California-Where I want to be.

Im just doing this for giggles, guys.

Internet Policy

Being someone in the growing population of people who bring their laptops to school pretty much on a daily basis, the Internet Policy is somewhat of a big deal to me. I think that no matter what you as teachers do there will always be at least a few people that continue to get on websites such as myspace and facebook. I'll admit I've been on facebook and myspace a few times during school-but that's just because it was my main way of getting in contact with my interim mentor. I really have never seen anyone refuse to give up a computer where they weren't dong school work for someone who needed to do school work. I think we are generally a very courteous community when it comes to that kind of thing. I think that if the student is being pretty consistant in getting their work done in all their classes and has their work done that they should be able to do "non educational" things on the computer, and if not the schools computers then just their personal laptops. I don't see any difference between that and blowing bubbles outside as long as the person isn't absolutely GLUED to the computer then.

Since Jen's Comments aren't working..

I know this wasn't supposed to be a post, but instead a comment on Jen's blog. However, her comments aren't working.
I wouldn't really mind reading another Gladwell book. Although I would like some variety I would prefer to read an actual book over articles and podcasts.
Either way I'll live.

The

Nova Express-William S. Burroughs
I love this book and I would recommend it to anyone. I was really excited when I found a first edition copy of this book at Half Price Books. William S. Burroughs is famous for his cut up style of writing and this is one of the first books where he uses this technique. He is said to be the father of the beat generation and was one of the 4 men who started this movement. Nova Express is about nuclear war and is part of a trilogy.
The Happy Birthday of Death-Gregory Corso
Gregory Corso is one of the lesser known members of the beat generation. I didn't know much about him so I decided to pick this book up at City Lights in San Fran along with Dr.Sax. Its a good mix of goofy poems(with some "deepness" shining through) and more intellectual poems. Its nice to be able to sit down and read a poem for just a couple minutes a day.
Dr.Sax-Jack Kerouac
After reading On the Road and The Subbteraneans I couldn't wait to get another Kerouac book. This book is about his childhood in Lowell Massachusetts growing up playing baseball and being Catholic. Its a classic..I'm really enjoying it so far. If you haven't read On the Road you really must.

I normally read a lot of books at the same time. It sure would be nice if we could somehow read our own independent books once in this class. We could still do entries on them too.

The War

As far as the war in Iraq goes I just know a few odds and ends-along with the main ideas. Theres so much going on all the time and a bajillion new things happening with our troops and the Middle East every day that its quite hard to stay in touch. In Poly Rad we talked about how in order to keep an open mind and find the real facts about something without the spin that the media may put on the news, you need to read about the same bit of news from many different perspectives and sources. This way you can look for constants-which would be the real facts, take them and use them to form your own opinions. This obviously could take a lot of time. Which is why I really haven't done much of this, therefore I cant say I really know much.I do think that being over-seas doing what we do is completely wrong. Put yourself in their shoes:say the mexican(or any countries armed forces) decided to take its troops into America because our president isn't the real president, Gore is because he received more votes from the american people, they say they have come to save us and set things straight. So you wake up one morning, go outside to go to school, and they are bringing huge green tanks with machine guns down YOUR street. A man gets on a loudspeaker with a translator and explains that they are trying to help your country because it's being controlled by the wrong person. He says that you are now under a curfew for "security purposes" and that you must go inside, you cant go to school. Most people haven't thought about the situation from their perspective. Half the people over-seas fighting for us are mercinaries hired by our government and paid for with our tax money-and they are paid much more that our soldiers! It also frustrates me that we don't ever see caskets or body bags or much news at all about the people that were killed fighting for us over-seas. During the Vietnam war we honored our heros and recognized them as such. Now Bush doesn't want s to see that.

Either way I  want our troops in Iraq OUT. We have bushels full of problems in America-most of them needing money to fix. We cant fix them if we're spending all our money overseas!

IN RESPONSE..

Isabel- Isabel wrote a post about Obama. One point that she made that I really liked is that people are starting to say Obama is a Muslim and that it's a bad thing, however it could really be a good thing to have someone who understands that way of life and can relate to the people over-seas in office. Our country would definitely benefit from this. What's bad is when people completely eliminate presidential candidates from their consideration just because they are Muslim and we are having diffuculty getting along with areas dominated by Muslims over-seas.

O+C:Materislism

The Beats, which I discussed in a previous post, traveled quite frequently. When they did, they didn't bring much with them, probably because they didn't have much.  They didnt bring much money, because they didn't really have money to spare(except for maybe the ocassional unexpected publishing check being sent). They often only relied upon a letter being sent maybe a month before departure saying they were coming , in hopes of having a place to stay. It always amazed me how they would get by on soup everyday, along with the charity of others. All this while they could quite possibly be VERY sick. They didn't even seem to be phased by things such as dysintary, ghonorea, intense bug bites, rats, and cockroaches. They were so focused on seeing as much as they possibly could in the time they had. They would also be left with only 2 dollars in their pockets. 

I cant imagine most people traveling like this today, let alone living like this. Why would you if you had the choice to live otherwise?? I've come to believe that there is much to be gained from their lifestyle. I've been doing a lot of thinking about materialism lately and heres what I've come up with:

First of all, some quotes that inspired my thinking..

That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.-Thoreau

You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.- Chuck Palahniuk

I feel that this is where society is today, and it's gradually getting worse. We go about our lives accumulating stuff (such as the sofa, drapes, bed, and dishes in the quote). We don't need a lot of the things we buy. But if we buy cheap things, society may(probably) look down upon us? In a society where fast food, and television dominate(amongst other things), WE LOVE INSTANT GRATIFICATION. People love having their food ready-to-order within 5 minutes. We love being able to sit down, push a button, and be mindlessly entertained. It's the same with things that we buy and/or things we think we need. Once we buy something will that really make us happy? Probably. But for how long? Chances are it wont last for very long and we will just end up wanting more, more, more. Something better, improved. 

[Just to get this straight, I'm not pointing fingers. I'm talking about (particularly Western) society as a whole. I'm guilty of all these things just as much as the next person. Im just trying to provoke some thought and self-reflection for anyone who reads this. It is-at the very least-something to think about. ]

I do recognize that it may be hard-especially at this stage of our lives, still being in school- to not be concerned about money and other things that might label you as materialistic. These things are important-to some degree. Plus there are definitely instances where we are required to buy things that we personally may not need but that we are required to purchase by someone "above" us.  I understand.

Why am I even thinking about this? Why would I ever want to do this, and how would I go about letting go? 

Spiritually I think one can grow a lot from living this way. If you don't have as many things to tie you down and occupy you, you can be truly happy. Not only that but I can only imagine that you would be a more independent, self-sufficient person. You would know more about yourself-as just yourself, pure. You would definitely look at the World around you in a completely different way, and become more connected with the things around you. You would experience things differently, and not take anything for granted. You would come to realize the true goodness of people. Through all of this, you would become more knowledgeable. In order to "let go and be free" I think that you would need to cold-turkey it. Start all over with a new beginning. Im envisioning a GIANT garage sale? take the money and travel. on the bare minimums. don't worry, things will work out. I'd like to think that theres a chance things could still work like this today as opossed to when the Beats did it 50 years ago. I'm a pretty optamistic person-it could also be considered ignorance, but when you throw yourselves out there in the world as I'm proposing, as long as you accept that it may not work out-I wouldn't consider it ignorance. Anyway.. 

Lets shift from a materialistic society to one who measure wealth in terms of knowledge and experiences. =)

Im working on this myself..I think once I become more self reliant it will get easier.