It's all over but the learning

A Message to the Republicans Who Are Now In Control Of My State

2010-11-02T20:14:00.001-07:00

A message to the Republicans who are now in control of my state:

What guarantees can you give me, now that you've got the power to lead Wisconsin and the nation, that my mother who has cancer and is on the state high risk insurance pool will still be able to afford the treatments that are keeping her alive?

What guarantee can you give me that I'll find a job soon so I can get off unemployment, which, if I had to pay our mortgage on top of my college loans, would not provide me with enough income to stay in my house?

What guarantees can you give me to assure me that the basic things our city needs-- like education, road construction, economic development, and health & human services-- will be provided and paid for?

What guarantees can you give me that the government will not place my tax dollars into the hands of greedy companies who are irresponsible and unreliable?

If you can guarantee those things, then you can make a positive mark on this state. If not, I hope the people of Wisconsin will never again fall for tricks such as these.

Heart As Big As Liverpool

2009-11-20T15:48:00.000-08:00

I always thought of myself as clever for saving my money by not being a smoker, or going tanning, or getting my hair professionally done. But I now have a far more expensive habit: football.

Cost of driving to Minneapolis to watch games in Brits Pub: $50 per trip.
Cost of Liverpool Jersey: $50.
Cost of You'll Never Walk Alone Tattoo: $60.
Cost of getting to Liverpool: $120.
Cost of ticket to Liverpool-Man City Match: $274.
Never Walking Alone: priceless????

Wir Haben Alles Verloren

2009-11-08T11:18:00.000-08:00

"I was born in a country which no longer exists."

When the wall fell, an entire cultural identity fell with it.

Out of Practice, Episode Two

2009-11-07T10:41:00.000-08:00

Wow, this is problem is getting serious. I hemmed and hawed all day over the purchase of an official Liverpool Jersey. Elverys didn't sell one with Steven Gerrard's name across the back, which was what I really wanted. But it was for quite a decent price compared with what I've seen at Planet Soccer in the States. They've only ever got away jerseys anyway. At the end of the day I decided it was a worthwhile purchase (what if Gerrard's groin never recovers? Better to support the whole team than one player) and carried my brand new shirt down O'Connell St with a spring in my step and a smile on my face. I stopped at the General Post Office to buy some postcard stamps to the US and opted to write a few postcards there to get them sent off as quickly as possible. Postage stamps, you see, are cheaper in Ireland than in Germany. After popping them in the post box I continued homeward. It wasn't until I passed by the third Carrol's Gifts (And Cheap Tourist Crap) that an Irish Rugby jersey in the window reminded me of my new Liverpool shirt. To my horror, I realized the bag was not in my hand. I was, ironically, walking very much alone. This produced, I'm somewhat ashamed to admit, a much more severe reaction than the missing wallet had. I panicked, and praying I'd left it at the GPO ran the length of O'Connell back to the place where I'd written my postcards. The only thought on my mind: "Well thank God I can't lose the tattoo! At least that's not going anywhere!"

I arrived at the GPO out of breath. There it sat, Elverys Sports bag alone on the counter top, Liverpool jersey safe inside. Lucky girl, indeed. This better not become a pattern!

Out of Practice

2009-11-06T17:38:00.000-08:00

Apparently traveling on one's own is a skill that requires some practice, and I'm a bit rusty after a year. Just one hour after touching down in Dublin I went to put down a deposit on a locker key in my hostel only to realize I did not have my wallet on me. I had quite a lot of cash in a back-up wallet, but no bank cards or ID, or the 100 Euro that was in the wallet. The only place I'd had my wallet out was to pay for the 16C bus from Dublin Airport. I was exhausted, wet, and had my hands full with luggage when I paid the fare, and truth be told I didn't recall ever putting the wallet back into my purse. But a seasoned traveler doesn't panic. A seasoned traveler is resourceful. I spoke with the ladies at the hostel front desk and they connected me to Bus Eireann who connected me to Dublin Bus who transferred me to Summerhill Garage on Mount Joy Square. "What color is the wallet?" said the man on the other end of the phone in a thick Dublin accent. "Red." "What on earth were you tinkin'?" he laughed.

I followed his typically Irish directions. Walk to the top of O'Connell, right down Parnell, left up Gardiner St until you see a pub called Hill 16. Follow the laneway up past the pub into the garage. It sounded sketchy. But sure enough, there was an office full of uniformed and friendly transit folk. "I've come to collect my wallet," I said.

