There’s also the bands who originate in this town, but they usually don’t make it past high school and the others are busy going to either Baltimore or DC to play. After all, there’s no acceptable music venue in town for them to play. The current venues will have one band only. In real venues, there’s typically 3 bands per night. It might be a small crowd on most nights, but that’s generally acceptable. In almost every case, there’s the main venue area and a general bar area for those who don’t want to see the show, but still hang out. There’s options there.

Let’s also consider the type of demographic we’re talking about here. It tends to be people who are educated. Their earning capacity is varied since some will go into non-profits and others will go into more commercial careers, but part of their decisions for moving to an area rotates around what sort of nightlife options are available. If there’s a good venue nearby, they’ll move there. If it’s accessible by something other than a car, all the better. Like it or not, that’s the demographic that’s really desirable. Those are the people who form communities of hundreds, and they’ll spend the money for a quality nightlife.

And I want a cut if someone steals this idea

–Chris

p.s. It would be very nice if the Columbia 2.0’s proposals were online. It looks like GPP proposals on there. Boo on the lack of substance.

As Dave Bittner pointed out to me on Twitter, there is/was a rail line going into Columbia East. While some may point to this as a sign that train service to TC would be unfeasible, I would dispute this assertion by looking at the economics of the old rail line and the new rail line. First, the old rail line was designed to be industrial rather than for the transportation of people. It was built during a time when rail was being supplanted by trucks and this line’s failure is a symptom of that. With the increase in the cost of gas in addition to people’s increasing frustrations with traffic, a train service to TC would make sense. There was also the older argument against trains in that it would increase crime at the mall, particularly theft. Well, let’s look at the potential theft v. the economic impact of saving up to an hour a day off of people’s commutes. I don’t have those numbers since no one has done a study yet, but just pure supposition would probably support my argument.

Underground parking and truck access

My friend John Baldwin pointed out that the problem with underground parking would be the need to scrub out the carbon dioxide from the air. This is a good point, but since underground parking is fairly prevalent throughout the average city, I’d say that the technology behind it is fairly solid. There are two other technologies that can make the point moot. First is just eliminating the internal combustion engine altogether. This is available through electric cars and hydrogen. However, this is not possible in the near term since they are not in wide production at the moment. There is also Robotic Parking Garages that are in use around the world. This would be an expensive prospect, but we could certainly allow the possibility of implementation of this scheme in the future.

Columbia 2.0

There is a new group out there called Columbia 2.0. While I just heard about this group today, I am going to look at their proposals with great interest and see what they propose. I’ll have to discuss them later on, although from a quick perusal of the PDFs on their site today, it seems very GGP in many respects. I certainly appreciate any efforts to improve downtown, even if they seem to be going down the conventional route.

Choose Senility

I recently acquired the domain choosesenility.com. I’m thinkting about turning it into  a podcast for the near term, but I’m going to need some topics and guests. I’m starting the planning stages right now and am working on a theme, so any input or suggestions are always welcome. I’m thinking about bringing in various groups concerned with TC development first to get the ball rolling on that discussion. You can post a comment here, contact me on twitter, or email me at chris [at] chrisbachmann.com.

The residences are a trickier prospect to tackle. There’s the balance of affordable housing, “luxury” housing, and more run of the mill (although those tend to be labeled “luxury”, which seems to mean wall to wall carpeting as well as washers and dryers in the unit). Here, we come into the expectations of whoever you talk to. There’s the expectations of developers to reap a substantial profit. That would mean a maximum amount of luxury residences fetching a premium price. For others, it means “affordable housing”, although we rarely hear what that actually entails. We often hear that the median household income is around $74k-$85k and the median male income around $57k and the median income for females is $40k. We’ll take this as read and really start bringing some numbers into what I would like to see.

Now bear in mind, up till this point, I’ve been talking about the area within Little Patuxent Parkway and Gov. Warfield Parkway. I’ll have to start reaching outside of that area for the purposes of defining where housing would be.

Live where you work… and mean it

Since Glendening was elected Governor in the 1990’s, there has been the phrase, “live where you work” being bandied about as some ideal that we should all strive for. In practice, however, we as a society has fallen short of that ideal.

