Tuesday, March 28, 2006

New Age, Old Tricks

What has happened to critical analysis? We need to look a little closer:

The most obvious question to be answered before any progress can be made is simple: what is energy? In the last 40 years, the term has been hijacked by philosphers, new agers, religions, cults to serve whatever purpose. There is nothing inherently wrong with the adoption of new meanings for a word with its scientific origins in the 300-year old writing of Newton, who gives it a very specific physical meaning. The problem that arises is there becomes a confusion when energy is considered across disciplines, and in this case it seems as though it is being used to evoke some sort of spiritual meaning that supposedly we should already understand.

According to your admittedly brief synopsis of Castenada's work, he states that the universe and everything in it is either energy or the absence of it. Thanks to the Special Theory of Relativity we can wholeheartedly agree with that from a physical standpoint and contention from within the scientific community would be few and far between. If, though, he argues that this is the same energy that one gains from eliminating unnecessaries from life then that is a striking fallacy and he is preying upon a symantic weakness of the English language. In other words, without a clear definition of terms, axioms, and premises, deductive syllogistic reasoning fails to lead anywhere.

So what is energy?

Perhaps in this case energy represents a greater hold on our intrinstic physical senses. I agree that withdrawal from unnecessary interactions would and does heighten personal awareness and the acuteness of the senses. To assume, however, that at some point they become so finely tuned as to allow them to operate in an entirely different fashion, ie omniscient perception of time, space, and other living organisms does not readily derive from anything. It is mere speculation, and in fact speculation is far too honorable a term for something without any basis whatsoever.

So take that, man with disputed doctorate in anthropology.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Conflict of Interest

As a result of the fire, we had a professional clean up company come in and give an estimate for cleaning the furniture in the house. The disaster clean-up specialist showed up several hours late with the simplest of explanations:

- Sorry I'm late. There was an emergency at UNM we had to take care of.

Did he say emergency? That can only mean one thing - excitement! And when you're crammed into a smoky closet for several hours swabbing the walls repeatedly with a paint roller, there's nothing you crave more than a little excitement. I asked him about it.

- You know the steps at Onate Hall? They were covered with blood. I mean completely soaked, and then there was this blood trail leading off that disappeared into the alley. Looks like a stabbing.

A stabbing. This is Albuquerque - annually, there are 3 stabbings for every resident. Stabbing someone is the equivalent of saying hello or "Hey, you up for a cup of coffee?" In other words, my interest was not piqued, but he did get me thinking about his business. For the family-owned disaster and crime-scene cleanup company, there seems to exist a moral conflict of interest based on two diametrically opposed interests:

First, living with their relatives and children, it's not a stretch to assume that contract employees and the owners would love the community to become a safer place. Fewer fires, fewer floods, fewer mutilations would be progress that everyone would appreciate.

On the other hand, as crime rates drop so does business. If crime dries up completely the crime scene cleaners are going to find themselves working at Merry Maids, which pays a hell of a lot less. Does that mean if they were ever posed the underlying question here, they would respond with "The key is finding a healthy balance between safety and profits?" It seems unlikely, which leads to another question -
what does it feel like to be deeply involved in a profession that morally you wished did not exist?

Although this position isn't unique to the crime scene clean-up industry, it's quite rare. The case of a soldier or a policeman is different. Those jobs exist
before the conflicts and help to prevent them, crime scene cleanup exists as a result.

In any case, he wanted to charge $1200 to wipe down a table and deodorize a couch so maybe he deserves a little moral dilemma to keep him awake at night in his 275-thread count Egyptian hand-woven sheets.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Nickeled and Dimed

There is a big plastic jar in my bedroom that used to be filled with a certain type of lollipop called Chupa-Chups (literallly "Sucky-Sucks"). All the candy is gone and has been replaced by US coinage - mostly quarters, no pennies. It's a pretty big jar - coffee cup placed next to it for scale - and it has never been counted, so I decided to do some estimates on how many Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers I could afford with the money inside.

