Jobs that I Want II

That posting on jobs that I want didn't really go anywhere a while back. I think that posting was my lamest. But I'm still getting the hang of this blog thing. I was at Eliza's family home in Kansas the past few days, and spent some time with her parents, Stan & Sheila. Sheila used to be a librarian.

Plus, driving around town with Eliza, we saw the new Johnson County Libary in Kansas (maybe in Overland Park). It's beautiful, and it was nice to reflect on a place that values it's library system, and public institutions more generally. It reminded me of a cheesy movie I watched on TV a few weeks back, The Librarian, with ER dude Noah Wyle. It's basically, as the caption to one of the Wyle photos describes it, a lightweight Indiana Jones.

But there is something romantic about having a job about the pursuit of knowledge. Now I am a community organizer, and few (really none in my opinion) jobs could be more important, but sometimes I ask myself the "what if" questions. For people committed to social justice, the question really is: In a society replete with oppression and injustice, do I have a moral responsibility to spend my time doing something that challenges that injustice in the most strategic manner, or not? Naturally my answer is yes.

But what if we lived in a world with less injustice? Wouldn't it be fun to be a librarian, or professor, or writer then? I think so.

I should note that I went to a competitive small liberal arts school in the midwest, where huge numbers of people thought about social justice issues, and huge numbers went on to grad school. I myself was politicized deeply by the LA riots of 1992, and that experience, coupled with many others, propelled me on a path that led to community organizing. Many of my peers didn't absorb the same sense of duty, of responsibility to work as directly for social justice. I am frustrated by this, though my judgementalism has diminished in the 12 years since college. But why didn't more people see it as I did?

On Discipline II

I'm going to pursue this discipline notion for a while. A few developments. I did some googling the other day, and found an interesting set of articles about using waking up early, like 5am, everyday, as part of a regimen to establish a more disciplined and productive lifestyle. I hope I'm not veering into the zone of mid-life crisis psychobabble (I did just turn 35), but I did find these articles interesting. Eliza and I talked about them over lunch today. We're not ready for 5am, but maybe we'll start with 7am or something.

Here's the article. It may all be a hustle, but....

This waking up early thing is very counterintuitive for anyone who knows me. In high school, my parents were convinced I would flunk out because I was what you might call an extreme napper. I still like to get 8 hours a sleep nightly, and have just never been able to be one of those highly productive people who functions well on 4 hours nightly. We'll explore this concept further if it goes anywhere.

With the Barnes & Noble gift cards rolling in from the holidays, I did a little bookbuying the past few days. One book I got pertains: "How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci," by Michael Gelb. I haven't read it yet, but hopefully it's not a bunch of gibberish.

Here's his website: http://www.michaelgelb.com/. Unfortunately, so many of these writers on creativity, leadership, management, etc. are consultants to big business. Gelb seems to be one of these, looking at his website. But again, hopefully the book is useful. Keep you posted.

A quick aside on genius and gender. Gelb has a whole shtick on developing genius, and like many who cite geniuses (geniuii? kidding) in history, they're 90% plus male. The Atlantic Magazine had this problem recently when they published a piece on the 100 most influential Americans: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200612/influentials-main. Abraham Lincoln was #1 and a woman didn't appear on the list (Elizabeth Cady Stanton) until #30. I won't attempt an answer here, but there is a challenge to define these qualities in a way that is not sexist but also is grounded in reality (including recognizing the historical reality of sexism).

I also looked up the concept of revolutionary discipline on google and didn't come up with much. Mostly references to the concept in current anarchist or sectarian Marxist literature (this makes sense in that sectarian folks seem most enamored with obscure jargon), and a number of reference to usage during the Bolshevik period in Russia, etc. I only looked briefly, but so far didn't find any useful history of the use of the concept, and wikipedia had nothing.

So I may take this as an opportunity to do some research and write an article for wikipedia. I'm pretty backed up on my writing, so who knows if this will happen, but with a little discipline....

I haven't read it carefully yet, but the NY Times just had an article on "brain calisthenics" for seniors, given the boom in people living into their 80's and 90s. Article here.

There's also a new website which calls itself "the world's first virtual mental gymnasium." I'll do some working out and let you know how it goes...

My Invention: Digital Bumper Sticker

I have a cool idea that I need to patent. It's a digital bumper sticker. It would be a bumper sticker on the rear of your car that you could program at any given moment. It would have some pre-programmed sayings, like:

Have a Nice Day!
Bush Sucks!
or whatever. But it would also have a modest keyboard that would allow you to type the message of your choice and have it appear on the rear of the car. It could be like those scrolling digital stock tickers, or perhaps static.

Now there would be a few concerns:

1. Obscenity. The temptation would be to write curse words. Maybe we could just block out the worst ones? Or maybe let it slide.

