By Brad on October 17th, 2008
This is an essay by one of my professors that I greatly admire, Corey Anton. A brief excerpt followed by a link to the full essay:
We talk quite a bit about freedom in the U.S., but I’m not sure how many people really understand what freedom is or even how freedom is related to time. Consider this: people often like to reflect back upon their lives and when they do, they often try to imagine that they could have done other than they did. People commonly think to themselves, “I admittedly did X and Y but I just as well could have done P or Q.” In these kinds of reflections people deeply fool themselves; they basically pretend that they were not there.
No fooling: regarding all the things we already have done in our lives, both collectively and individually, none of them can we now not have done. We did them! And also, of all the things we did not do, none now could have been done. We didn’t do them! In a word: the past, as past, is irrevocable. Any other account tries to let us off the hook, tries to lend us what Mikhail Bakhtin calls “an alibi in being.” But we need to advance carefully here. The suggestion that the past now cannot have been otherwise does not make us victims. Rightly understood, we have a beginning sketch of a free will worth wanting.
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By Brad on October 16th, 2008
I added 4 new movie reviews on the Movies page: Eyes Wide Shut, Superbad, Super Sucker and The King of Kong.
These are movies I’ve recently gotten on Netflix, so some of them I’ve seen before.
By Brad on October 13th, 2008
Over the past year I’ve been getting and (actually)reading GOOD Magazine. It’s published every two months in print form and can be found at most large book stores. I actually found my first issue at a grocery store.
They are very environmentally conscious and discuss issues that matter to real people. In fact, they care so much that when you subscribe to their magazine, 100% of the money goes straight to one of 12 non-profits. Yeah, they don’t keep any of it. I had my money go to Kiva. Oh, and they don’t tell you what to pay, you can select amounts from $1 up to $1,000.
It’s a very cool business model for a product and organization that does a lot of good, no pun intended. Check out the latest issue when you’re at the book store, or stop by their website, GOOD.is. Both publications are two of the best designed and well-written sources I have seen.
By Brad on October 7th, 2008
Last.fm is a pretty cool website, it allows you to track the artists and tracks you listen to the most in iTunes and your iPod (my music-listening outlets of choice.) Here’s my top artists and tracks so far since I’ve been tracking (it only counts when a song is listened to entirely):
By Brad on September 27th, 2008
This was a very anticipated debate and I think it lived up to and exceeded my expectations. I was very impressed at Barack Obama’s ability to not only go toe-to-toe with McCain on foreign policy issues, but to even take the upper hand in a variety of moments.
I think McCain played his part well as far as his campaign is concerned. He attacked Obama in a merciless fashion, saying “he doesn’t understand” about Obama multiple times — to the point of annoyance — and pushing his experience to the forefront. Where I think that hurt is that it also showed his age, his possible unwillingness to cooperate with anyone who thinks differently, and it didn’t show a large enough separation from the Bush Administration.
Probably the one thing that stood out for me from this debate the most is the fact that McCain did not look at or address Brack Obama directly at all. He consistantly and adamantly avoided any type of eye contact despite the plea from moderator Jim Lehrer — and the format of the debate — for the two candidates to talk amongst and between themselves. Throughout the night Obama called McCain “John” and looked in his direction while addressing him as “you” and “your policies.” I don’t know how much that will register with the undecided voter, but I lost a bit of respect for McCain because of it.
It think Barack Obama did as well as could be expected, but I also think he went a little too light on McCain. He didn’t mention the Republican majority in Congress for 6 of the last 8 years, didn’t push McCain’s 90% agreement with Bush enough, and did not mention any sort of poll stating the opinion of Americans on the war, which would have been in Obama’s favor. Also his many mentions of agreeing with McCain will be thrown right back in his face, despite each of them having a significant “but…” after them. Those will be blown way out of context but nontheless, they will be used. This is something Barack will have to fix in the next two debates.
I think McCain had the edge in the emotion category with all of his stories. I think people will connect with them, despite the need for some fact checking. Things like Eisenhower’s two letters (no letter of resignation) and Barack’s Afghanistan hearings (Obama is the chairmn of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs, so he wouldn’t hold one on Afghanistan, but he did attend running mate Joe Biden’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Afghanisan once) had major factual errors.