First, I borrowed a highly bathroom scale from my mom, and I found it to weigh 13 pounds. Yeah, it's inaccurate, but we're just looking for some rough numbers. Now for some interesting calculations:

Using the weight of any particular coin, we can estimate how much the total would be if the entire jar were comprised of only a
single type of coin. This way we can establish upper and lower bounds for the value and then come up with a reasonable in-between.

There are
453.59237 grams in a pound.

A quarter = 5.670 grams. A jar of quarters would be worth
$260
A dime = 2.268 grams. A jar of dimes would be worth
$260
A nickel = 5.000 grams. A jar of nickels would be worth
$59
A penny = 2.50 grams. A jar of pennies would be worth
$23.59

...and...

A Sacagewea dollar = 8.1 grams. A jar of Sacageweas would be worth $727

I mentioned that one because there are quite a few Sacas in there. I was surprised that the value of dimes and quarters is
exactly the same, which means that a quarter weights exactly 2.5 times what a dime does. Interesting! Using these data, I can get the the highly accurate but highly imprecise conclusion that there is between $59 and $727 in the jar. So I can afford a new CD burner, a ticket to London, or moist likely an Xbox 360.

But wait, aren't there some bills in there? Yes, in fact there are. Just for giggles and grins, let's see how much would be in there if it were ALL bills. All US bills weigh 1 gram, therefore:

A jar of $1 bills would be worth
$5896
A jar of $5 bills would be worth
$29,480
A jar of $10 bills would be worth
$58,960
A jar of $100 bills would be worth
$580,900

Yikes! Unfortunately I know undoubtedly that there is not a single Benjamin in there. At most there are two Lincolns and a handful of Washingtons. Ah well, it's all about the Washingtons anyhow.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

There's a Name for People Like Me

It is metrophile.

Until yesterday, I was calling myself a
guy who likes subways and rapid transit systems. Colloquially across the world I would be called many things: In New York I'm a railfan or a foamer. In London I'm a trainspotter, a grizzer, or a gricer. In Austrialia I'm a gunzel. Fortunately, someone with a good hold on Greek suffixes created the all-encompassing designation,.

Compared to most, I'm really an amateur. I live in Albuquerque, land of no public transport, a fact which has probably led to my wonder about trains that travel under 70-storey, million ton megabehemoth buildings all day long. It also means that I don't have much experience with them.

Several trips to Europe and one or two in America has given me the opportunity to ride subways in:

London (1st by track length, 7th by annual passengers)
Paris (7th by length, 6th by annual passengers)
Lyon
Rome
Berlin
Munich
Prague
Vienna
Budapest (oldest electrified subway in Europe)
Bucharest
Stockholm
New York (2nd by track length, 5th by annual passengers)
San Francisco

These are all wonderful cities and have decent transport systems, particularly Munich whose subways extend out into suburban residential neighborhoods. I have yet to visit the grand daddy of all subway systems - that of Moscow.

Not only does the Moscow subway system move the most people around the city annually - over 3 billion trips - it is also the most ornate by far. Don't believe me? Take a look at the Kievskaya station, which is representative of all the stations in Moscow's center.

Now try and tell me you don't want to be served beluga caviar and borscht right off the marble bench that's polished daily by thousands of Russian rear ends.

The Moscow Metro also holds an enticing secret for those interested. Although still denied by the Russian government, there is plenty of evidence to support the existence of a
second metro system buried much deeper than the public one. Built during Stalin's reign, it was intended to allow high-level officials to travel around escape the city in the event of nuclear war. This Metro 2 is believed to connect the Kremlin, the FSB (successor to the KGB), and other government buildings as well as the aiport Vnukova-2, the Russian State Library, and Moscow University. It is also connected to the civilian metro at at least one station - Sportivnaya station on the Sokolnicheskaya Line. I'd love to scope out that clandestine entrance.

Some day.

