need to get outside.

01:30 Almost done.  I am very glad.  I am going to watch a terrible streaming version of Pineapple Express (just joking, I never break copyright law) and then call it an eight day week.

CONCLUSION

Don't do this.  I repeat, this is a bad idea.  I have to thank the Olympics for making it possible for me to complete this week.  I really don't think  I would have made it otherwise.  I am still curious about other variations on sleeping patterns, but the eight day week will not be repeated.  It doesn't allow for any sort of sleep rhythm and kills your social life.  It's terrible.

I found out about polyphasic sleep this week - which is where you sleep for 25-30 minutes 6-8 times per day; which works out to about three hours of sleep per day.  My roommate did this for six months during a busy period of school.  He said it really wasn't bad after the first two weeks.  He quit it because it just made life too complicated - I didn't really understand why that would be the case until he pointed out that he HAD to sleep every 4 hours or else he would get totally messed up.  So if he was out with friends having a good time he would have to take off for a nap after 4 hours.  Which, he was right, did not seem terribly practical.

I am now considering doing something slightly more logical.  A 12 day week.  This would involve having two days every weekday.  A work day from 08:00-16:00, followed by a four hour sleep, followed by a "fun" day of exercise, reading and going out with friends from 16:00-04:00.  Then another four hours of sleep.  Then on weekends you just do normal days (hence the 12 days instead of 14).  I will keep you posted on how this goes.

     The other good news is that Rich (my producer at Think Twice Radio) scored me a 15 Gig Ipod for 42 dollars.  So now I get to learn how to upload my 600 CDs (mostly Elton and Dylan) onto this thing.  It's third generation, but what are you gonna do?

     Over the weekend, I recorded 12 and a half minutes of my bachelor party, read my opening intro and recorded a five minute 'Question' segment.  Somehow this worked out to be about a half an hour Big Words Radio Show (episode 8.5).  Check that out over at:

www.thinktwiceradio.com

     I'd give you a direct link to my feed on Think Twice, but the net still isn't cooperating fully.  I'll re-edit later on...

     I also recorded episode 9 on Monday at Mulligan's Brick Bar with Geoff Kelly (managing editor at ArtVoice).  It was a great show, but my producer has been tied up with work obligations, so to the best of my knowledge, it's not up yet.  It should be by week's end, so I'll get back to you as soon as it is.

     This weekend was hell and back and back around again.  I'm still coping with the emotional and psychic fallout.  I really wish that anyone who's 'concerned' about my 'erratic behavior' and feels that i should 'slow down' could walk a mile in my shoes this summer.  A less durable person would have taken their own life by now or a whole bunch of other people's and then their own by about mid July.  Four of my friends have had complete meltdowns, the world is crashing down around my ears and I've written two entire books, launched a radio show and freelanced my ass off on top of a forty hour plus weekly job.  So yeah, I'm going to be a little erratic.  Deal with it. 

     Five years from now, I'll look back and see the upswing.  I'll look on this time as the sheer amount of career leapfrogging I've been doing as a writer.  So I would do it again a million times.  When I can quit my day job and do the radio thing or the writing thing full time, things will be a lot easier.  I'm not the praying kind, but if you are, say one for me.  I've put my time in.  I've been writing since I was 13 and I've been on the radio for seven years in one form or another, so it would be really nice to make $40,000 to start to do what I love.  I'll get there, but it would be nice to get there faster.  It infuriates me to think that there are so many talentless clowns who fell ass backwards into union jobs that I've worked my ass off to get to.  It'll happen, but it really needs to happen sooner rather than later before I snap completely or lose everyone and everything I care about. 

     But I digress.  Week 92 of Night Life is on stands with a Big Words 'uncut' column of 'Love Letter To Lancaster'.  I wanted to run it in August, but I didn't get around to it.  Later today, I'll be dropping in on Lisa Forrest's Rooftop Poetry Club at Buffalo State, my old haunting ground.  Rooftop and the Center For Inquiry remain my two favorite poetry reading venues.  I'm going to try and record the reading for Think Twice, but we'll see what happens. 

     ArtVoice has also decided to run my graphic novel reviews.  And they've given me the green light to do three Pro-Buffalo PD interviews.  At least one writer in this goddamned town should be an ultra conservative, so if it's gotta be me, so be it.  It's early in the morning, so I'll leave you with that.  Four days without the web or a computer has left me behind the eight ball, so I've got other things to do. 

     Listen to the radio show.  Grab a copy of Night Life.  We can branch out from there.  Peace out,

Tom Waters

Without jumping into the use of stylization and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), I would like to introduce tables. This simple structure allows content to be placed in cells (tag: td) which are part of rows (tag: tr) and columns (col). Below is a simple table, below is the code.

<table border="2" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="10">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>

I would urge you to play with this in your page and see what works and what doesn't work. You must have the same amount of cells in each row in order for the page to not break. If you want a row that has a different cell count, you would simply add a colspan as shown below.

There are other attributes that you can set within the cells themselves, not just the table as a whole. If I want a cell to have its text centered for example, I would write;

<td text-align="center">All my text would align center</td>

Granted, there are many other things that you can do with tables, the above gives you the basic idea. I may come back here and add things, but I feel we need to move on. You should play with a table or two and see how it works. Putting a table inside a table cell is called nesting, and sometimes is necessary, but please do not be dependent on tables for your layout. There is something much more interesting and exciting in the next post!

