Friday, May 30, 2008

If It's Just Your Heart Talking, I Don't Mind

This is how this Golden Shield will work: Chinese citizens will be watched around the clock through networked CCTV cameras and remote monitoring of computers. They will be listened to on their phone calls, monitored by digital voice-recognition technologies. Their Internet access will be aggressively limited through the country's notorious system of online controls known as the "Great Firewall." Their movements will be tracked through national ID cards with scannable computer chips and photos that are instantly uploaded to police databases and linked to their holder's personal data. This is the most important element of all: linking all these tools together in a massive, searchable database of names, photos, residency information, work history and biometric data. When Golden Shield is finished, there will be a photo in those databases for every person in China: 1.3 billion faces.

Even though it tips the scales at about 11 pages, take a few minutes this weekend to read Naomi Klein's piece in the latest issue of Rolling Stone. George Orwell's nightmare vision of the future might just be taking shape in modern-day China.

"China's All-Seeing Eye" by Naomi Klein of Rolling Stone.

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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Like a Rock In Our Country; Or, How Chevrolet Ruined My Appreciation of Classic Rock

Congratulations to Mr. Peter Pope for correctly naming "Hook" by Blues Traveler as the Tuesday Song of the Day.

I generally shy away from blanket statements*. With that said, I'm pretty sure that if you played a sample of the chorus from Bob Seger's "Like a Rock" to someone from my generation, they would, be it a man or a woman, almost undoubtedly think of one thing: a Chevrolet truck carrying heavy things, tough-looking people, and appearing as though it might win a battle with a Bradley fighting vehicle.

I suppose that's the point of marketing, generating a connection between the message and product in the mind of the recipient, but whenever I hear that song, I cannot, for the life of me, get the image of a Chevy truck out of my mind. I'm a big fan of Pandora radio, and today, as I was listening to the "Bruce Springsteen" station, "Like a Rock" came across the playlist, and even before the first lyrics, I was already humming along "I was as strong as I could beeeeeeeeee."

In that moment, I was not experiencing feelings of anger at Chevrolet or Bob Seger, but a feeling of connection with my childhood, probably not unlike people experience when they put on a vintage slap-bracelet or some M.C. Hammer-esque parachute pants. I felt like I was 10 years old again, at least for a few minutes.

On the other hand, a song I did not hear today has the capacity to make my ears bleed. I respect John (Cougar) Mellencamp, and I suppose I must since he, along with my father, is a native Hoosier, but "Our Country" is the audio edition of the ebola virus.

It has been written about ad nauseam on the interwebs that Chevy has managed to drive the most dedicated television viewers from their HD-infused perches by playing that fateful tune ad infinitum, but it bears asking: Will kids today look back at "Our Country" as wistfully as my generation (likely) does with "Like a Rock", or instead, will a future-school shooting be attributed to that deranged kid who heard "Our Country" one too many times the night before as he watched the World Series on Fox?

If so, maybe we can name Joe Buck and Tim McCarver as co-conspirators for agreeing with the kid to overplay the song, simply to send him over the edge, and that, my friends, would be good for "Our Country."

*Did you see that? I used "generally" instead of "always". Again, shying away from all-encompassing blanket statements. I'm a master.

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Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Make a Desperate Move Or Else You'll Win

I had a conversation this past weekend with a couple of friends on the merits of 24 versus Lost. I had to admit to both of them that I was not the best advocate on behalf of 24 due to my admitted Lost-homerism, but as I began thinking about truly engrossing seasons of television, a specter loomed in my past.

We've all had those times where we've been sucked in by a guilty pleasure television show whether it is American Idol, MXC, Project Runway, or The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. Okay, maybe that last one is just for the geriatric readers of Running Down a Dream, but you get the idea.

I'm sure this will all be dredged at some point in the distant future when I'm up for a job promotion/election/audition for world dictator for life, but I have to come clean. During my sophomore and junior years at ACU, I was a diehard, I mean diehard, fan of The O.C.
There, I said it. Does that mean I watched the entire series until its bitter end?

No.

Honestly, I have no idea how the series ended, but I can assure you of this: those first two seasons (particularly the first) were riveting television. I'm sure that part of the appeal is the legend that I have constructed in my mind, which may or may not bear an accurate resemblance with reality, but I've almost consciously avoided re-watching the show simply so I can remember it the way it was and not necessarily the way it is.