In Asia, nothing rivals the Tokyo transit system. It's reputed to be one of the most efficient, punctual, and clean in the world. And, from the looks of the map, one of the most serpentinely complex.


Monday, March 20, 2006

The Lion and the Mouse

As far as olive branches go, yours was exceptionally leafless and diseased.

However, it did not fail its task, if indeed it was intended to catalyze a reaction. It's early and I'm dead tired, and my myopic eyes barely strained into focus as I was deleting the clutch of worthless email messages that flood this account daily. Only by a stroke of luck, by which I mean fortunate coincidence, did I notice your email. There is nothing I needed more this morning than a kick to the teeth to get me the fuck out of a molasses-thick torpor.

I don't remember you taking your anger out on me. I don't remember your anger at all. As far as I could tell you were on the achingly painful quest to fit in. Whether or not you succeeded is also something I'm ignorant of.

Of course I'm a coward. Overgrown with fears, I've chosen to stagnate. If everyone were as hyper-aware of the tragic fragility of every passing second, they would lock their doors as well. To take a well-rehearsed step forward would require tossing out the admittedly childish notion that the second I leave Albuquerque is the second that my parents drop dead. It's childish not because it's unlikely, it's childish because it's inevitable. I don't need that pointed out, but maybe I do need a reason to accept it.

I know I must have shit on you countless times. Not because you deserved it, or because I enjoyed it; but I was on the same quest as you. It's dictated somewhere that happiness comes only at another's expense. I apologize for all of that, I've never been without deep sympathy for those who suffered on my account. I was never thoughtless and wholeheartedly callous - which in the end only makes me that much more guilty. That particular moment was me at my weakest, don't hold on to it as a indicator of my character. It's not one.

I've got to go, thanks for provoking me.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Allah was a Liberace Fan

First order of the day, after the morning cup, was to find out not only what the traditional Muslim greeting As-salaam alaikum means but also how to spell it. Two seconds on the internet and I had a translation - peace be unto you - straight from America's sweetheart, Elijah Muhammed.

That issue was quickly settled, but just as quickly I stumbled upon another.

In a nation that has no qualms about confronting social issues, we have grown accustomed to debates about abortion, the death penalty, and the hot issue of the times - gay marriage. After judges across the country began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2003 and 2004, a clear violation of the Defense of Marriage Act that President Clinton (surprise!) signed into law, the conservative backlash culminated with President Bush calling for a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting the practice. Amendments to our secularly holy gospel of jurisprudence are no light matter; these things are usually reserved for monumental social and legal leaps such as the 19th, which gives women the right to vote or the 22nd, which sets the limit on presidential terms. Amendments to the Constitution have historically proven progressive, giving new rights to people who had been denied them earlier (excepting, of course, the Prohibition debacle of the 20s.) In any case, the precedent that could have been set by Bush's proposed amendment would have been disastrous, but much to the dismay of gay-bashers countrywide, conservative might did not prevail this time; the proposed amendment died peacefully on the Senate floor on July 15, 2004 and never even made it for state consideration. Guess they should have been praying harder.

The issue of gay marriage, however, arguably sent Bush back to the White House for a second term, which begs the question - would you rather have a dead straight son or a living gay one? We'll save that for another time.

What I'm leading to is not a discussion of the Constitution or even the legality of gay marriage, but a glance at a tiny and well-cloaked sector of the gay community that you probably never knew existed. Homosexuality among Christian cultures is no surprise to Americans, thanks in part to the surprisingly high percentage of Catholic priests who have earned many times over their honorary membership cards for NAMBLA. Among other religions it is still a mystery to us.

After 9/11 nothing gravitated more attention than Islam. Americans started researching it, converting to and from it, but most importantly becoming aware of the existence of this religion with over 1.2 billion adherents worldwide. What does this religion, with its roots and many of its characters, beliefs, and scriptures coming from the same place as Christianity, think about gays and lesbians? After all, with over a billion people, chances are pretty good that there is at least one Muslim who kisses his boyfriend goodbye before strapping on the homemade explosives and heading off to a crowded bus in Tel Aviv.

