Friday, February 24, 2006
Hey sarah...
Hey sister,
Long time no blog....that is completely my bad. So what's up? What are you doing these days? I dont know if u can watch the Olympics but i have really gotten into it as much as i can. Honestly, my life right now isnt that fun and i know u can relate. School is just a pain in the ass. Like why does 15 credits have 50 labs?! Life is a balancing act. Also i'm really up in the air about this summer. I can either A) work at camp again which I love, but my boss isn't going to promote me and i feel like im not progessing or B) i could stay up at school and work and take classes. there are pros and cons to both sides but i just need a push in one direction. Any thoughts? So im here at my new job right now... it kicks ass... like i do Jay-type computer work for, get this.... $12 an hour... yea so im happy... also i donate plasma twice a week for $50. So i'm getting by. Umm what else is new... the superbowl in Detroit was actually a big success... only two people were killed during the week. lol. About the olympics... U.S. is doing pretty good... we are like third in the medals behind germany and norway... some highlights include some sweet ass nerds who are kicking ass in curling...speed skating we had the first black guy to win an individual gold in the winter games... "every girls dream" Bode Miller is kinda sucking in downhill skiing...overall i am enjoying it when i can... anyway wing is supposed to be back on march 5th and ill get that going. alright i should get to work.... hit me back
miss ya sis
Adam
Long time no blog....that is completely my bad. So what's up? What are you doing these days? I dont know if u can watch the Olympics but i have really gotten into it as much as i can. Honestly, my life right now isnt that fun and i know u can relate. School is just a pain in the ass. Like why does 15 credits have 50 labs?! Life is a balancing act. Also i'm really up in the air about this summer. I can either A) work at camp again which I love, but my boss isn't going to promote me and i feel like im not progessing or B) i could stay up at school and work and take classes. there are pros and cons to both sides but i just need a push in one direction. Any thoughts? So im here at my new job right now... it kicks ass... like i do Jay-type computer work for, get this.... $12 an hour... yea so im happy... also i donate plasma twice a week for $50. So i'm getting by. Umm what else is new... the superbowl in Detroit was actually a big success... only two people were killed during the week. lol. About the olympics... U.S. is doing pretty good... we are like third in the medals behind germany and norway... some highlights include some sweet ass nerds who are kicking ass in curling...speed skating we had the first black guy to win an individual gold in the winter games... "every girls dream" Bode Miller is kinda sucking in downhill skiing...overall i am enjoying it when i can... anyway wing is supposed to be back on march 5th and ill get that going. alright i should get to work.... hit me back
miss ya sis
Adam
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
The discipline of heeding
God gives us the darkness to listen to him. It's like when I crawl into bed at night. The stillness and darkness I feel God's presents. I have come to see darkness as a challenged journey. If I can maintian the course I will hear God. If I wine and complain about the darkness I have lost the opportunity forever. Darkness is not longer something to fight but something to surrender to, be broken. Wait on God. Listen. Enjoy the surrender. How beautiful is nature during these times.
Friday, February 10, 2006
Monday, February 06, 2006
PS: WE WANT WING
In the swirl of political charge, the natives have grown restless. Realizing that it is Monday they ask: Where is Wing? Hear them chanting in the background: Wing Wing Wing Wing Wing. Torches around the bonfire and drums beating. We miss Wing. At least give me a message for the people, if there is no wing I may subdue them with a decree from the gods of network programming. Wing has been taken from us.
:)
:)
Picking up on the political undertones of prior posts
Hey Guys,
I totally love your posts about the State of the Union (political sarcasm dually noted) and the budget project that Chris has going on at school. Since you are interested and aware... I thought I would give you some conversation topics for you classes. Below are some observations of democratic (or semi-democratic) happenins in Benin and Haiti.... enjoy.
It's election season and the two countries that I am most in tuned with are holding elections -- Haiti and Benin. While cultural siblings, I find the manifestation of democracy and the general approach to government to be strikingly different.
In Haiti, carnaval (the biggest holiday of the year) celebrations have been canceled. UN peacekeepers are keeping watch with big sticks and mules loaded with voting machines are heading out over the mountains. Elections have been delayed now for several months due to low voter registration and lack of security. Most people are leaning towards the fact that Preval, an Aristide croney, will win and deeply, most people don't care that much. Its amazing to me how on one hand mass populations would rather just be done with the election business so that life could stabilize and on the other there are groups that insight violence and terror. Power without checks and balances can lead to very terrible things. I think in Haiti what we see a lot of is power without organized human capacity to balance that power among various branches of govt leading to democratically elected absolute monarchies who view the population not as constituents but as serfs. I hope that elections pass smoothly and that the newly elected official can at least bring the country back into a semi-stable peace that we saw between 2000 and 2004.
Benin on the other hand is vibrantly anticipating its election. People are glued to radios and televisions listening to campaign information and following candidates as if it were march madness. There were 37 candidates, reduced now to 25. The first round of elections will be held at the beginning of march further reducing the candidate pool to 4. From the 4 final elections will be held at the end of feb to choose the president. Candidates come from the various regions of the country and people hold political meetings to choose which candidate from their hometown has a chance. They then organize to send bus loads full of people back to the village to register to vote. Why go back to the village when you can vote in the city? Easy -- campaigning is down at the most grassroots level. People can't officially take down names and information about who is voting for who, but when you go back to your village to vote, its more evident who you voted for. The organizers can then prove that they got X number of people to vote.