The main problem is that people with money want to live in a big house with a big yard and the like. At least until they get older and the prospect of going up and down stairs becomes a problem. Then they move to a fancy-shmancy condo to settle down. This means moving to the “country” so they can have their 3.5 acres and move into a house which has rooms that are rarely used if ever. Or maybe the rooms are used to cram in the massive amounts of “stuff” that will sit in boxes for years on end. Let’s not neglect the yards with ample room “to host parties” and “let the dog run free.” Okay, the dog will run around the yard, but there might be a party once a year. So now what used to be farmland that can be used for biomass fuels and food is now being used as a giant dog pooping ground. Way to go for the $4 a gallon gas days! Smart move there despite the years of warning that peak oil was coming and an increase for fuel demands worldwide.

So I’m getting off topic here a bit… The point is, there needs to be a credible alternative to the typical McMansion for your older folks with $$$ and the younger families with genuine space needs and the $$$ to make that happen. That means the area around the lake and possible symphony woods. Given my previous model of residential parking underground and truck/warehouse space below that, we then have negated the garage and basement argument. With the typical residential focused building, Genuine storage needs can take place in the bottom floor where it can remain out of sight, out of mind. This leaves the above ground spaces dedicated to actual living quarters. This would come into 2 types. The single floor, but still significant square footage condos for those who can’t handle stairs too well. Then there’s the 2 floor model that resembles the typical house and townhouse models that people are familiar with and look for when shopping for a place to have a family. Finally, they would have substantial patios and balconies. Ideally larger that your typical Columbia town house. Say 2-4 times the size (assuming it’s feasible from and engineering standpoint).

That’s your premium housing and your $$$ making prospects. Plaster the roof and any available space with some good solar panels, and that even more $$$ in the bank. The management company would essentially become a mini power utility, selling off the power to the tenants to prepare for the next time the panels need to be replaced and selling the rest to the utility company so it can go to places that do not have the benefit of direct sunlight. What sane, young couple looking to have kids wouldn’t jump at the chance? That’s diaper money and then those kid’s college funds.

This area would also be the closest to the train station along with the moderate housing since not every resident would work in TC, so to make the area appealing, proximity to the train would be essential.

Moderate housing

For the more commercial sector of the overall development, we would have our more moderately priced housing. That’s the place for the young professionals and families without so much $$$. I’d personaly price these around the median incomes. Money could still be made, just not boatloads per unit. There would still be the 2 types mentioned above (just not as nice) as well as 2 more types of units. All four types would have a patio/balcony the size of the typical Columbia townhouse. Keep in mind, these are places where people will want to live.

The two additional types of units would be your typical 1 and 2 bedroom apartments/condos. This would allow for the typical young couple, 2 friends rooming together, and the typical single person living alone who is at or above the median income level. Once again, it would be living where you work (ideally), so having these near the majority of the offices would make sense.

Once again, like the luxury housing, we’d solar the heck out of the space and make some $$$ for the community association and the residents.

Affordable housing

In the area where the majority of shopping, restruants, nightlife, etc. would be located, we would have the majority of the affordable housing including section 8 housing and the like. This would consist of the typical 1, 2 and 3 befroom condos/apartments that really provide the basics and the balconies would either be small or non-existent. This would be meant for those who work at the shops and restrauants as well as entry level positions within the corporate area and students looking to get out of mom and dad’s house. Since this demographic would typically be young people, they would also be near the majority of bars and clubs and would not be driving home. Particularly driving home drunk.

This area would be the farthest from the train station since the probability of them using mass transit would be unlikely. This also gives us the added benefit that if there was some theft or trouble in the shopping and leisure area, that there would be enough time and distance to apprehend the perpetrators before they can hit an easy way out of the area.

Mixture of housing

We probably could, and maybe should, intersperse different flavors of housing throughout the overall area to encourage the mixing of socio-economic strata, but the general distribution would be as I mentioned above.

That’s it for today. The generalities are now out of the way and I’ll need to start getting into some finer topics, which will necessitate some thought. Stay tuned!

–Chris

I realize that it’s a tough problem to tackle. It is a huge draw to TC and in a lot of ways, the economic engine that makes TC as prosperous as it is. However it’s isolated from the other attractions downtown. The tricky part is how to merge the mall area and the rest of TC into one area. I’ve spent a few years thinking about how to remove the behemoth and integrating that into a true city center. For most of the proposals that I’ve come across so far has neglected something important. The area below ground line.