"Oh its you, is it!" said the man from the phone. He turned to his colleagues. "Little Red Riding Hood's come to collect her little red wallet!" He opened the wallet and looked at the ID to verify I was the owner. "Wisconsin, eh?" he said, attempting an American accent. It sounded far more Boston than Midwest but my smile was massive. "Thanks a million," I said.

"You're a lucky lucky girl."

Twaiku

2009-09-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

In the same vein as Twitterature (http://www.twitterature.us/) LFCTV hosted a Twitter Haiku contest. Mine was actually two haikus melded into one, but I still made it in under 140 characters.

"Pray for us sinners"
Rosary tight in my hand.
Gerard takes the kick,

Big and fucking hard.
Keeper hesitates too long.
Thine is the kingdom!

Office Zombie

2009-09-11T21:15:00.000-07:00

I audited payroll all day today. I sat in the office, purple pen in hand, and added up times worked, corrected errors, and signed off on time cards for 8 hours. Every time I signed and dated a time card, every time I made the 2 ones after the 9, I would pause and be reminded of all the people eight years ago today who were working in their offices, doing mundane office tasks like zombies, no different than any other day at any other office. Until a plane came smashing through their building and the payroll drifted down from the sky, turning to ash as it fell to the streets stories below. And the office zombies were no more.

Summer Transfer Window

2009-08-05T17:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday caused a bit of emotional turmoil for two major reasons.

In the early hours of the morning, shortly after I awoke from the sound of rain on the skylight, I received a text message from the LFC Twitter page saying that today, finally, Liverpool Football Club would be announcing the fate of Xabi Alonso. This put me at great unease, and I drifted back into unsettling dreams in which I received a dizzying multitude of Twitter update texts.

It was day two of training for my new job, in which I would be a traveling photographer. After being laid off from Job 1, as a clerk for a poorly planned government project, nearly a month ago, I was lucky enough to get Job 2 just days later. Though I wasn't thrilled about the travel or hours of Job 2, beggars can't be choosers and the job itself was interesting and exciting. Midway through the day I got a call from my old boss at Job 1. Rumors that had been circulating around the laid-off staff were confirmed. They're hiring again. Emotional turmoil ensued, and the crushing necessity of making a fast decision on such a huge matter as one's job and livelihood.

I am often rash in my decision making, opting to think things over shortly and on surface level, make my choice, and only later suffer the agony of all the what-ifs and why-thens. Often things do work out for the best, or, if not the best (for one can never really know how the option one didn't pick would have turned out) than for the acceptable. But I loathe the prospect of being cornered by two major choices, two future paths, and knowing no progress can be made until a decision is reached.

The summer transfer dealings of soccer teams are similar, yet vastly different. Teams buy, sell, and loan players across oceans and cultures. There is much waiting, deliberating, negotiating, planning, agonizing, hoping, and praying. Fans, players, teams, managers are cornered in an endless cycle of rumors, training, deals, and contracts.

Alonso has been waiting for quite some time for his transfer from Liverpool to Real Madrid to go through. Myself, I was waiting for that call from Job 1 for nearly a month. When it came and I made my decision to go back to Job 1 and run the (admittedly high) risk of being again jerked around and possibly re-laid off by corporate in exchange for a job I'm good at in a place I like, an extreme sense of relief came over me. I am sure Xabi felt the same upon the announcement that he will be sold to Madrid for 30 million Euro. I am selling myself for far less: A bit above minimum wage with the potential for unemployment this time around, minus the mileage check Job 2 would have provided but with the knowledge that my sad little car (which would never have survived a collision with a deer on a narrow Wisconsin backroad) is that much safer for the time being.

The summer transfer windows for Xabi and me have been closed, the drapes drawn. We are where we want to be, the next season is rapidly approaching, and relief is in the air. Still, I must admit that despite the drama of having to choose between Job 1 and 2 after four short hours of stressed deliberation, I was more emotionally drained by the mid-afternoon text confirming Alonso's departure. It's lonely round the fields of Anfield Road.