2. Road Rage. It's easy to see these things leading to a degradation on the roads. But wouldn't it be nice to be able to go around that guy blocking the passing lane and pop in "Move Over Jerk!"?

3. Distraction. We might cause accidents because anxious drivers were trying to type and drive. Eliza does this with her treo. It makes me nervous. I'm not sure what to do about this one?

Might need to resolve these issues before I get my patent and fire up the factory in China...

By the way, I googled my invention, and found that some others have had the same idea. It's like I'm Bell and these guys are that other inventor no one remembers.

http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Digital_20Auto_20Banner_20(DAB)#1129390964
http://www.tonkatronix.com/mesenger/index.html

Random Points

1. When I'm flying, why do flight attendants tell us to "place your phones in the off position?" This makes no sense. Why don't they just tell us to turn them off?

2. When I began watching the Daily Show regularly this year, I like to think I was one of the first to spot Stephen Colbert's talent. I would say to Eliza, "That guy should have his own show..." Now he does. Where's my prize?

On Discipline

I announced my Reading Year a couple months ago, but really this is part of a larger strategy. I have been thinking a lot of the concept of discipline and the role it plays in our lives. I can hear my parents laughing now; for they think I’m most undisciplined. And Eliza accuses me of selective application of the concept. But I hope I’m not doing that and don’t think so.

We all seek control over our lives, to run our life rather than have events happen to us, or to just survive moment to moment. Many of us want something more. This is where discipline comes in.

I must digress for a moment on the nature of blogging. Blogging is like journal writing or letter writing or literature for the MTV generation, for those with short attention spans. I fear that as I write about discipline, for example, I am merely tackling a subject that has been covered much better somewhere else, in book form, in essay, whatever. I’m embarrassed by some of my recent posts, like the one about “starer.” It’s lame. What was a good idea in my head, never really came through in writing. I should take it down. But now that it’s reference here, I’ll leave it up as a monument to bad blogging. I promise, I’ll do better, or I’ll quit. The question is, perhaps, do I have the discipline to write regularly, and to write well.

I work in a profession, community organizing, that requires the utmost discipline for success. Much of my success in the field is due to the discipline I do have, and my shortcomings similarly from a lack. The following features are marks of a talented organizer:

• Attention to detail, even to the extreme, though not losing the forest for the trees;
• Rigorous thought, meaning the ability to think through to the logical conclusion a strategy or situation;
• Very long hours with few breaks;
• Strong commitment to accountability, in particular, to converting the art of organizing into a measureable science where possible, to attach numbers and metrics to the work and to then judge the work accordingly;
• Good political judgement, particularly an ability to separate out what one wants to be the case from what is the case.

One reason I want to increase my discipline quotient is so that I may be a more effective organizer. I see others around me, some are less disciplined, some more, but clearly a disciplined approach to the work is a hallmark of the organizer.

There is a term, I don’t know it’s exact origins (I’ll see if I can find out), revolutionary discipline. Presumably it comes from the socialist or leftist movements of the 19^th or 20^th centuries, and refers to the discipline necessary to build the movement in a hostile society. It may refer to personal discipline, in some of the ways I mention above, but it may also refer to institutional discipline, liking the movement organization to a military formation. Certainly the term has Stalinist overtones, but this is not what I intend.

The organization that I work for, a community organization, has in many ways a highly disciplined institutional culture and a substantial commitment to maintaining that culture. This is one reason we are sometimes called cultish, though this is mostly unfair and inaccurate. The staff of the organization is in some ways military-like, in that we put a premium on the individual taking bottom line responsibility for the staff in their jurisdiction, and emphasize the singularity of the power of certain managers.

Much of my motivation around the question of discipline has nothing to do with work but rather with getting the rest of my life under control. For example, I am by no means fat, but I’ve gained a lot of weight since my early 20’s. I think the turning point was 28 or so, but it’s bothered me even more in recent years. Finally, I’ve started to turn it around in the past year. I had hit 220 pounds, and then I started doing the South Beach diet. More recently, I’ve lagged on the diet some, but have been exercising a lot more. Ultimate Frisbee is my sport, and though I’m 35, I’m not out of the game yet. I’ve been playing a lot recently, and it gives me the motivation to get in shape, and the structure to keep me exercising on a regular basis.

I have tried to have the discipline to eat better and to exercise, and to some extent I am succeeding. I have stopped drinking soda almost entirely, perhaps my single biggest accomplishment. I live in Miami, and work throughout the southern US, so naturally I’ve found unsweet ice tea. True southerners drink sweet tea, but I’m from NJ, so hopefully I get a pass. I don’t eat white bread anymore, and have cut way back on pasta, though I really like it. So I’m not doing great, but enough to have lost 15 pounds down to 205. I want to get under 200, but that seems like it will be tough.