The underground

The area below the ground is an untapped asset that can really make a lot of things possible. I’m not sure how far down we can go, but we can place several things down there and open up the rest. The primary idea is to use that area for car parking for residents and truck loading areas. It’ll get the trucks off the main streets. give them plenty of room to move around, provide some warehouse space, or even provide space for artisans and construction crews to ply their trade in a relatively safe space. We can also use some of this space for nightclubs where the sound could be isolated from the rest of the community. More importantly, it can provide space for all of the mechanics of the heating/cooling systems, some power distribution (need for blast proof walls, ceilings, etc. necessary to allow density while still being safe to those around it. See this article about The Planet - Houston) as well as data center space for the corporations at TC. This is particularly advantageous when we start considering geothermal heating.

Geothermal heating is a technology that uses the temperature in the ground to heat and cool spaces above ground. This is an incredibly efficient system as compared to the air cooling systems already in place. Basically, the ground remains around a constant 50-60 degrees. Pipes are run below the ground and liquid is run through the pipes. The ground cools or heats the liquid to the ambient temperature of the ground then it’s brought to the surface. The primary benefit would be to cool the power systems and the data center spaces, which would be the primary beneficiaries of the system since they’re critical pieces of equipment where overheating could be dangerous. The secondary beneficiary would be the shops and restaurants on the ground level, where there tends to be a significant amount of heat generated from lights, stoves and the like. The rest of the available cooling could be used for the office spaces and residential units located above the shops and restaurants. This might need to be supplemented with air based heating and cooling units on the roof. Since it’s a relatively simple system and uses little energy, that’s money in our pocket.

This also brings up the issue of park land, with geothermal heat pumps below the buildings, that’s a lot of heat put into the ground. Since it only works when the ground is relatively cool, we need space for that to dissipate. That’s where park land comes into play. Park land is not only essential for the well being of people, but it’s necessary of the well being of our cooling systems. If we need to route a secondary system from the parks through the building cooling systems, that can easily be done by utilizing the area underneath the paths. This is another reason to leave Merriweather Post alone for the most part.

All above ground

The shopping area could then be spread out over the entire area. This would probably be primarily outdoor, although a certain portion could be made indoors. For any indoor facility, the area above ground should be accessible by pedestrians and select vehicles to enable access to the office and residential developments. The indoor facilities would also have to be de-emphasized by not having the entrances at ground level, but sunken down into the ground level. Probably halfway down the height of the overall height. If the overall height of the stores is 20 feet, it would be sunken down 10 feet. I would limit this to one story. For department stores, who are typically 2 or 3 stories, one floor could be below ground and the other(s) would be above ground.

Visitors parking to the area would be supported by parking garages on the edge of TC to ensure that the actual shopping area would be car free except for private security and county police, as well as VIPs who, due to security concerns, may need to be driven to a particular entrance. We would try to minimize the later though to extreme cases only. Since the nightclubs would be underground, security surrounding the bands would be handled there. Since the train station would probably be on the outside of TC (I would guess near Merriweather Post) we would have an enclosed, raised people mover to enable fast movement from one side to the other. That would minimize complaints about having to walk “miles to get to the station”. Plus a benefit would be that it could be mildly heated and cooled so the commuters would feel comfortable using it year round.

Finally, within the public realm of the TC overhaul, there would be an old fashioned city square that could be used as a secondary focal point in addition to the main lakefront area. If kids are going to hang out, they would tend to hang out there. They could be watched, subtly, so that if anything really is going on, action can be taken. Otherwise, just left alone for the most part.

In my next installment, I’ll begin to discuss the private spaces. Stay tuned!

–Chris

Case in point, a little over a decade ago, I was at a bar in northern California and I was talking to a bunch of people. One person I knew from DC and another from New York. The rest I didn’t know. However, one person in the group asked out of the blue, “Did you grow up in Columbia?” I answered in the affirmative and it seems that this person went to Wilde Lake and we had about 10 friends in common even though we never ran into each other before this. It seems that he could just tell that I was from here. There’s a particular quirkiness that we all exhibit. I mean, just look at Ed Norton… sorry Ed… not really…

I have heard people who grew up in and around Baltimore, and they look down on Columbia because it’s “plasitc” and “fake”. This usually happened at the Ottobar, Goodlove, Fletcher’s or some other such place. I start pointing around the room at roughly a third of the crowd and say which high school they went to, sometimes what neighborhood they live(d) in. And many of those people were either the DJs, band members, or just the “faces” of the scene.