Perhaps it was the fact that we treated the weekly airings of the show as events where we would go to someone's house off-campus (obviously a big deal if you've lived in the life of an ACU underclassman) to watch the show. I can still remember the echoes of Jeff Buckley's cover of "Hallelujah" drifting away as the image of Seth Cohen's sailing voyage to Tahiti flickered across the screen at the end of Season 1. No one moved for about a minute as we all wished Seth well, and then shamefully remembered that he was no more real than the Texas Rangers' World Series hopes.
You can laugh at all of this and dismiss it as the quasi-sappy ramblings of someone who enjoyed a ridiculous primetime soap opera about the life of the beautiful people in Southern California, but I bet if you took some time, you could remember a television show, or season, that meant something special to you, even if you cannot place your finger on the exact reason why.
Plus, it allowed Alan Dale to continue honing his chops as the "evil father figure" Caleb Nichol, which he has now reprised as Charles Widmore on Lost.

That's almost worth the price of admission itself.

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Monday, May 26, 2008

Seven Years of Bad Luck, Good Things in Your Past

Congratulations to Mr. Peter Pope for correctly naming "The General" by Dispatch as the Saturday Song of the Day.

Numbers come precisely from the agile mind and nimble tongue of Frank Buckles, who seems bemused to say that 4,734,991 Americans served in the military during America's involvement in the First World War and that 4,734,990 are gone. He is feeling fine, thank you for asking.
The eyes of the last doughboy are still sharp enough for him to be a keen reader, and his voice is still deep and strong at age 107. He must have been a fine broth of a boy when, at 16, persistence paid off and he found, in Oklahoma City, an Army recruiter who believed, or pretended to, the fibs he had unavailingly told to Marine and Navy recruiters in Kansas about being 18.

"The Last Doughboy" by George F. Will in today's Washington Post.

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Saturday, May 24, 2008

I Will No Other to Follow Me Where I Am Going

Congratulations to Mr. Dan Carlson for correctly naming "Into the Mystic" by Van Morrison as the Thursday and Friday Song of the Day.

In t-minus 4 hours, I, along with the genius behind The Jig and Twig and Garrett T. Oakley, will make my first journey to what the Houston locals like to call "The Juice Box" a.k.a. Enron Field, ahem, Minute Maid Park.
I'm not sure if 41 and Barbara will be in their usual seats behind home-plate, but George, just in case the Rocket's back in town, you might want to keep a close eye on your better half.

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Friday, May 23, 2008

Just Like Way Back in the Days of Old

In my ongoing argument for David Brooks as the best op-ed columnist currently writing, I submit today's offering.

It begins with this:


In 1950, Dr. Seuss published a book called “If I Ran the Zoo.” It contained the sentence: “I’ll sail to Ka-Troo, and bring back an IT-KUTCH, a PREEP, and a PROO, a NERKLE, a NERD, and a SEERSUCKER, too!” According to the psychologist David Anderegg, that’s believed to be the first printed use of the word “nerd” in modern English.


And ends with this:


Barack Obama has become the Prince Caspian of the iPhone hordes. They honor him with videos and posters that combine aesthetic mastery with unabashed hero-worship. People in the 1950s used to earnestly debate the role of the intellectual in modern politics. But the Lionel Trilling authority-figure has been displaced by the mass class of blog-writing culture producers.

So, in a relatively short period of time, the social structure has flipped. For as it is written, the last shall be first and the geek shall inherit the earth.


Needless to say, it's worth a read.


"The Alpha Geeks" by David Brooks in today's New York Times.

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Thursday, May 22, 2008

When the Fog Horn Blows, You Know I Will Be Coming Home

It's an odd juxtaposition of reading material, but tonight I finished At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA by George Tenet and began The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.

So far the year of "Understanding America" through reading has gone quite well and looks something like this:
  • The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam.
  • The Walk West: A Walk Across America by Peter and Barbara Jenkins
  • Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero by (my BFF) Jeff Pearlman
  • The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How We Get It Back by Andrew Sullivan
  • The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty
  • The Eiger Obsession: Facing the Mountain that Killed My Father by John Harlin III
  • Empire Falls by Richard Russo
  • The Fifties by David Halberstam
  • At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA by George Tenet
  • Blood of the Liberals by George Packer
  • Democracy in America by Alexis DeTocqueville
  • Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
I regret to inform you that I have not arrived at anything approaching an epiphany regarding the nature of America and what makes this nation tick, but I can tell you this: I'm enjoying the journey.

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Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Everybody's Out to Get You, Don't You Let It Drag You Down

Congratulations to Mr. Lance Agan for correctly naming "Gangsta's Paradise" by Coolio as the Tuesday Song of the Day.

I'm not sure if Sports Illustrated still has the running feature detailing "This Week's Sign of the Apocalypse", but here's your Running Down a Dream version of "This Week's Sign of the Apocalypse".

