confusion

Since today is Independence Day here in America, the first since the terrorist attacks, everyone will be espousing how wonderful America is and how great it is to be and American. I guess I too have a little patriotism in me because I do love being an American. I want to live in Europe one day, but I will never give up my American Citizenship. I think being in Europe for a year has opened my eyes even more to what it means to be an American, I understand it for the first time.

Every American has heard the “we take our freedoms for granted” speech in one form or another, but it takes something to truly understand what it means, and to understand those freedoms. The events of September 11, 2001 awakened many Americans and many people took more time to think on those freedoms and I suppose many people came to a new understanding of what our freedoms mean. I thought about it and from and intellectual point of view I understood that those freedoms do not exist in other parts of the world—and exist no where in the same way. Soon afterwards I had an experience that made me understand in a much more realistic way what separates America from the rest of the world.

I attended an anti-war rally in England in the fall—not because I was totally against the “war on terrorism” but simply for the experience. At the war rally a man attempted to burn and American flag as a statement. Apparently it is illegal to burn a state emblem in England (those I don’t suppose they would enforce that rule if it had been the Afghan flag.) And the man was taken by the police and the flag burning stopped. This small incident was kind of funny at the time and all my non-American friends mumbled things like “police state” under their breath. Latter on as the day wound down and I thought about it the significance of not being able to burn a state emblem started to really sink in.

I am old enough to remember the Supreme Court ruling that burning the flag was a form of free speech and therefore protected under the Bill of Rights. So had the anti-war rally been held in the US the flag burning would be legal—but not in Europe. That is where the true meaning of those freedoms we take for granted come from, and there is no way to describe that meaning to anyone who has not lived with them and lived without them.

When I was in Greece in December my friend C████ asked me why the “Right to bare arms” is so important to Americans. To him the question of guns is simple—they are illegal in Greece because they are murder weapons. I really could not explain to him why it is important to most Americans to be able to own guns. To say “it is because the Bill of Rights gives Americans the rights to own arms and that many Americans are afraid that if the government takes that right away we will begin a slide down the slippery slope to no freedoms,” does not really capture the meaning and the reason. To C████ the question is black and white, to America it is beyond even shades of gray and is filled with countless colors.

One day at dinner in England I was joking with a girl about American, her pointing out all the things that where “wrong” with America from her point of view and me defending them. At one point I just said America was the greatest country on Earth. She laughed and said “yea, whatever.” But when I challenged her to name a better one she became a little angry and started really attacking America. Then one of the British guys at the table came to Americas defense, saying “no, he’s right—because the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights are three of the most philosophically enlightened documents in the world. To base the government of a country on that is amazing, most of the rest of the world’s been trying to copy and improve on it for the past two hundred years—and failing.”

These events, and many others I had in Europe really bring home what is means to be American, what the freedoms we have give us. Individually many freedoms we enjoy may not seam very important, a few have taken on lives of their own—freedom of speech, right to bare arms, etc.—but our freedoms are more gestalt, it is the whole that defines us as US.

America is the great experiment in modern democracy begun by the founding fathers. And more than two hundred years on we have not fully lived up to many of the goals they set; we have yet to achieve “liberty and justice for all,” or to realize that “all men are created equal.” The ideas may have been born in the Europe of the Enlightenment but the reality belongs to Americans.

My friend R█████ said to me that patriotism is a bad thing, that it is the cause of tribalism and war in the modern world, that humans need to move beyond the idea of the state, that patriotism perpetuates, into a more global mind set before we destroy ourselves. But I think that a little patriotism is not a bad thing as long as it does not blind you to the needs of the world as a whole. The terrorist attacks on American have rejuvinated patriotism in America. In the beginning it was blind patriotism but hopefully people will reflect on what it means to be American and will look at the effect that America, it’s wealth, it’s power, it’s ideas and it’s problems have on the rest of the world. Hopefully people will realize that to be American is to be part of the great experiment, and that the goal of that experiment is the betterment of mankind, not just Americans.

So I haven’t updated in a week or so because I am in NoVa now, house sitting for the Mische’s while they trek around Czech and other parts of Eastern Europe (Brats! I wanted to go!) Convenient for me as I get a place to stay rent free for a few weeks while I try to get a job and deal with paper work at Mason

1. Home…

First of all I have to say that staying at the Mische’s feels like home. The US had not felt quite rite since I got back. Very dull and depressing. I thought it would be a little strange being in the Mische’s house again—for what should be obvious reasons to anyone reading this, but I felt completely at home very quickly. Even thought I am board here a lot as there is nothing to do but wait for the phone to ring (more on that soon) most days, there is just a feeling of home that was not in C’ville at my parents house.