Not a Scholar

2009-07-24T09:31:00.000-07:00

"I am not a scholar. I'm just a writer who loves to write and will always write. Scholars are very hard workers. I think I'm rather lazy... If I get excited about something, or if something happens out in the street... I want to report it and record it. I will go inside myself, bring out what I feel, put it on paper, look at it, pull out all of the cliches and nuttiness... I will work on those things. I will work hard in that way. But scholarship--pooh, pooh." -Gwendolyn Brooks

The Vast Spoils of America Pt. II

2009-07-14T00:35:00.000-07:00

Morning came early in the cabin in East Glacier. A bizarre accident involving a pair of jeans and a spilled bottle of NyQuil had led to the bathroom light being shattered the night before, which in turn led to a very clumsy morning shower. I opened the curtains to reveal a dull rain dripping from the cabin's roof. The cabin was actually a backpacker's hostel, located in the back garden of a Mexican restaurant, one of the few businesses open at this time of year. It was early May, and though elsewhere the rain may have been a typical sign of spring giving way to summer, this drizzle may have been the first rain of the season, falling softly on dirty snowbanks. East Glacier, Montana was the picture of a ghost town in this weather. Muddy puddles filled the earthen streets like oil-glazed lakes and not a sound was heard on the morning air. We stopped for breakfast at the only open place in town-- a greasy spoon diner with good tea and better English muffins. Then we waited for the train to come. Katherine was staying, settling down in the mountains of Glacier National Park for the approaching summer. I was going, taking the 20 hour trip back East via Empire Builder. Away from the meth labs, casinos, and gun cabinets of Montana. Back to the meth labs, casinos, and gun cabinets of Wisconsin.

We never say goodbye. Its been too often we've been headed different directions. The train didn't waste time chugging in and chugging out. A hug and a wave and I was off. I found my seat and settled in with a long ride ahead. It was not my first time on the Empire Builder. But I had never seen the Great America West by train, a captive audience to the purple mountain majesty and amber waves of grain. There would be no stopping along the way for a staged photo with the World's Largest Buffalo or Concrete Sandhill Crane, no roadside cafes or bars from which to observe the locals. Just a widescreen view of the sky for hours and hours and hours. This is a long ride for someone with nothing to think about.

There are always interesting characters on trains, always have been. Trains seem to attract a certain type of person. On past Amtrak experiences, I've come across a Buffalo Bill impersonator with a nasty racist streak about him, drunkenly ordering a black man out of "his seat", though he was clearly in the wrong car. I've encountered a Welsh backpacker in his mid-50s who knew a great deal about emergency preparedness. On this particular journey, there was a man on the train who walked with an exaggerated limp, as if one foot was at least 6 inches shorter than the other. Everything about his persona suggested he was at home on trains, and had it been a different era he would have made a perfectly decent hobo. He had the general appearance of a straggler, with long greasy hair and beard, dirtied clothing, heavy work boots, poor teeth, and a gruff slurring voice. The stench of alcohol drifted after him wherever he limped, permeating the air. He was accompanied by a younger woman who seemed, except for her travel companion, to be rather normal. She would assist him down the stairs to take his smoke breaks at every designated smoking stop, and walk him to the bar car for his next drink. When his slurring voice got louder, she would shush him. When his steps became less steady, she would guide him through the aisles of the car with patience. It was a strange relationship, as far as I could tell.

As the train rolled on I tried to read, but could not keep my eyes from the window. The earth and sky lay before me with such beauty and imperfection that I found I had to attempt to capture it on film. But my camera could not recreate those colors and textures, the blurring of the movement.

I watched the sun set over North Dakota knowing the sun had never set for me in such a gorgeous way. As it met the flaming hills of the badlands and disappeared to twilight it brought to mind something my neighbor's father had once said as we all watched the sun set over the Chippewa Valley years ago.

"Just before the sun goes down, if you look closely, you can actually see the world turn."

When night came I lost consciousness, awakening as the train would roll through tiny towns, letting its whistle blow through the lonesome darkness of the night. The carcasses of empty trucks and cars lined the farmyards like a deserted drive-in cinema. A veritable graveyard of decades of former vehicles of the residents of that land. Beneath the soil lay the bones of buffaloes, horses, and Indians, rust leeching into the dirt until they mingled there, past and greater past decaying and settling together. One day we will all be just like dinosaurs.

In the early morning hours the sound of running footsteps down the train car startled me awake. The train had come to a halt, and outside was an unidentifiable platform lit with just one light. For a brief moment my disorientation placed me first at Limerick Junction, where maintenance concerns once left me waiting in darkness for a train back home to Castletroy, and then at a town near Heidelberg where a suicide on the tracks had forced me and my fellow passengers to disembark and wait for hours in the night for a bus that never came. But as my surroundings became clear I realized we must be in northern Minnesota.