This morning as I was sitting in the lockerroom changing, I was struck by the conversation of two Houston businessmen/lawyers/professionals (I'm not sure which, honestly). Usually, in the mornings the lockerroom is quiet as everyone is getting ready for the day, but this morning, these two gentlemen had important things to discuss.

What were these important things?
  • The sky-rocketing price of a gallon of gas?
  • Nuclear (or nuc-u-lar) proliferation?
  • Global Warming: Hoax or the Pressing Issue of our Time?
  • The current political landscape?
  • The win last night by the hometown Astros over the Cubbies?
Nope.

Instead, they were discussing that love-child of the pop culture zeitgeist, that hegemon of the television landscape, that barometer of cool for pre-pubescent females, American Idol.

If you need me, I'll be purchasing large amounts of canned goods, searching for a quality fall-out shelter, and waiting for the end to come.

Good night, and good luck.

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Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Power and the Money, Money and the Power

There was an episode of "The Office" last year where Michael informed Jan that no one at the Scranton office was disgruntled, but to the contrary, everyone was extremely "gruntled".

Well, as has been written about here and here, it seems that William "LaBill" Simmons, a.ka. The Sports Guy, is less than, shall we say, "gruntled", with the World-Wide Leader in sports at the current moment.

As improbable as it seems, he is apparently writing for the moment at...wait for it, wait for it, wait....this site. Yes, that's correct. The most famous blogger/internet-centric sportswriter this side of Grantland Rice is using a Blogger-platform to, in the words of Whitman,"Sound his barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world."
This, my friends, is why I am fascinated by the internet. The playing field has completely been leveled. I have the same method of communicating with the masses as one of the most well-compensated/promoted/connected sportswriters of the current era. Someone could stumble from the Sports Guy Unplugged to Osler's Razor to No Genuine Issue of Material Fact to the Jig and Twig without even knowing which was written by the law professor, which was written by the student, and which was written by a de facto internet mogul.

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Friday, May 16, 2008

We Got Everything You Want, Honey, We Know the Names

Many thanks for the Tex-Mex suggestions and Houston-centric debate in the comments section for the last post.

Tony Parker deals with a minor distraction during Game 5 of the Spurs' second-round series with the New Orleans Hornets.


Similar distractions in other contexts?
  • Hillary Clinton and a cardboard cut-out of mathematical impossibility.
  • Charles Barkley and sensible gambling practices.
  • The Texas Rangers and a winning season.
  • Paris Hilton and self-restraint.
  • Roger Clemens and...well, everything it seems.

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Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Heaven Waits for Those Who Run

Some of the most contentious debates in the history of Running Down a Dream have concerned the merits of various Tex-Mex establishments in the state of Texas.

In that vein, I'm adding another restaurant to that immortal list. I had the distinct privilege of dining at Laurenzo's El Tiempo Cantina on Washington Avenue today for lunch, and let me tell you, the brisket burrito rivalled anything that I have had at Chuy's, Uncle Julio's, and various other Tex-Mex havens.

So, I'm calling on Running Down a Dream readers who have an extensive knowledge of H-town's culinary treasures.

Where else should I go during my stay in this fair city?

For what it's worth, I've already been told that I must, repeat must, make a stop at Lupe Tortilla before I leave near the end of June.

Suggest away, my friends.

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Monday, May 12, 2008

Your Destiny May Keep You Warm

Congratulations to Mr. Ben Grant for correctly naming "Kissing the Lipless" by The Shins as the Friday Song of the Day.

The past few days have been quite busy going from Tyler to Abilene on Friday (to see my sister graduate. Congrats once again, Katie), Abilene to Belton on Saturday, and Belton to Houston yesterday. As you can see from the map located below, I'm going to be in enemy territory for the next 6 weeks, but as I told some friends last night at dinner, in the vein of the immortal "Summer of George" on Seinfeld, I'm declaring this the "Summer of Open-Mindedness".
Does that mean I'm committed to even entertaining the idea that I might become a 'Stros fan? Absolutely not. Would you respect me if decided to think about becoming an Osama Bin Laden fan either? I don't think so.

Overboard?

Possibly.

Am I taking it back under any circumstances?

Absolutely not.

Finally, I'm pleased to announce that fellow ACU alum and BLS co-conspirator Andrew Tuegel has returned to the blogosphere with No Genuine Issue of Material Fact. All of you will fondly remember that Mr. Tuegel formerly regaled the interwebs with his writings at Andrew in D.C., but after entering law school, Andrew has decided to enter the realm of summary judgment humor and English Premier League analysis.

If you can't laugh at that, well, I just don't know what to tell you.