2. Headaches part the first—Mason.

My first headache was when I went back to Mason to get my Graduation paper work in order. I went to the Computer Science Office and talked with the people there who have to fill out my grad application and they said they could not do it because none of the classes I took at city show up on my transcript; Well Duh! I told them that the registrars office will not put them on till the official transcript from Syracuse gets here and that that will not happen for a while because the British exams have to go to an outside examiners board which they won’t do till early July. They said that I would have to wait till all that was done. So I informed them that the grad application needed to be in by June 28, and I had paper work saying what classes I had taken and would receive grades for. That was not good enough and it did not matter because they had no Transfer of Credit Request form on file and I would have to get the signature of all the teachers who would have taught the equivalent course at Mason and that it would take more than a week to get that. Bottom line: I could not file for graduation! So I went over to the Global Studies office and they said the people in the CS department where idiots (in more elegant terms of course) and that I had already filled out the required paper work and they would file it for the transfer of credits. They also said they would call the registrars office and make sure that I would be allowed to file a grad app as soon as the grades came in from Syracuse. So the end result is I have to go back to Mason when my grades come in and file the grad app. Lovely!

3. Headache part the second—Job.

Don’t have one, that’s the start of this headache. Can’t seam to get interviews, that’s another part of this headache. Only good lead I have I don’t really want, that’s a big part of this headache. I may have to take a job I really don’t want if I don’t get some more interview here soon. Or maybe I will just stay unemployed a while longer, which I don’t really like the idea of, but I may turn down the one job I have been interviewed for because I really don’t want it. I need a job! Anyone reading this need a qualified graduate programmer? (Especially if you live/work in Europe!)

4. A little rant…

Last thing I wanted to write about is the “crisis of confidence” in the markets that is the big story right now. An outgrowth of the Enron/Anderson/Tyco/Martha Stuart/WorldCom situation(s) I think it is going to hurt the American economy for years to come in the world view, and weaken the dollar. But we will see what it does, we need to know why it happened. I think there will be a ton of speculating on why, but most of that speculation will come in the form of interviews with “experts” on tv. I think that all these experts will overlook the cause—that it was a crisis born of greed but made passable by the “experts” themselves through the 24 hour financial network TV channels. To flip through the tv today in the US is like attending a investors conference: CNNfn, CNBC, MSNBC, Bloomburg, even Headline news has the 24 hour stock ticker on the screen. When there is no news they have to make up news, a new type of yellow journalism. Where as ten years ago only people who worked the stock market for a living—people who knew what they where doing, had any in depth knowledge of the day to day workings of the markets, today everyone with a TV knows what a PE ratio is. Now the company do not just have to justify their numbers to the market but to the general public. The 24 hour finance channels have given opportunity to the greedy and the ruthless through their fast paced superficial, image driven culture. If all the market news channels picked one company and decided one a story together they could crush any company, no matter how big, or what the company said. Because people blindly follow the guys on TV. Now the guys on TV are discussing what is needed to fix the crisis of confidence, I say we need to turn them off, shut them down for a while along with the news stories on the Internet (not the investments sites, just the yellow journalism stories that go with them) and let the markets do their jobs for a while. Let the people who know what they’re doing do it without the 24 hours scrutiny of the journalist who need a story.

I don’t know if that really made sense but the bottom line is we, in America have turned court cases into a spectator sport and now we have turned the markets into one two. And just as there are player and teams who will do anything to win (take drugs, hire people who are morally corrupt) there are companies who will use every trick in the book to look good, they will bend a rule till it breaks and then bend another till it breaks. Because the pressure is on, and the only thing that matters in the end is the bottom line.

Well, my first trip back to NoVa was quite interesting in a “Can I get out of this Soap Opera now?” way.

• Nasty peoples

My first mission when I got up there was to find Genesis and talk to my old boss. Well I knew Genesis had moved and I had directions so the finding part was not too hard. I talked to my old boss and the president of the company for a long time, bottom line of that; no job for me right now… Oh, well the search continues. Now for the first installment of the Soap Opera. Genesis moved right? Why? Well the place they where renting was too big and cost too much, but how does one get out of the lease? Well one has 70 black unmarked cars loaded with guys carrying big guns and guys in black suite (a la Men in Black!) surround the building one day at lunch and come crashing in. All this because the guy who owns the building, the guy you are paying rent to is sending said rent to “nasty people” who live in third world countries and do not like Britney Spears showing here belly button on tv (or anything else for that matter) and don’t particularly like the way American politicians think. Yes the guy who owned the building was really taken away for sending money to Al Quada and yes the SWAT team and Feds did really surround the building one-day at lunch.