When I started developing websites (or attempting to at least!), I was taught by someone I rather not expose here to use tables for my main layout. Well, times are chaning, quickly, and I can tell you that tables are best used for straight data ... not layout and design.

Los resultados de las acciones policiales y militares “contra la delincuencia” ordenadas desde Los Pinos han sido tan manifiestamente contraproducentes que resulta difícil creer, a estas alturas, que el colapso de la seguridad pública haya sido mera consecuencia de la impericia descomunal exhibida por Calderón y su equipo en otros aspectos del quehacer administrativo. Más cabe suponer que la agitación del avispero de la criminalidad obedece a un cálculo planeado para infundir en la población un terror tal que propicie el surgimiento de exigencias sociales masivas de orden y mano dura, y que permita justificar excesos autoritarios en nombre de la defensa de la vida, la integridad física y la propiedad de los ciudadanos.

No es nada nuevo: con esta táctica se desplazan de la atención pública los naufragios gubernamentales en materia de empleo, manejo económico, educación y salud; se envía a un segundo plano la resistencia nacional generada por los empeños calderonistas de privatizar la industria petrolera; se recompone la maltrecha alianza que articula al grupo en el poder al ofrecerle un objetivo compartido, y se crea, por medio del amedrentamiento, una base social visible a su ideología autoritaria. Esa ideología pretende ignorar que la criminalidad es producida por las propias estructuras sociales –y que combatirla requiere, por tanto, de transformaciones sociales de gran calado– y se plantea acabar con la delincuencia mediante el recurso simple de exterminar a sus protagonistas. A tono con la visión calderónica –alimentada por las tendencias totalitarias de seguridad impuestas por la Casa Blanca en buena parte del mundo–, ello requiere de ajustes legales y conceptuales para remplazar la presunción de inocencia por la de culpabilidad, reducir las garantías individuales y las libertades civiles, categorizar a quienes infringen la ley como una nueva clase de “enemigo” carente de derechos básicos, excluido del principio de rehabilitación que rige (en teoría) el sistema penitenciario y merecedor de la aniquilación física, lo que constituye, en los hechos, una legitimación de la pena de muerte aplicada en flagrancia. En esa lógica demencial, por cierto, la sustitución de la policía por el Ejército cobra pleno sentido: el deber gubernamental ya no consiste en capturar a los presuntos criminales, fincarles cargos y presentarlos ante un juez competente, sino reventarlos en combate.

El recurso de una violencia sin precedentes por parte del Estado, y la renuncia a métodos más refinados para garantizar la seguridad ciudadana –creación de empleos, programas educativos de salud y de integración social, elevación de las condiciones de vida de la población en general– apuntaría, entonces, a generar respuestas igualmente cruentas de las organizaciones delictivas a fin de generar sus propias justificaciones y, lo más importante, una exigencia de protección, multitudinaria y desesperada, por parte de la sociedad: el respaldo masivo del que carece este régimen, por más que se presente como apolítico, plural, sin afiliación partidista, unitario, “por México”.

La angustia social por la inseguridad que el propio gobierno ha desatado alimenta, a su vez, membretes “ciudadanos” que se apuntan a encabezar, con el respaldo aplastante de los medios informativos, particularmente los electrónicos, manifestaciones multitudinarias basadas en una exasperación entendible y atendible, pero manipulada e incapaz de percibir la organicidad de una delincuencia que no sólo secuestra, asesina, asalta y trafica drogas, sino que es también corporativa, financiera, hacendaria, legislativa, electoral, aduanal, judicial, sindical y policial, que administra con éxito la impunidad de sus integrantes y que ahora aspira nada menos que a presentar su propio movimiento de masas, con exigencias de mano dura, tolerancia cero, endurecimiento de penas y demás fórmulas verbales acuñadas para legitimar la barbarie de Estado. “Que nos rebasan por la derecha”, podrá clamar entonces el calderonato.

Artículo Original: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2008/08/26/index.php?section=opinion&article=007a1pol

As I brainstormed with other staff members (thanks, Theresa!), I realized what a tall order this was.

So I want to thank my friend and colleague Buffy for her help in coming up with the name, "Columns."

On Wiktionary, companion to Wikipedia, they show a photo of building columns in Italy and Syria next to a photo of columns in typography. And I think it is the perfect visual for this blog.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a column is a "vertical arrangement of items printed or written on a page" or "one in a usually regular series of newspaper or magazine articles." This seems fitting for my blog as I will be writing regularly to inform you about the different news and activities happening at the college, including faculty research, student projects or college events. Using the plural makes sense, as others will post to the blog, including my graduate student Kaitlin.

But column also means "a supporting pillar." For those of you working in the college's discplines or a related field, this is a physical object as described on Wikipedia as "a vertical structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below." But DCP serves as a supporting pillar for our departments and schools, for our faculty and students and for our alumni and friends. And this blog supports DCP's mission.

On this blog, we will be featuring the activities of our disciplines, including architecture, building construction, interior design, landscape architecture and urban and regional planning. We also will feature our highly recognized college-wide programs in historic preservation, sustainability, international studies and service learning.

And we will do so using columns.