In recent weeks, I’ve been running a lot, so much so that my legs really started to hurt. I haven’t exercised since last Sunday (today’s Saturday), but I think that’s a good thing. I need to go running tomorrow. Eliza says she will go too. I’m thinking about maybe entering a half-marathon or a triathlon in 2007, to really give myself something more to shoot for. But maybe I should just play in more frisbee tournaments.

I’m also trying to get my finances in order. Trying to pay off debts, get the house-repair payments under control, etc. And I’m trying to be more disciplined about reading and writing. I have gotten a “gig”, unpaid, writing book reviews for a magazine that covers community organizing. I’m on my second review in as many issues. We’ll see if they still want me after this one. I’m not sure if I’m a good enough writer…

So what’s the point of all this? First, I’m trying to achieve discipline in mind, body, finances. Maybe I need to accept Eliza’s challenge and try to round it out. Family and friends would be a good start. I find that I’m emotionally drained often from working so hard, and neglect friends and family. Maybe I need to develop the discipline to not let this happen?

Second, I’m curious about how one develops discipline. To train the mind, I’m committing to doing more reading and writing. But that won’t be enough. I need to do more. To train the body, I’m eating better and exercising. So I’m sort of developing a plan for each area. But I probably need specific tactics or methods to keep it up. One thing I’ve done more this past year is wake up early to exercise or get into the office. Maybe I’ll list some ideas, and you can help me add to the list:

Mind

• Have a reading year. Read more.
• Do more writing, both for work and personal use. Hence the blog, in part.
• Engage more with people who are sharp, and delve deeply into issues in conversation.
• Maybe work on my Spanish?
• I wonder if I should start playing chess with Eliza more. She likes it, and it’s good training and fun.
• I’m subscribing to more magazines that are intellectually challenging, like the New Yorker and the Atlantic. Yes, they may be snobby, but they confront interesting ideas.
• Read the NY Times religiously.
• Stop watching TV.

Body

• Make sure to play ultimate frisbee at least twice a week. Use it as motivation to work out when I’m not playing or, more importantly, when I’m on the road. I should sign up for more tournaments this year.
• Keep up my South Beach diet, maybe even tighten it up some. I bet if I ate more salads, that alone would do a lot.
• Go to the gym, especially to swim and lift weights.
• Keep doing situps, like I was a month or two back. Need to get rid of the remainder of the potbelly. It’s lame, but I’ve even thought about getting one of those Ab-lounges advertised on TV. I tried one at Bed, Bath, and Beyond a few weeks back, and it seemed pretty cool. Eliza liked it too. Maybe we should agree that to watch TV for an hour, you have to spend 10 minutes working out in the Ablounge. Maybe we should get his and hers? How romantic!....

Finances

• The credit cards should all be paid off by February. I just need to keep it up…

Family/Friends

• Fortunately, I’m getting married in February, and the wedding is a perfect platform to be a better family member and friend both. I just need to continue.
• Eliza and I often get emotionally lazy at home, and don’t go out enough. We’re often physically tired too, but we need to muster up the energy to hang out with the few friends we have in Miami. Maybe our nice couch is a bad thing.

True Confessions

I like bad action movies. A lot. It's my escapist fantasy. Sometimes I want to be Matt Damon, sorry, Jason Bourne.

Jobs That I Want

There are some jobs that any good society should have. Here is one that I would like to hold:

Starer:

I would like to have a job as a starer. A starer's job is to go to coffee shops and look at people intently (but not inappropriately). The job includes sitting on park benches, in front of computers, and in museums.

Necessary skills to be good starer:

1. ability to sit or stand still for extended durations;
2. no shame in your game;
3. flexible neck;
4. interest in tennis, chess, or the oddities of human beings.

Great Band Names

I was just reading the Sunday NY Times, while Eliza flipped the channel. We stopped on "A Knight's Tale," the cheesy Heath Ledger flick with jousting scenes set to Queen. Actually it's pretty funny at times. My favorite is Paul Bettany, who plays Ledger's sidekick. When announcing him, Bettany goes on a long diatribe, proclaiming, "we walk in the garden of his turbulence." Sounds like a good name for a band.

So I'm gonna keep a running tally here of good band names:

1. Gardens of Turbulence
2. Camels of the Temperate Forest (from a conversation about Canadian moose)

What's your favorite bandname?

Molly the Collie

Eliza really wants a dog. She's been surfing sites and scouring dog pounds looking for the right one. I would love to have a dog, but I'm of deeply mixed feelings about it mostly because of the trauma of having to walk the dog as a kid. Two weeks ago, we took Eliza's friend D-Dog to the SPCA. It smelled there, and the dogs were cute. But we had the curator from hell (docent). I'm using art terms, maybe counselor is the word. And the dog they showed us ignored us when we took him out to play in the yard. The counselor from hell was right when she declared "There's not a connection here."