"Where is he? Oh my God, where the hell is he?" a woman was hissing under her breath. It was the woman who had been accompanying the hobo man. Her tone was frantic, and she was bumping a large suitcase through the aisle toward the stairs. I gathered that her stop had approached sooner than she'd thought, and she was now hurrying off the train. But she reappeared, pacing the train car and running her hands through her hair, looking ever so tired and very worried indeed. A porter soon joined her, talking in hushed tones and sweeping the car with a flashlight. The hobo man, as it appeared, had gone missing at the most inopportune time. The train began to move again, and the woman yelled. A crackle of a walky-talky halted the motion and soon the conductor was in our car, hurrying through the aisles with his own flashlight. A suitcase was recovered, belonging to the missing man. Then a pair of boots. His only boots.

Naturally, my thoughts went straight to murder. Could the man be stuffed into an overhead compartment somewhere? Thrown from the train by some faceless enemy? Had he wandered off the train at a previous stop and failed to hobble back in time? Or had he simply passed out in a toilet somewhere? I felt the train jerk to a start, though I had already drifted into slumber, and I presumed the issue had been resolved. But several hours later, as the first light of dawn turned the sky to a pinkish grey, I heard a voice. A gruff, slurring voice, loud and unpleasant.

"Goddamn missed the last stop and now I'm gonna miss this stop too!" I jerked awake, knowing that voice could belong to none other but the hobo man. Peering out the window onto another lonely train platform somewhere in Minnesota, I saw the man hobble off the train rubbing his eyes. He stood there in his socks, with no baggage to speak of, looked around in confusion, and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He sat down on the pavement outside the tiny station and lit up, seemingly unconcerned that his wife was hundreds of miles away, worried sick and reporting him missing, while he was here, shoeless, in God-knows-where with nothing but the clothes on his back and a dwindling pack of cigs. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he was never seen nor heard from again, traveling the tracks and living out of boxcars, swapping stories for whiskey and wearing his socks thin on the dusty road so kind.

I went back to the city then, back to where the lay-ups are covered in graffiti and the mills crumble while the condos rise high. I went back home to my life as a flatlander where trees break the horizon and the mountains stay buried beneath the earth waiting to be born. But I can still hear that lonesome whistle call.

The Vast Spoils of America

2009-04-21T07:19:00.000-07:00

The best way to see this country is on a Greyhound Bus. I boarded one early in the morning in Chicago, rode it through the South Side and looked out at the streets, the power lines, the houses, if you can call them that. Boarded up businesses, broken down cars, little kids walking to school. Tired quiet people waiting for their trains to come, still at the station with lanes of traffic blurring past on either side. We picked up two kids at Dan Ryan and 95th, they headed toward the back rows, pulling up their pants. They fell asleep almost immediately, sprawled out across the seats with their legs in the aisle. The man across from me told his story, though no one had asked him. His daughter had nearly been killed in a crash with a semi, she was clinging to life in Indianapolis. He'd nearly reached Omaha when he got the news, turned his own semi around and grabbed the first Greyhound home to Indiana. He lapsed into the details of the trucking world, I turned my head toward the window.

I could see the city fly past, the parts no one ever takes time to look at, the most interesting parts. I could see the face of the man in front of me reflected in the window, dark eyelashes and calm skin, and we watched the world and pondered our separate thoughts. Then he began to cry, and at first I wondered if he was crying for the neighborhoods, for the people who used to live here and work in meat packing plants, for the people who live here and have no jobs, for the babies crying and the old people dying. It was finally summer, and things were green, but this part of town would look better in winter, more in place with the sooty snow and grey skies than under the hazy May sun. He cried all the way to Calumet, sobs that shook his large shoulders. He covered his mouth with his hands and faced forward, his reflection gone from the window. I sat in silence and turned my music down, out of respect. I wanted to tell him to keep his lip stiff, keep his fists clenched, that sometimes you gotta kick your way through this bitch. But I couldn't say it like Brother Ali.

The truck driver was repeating his story to another uninterested listener, giving the gory details of the way they found his daughter with all four limbs broken. Nearly everyone else was out, the blacktop singing them to sleep. In Calumet a family got on. They talked in Spanish, too fast for me to understand, and their voices hurt my ears. They talked about Chicago, and I looked back down the highway toward the city we had left behind. Indiana welcomed us with black smoke blocking out the sunshine. Downtown Gary, likely the saddest city in America, was void of life and grim. The weeds and smog seem to choke out all happiness. Then the rain came. It didn't let up until we got to Indianapolis. Behind me I heard someone ask "Estamos en Chicago?" After much confusion the Spanish-speaking family realized that they were not on the bus to Chicago, that they were now miles away from their destination. They were silent for a while, as the feeling of lostness settled in.