I have heard people around DC and they look down at Columbia because it’s not Montgomery of Fairfax counties, which are “wealthier” and they’re the place where “people really want to move to.” Then they point out a few famous people who came out of there as proof that they matter more than Columbia. (Although we do have Greg Hawkes, who was/is pretty damn awesome musically an mildly influential to me. I didn’t even know he was a HoCo boy until I met someone who knew him in High School.) All of their arguments were attributable to image and braggability. Then I start pointing around the room at roughly a third of the crowd and say which high school they went to, sometimes what neighborhood they live(d) in. And many of those people were either the DJs, band members, or just the “faces” of the scene.

And that was usually (but not always) a different group of people. all of the “freaks” and “weirdos” that came out of this town would easily be 500+. That’s more than the capacity of Nottingham’s (a.k.a. Snottinghams) and certainly Sonomas. And that’s just people around my own age! What a wasted economic opportunity. What a wasted cultural opportunity. I ask those who moved to either Baltimore or DC and they cite four usual reasons:

1. In Baltimore, housing is more affordable.
2. There’s more to do to do in the City (a better nightlife).
3. In DC, you can get around without a car.
4. The suburbs are just uncool.

All four issues are addressable. We need a town center that is like a city. Shopping, a grocery store, mass transit oriented, entertainment oriented, and plenty of places to just hang out. From there, the village centers can act as hubs for more specialized purposes. You know what you want to do, you know where to look. And if we have a decent enough density, that will solve the problems of the younger people moving away. Let’s take it point by point.

Town Center

Town center needs to be the hub of everything. Therefore, all points need to lead to TC in some way.

It needs to be our mass transit hub. With the growing environmental crisis and the idea of peak oil being a distinct possibility (I’m not a good judge of that topic, but I’ll assume that it’s true to be on the safe side), and road congestion becoming a major headache, we need a mass transit system that does not focus on roads. That means trains. Whether it’s the traditional iron rail or a new fangled maglev system, it needs to be a practical alternative to the car, but a symbolic one as well. That and trains are just really damn cool. If we’re smart about it and plan ahead, the space above the tracks can be solared out. The trains can run on that power, excess can be sold to BGE, etc. This would connect Baltimore and DC (or maybe Silver Spring?) through TC. Robots could additionally be used for cleaning of the panels and flagging problems that need to be inspected by a human, reducing some costs involved with maintenance. Excess power would be sold to BGE and that would be used for building rail stage 2 (to be discussed later) and eventually subsidized rates for those that need it. This is not something that can be pushed somewhere else. TC is the jewel of the crown. That needs to be the first impression and our best face forward. Office parks along with park and rides do not qualify.

TC also needs to be our corporate center. It needs to remain the financial center, legal center, and where we the premier corporations based here are located. We do a fairly good job there, but we can do a little better.

Finally, TC needs people. We have the town houses and the garden apartments, but they really look cheap, bland and boring. It’s either adequate housing or just ill planned. And no place for the young and single. I’ll get into that in Part 2.

–Chris

Thanks to @JessieX and @SpiralEyes for the talk that inspired this series.

While I certainly applaud the “Choosing Senility” sticker mod, I personally decided that a more literary reference was in order. In The Illuminatus trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, they used the word fnord, as Wikipedia entry describes it, “Fnord is the typographic representation of disinformation or irrelevant information intending to misdirect, with the implication of a conspiracy.” Ah. That’s the ticket!

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s a conspiracy to affect any sort of meta change that degrades our society in any kind of devious way. On the contrary, I think the people at the library are well intentioned people who really want to try to make Howard County a better place to live. However, like I pointed out with a previous post, they may be having the opposite effect on our fair city and county. Since the original post last April, I’ve been getting a fair amount of positive comments in person as well as online. Obviously, I’m not the only person who feels this way.

Bear with me for a while.

I’ve recently been reading Nixonland by Rick Perlstien on my Kindle. This book chronicles the life of Richard Nixon and his affect on American culture. One of the key themes was Nixon’s Orthogonian Society.

[The] Othogonians, was for the strivers, those not to the manner born, the commuter students like him. He persuaded his fellows that revealing one’s unpolish was a nobility of its own. Franklins were never photographed save in black tie. Orthogonians wore shirtsleeves. “Beans, Brain and Brawn” was their motto. He told them orthogonian - basically, “at right angles” - meant “upright,” “straight shooter.” Also, their enemies might have added, all elbows.