About a week ago, Eliza found a cute dog on the web, Molly, a collie. She was to be available to meet, along with ten or twenty other dogs, at Petsmart on Saturday. All week in the car, Eliza sang a one line song: "Molly the collie, Mollie the colly..." I started joining in, just to not be a party pooper. She was cute in the picture.

So today we went. At first it seemed Molly wasn't there. But then we found her. Eliza petted Molly, and then I reached out. She barked. She was either afraid of me or didn't like me. So I wandered around Petsmart looking at Hamsters and other dogs. Whenever I was in Molly's line of vision, she eyed me. Later, Molly barked at Eliza. It was over.

Great Epitaphs Contest

Well, given the heavy traffic on my blog, this is a bit of a risk, but I'm going to start a contest. Whoever can put forth the greatest epitaph wins. Epitaph, according to dictionary.com: "a commemorative inscription on a tomb or mortuary monument about the person buried at that site."

To get your juices flowing, check out Wikipedia: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Epitaphs.

Please nominate your best epitaphs here. I'll come back in a bit and post my nominations, I just haven't come up with them yet.

The Reading Year

A couple months ago, I looked over at Eliza and declared: "I'm having a reading year." What, one is lead to wonder, is a reading year?

A reading year is a period of intense reading activity, often undertaken in midlife, so as to prevent one's brain from turning to mush. (I turned 35 last month.) A reading year is a voluntary vow of television poverty, of sleeping poverty, of knowledge wealth. It is the essence of mental aerobics...

I'm convinced that my mind is going soft. I'm losing my edge. I need to have a reading year. So far, I've read a few good books this year, including:

Activism, Inc. - a critique of modern political canvassing.
The Last Templar - by Raymond Khoury
The Templar Legacy - by Steve Berry

Noticing a pattern here? Yes, I've been reading every new major book on the Templars. I'm now reading Knights of the Black & White by Jack Whyte. But I got distracted by another book I'm reading about labor radio in the 1930's-'50's (Waves of Opposition).

I'm trying to read all the Templar books. I was thinking about writing a comparative book review of the four major recent releases. One problem: my memory doesn't allow me to remember any details on any of them. So nothing to compare, except maybe the attractiveness of the covers. So much for the gains of the reading year.

I've also read everything by Steve Berry this year. In addition to The Templar Legacy, I've read The Amber Room, The Romanov Prophecy, and the Third Secret. They were all good, kind of a la Dan Brown. But again, I can't really remember much.

One climax of my reading year was yesterday's trip to the Miami International Book Festival. I BOUGHT 18 BOOKS. A few years ago, I had to admit to myself and my friends that I have a disease. I'm not just a reader of books, I'm also a collector. Fortunately, many of the books I bought yesterday were $1.99 or $2.99. I got some fun ones. I bought 5 books from the University of Florida table for $11.

*The Creation of the Media, Paul Starr - about the political economy of the media
*An Empire of Wealth, John Steele Gordon - an economic history of the US
*Dixie Rising, Peter Applebome - about the dominance of southern culture & politics in American society

And more: Big Sugar, Religion & Politics in America, The Buying of the President 2004, The Failures of Integration, Cuba Today and Tomorrow, Radio and the Struggle for Civil Rights in the South....

OK, not a lot of fiction here. But nonetheless, I'm having a reading year. Got to make my mind a steel trap...

What's Wrong With Singing Kumbaya?

There are many things in the world I do not understand. One of them is what's so bad with singing Kumbaya...

Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya!
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya!
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya!
O Lord, kumbaya!

In mocking someone for being naive, one says "Let's all just hold hands and sing Kumbaya."

Wikipedia puts it this way:

Reference is sometimes made to "Kumbaya" in a satirical context, to denote a blandly pious and naively optimistic view of the world and human nature, insufficiently grounded in real experience. In a satirical television spot for the 2006 Congressional elections, made by David Zucker, an actress playing Madeleine Allbright serves cookies and milk to a group of terrorists: when she notices gunmen and suicide bombers emerging from the basemement, her guests distract her and allay her suspicions by picking up a guitar and breaking into a chorus of "Kumbaya".

But is it really that bad?

Future Posting Topics

I'm building a list of things to blog about. I'd like to share with you my list, and maybe solicit some additional topics. I keep the list on my Treo, and occasionally I can even get in and retrieve the list.

1. Great epitaphs - What do you want written on your tombstone?
2. Emoticons - Those little smiley faces that people send in emails and text messages.
3. Brick - I like it.
4. Technology and the Foley scandal. Action/reaction. Use of the internet. I forgot what I had to say on this, so it's probably lost.
5. Canada - Also probably lost.
6. Secret. It's all about the topic.
7. 48 Laws of Power - There was just a fascinating article on the books in the New Yorker.