In Indianapolis I sat on the church pew benches of the station and ate my lunch. I read. I waited. A florescent light buzzed. An old man in a hat offered me a religious flier. I shook my head. I didn't need to find God. I went back to my book, passing the time til I made it to Cincinnati, wondering just what this thing they call the Midwest really is.

Rag Week

2009-03-23T09:36:00.000-07:00

These two poems, inspired by the goings-on of Rag Week 2007 while I attended the University of Limerick in Ireland, were published by my study abroad program's newsletter, winning me 20 Euro. A small reparation for putting up with rag week, but wonderful nonetheless.

Rag Week, Day One

Awakened by the sound of falsetto singing
I open the blinds to the early morning sun.
It is Aidan, drunk and having stayed up all night
Off to play tennis at 8am with a beer in each hand.
So this is Rag Week.

Rag Week, Day Five

On my walk to class amongst the broken glass
I stumble upon a trail of blood.
I follow it down the sidewalk to its source:
A lone tooth, abandoned on the pavement.
The price one pays for Rag Week.

Update

2009-03-23T09:35:00.000-07:00

I have decided to make this blog more about my writings, so I will henceforth periodically be posting poems, essays, or stories that I have written or am in the process of writing.

How We Got Here

2008-12-09T09:56:00.000-08:00

I flew to England on an early morning plane. That's how RyanAir gets you-- you'll pay 40 Euro more for the flights at a decent hour. To ensure that I'd arrive at the airport with ample time for things to go wrong (as one would expect they are bound to), I took a 4am taxi to the Madrid Bajaras Airport. The night and early hours of the morning had been fun, a goodbye party thrown by my friend Rachel in Madrid and her tourism friends. Still, the night yeilded only 30 minutes of a quick nap and a rushed packing job to catch the taxi in time. My eyes drooped as we sped down the Spanish motorway, and I tried to mentally brace myself for the cold I was to meet in London. English tourists I'd met in Madrid had warned me it had snowed in their nation's capitol earlier that week.

I slept through the majority of the flight, and only opened my eyes with a jolt of turbulance that signified we were coming in through the low cloud cover for a landing. I felt wretched. I'd had no food at the Madrid airport, preferring to curl up on a bench and catch a few winks before the flight took off. I looked out the window as the plane approached the earth. What was this? Trees? Cottages? Low-lying stone walls? Where were the skyscrapers of London? Where was the majestic Thames? I had been told by an English friend that London Stanstead Airport, unlike the majority of RyanAir airports, was actually in London and would be a short trip by Underground to Victoria Station where I was to catch a Megabus to Oxford in exactly 1 hour and 45 minutes. But no such luck here. Once off the plane I learned London was an hour away by train-- a 28 Pound train. I had bought some Pounds off my friends before leaving and had exactly 30. With no other choice, I hopped on the train and watched the English countryside fly by until we dove underground and all signs of life were out of sight. The train was express to Liverpool Street Station, and from there I had just 30 minutes to get across one of the largest metropolitan areas in Europe. Easy, I figured. London had that lovely advanced transportation system speeding along beneath it, the veins carrying the lifeblood of the city. Wrong-o. This was a Sunday.

When they say "Mind the Gap", it is common to assume they are referring to the gap between the train and the platform. But it is also necessary, when relying on the London Tubes, to mind a different sort of gap-- the gap in service. Many train lines do not fuction at all on weekends, and many others have limited or no service due to construction (mostly to get things up to par for the 2012 Olympics to be held here). Such was the case with service to Victoria Station, where my bus was to leave from shortly. As it turned out, there was absolutely no service to Victoria on that particular day. With just two Pounds on me, it was clear I was going to have to dive into plan B. After queueing for nearly 10 minutes at an ATM I was finally able to take out a sufficient amount of Sterling. I hailed one of the famous London taxis and announced "Victoria Station please, as quickly as possible." The driver looked concerend. "It's Remembrance Day, Madam," he said in a thick Cockney accent. I looked puzzled. "Most of the roads is closed, Madam, but I'll try to go via Embankment, tha' should do well." Just exactly how much of an inconvenience this Rememberance Day would prove soon dawned on us both. Or at least on me. My driver, I'm sure, was well aware of which roads would be unaccessible, and was just taking me for a very expensive piss. Military marching brigades lined the streets, constables with red poppies pinned to their lapels directed traffic away from every single bridge across the river. "I'm afraid this one's closed too, Madam, wha' a shame..." the driver said at every turn. My heart sank as I watched the clock tick ever closer to 9:30 and the meter tick ever higher. "The Queens in town, you know, Madam," the driver rambled on, driving past the same closed bridge for the third time. "Highly inconvenient if you ask me!" he muttered, laying on the horn as a police vehicle cut him off. I had to agree.