The spirit of Al Cornelius lives on

If you’ve come to Ellis County seeking justice, you’ve come to the wrong place.
Corruption abounds in every city, town, county and state, but Ellis County is unique due to this very newspaper exposing what really goes on.
If you’re reading this paper for the first time, it might seem like a time warp to the 1700s or 1800s, when newspapers actually did their job in monitoring local government.
So who’s Al Cornelius you ask? He was a Republican county judge from the mid-90s to 2002, and his political resume was documented and exposed on the very pages of this paper: a double-digit tax increase that led to a successful rollback (our rivals at the Waxahachie Daily Light admitted privately Cornelius had duped the paper into all of the pie-in-the-sky predictions if the rollback would have passed); $150,000 worth of red sandstone rock purchased through a make-believe company set up by associates of Cornelius (that rock sits idle in the middle of a field near the Superconducting SuperCollider property); locking the doors to outsiders during packed commissioner court meetings.
The list on Cornelius is legendary.
He couldn’t have gotten away with it had it not been for County Attorney Joe Grubbs and 40th District Judge Gene Knize, though.
And it is those two that many people in this county relegate to the top of the ash heap of political corruption.
And it is those two that brought Sharon Southers-Allen (she wants to hear your experiences: 903-244-0965) to town this past weekend. Allen, who has one book written about her experiences with Grubbs and Knize (A Judicial Terror in Texas) and plans to write another, has a brother in prison that she believes – and has the court records, forged documents, wrong dates to prove it – is innocent.
I spent all day in Waxahachie on Monday helping dig through court records, case files, visiting courtrooms…it was a fact-finding trip that I pray one day frees her brother.
Her brother’s lawyer was later put in indefinite suspension by the State Bar of Texas, but Allen’s crusade is no different than Robert Trevino (Google the Robert Trevino Case) or even Natasha Bryant, who faces the unlikely uncertainty that not one, but two children could be removed from her care by CPS and handed over to a 23-year-old “dad” who admitted to methamphetamine use and whose escapades with 15-year-old girls are covered in MySpace photos – by the way, those facts never reached Court at Law No. 1 Judge Greg Wilhelm. CPS lawyers had that evidence quashed and when I met with Bryant last week to go over this case, someone at Hastings Book Store in Waxahachie spotted us, and one phone call later, Bryant is “tipped” that a gag order could be issued in the case.
There are other cases that would be specific to Ellis County as it relates to our criminal “justice” system, but I’d need an entire issue for just part of it. Right now, the people being put in my path have a fight on their hands and like I mentioned several columns before, God has a script that is playing out right now.
We haven’t even hit intermission yet. It’s that thorough. But God, how long? How long will this last?
Someone told me Arlington is known for entertainment, Dallas for Dallas, Fort Worth for the stockyards and …Ellis County? It’s known for its corruption.

And, as such, this is troubling.

Jericho Scott is a nine-year-old who throws a baseball 40 miles per hour. Chances are, excepting Latarian Milton, he's the only person of that age who can manipulate a body other than phlegm with that kind of velocity.

And, given that fact, I'll bet that baseball is a lot of fun for him. Who wouldn't have wanted to be the kid in Little League who could blow away anyone who dared step into the batter's box, a living, breathing Kelly Leak or a legitimate Danny Almonte?

Well, now Jericho doesn't want to be that kid.

The controversy bothers Jericho, who says he misses pitching.

"I feel sad," he said. "I feel like it's all my fault nobody could play."

It's because of, as far as I can tell, a combination of complicated Little League politics and the continual coddling of a nation of youngsters who we expect to compete with the world at large in the classroom and the workforce but will not let compete unfettered on fields of play.

There's a mention in the story of Jericho being banned because he didn't want to join the defending league champions, sponsored by the employer of a league administrator. If so, and it's plausible, it's sickening that adults would dictate the jersey a preteen child wears to pitch for what seem to be either marketing- or chest-thumping-based reasons.

But there's also the problem of speed. Though there's no record of Jericho plunking a batter, either unintentionally or intentionally, the league attorney, Peter Noble, cites other parents' needs for their kids to be protected from speed:

"He is a very skilled player, a very hard thrower," Noble said. "There are a lot of beginners. This is not a high-powered league. This is a developmental league whose main purpose is to promote the sport."

Noble acknowledged that Jericho had not beaned any batters in the co-ed league of 8- to 10-year-olds, but say parents expressed safety concerns.

"Facing that kind of speed" is frightening for beginning players, Noble said.

But the defining quote of the story comes from Scott's mother.

"I think it's discouraging when you're telling a 9-year-old you're too good at something," said his mother, Nicole Scott. "The whole objective in life is to find something you're good at and stick with it. I'd rather he spend all his time on the baseball field than idolizing someone standing on the street corner."

She nails, in that paragraph, the point of recreational sports for kids, and the point of talent.

The examples laid out in literature and cinema depict grim dystopias where talent is squelched. Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" puts the eponymous character in shackles of scrap metal and freights beautiful ballerinas with masks and sandbags. Pixar's "The Incredibles" features a superhero family who must assume their roles as the Parr clan to live out their days after the world turns on its defenders.

These two examples, certainly, give themselves fine moments for the protagonists, in Harrison's dramatic aerial duet with the ballerina and the Incredibles' team effort to stymie Syndrome, but it's worth noting that neither comes without a cost. (I won't ruin either story, but feel free to find out on your own.)

But I've got my own example: myself.

When I was a gangly eight-year-old, I expressed interest in and joined a recreational soccer league. I ran and kicked and did all the fun things eight-year-olds' soccer permits one to do. My team went undefeated in our league that year; the next, because of age rules, half the core moved up, and half on to another team, which recorded a 6-2-2 mark, if memory serves.