So in the vein of soliciting greater audience participation, lemme know what you think.

Back in the Saddle

Oh, well so much for the discipline of the writer. It's been what, 5 weeks? How can any self-respecting blogger (obviously I'm not yet one) expect to build an audience without regular postings?

Some things have taken place in the interlude. Should we perhaps have a name for the past five weeks. I'm taking nominations:

1. The Dark Days;
2. The Late Unpleastantness (actually Robert DeNiro's reference to The Cold War in Ronin)
3. The Elections
4. My Black Period (meaning the day the computer screen went dark);
5. The name of your choice.

Maybe by having a little audience participation, we can liven things up. Is it a sign of a lame website if one lament's one's own slow webtraffic?

Special Guest Posting on Queer Politics/Marriage

A special guest posting from James:

I just wanna say I’m glad that Hilary and Julie Goodridge just got divorced though I fear the lesson being taken away is the wrong one. It’s not that same-sex relationships are just like opposite sex ones and sometimes they end in divorce, but that maybe we need to rethink the notion that mating for life with one partner is what we should strive for. If half of marriages end in divorce, that makes it only a slightly more successful institution than say the Milwaukee Brewers.

Mainstream Lesbian Bisexual and Gay Organizations (and few exist outside the mainstream) just don’t get it. Why do we want to participate in an unsuccessful program run by straight society and why for that matter should straight folks also want to believe the same thing. I recently had a friend get divorced. He’s Catholic and took the divorce very personally. Yet he probably lived unhappily for a long time because he felt like he had an obligation to the tenets of the church and his upbringing to make things work because that’s what we know we’re supposed to do. I don’t even wanna look beyond the numbers on divorce into infidelity and figure that out either. I mean why is say, sleeping around with someone else away from my partner any different than say playing racquetball with someone else, can’t we just regard sex as something fun we do at times? Why is it wrapped up and confused with all these other things.

Yeah yeah I realize I’m not writing anything new, but we do need to go back to the past and revisit the struggle for queer liberation and recognize that it’s not about the right to live together forever (maybe, possibly?) and it is about the following:

-Tearing down societal expectations around sex, relationships and mores.

Around relationship, I’ve already said my piece. I want people to think they have options. If they want to live with two other people and raise children together, if they want to have the right not to partner up if they don’t see relationships as permanent, Here’s where class comes into play as well. Why don’t we grant the same familial rights to two single parents jointly raising their children, whether or not their relationship is platonic? Or someone taking care of extended family members? Shouldn’t our fight be about extending the definition of family, not bringing an insignificant, narrow slice of what’s out there relationship wise and granting them “special” rights.

Around sex: Said it before. Should we really take it that seriously? Isn’t it just something fun to do (as long as we’re safe). I want a polyamorous, multi-sexual society if we can get there.

Around mores: The root of all homophobia is sexism. People, well actually men, wouldn’t be threatened by the queers except that it makes guys seem somehow more feminine. To be queer is to be a woman. Without gender stereotypes and expectations there’d be no homophobia. Gay culture often feeds into this, both around who the face of the “community” is when people call themselves “straight” acting. I want my nephew to have a pink bicycle helmet and my niece to not wear skirts, if that’s what they want.

Obviously we’re all being oppressed by the status quo. Queers I don’t need to explain. But straight folk who are forced into marriages they don’t want or aren’t ready for, (apologies to Cotton who is most certainly ready to get hitched and do all the trappings and that’s all good as well) have to make decisions on anything from fashion to hobbies starting at a young age, not based on what they might like but based on what is societally acceptable.

Well what is to be done?

We need to start moving in the streets and let our creative juices flow and who gives a shit what the press or our parents or friends or anyone else thinks. We need to be the same folks who are crashing high school sex education courses with bananas and condoms and teaching kids the real truth about sex who are also getting together for a day at a suburban mall and practicing all sorts of same-sex PDA. We should be going down to the Mayor’s office and demanding marriage licenses but not just as pairs, but also as groups. We should be systematically fighting employers who still discriminate on any basis with a series of direct action campaigns. Most of all we should have fun. Emma Goldman wishes she could have slept around almost as much as she danced…

Used Bookstores in Airports

One of my favorite pleasures when I fly through the Raleigh-Durham airport is the used bookstore, 2nd Edition Booksellers. What a cool idea! Every time I fly through RDU I try to stop by and browse and dream, even if for a minute. I’m here now and this morning I bought “Les Miserables,” by Victor Hugo. There are these books that recommend the books we all need to read. One is called “1001 Books You Need to Read Before You Die.” I would love nothing more than to read each of the 1001. There are, however, two problems. First, because the 1001 are really classics, what about all the current books I want to read. I’m not sure there’s enough time in my like to read them all. But what a sub-goal for life that would be. By sub-goal I can’t really say that would be a main goal, but a corollary to a good life.