And chances are he belongs to an group called al-Fatiha. Founded in 1998 by Pakistani American Faisal Alam, the organization provides social shelter for those who find almost none from their families and religion. "The Muslim community as a whole is in complete and utter denial about homosexuality," he explains. "The conversation hasn’t even begun. We are about 200 years behind Christianity in terms of progress on gay issues. Homosexuality is still seen as a Western disease that infiltrates Muslim minds and societies." Al-Fatiha includes 7 branches in the US and several in England, Canada, and South Africa. Needless to say it's going to be a while before their Mecca and Tehran offices open.

It is a terrible time to be gay and Muslim. Every country that treats homosexuality as a crime punishable by death is Islamic. The current strength of Islamic fundamentalism and its willingness to engage unfavorable social issues with voracious violence poses a clear and present danger to the openly gay. The website for Al-Fatiha has been shut down, perhaps for security reasons. Just today influential Iraqi cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called for a queer jihad, stating that gays should be killed in the "most severe way." This is coming from the man who is considered the highest Shi-ite authority in Iraq, and in the past had advised that Shias not resist the American invasion force and later encouraged Iraqis to vote in the January 2005 election. In other words, he is a moderate. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to imagine what extremists think.

This is not to say your run-of-the-mill everyday Muslim, even in Iraq, is polishing his scimitar for the day when he can run it through the belly of a drag queen. There are huge progressive movements across the board within Islam. From human rights to feminism to non-violence to simply a less traditional interpretation of the Qur'an, there are Muslims hard at work revising their religion. Gay and lesbian rights are still in their infancy, but as more and more Muslims feel comfortable admitting their homosexuality to their families and mosques thanks to organizations like al-Fatiha, the movement will grow.

Until then, even in Western countries gay Muslims will have to contend with leaders such as Dr Muzammil Siddiqi, director of the Islamic Society of North America whose views on the subject are very clearly polarized. "Homosexuality is a moral disease, a sin, a corruption… No person is born homosexual, just as nobody is born a thief, a liar or a murderer. People acquire these evil habits due to a lack of proper guidance and education." At times like these it's important to remember that counterparts have and still exist for Christian gays who have managed to survive, prosper, and laugh it off with a peach bellini in hand. Despite Jerry Falwell blaming gays and lesbians, among others, for the 9/11 attacks, Brokeback Mountain was still a mega-blockbuster.

And of course for every bigot there is always someone willing to help.

Monday, March 13, 2006

Like Water to a Flame

It's often my intention to avoid talking about the mundane deroulement of a day, but in this case I think at least the final hours merit coverage.

Last night I was in the heights eating one of those crispy, delicious ham n' swiss subs at Dion's when I got a call from my dad informing me that the apartment next door (which my parents own) was on fire. The party plans I had were dropped right there and I rushed home to find 7 fire trucks, 2 ambulances, 2 Fire Dept SUVs, a PNM truck, and my bewildered father strewn all over the Coal and Girard intersection. By the time I arrived all flames had been doused and the danger had subsided. As far as I could tel,l the firemen inside were using these last moments to hack up a little more wall, chainsaw another little section of the floor just for the pure absurdity of it all. You know, take out a little of that "I'm so overflowing with existential
ressentiment that sliding down the fire pole has lost all meaning."


Asking around I quickly discovered that the middle apartment had ignited, but fortunately no one was hurt. No one human at least; a cat didn't make it in spite of the firemen's best efforts to revive it. One literally attempted interspecies mouth to mouth, which is about as admirable a feat as any I can think of. Apparently, very soon after the blaze had begun neighbors noticed the smoky smell and alerted the fire department. One of the colorful characters from across the alley woke my friend Mario, I would guess from a dream somehow centered around amassing global political power, and he rushed over with a fire extinguisher. Glory was not to be his that night, as the fire had by then spread from the floor furnace and engulfed the entire front closet, making it a wee bit too powerful for a hand extinguisher.