The next year, it was closer to a .500 venture; the year after, there was a slight uptick to whatever qualified us for postseason play. In my final season, which I played mostly in net, we went winless and scored fewer goals than we played games.

Over that time, I played in blistering heat, the muddy remnants of hurricanes, late fall Florida cold snaps, and driving, biting rain.

I practiced no fewer than a hundred times, ran countless miles, made innumerable saves, and whiffed on more than one potential goal in the box.

I scored four goals, including one hat trick given to me by divine mercy. (Okay, it was Divine Mercy; they weren't very good that year.) I made saves that made crowds cheer, never the most technically sound keeper, but usually fearless enough to make up for it. I dogged offensive players and protected the back line with every part of my body I could coordinate to throw into a tackle.

One season, I fractured both bones in my left arm and wore a cast for six weeks. My ankles, I'm sure, still haven't recovered from the dozens of unnatural twists they took. I played one game with a knee swollen from fire ant bites, the result of my youthful exuberance in retrieving a ball by kneeling in what I did not recognize was a colony. I remember letting one ball roll through my legs into the net, while no one was within 20 feet of me.

But the seminal, final memory of my soccer career pops up all the time.

Perhaps it had something to do with it being my final game and having a vague sense of leaving a legacy. It's possible it was a product of being on the road, 45 minutes from home, and trying to prove something in front of a partisan crowd cheering on their team on a field baked to a crisp by the noontime Florida sun. And I would guess it was partly inspired by my want to impress my then-girlfriend, who saw me play soccer for the first and only time that day.

But in my final game in that red jersey with the black flames on the sleeves, I played the game of my life in goal, getting my talent-challenged squad to halftime with the score tied by sheer dint of will; in the second, despite having my bare hand (I played without gloves) stomped by another 13-year-old about as big as I was, I parried more difficult shots than I had all year, exhorting my team from the back line and pushing the ball up for counter-attacks with quick, precise throws, and we scored again, which made our loss sound close when we told our parents later that afternoon.

After the game, after one last lap to slap hands with the fans, my coach made a point of telling my team how well I'd played. So did the other team's coach. So did some of the other team's players. So did some of the spectators from both sides.

It was an inspired performance, and those were gratifying compliments; the experience is something no one can ever take from me.

What has happened in New Haven endangers that moment not just for Jericho Scott, but every child in that Little League, and every child who plays recreational sports.

If we prevent Jericho from playing, we disservice a child who just wants to play baseball and a mother who loves to watch her child excel. But we also cheapen the seasons of every other helmeted tyro who wants a piece of Jericho's fireball; we, by trying to level the playing field and keep kids safe, reinforce a growing culture of protectivism and prevent what teaching and learning can be done when up against towering odds, or in the wake of a loss.

There's a kid in that league who won't be able to prevent a Jericho Scott no-no as the last hitter in the final frame. Maybe he'll face that blur and not quite get his sweet spot on the ball; maybe it'll tip, and he'll step back in with an 0-2 count and wave at that last pitch of the game.

And maybe he'll be just like Matthew Cerda in ten years. Maybe he won't.

Either way, he will be fine.

I was never going to set the world on fire as a rec soccer player. I wasn't ever fast enough to play midfield, strong enough to play backline, or agile enough to be a great keeper, and I was, and still am, terrible with my left foot.

But I wouldn't trade one single second of it for anything. I cherish those memories, of just being able to be who I was, a smart kid on a soccer team who could play well positionally, had no problem shouldering or shadowing big players, and could make both teammates and coaches crack up with well-timed one-liners to the sidelines.

I had fun.

And, without knowing it then, I learned from that fun.

I learned how to celebrate in moderation, how to lose with dignity, how to work with other people towards a common goal and how to take pride in my individual effort. I learned how to make friends, how to support the unsteady and deflate the haughty.

Though it should be pointed out this was largely reinforcement of the skills my parents taught me, it still set in place habits I have to this day, and it gave me a physical activity I enjoy and can use to exercise while having fun. I gained more from what I thought was just a diversion from school than I did from most books.

And so, I know what the solution is. I know it's not even difficult.

Let them play. Let them all play.

Boo could survive pretty much anything so I wasn't worried, but I was still happy to see she got the teacher Maya had for grade one, whom I loved and not the one Asher had, who told us the reason he was having trouble in school was that we didn't read to him enough and he was just going to be the kind of kid who always had to work extra hard (code for kinda dumb) and that we shouldn't have him tested, and who was completely wrong.

Maya's friends are all in the other class. She is very sad. I am very stressed out. And so it begins.

In honour of this, here's my latest column:

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I’m handing in this column a day late. That’s because the topic I chose is ‘going back to school.’ By the time you read this, the topic will be on everyone’s mind as September fast approaches, but as I am writing this, summer is barely half-way finished.

I decided on the topic some time ago, but every time I sat down to write it and contemplated my chosen topic, that muscle in my back that is right next to my left shoulder blade would start to tighten – it has already made itself into a nice little ball – and I’d decide to go weed my garden instead.

Of course, it didn’t occur to me to come up with a different topic. I just sailed down the river of denial until I suddenly realized that my deadline had come and gone, so now I’m writing on that topic, with the muscle in my back growing ever tighter.

I love summer. I love my garden, and the warmth (relative as it has been this summer), and s’mores, and no homework, school lunches, notes to teachers or homework. And did I mention the homework?