A 27 Pound taxi ride later, I was wandering around Victoria Station trying to find the bus stop. I knew I'd missed the bus, but was hoping the next one would honor my ticket. After being given false directions by at least five less than helpful passersby (apparently Rememberance Day has nothing to do with being able to remember the geography of one's city). At long last, a bus pulled up, the 10 Pound Oxford-London bus. An advertisement of free wireless onboard lured me to give up my Megabus plans and simply buy a ticket for this bus. Several long hours later, after a faulty sink in the bus's toilet had soaked my left side, I was in Oxford. I was tired, hungry, and broke again. I felt like a true warrior, having survived the long and hard trip from Mardid to Oxford, by air and by land (though thankfully not by sea).

It was my cousin Clare who I had come to visit in Oxford. She is working on her PhD., but in addition to school work and other jobs, she coaches soccer to a group of refugee and assylum seeking teenage boys, mostly from the Middle East and Africa. They have all come to Oxford seeking better futures, as many of them were orphaned in their home countries and are escaping from war or persecution. Through soccer, she teaches them skills they'll need to communicate and develop into adults and professionals. Though some of them have been living in Oxford for several years, with host families who take them in and offer support, deportation is always lurking on the horizon. British law states that as the boys approach adulthood they can be deported, though they have no support system in the countries they fled from and sometimes a very limited chance of survival upon returning home.

Clare, always the cheerful optimist, was telling her young players, who remain hopeful and friendly despite the horrors in their lives, that her cousin was visiting her. "She's come from Spain," Clare told them excitedly. "I also came from Spain," one of the players answered. Clare, somewhat surprised, asked him about the country and what cities he'd visited. "I don't know," he answered. "I was tied to the bottom of a truck the whole time." When Clare told me this story, my own trials and tribulations to get from Madrid to Oxford seemed like a stroll through Buckingham Palace Grounds. This boy, not so much younger than myself, had faced a life threatening journey from Afghanistan, where his parents had been murdered. He had not had the luxury of flying RyanAir, the cheap as shit airline we all complain about for its poor service, but had been transported illegally beneath a truck with four other boys, only two of whom survived the journey.

There are many roads to get from one place to another. If we remember anything on Rememberance Day, let us not forget that.

Yes We Can Change The World

2008-11-05T07:11:00.000-08:00

Today is the greatest day I've ever known, can't wait for tomorrow.

I'm sitting here in a cold spanish apartment surrounded by the smells of onions cooking in butter. I'm listening to Nas's "Black President", staring out the window at the blue sky between the clouds as the daylight draws to an end. I pray we're ready to have a black president. I pray we can change the world. I wish that TuPac and Martin Luther King could have lived to see this moment. It's wonderful to think that everyone who is alive today has lived to witness such a wonderful thing occur.

"All my life, there's trouble in America. All my life, there's panic in America. All my life, so stressed in America." -Razorlight, America

I found five euro on the ground this morning, I sensed it was a good sign. Liverpool scored a penalty kick in the last few minutes of their game against Atletico, tying the score. Another good sign in my twisted mind where the fate of the world can be left in the hands of a piece of monetary currency or an English soccer team.

Spent my lunch break today chatting with Brits, Australians, Germans, and Americans about the election. "It's enough to make me go to church" said an Aussie. We're all praying. Trying not to admit to our immense inner fears that what we dream cannot come true.

"In America... but when the president is never black, female, or gay, and until that day, you got nothing to say to me to make me believe." -Morrissey, America is Not the World

"It's bound to crumble, isn't it," an Australian said to me today. I nodded silently. If we can't get our act together, yes. Every empire has fallen.