I inspected the apartment today, and the damage seems minimal considering how bad it could have been. While everything in the closet was lost, most everything in the rest of the house seems at worst smoke damaged. The whole building is without power, and it was pointed out to me that this means if any of the remaining tenants need to shit at night, it's either going to be in the dark or by candlelight.

Minor in the spectrum of disasters, even this humble tragedy provokes quite a bit of reflection. I'm not about to enter into any sort of introspective soliloquy brimming with the usual cliches about the impermanence of life, liberty, and property, and the fact that every wonderful facet of our gemlike existence should be marveled at every waking moment.

You know why?

Because I don't believe that at all. I've got natural impulses telling me those things, but I also have access to this amazing device known as reason and a whole boatload of inductive proof which leads to just the opposite notion - that importance cannot be ascribed to everything at every time without
completely undermining what it is to be important. Feel free to use disasters as the catalyst for profound self-analysis, it's only natural after all; but it's just as natural several weeks later when these reactions have become slowly anesthetized by more immediate and visceral needs, wants, and habits. Like the Six Dollar Jalapeno Burger at Carl's Jr.

There is only one lesson to be learned:
Do not, as I am prone to do, fall prey to the guilt that you are underappreciating your life.

Friday, March 03, 2006

Mo' tea, Massa Geronimo?

It was severeal days ago in the car on the way home from the gym with the radio tuned to NPR's All Things Considered that I decided this whole subject needed a little illumination.

What subject? Read on.

Mardi Gras had finally arrived in the Big Easy, and one question weighed heavily on the minds of Americans who watched Katrina swallow New Orleans in 2005 with as much fervor as they did the OJ Simpson trial in 1994. "Have the drunken revelers been returning in droves this year? Their prostitutes haven't worked in weeks. They need this."

NPR reporter Michelle Norris wanders through what sounds like considerable crowds of the raucously drunk and randy while ethereal tribal drumming pours from the back- to the foreground. This particular celebration in the New Orleans district of Tremaine, she explains, is different and somewhat more focused than those on Bourbon St. These partygoers are in search of the "Big Chief" of the Congo Nation as part of a longstanding tradition in which black residents don handmade costumes which resemble ornate and exaggerated Plains Indian headdresses. These Mardi Gras Indians fill neighborhoods all over New Orleans, although the origin of the tradition is somewhat shrouded in myth.

Michelle Norris throws out the possibility that it dates from the time of slavery when native americans harbored runaway slaves. The black residents adopted the tradition as a way of honoring that fact. Elsewhere on the NPR website there is a speculative claim that perhaps the practice stemmed from early Mardi Gras celebrations, from which freed blacks and slaves were prohibited. Those who could circumvented this by dressing as Indians and the tradition stuck.

Whether one of these is the right reason, or there is another shrouded in the haze of history, one thing is certain - for those who currently celebrate the tradition it embodies a brotherhood forged by the mutual suffering of both black and native americans. Fueled by
manifest destiny, colonial whites plowed through the continent massacring native tribes, annexing their lands, and erecting on them plantation houses with giant balconies from which to examine the waves of African slave labor they had so inexpensively acquired.

European colonists were privy to advantages that made their murderous quest across America possible. They carried guns and disease to which native peoples had no resistance. They were organized and determined to
conquer and convert the pacifistic noble savages that populated the land. Native americans, occupied with their peaceful worship of the earth while peacefully sipping the cool water from the stream, never saw the musketballs coming.

That view is just dead wrong.

It comes as a near-fatal blow to those who still have romantic liaisons with the idea of the noble savage, ignorant of the evil lying dormant within him that was released by contact with corrupt and malicious European colonists, that before Christopher Columbus ever made contact with the first Island Arawak, American Indians were constantly at war. Pre-colonial America was not a unified collective of tribes living humbly off the virgin land, it was a hotbed of regional conflict, bloodshed, and - quiet, please -
slavery.