I hate the reminding, nagging and helping that goes along with homework. I hate when something goes wrong and my kid wails about how the teacher is going to yell at him or her. I hate my homework – sending in field trip money or toilet paper tubes or family photographs. And I hate realizing half way through the day that I’ve forgotten it again and hoping my son isn’t the only one whose mom forgot (this only happens to my son because my daughter is organized and reminds me of all these things, but my son is a disorganized disaster like his mom and between the two of us, it is hopeless).

I love the relaxation of the rules that comes with summer. Bedtimes are more casual, piano practicing is optional and reading is for fun.

Perhaps instead of calling the topic ‘back to school,’ I should call it ‘ode to summer.’ There, that’s better.

Every summer, we start out by going up to my in-laws’ cottage, which we refer to as going ‘up north.’ For the past two years, we’ve brought two of my nephews up as well. Good friends have the cottage across the road, so this summer we had a gang of six children between the ages of nine and 12, and three six-year-olds on top of that.

The children play at the beach, climb in the tree house, organize large games of poker, stay up late and fill in mad-libs games with swear words, laughing hysterically over their wit.

I love this time because this is when their childhoods most closely resemble how I remember mine (with the exception of the poker games) – relatively free of parental oversight.

Being relatively free of parental oversight then quickly moves into almost total anarchy for the next phase of summer: sleep-away camp. This was my son’s first year and he arrived back home grungy, tanned and full of happy stories. I was worried that the youngest would drive me crazy without her siblings to amuse her, but she reveled in it, repeating several times a day, “I LOVE being an only child.”

In another week, the eldest will be back and we will enter the final stage of summer, one I like to call “Camp Mom,” where I take the kids to museums and the water parks and then there’s the ever-fun school supply shopping. I like to save this until the end of summer for because after a couple of weeks of solid togetherness, with Dad only riding to the rescue in the evenings, school starts to look more appealing, both for the (“I’m booooorrrred”) children and me.

So I guess I love summer not only because I can let my children forage for their own lunches and stay up late watching old movies with me, but because by the end of it, I’ve managed to develop an appreciation for school again. I’ll never like the homework or making school lunches no one eats. But at least it takes all my kids away every day and gives them something to do while I get some peace and quiet.

Perhaps I should have called this topic ‘ode to my laziness.’ Whatever. At least my back doesn’t hurt so much now.

SEX WRITER.

There's nothing wrong with being a sex writer, of course. I do enjoy the perks it affords me (free sex toys! free admission to sex-related films! a lifetime of dirty stories!), and can't really say it has stood in the way of my doing other things. It's just that I want more, and I suppose I always will. I would much rather be free to write about whatever it is I'm interested in this week and have to shop it around than be tied to a column for fuck-knows how long. If I were syndicated, I think I'd find it that much more difficult to come up with ideas to keep myself interested, since I'd be thinking about how the hell to please a nation-wide audience, rather than just my small Montreal crowd.

Writing about the same subject every week can be a bit dull. It's the same with most jobs, as I'm easily bored and will just walk away rather than going through the hassle of 2-weeks' notices and training my replacement. I'm not made for a life of office jobs. I need my freedom, even if it's only to lounge around the house reading filth.

As my husband likes to say, "It's not all greased pigs and ice cream," meaning "you can't always get what you want." More to the point, even when you CAN get what you want, you'll probably find that what you want has since changed. You will always want something newer, something different. There's nothing else to want but change.

But I still feel a little dirty now that it is all over.  And it's not just because I watched a shitload of beach volleyball.

I think we let China off the hook.

What ever happened to boycotting the Opening Ceremony?  I thought that was the big compromise that majority of the free world was going to make.  Obviously, a boycott of the events themselves is unfair to the athletes and really counterproductive, but I was actually pretty excited to see who would actually sit out during the opening ceremony.  If anyone deserves a passive-aggressive "Fuck You" on the international stage, it is China.

Yeah, I thought we are going to actually do it this time.  You know, make a statement that while China has made some progress over the years, there are still a lot of questions they should be forced to answer.  Sure, we are going to compete.  But we will not be a part of self-congratulatory pomp until you give some real answers on the topics of human rights, Tibet, carbon emissions...

Wait...  The fireworks are going to be shaped like what?  Sick, man!  And they're putting video screens where?  No fucking way!  Whoa, how many drummers are they planning on having?  That sounds incredible.  Boycott the Opening Ceremony?  Who said anything about that?

And you know what, the Opening Ceremony was fucking incredible.  And all the venues were amazing.  And on the days when a terrible smog was not enveloping the city (like the clear, sunny day during the men's marathon), I was blown away by the absolute beauty of the scenery, both natural and man-made.

But that doesn't change the fact that there is a lot wrong with China.  And even though Bob Costas did not shy away from asking some truly hardball questions and Bela Karolyi became my new favorite sport personality after I saw the genuine on-air outrage he displayed at the age of China's gymnasts (and took note of his sweet facial hair), I think those communist, jobstealing, greehouse gas emitting, internet-censoring bastards got a free pass for the last 17 days.

But now that I think about it, maybe this turned out okay.  Considering the Chinese government spends most of its time doing stuff like this (and this, and this, and this), maybe we should keep them busy and let them host the Olympics every four years.

Because the more time and energy the government devotes to choreographing opening and closing ceremonies, building machines that let them control the weather, printing official passports containing fradulent information, constructing and deconstructing world class athletic venues, and training athletes in obscure sports to hulk up their medal count; the less time they can devote to murdering Tibetan monks, manipulating global currency to make the US dollar worthless, sponsoring genocide by ignoring UN arms embargos and using the dirtiest energy possible to fuel their industrial revolution.

