The most interesting reading I’ve done all day is the transcript of the interview Ahmadinejad gave 60 Minutes last week.
I watched a bit of his speech today at Columbia University, and am not sure what to think. He has been named a top enemy of the U.S., but on what grounds? He really calls out this reporter, Scott Pelley, on buying whatever the government says, and then accusing people based on that.
“…as the representative of the media, why do you insist on the untrue accusations leveled by your government? This doesn’t solve anything. It seems to me it’s laughable for someone to turn a blind eye to the truth and accuse others. It doesn’t help.”- Ahmadinejad
It does seem true that our reason for being so anti-Iran is SOLELY based on what the U.S. governement is saying. While Ahmadinejad does come off very flaky on saying that there aren’t Irani weapons in Iraq, he does say he is anti-terror.
Which leads me to another point- terror is relative. What the U.S. calls terrorism does not constitute the entire list of what is considered terrorism. What about CIA activity, the actions of people trained at WHISC, and other things? Terrorism does not have an accepted definition, and so anyone can use it as they please.
Picture from http://www.ahmadinejad.ir/
Once again, Colbert hits the nail on the head. You’ve probably heard about the U of Florida guy getting tasered at a John Kerry event.
What bothered me the most about the situation wasn’t that Andrew Meyers got tasered (he was being annoying, which isn’t reason to be tasered anyway). What bothered me was how no one there thought it was a good deal. Colbert says it well in September 19′s “The Word.”
In Colbert’s generation, college students were active- taking over school administrations, protesting. Now, they sit back and blog on it. Sure, blogs can be used to instigate change, but not on the same level as protesting.
Check out the clip.
I was doing the reading for tomorrow’s night class (I can’t find the author’s name) and thought this was intriguing. The author talks about how he no longer plays Monopoly.
Sad existence? Maybe… but his point is that he realized that he was being a different person when he played Monopoly. He took pleasure in charging rent to his young children to the point where they were out of the game. He doesn’t have these tendencies normally, and is actually really opposed to these mentalities.
So he realized that he was working within the System of Monopoly. The people playing Monopoly aren’t bad, but they are playing according to the rules of a bad game.
It’s the same with racism (and sexism, etc.)- People may not be racist, but we are working within a racist system. How can we end racism when it is so part of our system?
I was channel surfing while eating my dumpster dived blueberry muffin breakfast. Thought I’d watch the news. Too bad there wasn’t any news. I changed channels every time the “news” about O.J. Simpson came on.
In the time it took me to eat that muffin, I had to change about 4 or 5 times.
Come on, O.J. is not news. He wasn’t even worthy of the news 12 years ago.
Today I was eating lunch with Rich, a person who works a lot with Christian Peacemaker Teams. They’re a group who accompanies people in the midst of violence- currently they are working in Iraq, Hebron, Canada, US/Mexico border, Columbia, and more. They? made news when 5 CPTers were abducted in Iraq last year (Wiki article). One was murdered.
Rich was talking about how they struggle with the use of Constructive Racism when they are working in high pressure environments. For instance, they are planning on going to Uganda in November to accompany internally displaced peoples who are returning home. The presence of white U.S. American people will probably keep these refugees safe as they return home.
So these teams, Rich said, realize they have incredible power and privilege. They are largely white, and have U.S. passports. This can REALLY help underprivileged people as they go through a tumultous time.
But at the same time, does this “Constructive Racism,” perpetuate the power structure more?
I made a case previously that I now am calling the “Superhero’s Question,” about using powers for good or for evil. How does it work when the Superhero’s name is “Whiteman”?
As I work towards doing Socially Aware Media, this is something to think about.
Mmmm… This is great. I finally installed Linux. I was always curious, so when I saw a link on Digg.com for Wubi, I went for it. Wubi made it really easy for me to install Ubuntu Studio, the build of Linux I chose. Somehow Wubi doesn’t make you partition, and allows you to dual boot, which is hot.
My computer has been running for over an hour, which hasn’t happened in a long time, so that makes me hopeful that it will help. I’m really excited, but still kind of confused about installing programs and things like that. My boot time in Windows on this computer is bordering on 8-10 minutes from turn on to opening up a web browser, but in Linux, it’s been cut down to about 2 minutes. That’s definitely an improvement.
Yes, I am a nerd.
This may be partly why I love Goshen-
Evidently, at least one large donor has complained about the stigma against being rich at Goshen.
And then in Welfare Policy class today, we were discussing different explanations for poverty, one being the “Culture of Poverty.” We then flipped it around and talked about the “Culture of Wealth” that has very negative aspects as well.
For me, it’s nice knowing that money isn’t what it’s all about.
old blog, Random Ramblings | James | 
September 24, 2007 6:00 pm | 
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