Stopped at an Irish pub to ask if they'd play coverage of the election. O'Connell Street, it's called. The Spanish barman said he'd play it if we wanted to see it. Overjoyed, we left the pub and stood outside making plans for the evening. The barman ran back out and asked "Wait, are you for McCain or Obama?" "OBAMA!" we cheered. "Ok, then we'll play it!" he said.

"Don't wanna be an American idiot!!!" -Green Day, American Idiot

Met four lads from Northern Ireland in the pub who were watching the Liverpool-Atletico game. They stayed on to watch a bit of the election coverage, then left to go to a different pub, then returned to join in our joy over the election. Three were Catholic, one was Protestant. Three supported Obama, the other couldn't give a shite. The other three told me not to listen to him, but he cornered me in a different pub and asked me why the election was so important.

"I'll be perfectly honest with you, it's not that I have anything aginst you, its just that the way your counry is run is counterproductive..." he began...
"Wait, let me finish that," I said, "I know, its wastefull, its unsustainable, its hypocritical, its violent... you're completely correct." He nodded, and said, "I'm glad you understand." I nodded and said "Thank you for being honest." "Obama won't change a thing," he warned. "It's not Obama I beleive in," I said, "It's the people who support Obama. They have the power to change the world, they are the ones who should have the power to change the world. Its been too long that they haven't had power in our country, and that is wrong. That's what I believe, I hope you understand that."

"I do," he said. And we left it at that.

But really, it is the American people who win today. It is the children of immigrants, the great grandchildren of slaves, the decendents of Native Americans, who have fought for their freedoms in this country for far too long and been given nothing in return but a housing voucher or a bottle of whiskey. That is a terrible thing to do to a people, and Obama, ojala, will fix that. First, I declare that we need to chagne the electoral system. Election day should be a holiday, or a Sunday, as it is in every other democratic nation in the world. And we should have the right to vote, not for a party, not for some mysterious person who "promises" to vote for a party's candidate, but for the person we believe should be granted the power to make descisions for us. Because that is what a democracy is. And we are not NOT a democracy until a system like that is in place.

This is what I tried to explain to my Northern Irish, British, Australian, and Scottish friends I met today. Its been grand, being with the rest of the Englsih speaking world. We forget about them, don't we. Well we musn't in the future. We really musn't. They are our brothers and sisters in language. They can support us in ways we never knew possible. We just must learn to listen.

On the way home from the Irish pub, as Obama had just taken Ohio and was ahead in Indiana (to my complete and utter surprise!) and I could hear on the taxi radio the name "Obama!" over and over again and something about the king of Spain supporting him, I began to cry. I cannot believe this is really happening. Its so unbelievably glorious, can it really be true?? Has our country finally become the country I always believed it was? Can I finally be proud to call myself an American? Because that is all I ask. That I can take pride in my homeland and not be ashamed to say that I am from the United States of America, to not have to prove that I am competent everytime I meet someone from a different place. To be happy in my own shoes, in my own home, in my own place. That is all I ask. Obama will grant us that wish.

All over the world, people are beautiful and they want to unite together. We shall overcome, someday.

Desperately Grand

2008-10-21T13:00:00.000-07:00

I had two thoughts going through my mind today. The first was "Limerick's grand, isn't it?" and the second was "Jesus Ireland's a desperate country!" All sorts of funny memories have been coming back being back in cold, damp Limerick. Like how the girl who's survived numerous Minnesota winters is the one wearing the bulky wintercoat and shivering while the Irish are walking around in wind pants and t-shirts. And how it was so cold some nights back when I lived in Kilmurry Village that I'd sleep with my laptop on right next to my head so it would blow warm air my way and stop my nose from freezing off in the night. In fact, even with the laptop heating up my lap right now and a fire roaring in the hearth I'm still chilled. Seriously, desperate country. Limerick has changed a bit since I lived here. There's a lot of new buildings around, including two new low price supermarkets near the campus. That would have saved a lot of trouble back in the day, instead of driving to the bad side of town through the worst traffic jams to save 10 cent on a loaf of bread that would mold in 3 days anyway. There's a new building on the way to the city centre as well. I remember it being just a hulk of concrete that rose up into the air and none of us knew what in God's name it could be. Turns out it was supposed to be a hotel, but why they'd build a 10 story hotel there is an utter mystery. There's enough hotels near the campus as it is. The building has been finished since summer, but it's just sitting there empty. The hotel deal fell through and there've been no prospective buyers with the economy this bad. Across the road there were 7 cranes working on a large set of buildings, looking to be an expansion of the strip mall. My friend Brian said it was the first day he's seen workers there in weeks. They rarely work on it any more, and its probably destined to sit abandoned like the hotel. So long, Celtic Tiger. But my friend Shane said there's one solid benefit to the economic recession though. It was hard, while the economy was at its strongest, for artists and musicians to get respect for their craft. They were looked down upon for not finding a career and earning good money. Why be a starving artist when you can be a rich softwear engineer? But Shane has hope that, with the economic downturn will come a sort of renaissance of Irish artists and musicians, along with a community of support for what they do.