Note: Many of you have read my post “The Nature of Publication: Poetry in Literary Journals,” but I wanted to change gears a bit here and offer some thoughts on the act of submission itself, and whether it’s really the “right” thing to do.

A chronic moral issue I’ve debated regularly since my early days in an MFA program is whether it inherently compromises artistic integrity to proffer yourself at the feet of literary journals. There's no doubt that to engage in the act of submission is to engage in not only a certain tedium—research a journal, develop and specialize your cover letter, conscientiously select poems that may be of interest to that journal, print those poems, label and stamp envelopes, fold SASE, fold poems and cover letter, insert in envelope, et cetera, et cetera—but also to contend with the troubling notion that the legitimacy or profitability of your blood, sweat, and tears is somehow contingent on the acceptance of others. While an argument can be made that it is just fine and dandy, as well as wise, to seek the adoration of the literary community, I haven't been able to shake the nagging feeling that a steroided Salingerian or Dickinsonesque policy of non-sharing would ultimately result in a heightened karmic reward. But has this nagging feeling led me to discontinue the religious act of submitting? Of course not.

As someone who’s worked for literary journals, and has worked to get into them, I respect the symbiotic relationship between the two; still, I have to laugh at myself when people ask how my poems get into journals, as I always slip and use some form of the word “submit.” After all, to many people “submission” implies a sort of prostration, and it’s at least a little embarrassing to embrace that branding of the journal/writer relationship. The justification for that relationship arrangement is plain-as-day: the literary journal is a respected medium for the advancement of a writer’s career, not to mention ego, while the journal has the benefit of the needy multitudes on its side, even if those multitudes don’t often enough fill out a subscription card. All these matters of definition and clarification aside, a particular struggle arrives for the writer who so disdains the notion of self-promotion that it keeps her up at night, only she knows that in regards to eventual tenure (especially without a doctoral degree), the path of least resistance is to get as published as possible, and to do so as quickly as possible.

Writing, unfortunately, is a bear which wears on its foot the steel trap of narcissism. It seems there is little way around this, regardless of whether you claim to write for the good of yourself, for the good of the world, or for any other purpose—after all, the solitary exercise of writing is a workout, and its results are only to the untrained eye less visible than time spent in the gym. Too often the humanity of composition is forgotten, as when the act of writing or of being a writer is seen as some sort of angelic feat, and not the product of diligently sitting still.

Personally, I write because I love writing, and I can't imagine not writing. But beyond the act of creation, how have I gotten around that little, unpleasant feeling in my gut when I submit to literary journals, that feeling that I’m in some way doing something wrong or selfish or less admirable than waiting until death for heaps of my compositions to be “discovered”? After struggling with this question for years, and suffering the occasional bout of compromise, I think I’ve come to at least a partial conclusion: firstly, to compose a poem or story with the intention of getting it into a journal is an ugly endeavor, and should be avoided—in other words, I’d offer that as long as the “submission” occurs after creation, and not before, it’s all good. Secondly—and perhaps just as importantly—it's a good habit never, ever to submit to a journal you don’t read, respect, appreciate, and would be truly honored to have accept your work.

What do you think? Does submission take the pure joy out of your creation?  Is it foolish to write and expect appreciation without submitting to journals?  Is there any way to avoid narcissism when engaging in a creative act?  And, here's a big one: is posthumous glory more worthwhile than earthly recognition?

Me siento obligado a expresarme en torno al tema de la inseguridad imperante en México, no tanto por suponer que pueda yo ofrecer puntos de vista novedosos, como por la necesidad de agregarme a las opiniones de quienes, desde una mejor atalaya, tienen clara visión del panorama. Lo hago así porque en la selva de las plumas a sueldo y las voces de los levantacejas mediáticos, son pocos los que se salvan de hacer el juego a las cortinas de humo tendidas por el régimen de los oligarcas. Ante la gritería que reclama mayores penalidades para los secuestradores y mayores poderes a las policías, apenas se escuchan las voces que se refieren a las causas efectivas de la violencia. Destaca, desde luego, la de Andrés Manuel que subraya que el verdadero combate a la delincuencia pasa, necesariamente, por la eliminación del modelo económico que sólo ha producido miseria. En esta vertiente, destaco como pieza inmejorable y de obligada lectura, el artículo de Bernardo Bátiz V. titulado “Seguridad y descomposición social” publicado por La Jornada el 18/08/2008 y disponible en su página de Internet. En abono a mi recomendación anoto que el autor es, a no dudarse, una verdadera autoridad en la materia, tanto por su formación académica como por su ejercicio profesional, destacando que sirvió como Procurador General de Justicia del Distrito Federal en el gobierno encabezado por López Obrador. Panista de origen, Bátiz renunció a ese partido cuando, a su juicio y el de muchos otros, se perdieron los principios doctrinarios en el pragmatismo de la búsqueda del poder.