I’d like my epitaph to read: “Fighter for Justice, Reader of 1001 Great Books.” This makes me think. I need to do a blog posting about great epitaphs, and solicit your ideas. Anyway, this morning I bought a book for $4.28 including tax (I guess sales tax must be 7% here), which given my new home purchase and impending wedding (February 24th), is about all I can afford.

I told the cashier at 2nd Edition that it was cool to find a used bookseller in an airport, let alone any used bookseller of any quality most anywhere. It wasn’t the best, but considering it’s in the airport, it’s pretty good. She told me apparently there are also used bookstores in the Portland and Milwaukee airports. Who knew? I’ve never flown to Milwaukee (I’ve driven there from Chicago when I was there), and I’ve probably only flown into Portland once, or at most twice. I asked the cashier if the Portland store was affiliated with Powells, one of the best and largest used bookstores in America (been there), and she said it was. We need to make sure to patronize these used bookstores. Remember: Raleigh, Portland, Milwaukee. Make sure to fly through these cities.

Displaced 3rd World Dictators Tour of Miami

Calling All College Students in Florida, Help Me Design a “Displaced Third World Dictators Tour of Miami”

My name is Cotton Smith and I live in Miami Florida. If you live in Florida, you know that our progressive political culture is a little underdeveloped. We’ve got the Bushes, we’ve got the religious Republican right, we’ve got the Cuban right (though, to be clear, I know enough to understand the political diversity in Miami’s Cuban community, and there is a significant, albeit smaller, progressive and/or Democratic Cuban community), etc. Miami makes a go at being the capital of Latin America, though apparently it’s losing to other cities in Latin America. A major paper, I forget which one, just moved its Latin American bureau from Miami to a major city, again I forget which one, in Latin America. I’ll see if I can find the link.

Miami is home to a good number of underworld characters. Just read a little Carl Hiassen, or the Miami Herald, or watch a few Miami Vice, and you’ll get a few takes on this consensus issue. One subgroup of Miami’s shame is what appears to me from afar (not geographically, I live in Miami, but I am not truly sure, and haven’t had time to examine the matter fully) to be a substantial community of ex-dictators, human rights abusers, terrorist-types, etc.

This is where my knowledge ends, but this is where the research begins.

A PROPOSAL

We, that’s me and my partners (hopefully who are students or have a little more time than I (I assure you, I’m not lazy, I have a job that causes me to work 60-80 hours a week for social justice)), need to research, and put together a Displaced Third World Dictators Tour of Miami. I imagine it would have to be a bus tour, not a walking tour, but that depends on what our research shows.

We’ve heard about the Cuban anti-Castro terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles, who earlier in the year turned up in Miami’s underground. We’ve heard of the supporters of the oppressive Duvalier regime in Haiti. I’m under the impression that there are former death-squad militants from other Latin countries in Miami. Let’s do a little homework, let’s make a list, let’s explore the interconnections, and let’s shed a little light.

Now let’s not get ourselves hurt, let’s keep this subterranean enough until we know what we’re dealing with. When we’re done, let’s organize a Miami Reality Tour, maybe see some of the mansions where these ex-killers now live in luxury. Or perhaps they are guilty of the “violencia blanca,” the white violence, meaning those that turned a blind eye to bloodshed but didn’t directly participate. I may be mis-using the term violencia blanca. I learned it when reading Latin American liberation theology in the early 1990’s. It may mean those that commit the white violence of promoting poverty and inequality (as opposed to actual bloodshed). The violence of daily life without enough food for your children, the violence of your children having to change schools when you are evicted from your home.

Let’s petition Carl Hiassen to be the emcee for our tour.

Hotels Need to Fill the Gap

An Open Letter to Red Roof Inn Management

I travel for work a lot. I’m a Gold Medallion on Delta and will come close to Platinum this year.

I wonder if I’ll make it within flight-shot such that I’ll have to do one of those “miles marathons” the final days of December to put me over 75,000. Early this year, I was on a real travel tear, logging miles at a rapid clip. Then somewhere this summer, I just broke down and couldn’t do it anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I still travel a lot. But I’ve resolved to try to stay home (my fiancée and I just bought a house) more. We are getting married in February. Don’t want to get divorced before I get married.

These new TSA rules banning liquids and gels are a hassle. Besides being dehydrating, they are giving me bad breath. I think all the hotel chains need to respond immediately and pick up the slack. Here’s how to do it cheaply. Red Roof Inn, my current preferred chain (they’re cheap, omnipresent, usually clean, they’re upgrading all their sites, and they have a frequent sleeper program), offers a little shampoo pack in the rooms. They need to start offering toothpaste and shaving cream packets too. Not full blown canisters, just those single-use plastic sleeves. Fine, raise my rates $.50 or $1.00, just get on this. At least upon request, or at least for Redicard members. I’m a business traveler, and it makes no sense for me to have to go to the store to buy a new thing of toothpaste and shaving cream (they don’t make them in single-use sizes anyway) each trip.