• NoVa night one – Fire!

So after listening to all this in a mixture of “Don’t believe it,” and “Damn wish I was there to see that!” I headed off to meet up with S██████ my benefactor of beds for a few nights. At this point because of the above drop jawing I was an hour late to meet him, so I had to dig deep into my cranium and retrieve the directions to his house, which I have been to once, two years ago. But no fear I got there. Nothing interesting happened at S██████s, but his mom was leaving for the weekend and delinquent brother was told he could not have people over for parties. Then S██████ and I left to go get dinner and see a movie. Dinner was conducted at Cosi’s—aka Xando’s but they changed the name—and was attended by S██████, three of S██████s high school friends, and yours truly. And we even had Tiki Fire for dessert (if you don’t know, ask.) After dinner we saw Insomnia, which while not as good as the directors last work, Memento, was a very good movie. Ok, now here is where the soap opera makes its next appearance. When S██████ and I returned to his house we where greeted by two cop cars. So S██████ asked them what was the problem. Well apparently two of S██████s brothers friends got into a screaming match out behind the house and someone called the cops, who told the nine drunk underage rabble rousers that they could not leave or they would be arrested for underage drinking. They where all trashed! So S██████ and I left again, this time we went to get a midnight (more like 1 am) meal at Amphora’s Dinner.

• Paperwork Schmaper work

So the real reason I had to go to NoVa is this graduation thing. Lots of paper work, needs lots of signatures. Well three signatures and here is the score:

• Beggs: 0 Hamburger: 1
• Beggs: 0 Haung: 1
• Beggs: 0 Luiky-Roy: 1

Yes that’s right, none of the three people I need signatures from where in. Hamburger is my dean; he’s at some conference. Haung is my advisor; he does not come in to GMU in the summer (read no one knows where he is.) Luiky-Roy is my study abroad coordinator, who is in London (didn’t I just come back from there?) Anyway, I managed to get some stuff done but I have to go back next week. In Cartman’s voice: I hate paper work… And I got a parking ticket because I only paid for and hour and a half and it took me and hour and forty-five minutes! Ahhhhh!!!

Ok, so second night in NoVa; S██████ and I went and picked up a couple of his friends from High School, and then met up with a few people we know from Mason and two guys S██████ met somewhere and we all headed to Nation for Sting’s Cryogen Party. The last time I went to a Cryogen party at Nation was like 3 years ago, and it was awesome. They left the air conditioning in the main room off and at about 2:30 when to was close to 95 degrees in the room they shut all the lights in the room off, the stage opened and a row of blue spotlights back illuminated a bunch of drag queens who where dressed like the Ice Queen from Narnia—each time the lights strobed the queens appeared in a different pose, then the music quieted down and one of the queens said, “A breeze is coming.” Then all stage lights went out and the music stopped and the room was suddenly filled with a great hissing sound and the air became thick and cool… then the blue lights came back and the music slammed back to life with a massive trance beat. The room was filled with fog and it even began to snow and rain in the room as a laser show started through the clouds; Everyone was jumping up and down, hands in the air, the feeling was just amazing… indescribable.

This cryogen party was just not up to par… For one the room was not packed, now normally this would be a good thing, more room to dance and all, but for the cryogen party we need massive numbers of sweating bodies to cause the room to become unbearably humid so it will snow… So not enough bodies so not humid enough so no snow! The music was ok, not fantastic but it had some high points. Then there was the way they did the cryogen itself. Rather than use it all a once and create a massive show out of it, they used small amounts of it several times (the first time they used it, I got caught right under the spray, and could not breath, and ended up with ice crystals in my hair and a ice cream headache in the back of my head! Ouch! And no stage show this time. It was fun to go to Nation and while the cryogen was not up to what I have seen before it was a cool distraction from everyday clubbing. But the coolest thing at Nation was the guys selling records and cd’s at the front door—they work with Stroud at Mining Vinyl the people I used to help through raves in C’ville! I will have to look up Stroud and see if he is doing anything cool these days.

Ok, well that’s the quick summary of my trip to NoVa last week, I came back here Saturday evening and did some other stuff… Dinner with the family and drove around with S██████ because he was visiting C’ville to see a friend on Sunday, but not I have a game to pass the time—I bought Black & White to pass the time… Got to go play now…