No voy a hacer aquí un resumen del artículo; solamente subrayo su aseveración en el sentido de que la violencia que padecemos es concomitante con el esquema cultural y económico que caracteriza a la sociedad actual, por el que se privilegia el éxito económico como el mayor valor de la persona, y la competitividad como el instrumento idóneo para alcanzarlo. Es el meollo del asunto y apuntaré algunos elementos para ejemplificarlo. Procedo:

1.- La real educación del mexicano medio, la que se da en las calles, en la televisión y en la política, incita a la procuración del dinero a como dé lugar, no como una meta de bienestar honesto, sino como la llave de acceso al prestigio y al poder. Merece respeto, según esta escala de antivalores, quien posee un auto de lujo y del año; quien viste prendas de marca; el que acude a los restoranes caros acompañado de rubias despampanantes; el que vacaciona en las playas o en los esquiaderos de moda internacional; el que dispone del poder de su firma para comprar lo que se antoje, el que habita en una residencia sobreprotegida por mil alarmas en fraccionamientos resguardados. Si careces de tales calificaciones tendrás que zozobrar en el inframundo de la plebe (o la nacada dicen los hijos de los potentados). Si el joven afectado por esta pésima educación no tiene al papá rico que le ponga la mesa para su éxito, se verá muy tentado a emplear métodos menos ortodoxos para logarlo, incluida de manera especial la delincuencia.

2.- En la misma vertiente, la tremenda lápida de frustración que significa la práctica incapacidad para alcanzar ese llamado éxito social, orilla a la juventud a la salida fácil de la enajenación y el consumo de drogas, lo que, a su vez, orilla a la necesidad de delinquir para hacerse de ellas, cuando la mesnada de papá no existe o es insuficiente.

3.- La vertiente política no deja lugar a dudas. Cuando el país es gobernado por alguien que no tuvo empacho en declarar que ganó las elecciones “haiga sido como haiga sido” la lección resulta clara: para triunfar no hace falta convencer sino tener la capacidad de hacer trampas. Me detengo aquí para destacar el hecho de que la voz más escuchada y la imagen más vista es la del Presidente de la República, especialmente en los tiempos actuales de excesiva propaganda mediática que rebasa la presencia de los ídolos de moda, lo que la convierte en la figura de mayor influencia educacional directa, para bien o, como en el caso actual, para mal.

4.- En este estado de cosas, los instrumentos tradicionales de combate al crimen están de antemano vencidos. Las policías están formadas por hombres y mujeres de carne y hueso, sometidos a los mismos incentivos delicuenciales observados en el medio social. Las leyes, por más severas que sean, son aplicadas por simples mortales, igualmente impregnados por la propaganda consumista. Para mayor abundamiento, su jefe nato es un delincuente electoral. No veo cómo pueda exigírseles una actitud heroica en la lucha por la seguridad y la justicia. Las muy honrosas excepciones confirman la regla.

5.- Si, para acabarla de amolar, el modelo económico provoca desempleo, el incentivo al delito se multiplica. No es fácil para un padre de familia hacer frente a las necesidades de la familia, menos aún cuando estas están ordenadas por la cultura consumista.

En conclusión. El combate a la inseguridad por la vía de la represión del estado fracasará rotundamente, en tanto persistan las condiciones culturales y económicas que le dan origen.

Artículo Original: Argenpress

GateHouse — Meandering thoughts from watching two weeks of Olympic excitement, which I have enjoyed very much, although I think I'm all set on watching diving for a few years. Diving is the perfect Olympic sport, because when it's on during the Olympics it's tremendously fun to watch, even though the announcers are, as I've written before, unconscionable jerks. "Oh, Jim, his legs weren't anywhere NEAR parallel on that dive; he is a shame and embarrassment to anyone who's ever loved him," one will say, while I sit with my beer and wonder how anybody can perceive that level of detail at all, as the whole of my ability to process diving goes like this:

1. "OK, there's the uncomfortably underclothed guy standing on the platform." (Seriously, anyone out there complaining about hip-hop videos, may I direct you to the wardrobe departments of Olympic men's diving and women's beach volleyball. I'm just saying; I've paid to see less skin than this.)
2. "He's jumping." (or, sometimes, falling out of a handstand performed on a board two miles in the sky)
3. "There is a blur of hands and feet and spinning, much like when Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck get into a fight and all you see is the occasional fist, leg and duck bill."
4. "Splash."

• OK, fine, I admit it, there's no use keeping up the charade: I am 14 years old. You can't tell, because I write like someone who's at least 17, but no, really, I'm 14 years old, and am scribbling most of this column on the back of a Jonas Brothers sticker.

Really, I was going to continue this joke about the wee Chinese gymnasts, and include my brother's line about the one who tripped on her umbilical cord on the way to the pommel horse, but I'm told that Important Executives are in the process of working the controversy out, and ensuring that next time the gymnastic competition will be only open to those of an age able to handle the grueling physical and emotional stresses of an insanely pressure-laden, worldwide competition, like 16.

• Listen, I know we're all about Michael Phelps, everybody loves the Michael Phelps, and it's true that he's the greatest thing that's ever been in the water that you couldn't fillet up and/or dip in a nice butter sauce.

I'm probably just saying this because he's an eight-time gold medalist this year and I sit in a dark room writing semi-humor columns with a whiskey bottle at my feet, but let me tell you something about Michael Phelps: That guy is TERRIBLE at gymnastics. Also, he smells like pool.

• I can't prove this, but I'd imagine that the Olympics represents the greatest competitive disconnect between amount of training required and amount of time actually expended competing.

These people train and train and train, and their event is over in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. In gymnastics, when you choke, it's over in a blink. In other sports, and life, failure sort of drags on endlessly. So I'm thinking about becoming a gymnast.