Perlstein, Rick. Nixonland: the Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008. Page 22

What Nixon spent his life fighting was the elites of his youth who knew what was best for the country. Stephen Fry recently discussed a similar phenonomon on his blog and also on his latest Podgram. But that’s a tangent, however recommended reading/listening it might be.  The point is that Nixon managed to convince the masses that the elites don’t really have their best interest at heart, but he does since he’s one of them. Orthogonians Unite! and all that. Throughout the 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s, Nixon cultivated that attitude and managed to convert the lower classes to identify as Republicans. Now, those still on the left continued to work in an intellectual frame of mind, and therefore, became the elites as well in the mind of the blue collar people. The result of which was that crassness was, in a way, celebrated.

I can certainly understand this feeling. I was a nerd in high school as well as a Sci-fi and anime fanboy. If I ever revealed my passions, my contemporaries made fun of me and some even tried to beat me up. It wasn’t until I started attending Otakon that I really began to celebrate my own geekdom openly. Here were groups of people like me. I was really part of society. I imagine that most working class people probably felt similar feelings. Here’s a guy in power who’s one of us.

With this crassness, the younger members of the left brought their own form of crassness. Talks of revolution. Overthrowing the establishment. Everything that the orthogonians held with contempt. With that expression, it was met in kind by the new left. Harrasment of soilders returning from ‘Nam and the like. This continued to spiral out till today with each side saying that they know what is best for the other.

In a recent post, Aaron Brazell discusses some of the recent flame wars within the bloggosphere. Godwin’s Law is probably a phenomenon of this evergrowing crassness within society. “If you don’t agree with me or see the world the same way I do, then you’re a fascist!” I’ll admit I’m guilty of that too, but it’s usually to people who truly are fascists in the Mussolini definition of the term so it’s not entirely a baseless insult.

Which brings us to “Choosing Civility”. I already did my review of Forni’s hissy-fit earlier, so I won’t go into that, but the overall campaign needs to be addressed. This is merely a localized manefestation of “I know what’s best for you” attitudes that tend to perpetuate crassness of society rather than engaging in a discussion of proper behavior which tends to build community as well as understanding on both sides.

As I was listening to WAMU this morning, I was listening to the Diane Rehm show. In the first hour, Diane was interviewing Maggie Jackson and Rick Shenkman on the lack of critical thinking in the current crop of students. This was a fairly interesting show, but with my current musings, I couldn’t help but think about the presenters in terms of “knowing what’s best for others”. While they certainly had their points I really must think about what it is that they’re doing about it. Really, what are they doing about it? They wrote books and they’re being intereviewed, but are they involved locally? Are they getting people of similar thoughts involved? i’ve heard from my elders about similar themes, but are they trying to some up with solutions? I rarely see that either.

I think we need to begin a dialog about what civility really means. What does it mean to be a thoughtful person? What does it mean to be an informed person? What does it mean to be a member of a community? I’m not sure myself, but I think we need to get beyond the current mode of thinking and get down to some action. I don’t know what it’ll take and I’m open to suggestions. More on this later.

I bring this up because of my previous post concerning P.M. Forni’s Book Choosing Civility. Here in Howard County, the library has been passing out these magnetic bumper stickers supporting the civility campaign. Using the now published research, could these bumper stickers be considered an expression of some subtle hostility? Like Forni’s book (from here on, it’ll be referred to as Forni’s hissy fit), it would certainly seem to suggest that it is the case.

I’ll certainly have to muse this new data and work it into some workable form. More to come.

–Chris

As I was reading my usual RSS feeds last year, I noticed the post from Boing Boing concerning the movie “Zeitgeist”. The post contains a review by Jay Kinney on the film along with a critique of how it was done as well of a laundry list of the film’s shortcomings. While certainly on the mark, I’d like to comment on it a little more. First, let’s watch the video so we’re all on the same page here.

Pretty trashy, eh?

While I’m sure we all find the usual conspiracy theories pretty silly, I feel like they still talk to something within us and within our society that I feel like addressing.

It starts off with some choice quotes from various gurus promoting a peaceful view of the world, then flashes a series of war images to throw the viewer’s sense of balance off. After a series of rants about how we’re being lied too, it winds into Part 1 of the film. This part is fairly straight forward. It tells the story about how Jesus is merely a retelling of the old stories of Horus, Mithra, et. al. Nothing that Joseph Campbell hasn’t already pointed out more eloquently. For further reading on that topic, I recommend The Hero with a Thousand Faces. I think that this is meant to throw the casual viewer off their religious foundation in preparation of Part 2.

This part concerns 9/11/2001 and laying into the inconsistencies of the official narrative of what happened on that day. While I don’t think that I can credibly affirm or repute any of the content presented to any qualitative degree, it seems to me that the producers of the film are once again trying to take a common experience and throw the casual viewer off center even more. In other words: they’re trying to weaken the viewer’s foundation of the world.