Let’s see if you guys get on it. If not, I’ll have to start an online petition to make you do the right thing!

On Flying Too Much

I think I’m flying too much. Last night I beat my record at the “airport run.” This was in Atlanta, and my flight from Louisville was late and I had ten minutes to make the connection. I had to get from B28 to A4; so I ran. There’s this dynamic when you’re running in airports of social reinforcement. When I started, more I’d say jogging, other people started to as well. One guy actually beat me there. There was another guy, with a clearly bad knee. This was in the A terminal, after I abandoned the train between terminals and just ran between them. Even he, bad knee and all, was running for the plane. It’s partly a Friday night thing. We all just wanted to get home.

Once on the plane, Delta popped in its videotaped message for passengers. The video has a soundtrack to it, and I was in kindof a daze, so I heard the song very clearly. I think I’d like to get a copy of it and set it to a hip hop beat. I wonder if Delta commissioned this song, or if its some kind of song that was in circulation that they or their ad agency bought. Either way, I’d like to remix it. I have no experience at Djing or mixing, but I’d like to. I live in Miami and everyone’s a DJ around here. I must be flying too much.

Whatever Happened to Chinese Food?

I have flashes of memory from my childhood of eating out with my family. Sometimes we’d go to the Hunan Restaurant somewhere in suburban NJ, where I grew up, but I’m having trouble remembering where it was or what it looked like. Back then, Chinese food was a relatively big deal. I don’t remember what I ate. I am known these days for my bizarre memory patterns. In particular I seem to be able to remember phone numbers, so I’m sure I could dial up the Hunan and get an address or a description, but I often can’t remember important life events. I’m just returning to Florida from a family reunion. The last one was 13 years ago; I was 21 years old then, so a fully sentient adult, and have no excuse for my inability to remember much of any of it. This unique foible can both impress – people frequently ask me for phone numbers rather than looking them up – and get me into hot water – like not remembering basic facts about my fiancée, or the names of the children of my good friends, let alone how many children they have. I cover this last problem up with Sam and Jorge by issuing a running joke: “How many kids are you up to now, 7?” Jorge’s at 3, Sam 2.

But in the ‘80s, when I grew up, Chinese food was a staple food for office workers. I remember flashes from movies where co-workers would talk about ordering takeout. I’m sure the number of Chinese restaurants must have exploded between the period of, say, 1970-1990. As a new blogger, who frankly hasn’t read a lot of other blogs, I’m curious what the rules of the game are. I want to make this blog wiki-esque (proper usage?), in that there are certain matters I want to toss into the public domain to solicit responses from the blogosphere. In short, I want to try to get others to do my research. Honestly, I’m pretty busy these days. Is this how wiki works? If not, I’ll have to do the research myself.

Here’s what we need to know. How many Chinese restaurants were there in America every 5 years from 1950 to the present? Has the number declined? Can we discern any spatial patterns? Let’s get the data and we’ll analyze it. In the meantime, on to the main point.

There has been a remarkable reversal of fortune for Chinese food in America. It has gone from top of the food chain to bottom barrel. I have run this notion by six or seven people in the past week, and most, save the populists, have agreed. Assuming we’re correct, a number of possible explanations come to mind.

Oversaturation

There simply became too much Chinese food in the marketplace of food choices. As quantity increased, perhaps quality declined, but consumers became decreasingly excited about this type of food. This theory might explain the economics of Chinese food, for example why stores began to close, but it really doesn’t get at why Chinese food seems to have declined in quality overall.

The Natural Food Cycle

There is obviously a natural trajectory in American society where new experiences, in this case Chinese food, take hold, achieve fad status, and then decline over time. This is clearly the case with many types of food, nothing particular to Chinese food.

Supplantation

The rise of new types of Asian food, particularly Thai and Japanese/sushi, has shown Americans that Chinese food is not all that novel, nor necessarily as interesting as Thai, which is certainly my favorite now. I’ve been on a multi-year quest to find the best Chicken Pad Thai in America. It just occurs to me that when I was in my mid- to late-teens, I went to dinner with my parents in Alexandria, VA at a Vietnamese restaurant. I had some sort of steak cubes (this is a long time ago) that were fantastic. At the time, I called it the best meal I’ve ever had. Because I burned that into my brain at the time, I still remember it as being the best meal I’ve had, and because I haven’t tried to recall any other such meals, it seems to be the last candidate standing.