Limerick is grand though, when the sun is shining and there's a rainbow over the hills in the distance, and the grass is glittering green. Or when the streets are wet and shining in the night and people are out on the town. It's good to be back.

Dumb Down Nothing

2008-10-19T00:59:00.001-07:00

My grandma is always clipping articles for me, and she had me read one from the Chicago Tribune right before I left for Europe. On the plane to Germany from Dublin I was listening to Lupe Fiasco and the words of "Dumb it Down" really hit me and I started thinking about that article and getting angrier and angrier until I just started writing. I didn't send this letter to the editor in, because I don't want it edited. But I thought I'd share it with the world anyway because its something I feel really passionate about.

Clarence Page's September 17th article in the Chicago Tribune urging Barack Obama to "dumb it down" if he wants to capture the American citizens' votes struck a disturbing chord in me. It reminded me of the words of another black Chicagoan, the musical artist Lupe Fiasco. In Fiasco's song "Dumb it Down" from his most recent album, The Cool, he discusses calls from fellow rappers, record executives, and critics to make his lyrics more applicable to the perceived common listener. "You're going over n****'s heads, Lu. They tellin' me that they don't feel you. We ain't graduate from school, n****. Them big words ain't cool, n****," the first chorus goes. Lupe echoes the voices of some in the rap community who believe songs with small, easy to understand words like "money" and "ho" are what fans want to hear. These fellow rappers have claimed Lupe's rhymes are too intelligent, his attitude too cultured. It was this same feeling I got from reading Mr. Page's article in the Tribune. I fear that readers of his article will join the bandwagon in condemning shows of intellect, condemning Barack Obama's attempt to bring competence back to the White House. Mr. Page claims that Americans are too stupid to understand Obama's goals for our country. I know that after eight years of President Bush, Britney Spears, and Paris Hilton, America's collective intelligence has been depleted. This miseducation of America has led to our decreased reputation abroad. Our people are viewed as complacent and mindless, and in some cases we have become as such. In this time of forgotten knowledge and widespread apathy, our salvation will not come through idiotic candidates who talk endlessly but say nothing. Instead, our country needs someone with a capable mind, who understands the complex issues which surround our nation daily and can be a role model, not for the elite, but for those seeking a higher level of education.

Furthermore, my fear is that Obama's "dumbing down" is exactly what white conservatives are hoping for. There is a fear, I think, that Obama's eloquence represents more that just a well-spoken politician. Obama's prominence in this race symbolizes a great change in the United States, threatening the current social order. Lupe Fiasco's second chorus corresponds closely to this phenomenon, as a white voice decries with increasing distress, "You done shedding too much light, Lu. You're making 'em wanna do right, Lu… They're trying to graduate from school, Lu. They're starting to think that smart is cool, Lu. They're trying to get up out the 'hood, Lu. I'll tell you what you should do: dumb it down." Obama has proven that he has the power to motivate people. His words, just as they are, coming from a self-made, educated son of an immigrant, who has shown a strong commitment to organizing communities, have already created a world-wide movement of support. His words, just as they are, have given hope and power to people who have been living without those things for generations. But to the current regime, Obama's power to mobilize those with little power represents a threat to the normalcy of the lives they have been allowed to live. They are a threat to the system that has continuously held down those of color and lower socioeconomic status, making the nation believe that is just the way things are. The current regime is beginning to realize that they can no longer get away with the level of ignorance they have been allowed to exist under these past eight years. But they will stop at nothing to turn Obama's words of promise and hope against those he aims to reach. Mr. Page's call for Obama to simplify his message so those effortless and lazy citizens amongst us can understand a few words is not helping the situation in the slightest. So I urge Mr. Obama, like Lupe Fiasco whose album has gone gold, to flatly refuse. Dumb down nothing. It is YOU, American citizen, who needs to wise up.