Part 3 presents the meat of what they’re trying to accomplish. After softening up the audience by telling a story about the powers that be lying to them, the producers shape a world view that we as citizens are being controlled and manipulated and are largely powerless over our own lives. Before I continue, I need to get this out of my system…

Phew! That’s better!

Like what they accuse the government and Christianity of doing, they are also doing. They are using fear and paranoia to accomplish a change in a person’s viewpoint. They are trying to suck the viewer into accepting the premise that we are serfs and a small group of people are our lords. Despite the high idealism at the end, it doesn’t really provide a map to counteract those forces.

This is something that I really try to fight against. While the filmmakers certainly have some valid points and questions, I really feel that their presentation is just as harmful. While we continue to live in a fear based world, we will never progress as a society. What’s in the past is in the past. The question is what do we do today? What about tomorrow? What about a month from now? Or even a year from now? We all have a responsibility to move forward openly and honestly. That is the type of world that I want to live in. it starts with each one of us. It spreads from me to you. From you to another. And so on. Not from some person on a podium or from some film. It’s personal and intimate. With that, no “one world government” has the power to control us.

–Chris

I remember that when I was in high school, race relations were still tense. Even here in Columbia, MD, there was a tension between the races despite our more open attitudes. I remember when Neo Nazis were running around and being bold about it. I remember the race riots of LA on TV. I remember seeing Do The Right Thing in the movie theaters as well as the conversations that followed. And even within the past several years, I have seen its more subtle forms when people mock gangsta rap and hip-hop culture in general for not conforming to proper society (read: the way white people do things).

How refreshing it is to see Barack Obama win the nomination of the Democratic party.

I’ll admit it, I have a bit of a man crush on the guy. He speaks the way I would like to speak. He’s articulate and is able to take a stupid little panic attack and transform it into a real issue that needs to be talked about. it happened during the Rev. Wright controversy. It happened with William Ayers, formerly of the Weather Underground. It happened when McCain tried to say that Obama doesn’t support the troops, and Obama quickly pointed out about McCain’s lack of the ones who come home as well as misstatements over Iraq.

This isn’t meant to demean HRC or her campaign, but she and some of her supporters, but it’s interesting to see the reactions made when it become evident that Obama was going to be the nominee. I feel saddened by this reaction. I’ve certainly had similar reactions if HRC would have been the nominee, but for me, it’s a reaction to her as a canidate. Not because she’s a woman, but because she seems like she feels entitled to the nomination. I’m not a fan because her behavior and policy stances are keeping alive the sense of fear, fake patriotism and fake machismo. HRC represents the establishment that hasn’t gotten us quality health care for all. HRC represents the establishment whose foreign policy has exacerbated the Islamic Fundamentalist crisis that we face today. She represents idealism over process. She represents meaningless platitudes over substance.

Obama represents a new way of viewing the world. Healthier and more hopeful.

Since September 11, 2001, I’ve had a constant image in my head. You’ll see it on the left. It’s a scene from Chicken Run where the chickens simultaneously panic. While I know it’s a little out of context, it’s been my primary analogy of the establishment’s reaction to terrorism, Iraq, Iran, South Korea, anthrax, SARS, bird flu, liberals, liquids on airplanes, shoes on airplanes, etc. “Iraq poses a serious and mounting threat to our country. His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon, was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/29/03. “Probable Democrat presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black MUSLIM from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white ATHIEST from Wichita, Kansas.”

I’m tired of that crap. It’s time to move onto something else. It’s not HRC. It’s not McCain. It’s Obama.

I talk to Republican friends of mine who really like Obama. To them, he represents a sane, rational approach to the world. Some Evangelical Christians love his dedication to community and social work. I think we can live without Harriet Christian and her ilk. The golden days are always in the future as long as we work for them with caring, compassion and being inclusive to those not already in our ideology circle.

Let’s get moving to really make things better. Obama will make that possible.

–Chris

******

By the way, when I checking my sources today, I came across this article today. Certainly a post that I enjoyed reading.

What first stuck me about the book Choosing Civility was that it started out just fine. It basically said, “Wouldn’t it be great to be nice to people for a change?” to quote the late Douglas Adams. However, there was something that didn’t sit well with me. Perhaps it was the tagline of the book, “The Twenty-Five Rules for Considerate Behavior”. I don’t know about you, but for me, whenever some says “rules” I tend to run away. Rules are dictating behavior or ways of thinking. In a sense, it’s what the blue collar conservatives complain about when talking about “those liberal elites” or “the PC brigade”. It’s what people rail against Columbia about when they talk about what they can or cannot do to their house. Nevermind that it’s really making people to go through a process and talk about renovations and so forth. But then that’s another story.