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Friday, May 9, 2008

Secretly, I Want You Buried in the Yard

I'm not sure who this Jason Hunter fellow is, and from the level of detail it could be a Lost staffer writing under a pseudonym, but he's basically written the Lost Theory-manifesto to end all Lost Theory manifestos.

Lost: A Theory on Time Travel


Based on the fact that 1996 is one of the key years in Hunter's "Time Loop Theory" related to the island, perhaps he can go back and remind a 12-year old Justin Scott to enjoy the only playoff victory in Texas Rangers team history a bit more.

Oh, he should also remind me that Independence Day was the last good movie Jeff Goldblum ever appeared in. Just to think, my friends, after Jurassic Park there was so much promise. So much promise.

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Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Maybe Things Won't Be Better Than They Have Been


Despite what you might have learned in English III or Freshman Lit., George Orwell was not the creator of the "Big Brother" concept.

What's that, you say?

No, no, no. It was not the programming execs at the Columbia Broadcasting System either, you reality tv-addled junkies.

Instead, the creators of "Big Brother" were none other than the parents of noted sportswriter Jeff Pearlman. For those of you who do not yet know where babies come from, I'm going to spare you the details on how exactly that came to pass, but it suffices to say that Jeff Pearlman is the personification of the much desired quality of ubiquity.

It seems each time that I, or the genius behind The Jig and Twig, write a glowing review of a Pearlman book, he instantaneously appears from the ether of the interwebs to bestow blessings and kind words all around.

Now, you can tell me all about Google and other things that makes that type of appearing and vanishing act possible in the blink of an eye, but I believe Pearlman's the one that Orwell warned us about. The great all-seeing eye of the internet. Well, at this point it's either Pearlman or Al Gore, but I reserve the right to change my mind on that matter and many others.

I say all that to say this: Mr. Pearlman, if you happen to read this, I, along with my friends, would love to conduct a rudimentary interview with you to discern the basics of the writing business/process, establish the initial interview segment in the long, illustrious history of Running Down a Dream, and do a service to blog readers everywhere.

Jeff, the ball is, as they say, in your court.

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Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Let's Get Together Before We Get Much Older

Ladies and gentlemen, readers of all ages, I have returned from the blogging abyss to ensure that you, my loyal readership, do not waste away for another day in a world without hope, a world without color, a world without your daily dose of Running Down a Dream.

Since it is commencement season for many around this great nation, including my very own sister, this editorial from P.J. O'Rourke in last Saturday's Los Angeles Times seems timely, if not entirely appropriate:

First you have to listen to a commencement speech.

Don't moan. I'm not going to "pass the wisdom of one generation down to the next." I'm a member of the 1960s generation. We didn't have any wisdom.

We were the moron generation. We were the generation that believed we could stop the Vietnam War by growing our hair long and dressing like circus clowns. We believed drugs would change everything -- which they did, for John Belushi. We believed in free love. Yes, the love was free, but we paid a high price for the sex.

My generation spoiled everything for you. It has always been the special prerogative of young people to look and act weird and shock grown-ups. But my generation exhausted the Earth's resources of the weird. Weird clothes -- we wore them. Weird beards -- we grew them. Weird words and phrases -- we said them. So, when it came your turn to be original and look and act weird, all you had left was to tattoo your faces and pierce your tongues. Ouch. That must have hurt. I apologize.

So now, it's my job to give you advice. But I'm thinking: You're finishing 16 years of education, and you've heard all the conventional good advice you can stand.

"Fairness, Idealism, and Other Atrocities" by P.J. O'Rourke in the L.A. Times.

Note: Many thanks to Mr. Mason Orr for the O'Rourke-editorial heads up.

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Thursday, May 1, 2008

I'm Here Eating Up the Boredom on an Island of Cement

The Dean of University Libraries sent out an informative email earlier today regarding library protocol and procedure for study time during undergrad finals later this month.

The assorted Baylor Libraries will feature:
  • Areas classified as “nature film narrator quiet.” What does that mean? If you need to talk, do so in hushed tones; find somewhere else for group study; and if your cell phone vibrates, please take it to the lobby to have your conversation.
  • Areas designated as “monastery quiet” study space. We’ll do our best to patrol this floor, but please feel free to politely “shush” your neighbors when we’re not around.
  • Areas for individual and collaborative study. Please be respectful of others and help us keep it sort of “nice restaurant quiet” in those spaces so everyone can get their work done.
I'm not sure where the "nature film narrator quiet", "monastery quiet", and "nice restaurant quiet" taxonomy was established, but I'm fully in favor of it.

If we're using this system, the main floor of the library at ACU would have been classified "Main trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange" quiet, and the entirety of the Baylor Law Library would be classified as "Continue speaking loudly and I'll invite you to wear concrete shoes into the Brazos" quiet.

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