Here's where it goes above and beyond. My friend tells me -- Elections are REAL christmas for Cotonou. Political candidates walk around to wads of 1 dollar bills representing a day's salary to most villagers and pass them out saying vote for me and get others to vote for me. Let me tell you, its way more effective than any radio campaign that I've seen. On top of that, many Beninese do not have ID cards or proper papers in the village -- some don't have birth certificates cause they were born at home. So, you don't really need ID to register to vote... You know what this means?? Political organizers go to neighboring countries -- togo, niger, bourkina faso and nigeria to get clansmen to participate in the election.
In some ways one would say that this election is currupt and flawed -- with non citizen voting and paying people directly for their votes. But is it less democratic than our system where companies and political machines are choosing the candidates, where voter turn out is low and huge sums of money are spent on campaigns. What I see here are constant meetings about how to strategize to decide on who people want to vote for and how to convince others to vote for that candidate. While this is mostly based on the hope that it will mean knowing someone in the govt and being able to get favors, it is still very participatory.
I totally love your posts about the State of the Union (political sarcasm dually noted) and the budget project that Chris has going on at school. Since you are interested and aware... I thought I would give you some conversation topics for you classes. Below are some observations of democratic (or semi-democratic) happenins in Benin and Haiti.... enjoy.
It's election season and the two countries that I am most in tuned with are holding elections -- Haiti and Benin. While cultural siblings, I find the manifestation of democracy and the general approach to government to be strikingly different.
In Haiti, carnaval (the biggest holiday of the year) celebrations have been canceled. UN peacekeepers are keeping watch with big sticks and mules loaded with voting machines are heading out over the mountains. Elections have been delayed now for several months due to low voter registration and lack of security. Most people are leaning towards the fact that Preval, an Aristide croney, will win and deeply, most people don't care that much. Its amazing to me how on one hand mass populations would rather just be done with the election business so that life could stabilize and on the other there are groups that insight violence and terror. Power without checks and balances can lead to very terrible things. I think in Haiti what we see a lot of is power without organized human capacity to balance that power among various branches of govt leading to democratically elected absolute monarchies who view the population not as constituents but as serfs. I hope that elections pass smoothly and that the newly elected official can at least bring the country back into a semi-stable peace that we saw between 2000 and 2004.
Benin on the other hand is vibrantly anticipating its election. People are glued to radios and televisions listening to campaign information and following candidates as if it were march madness. There were 37 candidates, reduced now to 25. The first round of elections will be held at the beginning of march further reducing the candidate pool to 4. From the 4 final elections will be held at the end of feb to choose the president. Candidates come from the various regions of the country and people hold political meetings to choose which candidate from their hometown has a chance. They then organize to send bus loads full of people back to the village to register to vote. Why go back to the village when you can vote in the city? Easy -- campaigning is down at the most grassroots level. People can't officially take down names and information about who is voting for who, but when you go back to your village to vote, its more evident who you voted for. The organizers can then prove that they got X number of people to vote.
Here's where it goes above and beyond. My friend tells me -- Elections are REAL christmas for Cotonou. Political candidates walk around to wads of 1 dollar bills representing a day's salary to most villagers and pass them out saying vote for me and get others to vote for me. Let me tell you, its way more effective than any radio campaign that I've seen. On top of that, many Beninese do not have ID cards or proper papers in the village -- some don't have birth certificates cause they were born at home. So, you don't really need ID to register to vote... You know what this means?? Political organizers go to neighboring countries -- togo, niger, bourkina faso and nigeria to get clansmen to participate in the election.
In some ways one would say that this election is currupt and flawed -- with non citizen voting and paying people directly for their votes. But is it less democratic than our system where companies and political machines are choosing the candidates, where voter turn out is low and huge sums of money are spent on campaigns. What I see here are constant meetings about how to strategize to decide on who people want to vote for and how to convince others to vote for that candidate. While this is mostly based on the hope that it will mean knowing someone in the govt and being able to get favors, it is still very participatory.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
On the banks of the red cedar.....
Greetings from East Lansing. Just thought I'd sit here before my class at 2:40 and see what's up with the blog. Sara, my dear, you must be keeping up with the news in the states. In case you haven't been I'm on top of it. Other than the devastating travesty that took place in Ann Arbor a week ago (MSU losing to Michigan in basketball) and Phil seeing his shadow (f'in groundhogs), news has been pretty slow. The Alan Greenspan era is officially over as chairmen of the federal reserve. Hopefully this Bernanke character has been taking notes because he's gonna have his hands full. Also, we had the annual Bush "Make democrats and war protesters feel like nazis" speech a.k.a the State of the Union. You probebly have heard or heard about the speech so I won't type my hands off here, but I'll just touch on a few points I thought were funny. First of all Bush starts off his sixth State of the Union by honoring the life of Coretta Scott King (wife of MLK who died earlier), but then turns back into regualar Bush by saying for an astonashing sixth consecutive time "...and the state of our union is strong...." basically a cheap way to get the ball rolling ("the state of our union is weak and divided" wouldn't exactly be a crowd pleaser). He then refers back to 9/11 for all of us that forgot that was a thing that happened (kind of a "they started it" defense). I then figured I could recite the rest of the speech of memory so I switched over to the Pistons game (only to see them lose). After the loss, I decided to lift my spirits and pop a bag of popcorn and finish watchin the speech. I turned it back just in time for the smackdown on the dems: "Hindsight alone is not wisdom, and second-guessing is not a strategy." Needless to say, the democratslooked like they all just recieved a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick to the face.
Love you Sara and everybody,
-J
Love you Sara and everybody,
-J
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)