Getting past my mentality about the title, I got down to really considering what it’s saying. As I said, it started off nicely. It was talking about being polite and courteous to those around you. That’s all very nice. I like to say “please” and “thank you”. I like holding the door for someone. I even make sure that I use the right fork with dinner. (A little sarcasm here, but what the heck.) What really got me as I read further and further into the book was that it was not so much about an etiquette guide a la Miss Manners, but a tirade against what the author sees as improper behavior intruding on his own private space. It’s almost as if he’s telling people how they should behave to conform with his view of the world. As if he’s saying that he’s right and the world would be a better place if people just do as he says.

To me this is the paramount of uncivil behavior. It’s the arrogance of Forni that turns me off. It’s the arrogance of the “Choose Civility in Howard County” campaign that’s perpetuating the problem of an ever increasing uncivil world. As a child, I read Aesop’s Fables, Mother Goose (even the Richard Scarry version) and the other parables concerning the world and more importantly, behavior. The bible can even be classified into this category. The problem is taking what is written as the absolute, unbending truth. What the childhood stores taught me was to come to my own conclusions about what’s right and wrong. The stories treated me like an adult in some sense. Choosing Civility teats me like a child that needs to be told what to do. How uncivil of them.

Watch out for some newer updates in the next few weeks. I’ll be talking about the “Choose Civility in Howard County” campaign and my review of the Amazon Kindle (I ordered on March 1 and I have a ship date from April 14-21). And of course, if i feel so inspired, I’ll post about anything else on my mind.

In Chickie’s and Pete’s restaurant and sports bar in Philadelphia, John Fernandez, a chiropractor, said Obama must have known what Wright was preaching. “How can you be that tight and not know or share some of those opinions? I was leaning toward him a little bit, but that took it over the edge,” Fernandez said, hollering to be heard over the din of the bar and televised basketball game.

“You got to go to another church, or you share those opinions.”

How interesting that we have progressed to this point where the Church we go to defines who we are rather than vice versa.

Let’s take a look at the role of Church in early America. While it is true that many of the original colonies, especially in the New England colonies, were founded by religious groups seeking refuge in the New World, the entire community was not as uniform as one would suppose. There seems to be 2 threads of religious thought in the United States. There’s the conformist attitudes of the Fundamentalist and Calvinist ilk, and then there’s the non-conformist attitudes of the newer brand of American protestantism, such as the Congregationalists. In other words, there is a group where people come to church to subscribe to an ideology and another group who attends a church for social reasons as well as debate on scripture and the nature of God and spirituality.

Take a moment to put yourself in the mindset of a person in a typical small town. You may be a farmer or even might work in the local town. Think about the number of people you may encounter withing any given day. Not exactly a grand social event. There’s no telephone to call up your best friend. There is the postal service, but that takes a long time to send letters back and forth. There may be others on the same farm, but they are usually family or at least the same people day in and day out. And then there are your immediate neighbors. You might run into them, but probably not unless you make an effort to go over and visit in the evening. You might make a trip into town and see people, but there really needs to be a good reason to do that since that take you away from the farm work that needs to be done before it gets too late. Take that kind of thought process and take it into the town. So in the town, you get the occasional visitor, but the town is pretty sleepy in general. There are the occasional gatherings, but it’s primarily on the weekends that you get to see people. Especially on Sundays. That was the day when everyone came into town to go to church. It was a more social occasion rather than for religious purposes, although I certainly don’t want to discount that aspect in the least. It was the best opportunity for people to gather and talk about things that mattered. Status of the harvest, what’s going on in people’s lives, politics and spirituality. Given that no one is ever really conformist, there are bound to be discussions on theses subjects and even debates. There may be someone who is leaning in the Evangelical direction and another who is leaning in the Deist direction. But since that single church (as is probably the case with exception of the larger towns and cities) is the only game in town, most people don’t exactly have a choice in the matter.