And maybe the most important aspect of the debate: NO MCCAIN FLAGPIN. That communist bastard.
By Brad on September 22nd, 2008
Add Breathingfire.com to your iPhone home screen and you get to see the shiny new icon! Seen here in it’s un-glossy, square form, you’ll get the shiny goodness on your own device.
By Brad on September 22nd, 2008
Sorry I haven’t been very good about updating lately. Not too much different going on in my life right now, but that can be a good thing. School, work, volleyball and trying to sleep are about all I do.
I’m exhausted from the election. I tried to stay on top of every new attack ad, every argument going on, and all the latest polls and maps, but it’s just too much. I’m so tired of arguing my case to everyone, tired of putting too much weight on polls and electoral maps that will change 80 billion times between now and November 4th. I’m not saying I don’t care about the election anymore, far from it. I’m just taking a little break from it for a while. Hopefully the debate on Friday will get me excited again.
Volleyball has been good, and a great learning experience. It’s quite the eye-opener then you’ve beenplaying for 5 years and you find out that pretty much every move you’ve been making has been wrong. So much of how I play needs to be tweaked and improved. I’m very rough around the edges, but I’m so glad to have this opportunity to learn from some great players. Our coach is very experienced in the sport, having played with some of the best players in the world in Hawaii and elsewhere. Some of the guys on our team have been playing competitively for over 5 years and have even extended their school careers so they can have another run of eligibility on the team. It will be exciting when things ramp up near the end of the year.
My fantasy football team is doing ok. I’m approaching a 2-1 record so far (after tonight’s game) and it’s been fun watching games and cheering on my players. I never thought I’d be interested in the NFL but this helps make it more fun. Plus something has to make up for the Detroit Lions. Ugh.
So yeah, that’s life. How’s your life? Leave a comment or send me an email.
By Brad on September 18th, 2008
If Barack Obama wins this election, or even comes close by winning 45-50% of the popular vote, I will be very surprised by our country. It will give me a newfound hope for the people who live here and how far we’ve come. To elect an African-American as President of the United States? At the height of NASCAR popularity (you should know what I mean here without me saying it)? It would be astounding.
If he loses, or loses by more than that, it will be because of this and this alone: our redneck, good ‘ol boy country still can’t stand the thought of a black President.
And if that is proven true, I would be ashamed to be an American.
By Brad on September 5th, 2008
Sarah Palin is a very bad pick in my opinion. It’s great that she’s a woman, but she’s not the first woman vice-presidential candidate as many would have the public believe. Nor is she the most experienced woman in the Republican party. I think it’s very obvious she was picked to sway voters for that reason alone, which is not the right reason to pick someone for that position. Barack Obama picked Joe Biden because he’s the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which helps Obama’s inexperience in that area. Palin does not help McCain in any area. She was the mayor of a 7,000 person town in Alaska where they are touting all of her experience there. She’s been Governor of Alaska for two years, almost as long as Obama/McCain have been on the campaign.
Her policies (text and reference links pulled from Wikipedia):
She has never been out of the country in an official capacity, yet she’s a 72-year old man’s heartbeat away from the presidency of the most powerful nation and army on the planet? It doesn’t make sense and I think is the number 1 reason why NOT to elect John McCain.
(by the way, if there is any wrong information here I’ll gladly correct it.)
By Brad on September 4th, 2008
I’m in a Political Campaign Communications class at my particular University and it’s a great one to be in at this time in my life. I’m old enough to at least begin understanding how things work with elections, to be affected by the issues, and to be targeted by the candidates. I’m also old enough to vote — this will be my 3rd Presidential election, and I’m sorry to say I voted for Bush twice — so any help I can get in placing a well-educated and rational (nod to Dr. Wiese) vote is welcome.
I’m currently watching coverage of the Republican National Convention, hearing side #2 of this unfortunately two-sided election. Earlier I got my long-awaited dose of Bill Maher via Podcast of his show that returned after too many months hiatus. No one makes more sense to me on politics than he does.
I’ve got my TV programmed to quickly switch between the three major cable news networks (CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews) so I can get the overall reaction to things. I’ll also be tuning in to Barack Obama on Bill O’Reilly tonight.