• I would think about becoming a gymnast, except that gymnasts are required to do one thing I am incapable of: the Glaringly Insincere Hug. The one that says, "What, did you just fall off the uneven bars or something, I didn't see it 'cause I was in the bathroom." The one that says, "I mean, the three of us held up our end of the team competition, but your inability to remain on a balance beam for 90 seconds isn't worth nearly as much as our friendship." The one that says, "I have to act nice to you or Bela Karolyi will kill this innocent koala bear."

I am reasonably sure that whenever I booted a ground ball in Little League, or, more likely, whiffed pathetically on several pitches well outside the strike zone, I didn't get hugs from my teammates when I slunk back into the dugout. I do, however, remember twice getting punched in the back.

(This is actually the last column I wrote for The Spectrum. Just in case you won’t get to see the paper I put it here already. I want you to read it.)

I cried. I wasn’t miserable nor was I regretting. I was crying because I was looking back at memories that will remain as what they are, merely the past. No one can go back to the past; all we can do is reminisce. And I was happy to reminisce through my tears because those were the best times of my life spent with the greatest people I could have asked for.

Many people would tell you that high school is the most exciting and happiest part of someone’s life. I used to be a critic. I used to think how could this be exciting? I had loads of work, back to back deadlines and responsibilities I could barely keep up with. I spent countless late nights and whole days studying for an exam or completing a requirement. Or both. I thought, “How is this supposed to be the happiest time of my life?”

It was only when the whole concept of graduation totally hit me. Graduation used to just mean the end of high school. It was the escape. It was looked upon as the finish line and after that you can finally breathe steadily. I had a totally selfish perception of graduation. I didn’t like it too much here anymore. I was growing tired of the same old problems. I wanted to escape and start fresh. I already had plans. I would study in Manila no matter what. But then I started to realize what graduation meant for the people around me. I stopped thinking of myself and started looking around.

First of all, I would be leaving a lot of friends. It isn’t as if I’m permanently leaving but we all have our own plans for college and even though we might go to the same school we won’t necessarily be around each other much. We might not even see each other at all. I have grown to love the people surrounding me. They have been there through every drop and soar. We were all closely knitted and we supported each other steadily.

My classmates, the Explorers ’08, have been an unbelievable source of knowledge, laughter and inspiration. I will never forget the bonding and the unique kind of friendship we forged. I will miss them immensely.

My batch mates have also been great fun for me. The barrier between the science and regular high school, which we all feared and hated, dissolved and seemed like it was never there. We were all friends. Exchanging genuine smiles as we passed each other, chatting about utter nonsense, dancing like we couldn’t care less and singing even out of tune then breaking out in a hoard of laughter until our eyes tear up.

I won’t get to see my family as much when I study for college. I won’t wake up to the smell of my mother’s perfect coffee or go to sleep with my brother’s voice the last I hear. I won’t get to share with my brother the giddy feeling we have when my dad is coming home.

I will miss my old school too. I will miss SMU. I will miss the familiar hallways and the same class routines. I’m going to a new school with a much bigger campus. Chances are that I will get lost a number of times. I feel scared honestly. I don’t know anyone there. I’m on my own this time.

I’ll tell you that the things I will miss the most is the little details of my life here. The little things that often go unnoticed but when they are gone you suddenly miss it a lot. Because I know that it’s the little details, the little things that happen, that make a day or a moment worth remembering.

What are the little details? Well I will miss the way everyone you meet at school greets you a cheerful morning or afternoon. They just burst out of no where and greet you with a stupid looking grin. You can not be in a bad mood after that. How about when the teacher asks you to bring out a piece of paper for a quiz? Every pad paper you just saw 5 minutes ago vanishes and the owners deny they have any. And the poor sucker who gets caught with the pad has to supply the whole class. It’s hilarious.

I will miss the way a barkada waits for every member before they go down for recess. Also when a girl goes to the bathroom she is never alone, she usually has at least one friend with her. I miss how when you start a song someone else will join in and then another until the whole class is singing with you.

I will miss the way my mom blends her coffee. It was so perfect and it always made me smile. I will miss the way she would comment that I eat too fast and when she volunteers to fix my hair. I will miss how she cooks my favorite food when I’m depressed or down. I will miss how open she is to me and how she would make me laugh. I won’t get to see her as often as I do now.

I will miss how my brother and I have late night talks about nonsense. We share my room sometimes because the air conditioning is in my room. I will even miss the way he talks at night, gnashes his teeth annoyingly or sleep walks. I wake up in the middle of the night but I still adore him. Who is going to be a big sister to him now that I’m leaving?

I will miss getting excited with my brother when my dad comes home after a long while. I will miss how he wakes us up at an ungodly hour in the morning just to announce his arrival. I will miss how he kisses us goodnight as if we were still his little babies. And I still feel like one to him.

People say that I’m already so grown up but I’m not, not really. I’m still vulnerable and I still have a lot to learn. We all still have a lot to learn. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy too that I have graduated. I’m excited to be in a new environment and to learn new things.

I wrote this, my last column for the Spectrum, for everyone. For the lower years, I hope you make the best of your time here. To the teachers, thank you for all you have shared. To my family, thank you for all the support and love. To my batch mates, may we all be successful and remember to always keep in touch. We are the generation of technology so text, YM, e-mail, friendster and multiply all the time, okay? To my friends and to the IV- Explorers, I love you guys. We are all responsible for who we are now. Thank you all.

To everyone who made me feel loved, special, cherished, and worthwhile and treasured, a huge thank you to you all. And don’t worry, I will come home. #