Then came the Great Awakenings. These events and their revivals brought out many new sects such as the Methodists, the Baptist and saw the split of the congregationalist churches into the Unitarians, the Univeralists and what is now known as the United Church of Christ. As I stated above, this is where people started to go to a church to subscribe to an ideology rather than subscribe to a community; except for the congregationalists, which were, and still are, built around community rather than a shared ideology. I grew up as a Unitarian Universalist and I can certainly attest to that spirit. There were those who held the traditional Unitarian point of view, those who were Atheists, those who were more Christian in their approaches, those from a Jewish background looking for a more open community, and those who took a more Eastern philosophy. All were welcome and I was told as a kid, “I don’t care what you come to believe; however, we will discuss it with you and even challenge it, but it’s still yours.” From what I understand, the United Church of Christ is rather like this, albeit more conformist along Christian theology.

This gives me some rather interesting insight into Obama’s refusal to dismiss his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright and Obama’s comments last Tuesday about this topic. Are we a people who wholly dismiss a person because we disagree with them? Is that the sort of America we want to live in? Do we want to continue to be a divided America or do we want to learn how to live with each other? Obama is advocating a real unity. Not a false unity based on conformity. That’s really being a uniter, not a divider. I find his stance courageous and heartening. That’s the sort of America I want to live in.

Hillary Clinton needs to quit the race!

Okay. Okay. I know there are strong feelings out there towards either candidate, but let’s get down to the real issues at hand. I really don’t care about the Hillary is a woman/Obama is a black dude discussions out there. This is about the principles of the Democratic party. I left the party years ago because I felt like the party has been abandoning it’s principles and real values by talking and acting like Republicans. It takes strength and courage to be a Liberal these days. It takes a strong voice. I know that’s hard because I often have tough time of it myself. It’s easy to roll over and let the blow hards take over the conversation, but conversations aren’t won by taking like them, it’s won by bringing the conversation to a new level. That’s why Obama is so healthy, and why Clinton is so poisonous.

Why is it so important to have a woman in the White House? Is it about feminism? Or identity politics? Does it really make that much of a difference? And how does Hillary play this card? She allows surrogates like Ferraro to play the race card and downplay his message. Just like the Republicans, Hillary can no longer win on the issues, but try to win by slandering her opponent. Kerry won the debates. Gore won the debates. The press got away with saying things like “Al Gore says that he invented the internet”, but did he really? No he didn’t. it was a pure smear campaign designed to make him look unreliable. That’s what Republicans do, not us.

Experience? Did FDR have a lot of foreign policy experience before he came into office? Did Kennedy? Did Wilson? The lack of “official” experience is a non-issue. in fact, it may be to Obama’s benefit since he doesn’t have all of the baggage of the past on his back. It’s that lack of baggage that might actually help us bring some real peace and stability to the middle east. I mean, it’s not like what we’re doing at the moment is really working. I mean, that’s what Republicans are known for, not us.
I’m tired of fear. I’m tired of living in a country where we’re scared all of the time. I was actually considering jumping back into the party because of people like Edwards and Obama bringing the discussion higher. By talking about things that matter. By talking about a world where we discuss our problems and find real solutions. On the other hand, Clinton is pulling out ads like the 3am commercial. Look at Bill Clinton. Look at how he won in ‘92. He talked about hope. He talked about a better America. That worked. That was effective. Fear is for the Republicans. That’s their head space, not ours.

For those of you who do not know him already, Dan was the Singer of the Skankersores, renamed the Ratchet Boys and later, the Ready Steady Go! I still have my copy of the original Ratchet Boys album where Dan is mooning the camera. In a strange way, that really says something about him. Not that he’s rude or anything (but he really was rude, in the ska sense), but just his joyous, playful nature. He always had a smile on his face and could crack a joke with the best of them. Even when I was dark and brooding, he could always pull me out of that just long enough to feel apart of the crowd again. That is certainly a special gift for anyone to have.
Dan also became the main promoter of the DC ska scene. In the late 90’s, when the genre was at it’s peak, Dan started his own band and they quickly became the house band of Phantasmagoria. At every ska show for miles around, he would be there passing out fliers promoting the Rude in DC shows and ska in general. That is dedication my friends. Most people get burned out doing all of that work, but Dan did it with a smile. Best of all, he never took himself seriously. Unlike others in the DC indie scene (Discord anyone?) he always remembered that it was about having fun and a good time. That’s what made his band so special. It was always fun, even when they played badly. The only other band that reminds me of that are the Spitfires United. Probably the best punk band in DC at the moment. And I’m not saying that because they’re my friends or anything.

Peace be with you Dan. I hope it’s fun up there. At least he can now play with Desmod Dekker, Tommy McCook, and Roland Alphonso at the great big ska show in the sky.