Not to be confused with what was to come, the
humane slavery practiced by nearly every tribe in pre-colonial America was that of war captives, who were used for "small-scale labor and in ritual sacrifice" according to www.slaveryinamerica.org. In Aztec society, the treatment of slaves was quite different from the European style. Slavery was not hereditary, so a slave's children were free and could indulge themselves in the right of owning property, which included having slaves of their own. Now that sounds a little more capitalistic, doesn't it?

When European colonists came and wiped and their asses with every treaty they forced Native Americans to sign, they also taught them some useful lessons in human degradation. The colonists needed throngs of hands and feet and were paying top dollar ($27 bucks a head!). Even the halcyon natives could not resist the urge to sell off their slaves to the Europeans. This represented a fundamental change in the nature of the slave for Native American tribes; the evolution of slave from
person to commodity.

The colonists could not satisfy their colossal desire for labor from native peoples alone and began importing slaves from Africa. By 1750, the Indian slave trade all but collapsed thanks to the saturation of the market by inexpensive African labor. Here's where the lightbulb went on in the minds of the tribal chiefs who realized, "Wow, if they're
that cheap, might as well pick up a few myself!" That's right, Native American tribes owned African slaves.

After the Revolutionary War, it was George Washington himself who encouraged the Cherokees to grow cotton and flax and sent agents to aid in the setup of a plantation complete with looms, spinning wheels, plows, and black slaves. It worked so well that in 1824 the Cherokee had over 1200 black slaves. The Cherokee weren't the only tribe who owned black slaves, as evidenced by the forced march in the 1830s and 1840s of southeastern Indians to present-day Oklahoma - the Trail of Tears - by the American government. The various tribes brought with them as many as
15,000 black slaves.

The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution officially outlawed slavery in 1865, although as we all know outright racism and bigotry was well within the law until, well, the early 21st century. A year later the Cherokee nation signed the Treaty of 1866, which abolished slavery in their lands, which of course were not their lands at all but some arid plot of useless land in Middle America.

How are we supposed to deal with all this? Should we create a Heirarchy of Immorality with white Europeans at the top, Native Americans in the middle, and black Africans at the bottom? But wait, black African entrepreneurs in Guinea made fortunes selling their countrymen to the Europeans. At the peak of the slave trade, Guinea's market of slaves, gold, and ivory was bringing in 3.5 million pounds sterling per year, which is no paltry sum in the 19th century. The process of choosing who goes where in this Heirarchy is riddled with historical caveats. Are we resigned to come to the appalling conclusion that well within all of us is the willingness to abandon our moral convictions when it comes to making a quick buck?

Aut more importantly, who are the Black Indian revelers at Mardi Gras supposed to listen to now?

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Chicken and Beef

While preparing a tuna sandwich today, I started thinking about chicken fried chicken.

Why does it have such a strange name? The answer of course is that originally there was fried chicken which someone upgraded by using steak, and thus the new moniker
chicken fried steak was invented. Chicken came back into fashion thanks to its relative healthiness, and the name underwent another transformation to chicken fried chicken.

Who cares?

I started wondering why there never existed
chicken fried pork or chicken fried turkey or chicken fried cornish game hen. Western cultures have grown to adore only two meats, beef and chicken, above all else, which begs the question - why? History could just as well have seen the hind flanks of the gazelle processed oh-so-carefully into a Big Mac and forget Chicken McNuggets, we could have been dipping Pigeon McNuggets into that tasty honey mustard sauce.

The most likely reason we love the cow and the chicken is they are slow and witless animals. Nothing is easier to run down and spear than a 1500 lb heifer. Killing a gazelle requires, well, cheetah-like speed and agility. We're just not up to it. Even turkeys are pretty hard to catch, they can fly and roost in trees, unlike the sedentary, earth-loving chicken.

Maybe if we'd never developed into bipeds and could hunt on all fours? Things could have been different, but we're probably better off - imagine having to pay twice as much for shoes.