MSG Killed the Golden Goose

Speaking of my memory loss, there was some whole concern that arose about MSG. I really don’t know what MSG was, other than it was bad and Chinese food got hit with an MSG stigma. In Chicago in the mid-90’s, or maybe Oakland later, I remember Chinese restaurants had hand-written “NO MSG” signs in the window, trying to reassure an unsteady public. I saw the current issue of Men’s Health yesterday, which had a section on how to find healthy Chinese food. It basically said eat the vegetables.

Class Status and Culinary Status

Another possible explanation is one of the class ladder. This theory holds that Chinese food in its early years and heydey had a certain cultural cache among middle- and upper-class consumers, but that as it lost its novelty, it became more of a workingman’s food. If the numbers of Chinese food establishments has in fact increased in recent years, contrary to my supposition, then this theory could also raise a critique against me. Maybe its just my class-tinted lenses that lead me to believe Chinese food is less popular, when in fact it remains as popular as ever, just among certain groups. But maybe the numbers will bear this one out.

Has anyone examined the constituency for Chinese food in America over the past 30 years? Has there been a gravitation away from middle- and upper-income consumers towards lower-income and working class consumers? What are the race or ethnic dynamics of any such gravitation?

The Populists

My informal inquiries among friends found a couple of populists who argued that my whole premise is elitist, and that Chinese food is as popular as ever in small towns, rural areas, etc. They argued that my experience is strictly urban (which is mostly true). And in truth, since a spate of sicknesses caused by bad Chinese food in Oakland in the late ‘90’s, I really haven’t had much Chinese in recent years, with the exception of those airport fast food places. So what do I know?

Personal Biography/Geography

This whole thing may say more about me than about Chinese food. By the way, for its defenders, I should state for the record that I like it and that I am more interested in the cultural patterns than anything else. In the 1980’s, I lived in suburban New Jersey in a Gordon Gecko-like community. Since college, I’ve lived and worked in working class or low-income urban communities in Chicago, Oakland, Sacramento, St. Petersburg, FL, Orlando, Hollywood, FL, and Miami. At work I encounter a fair number of Chinese restaurants in low-income, mostly African-American neighborhoods. These often have bullet-proof windows, sparse to no restaurant itself, and most are strictly takeout oriented. Oakland and Chicago had larger Chinese and Chinese American communities, so a wider variety of Chinese restaurants, and some good ones, one in Oakland was our regular place when I was there. Maybe this is a all about the sparseness of good restaurants of most kinds (Latin and pizza excepted) in south Florida. We’ve only found two Thai restaurants in Miami and Miami beach so far, pretty shabby.

Cotton is a Killer

I just returned from vacation in Seattle. We spent three days kayaking in the San Juans. These days the only time you really clear your mind is when you ditch cell and email communication. We talked to Megan at the tour company (ok, Anacortes Kayak Tours, www.anacorteskayaktours.com, I'd definitely recommend them), and she gave ussome tips on what to bring. I'm sure other things were said, but the real take-away from the conversation was that we needed to get headlamps for me and Eliza, my fiancee.

I'd gotten one of these headlamps before when I went camping with Laura, James, and Theodore a few years back in Colorado. At the time, these guys mocked me for actually buying one of these headlamps. To see what I'm talking about, check out REI's fine selection of headlamps:

http://www.rei.com/online/store/Search?category
RestrictionList=4500596&storeId=8000&lang
Id=-1&vcat=REI_EXPERT_ADVICE_CAMPING

They mocked me until one night it was POURING rain and we all had to go into James' tent to play cards, and it was totally dark until I put my headlamp on. Then they were all jealous.

So I got the point from Megan. I HAD to get headlamps, though Eliza and I are kindof broke (we just bought a house), so we only got one.

So at REI in Seattle, we talked to this dude who made some suggestions about what to wear. We live in Miami, and because we were so broke and stressed out from work leading into this vacation, we didn't really plan anything except hanging out in Seattle for a week, so we didn't bring appropriately warm clothes, layers, etc. So we went to REI to get our headlamps, without which we might die, and to get some clothes.

This REI guy, let's say Harvey, basically told me that if I wore cotton out on the open sea, cotton anywhere, I would die. Not in so many words, but basically dead. Who knew cotton was so deadly? I thought cotton was a good thing, soft, natural. Now certainly I knew cotton doesn't have the best wicking properties. Armed with this information, I made the case to Eliza that I needed an $18 pair of super-duper travel underwear (no cotton, totally wicking).

http://www.rei.com/online/store/ProductDisplay?productId=
12034639&storeId=8000&catalogId=40000008000&langId=
-1&color=OCEAN&img=/media/483501.jpg&view=large

Eliza shut me down. We were already over budget, and though I didn't tell her this, I just thought the idea of "wicking underwear" was cool (more on this later). Thus my etched into my brain was the idea that cotton is a killer.