The Rogers News

Category: Our Experiences

Tales of my life as told by me.

  • Undecided? Really?

    I’d like to echo the sentiments expressed by David Sedaris in a recent New Yorker article, “Undecided.” I am as astonished as he that people can still be undecided between John McCain and Barack Obama. Beyond the fact that they’re both politicians, they are very dissimilar. If you can’t find something by now that pushes you towards one candidate or the other — even if it’s a primal gut feeling you get by looking at them or maybe you’ve gotten close enough to smell them — that should be enough to go on.

    I was thinking about what I would call “progressive Catholics” yesterday. How do you reconcile a political conflict with your religion? (Even if you have seen Bill Mahar’s Religulous?!) That is, if you believe in Obama how do you reconcile that he’s pro-choice? Or if you believe in McCain because of a specific issue, how do you reconcile that he may simply continue the mediocrity of the past eight years?

    That is just a limited example that could play out a thousand different ways if you change the player and the inputs. My point is that you have the right to vote. You are allowed to have an opinion. Don’t waste either on being undecided. Make a decision and live with it. If it turns out to be wrong, you’ll probably get another chance. Or at least you can complain about something for the next four years and know that you actually partook in the process.

    Or, as David Sedaris writes:

    To put [undecided voters] in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

    To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

    I mean, really, what’s to be confused about?

  • Law Art Show Idea

    I have this idea for an art show based on the law. I would display in clearly legible printed text various clauses of the United States Constitution, statutes, and case law. The laws displayed would vary in their difficulty of interpretation. It gets tricky at this point. My initial thought was to have a pad of paper underneath each “law,” but I’ve since wanted the idea to be more dynamic. Merely obtaining the observers’ interpretations would be interesting, but implementing their take on the law would bring the event to life. Perhaps their interpretations could be entered into a computer program with an algorithm that would weight them and change the original law accordingly. Then, at the end of the event (if it were to have an end), a new constitution, set of statutes and case law opinions would be released. In a way, it would be a microcosm of what happens in the legal system everyday. (Except the interpretation would be left to the people and not to highly trained judges and lawyers.)

    Two things inspired this idea. First is the method of approaching problems taught in law school. Seek the issue. Find relevant law if it exists. Apply the law. At times, the process is a routine application of pattern. I.e., does my problem fit within the grid of a problem that has previously been heard? Second is the fine line between “the absurd” and “the clearly logical” in many cases — and the application of logic to the absurd.

    Thus two of the things I would hope to learn from the law-art interactive show would be what methods of interpretation did the viewers use and how did they apply logic to the absurd. Or, if they didn’t use logic, what drove their decision.

  • I am Right Brained

    I’ve been revisiting the “Right Brain v. Left Brain Test” all morning, and each time I view the image of the dancer spinning I see it moving clockwise. Her foot swings from the right side of the screen to the left. I’ve stared at it for extended periods of time, trying to reverse her spin to see the counter-clockwise rotation, but I can’t do it. Not yet, anyway.

    According to he accompanying article, the fact that I naturally see her spinning clockwise means that I use more of the right side of my brain. I use feeling instead of logic. I see the big picture instead of being detail oriented. My imagination rules instead of facts. And so on. There is an entire list provided that compares left brained tendencies to right brained ones.

    Which way does it spin for you? Click the article link to see.

  • Visiting Ann Arbor

    Visiting Ann Arbor always takes me back to my college days. The campus was relatively the same — whether it is or I just remember it that way is probably irrelevant. There are some building improvements. Notably, the business school now looks like a massive red spaceship, a sharp looking addition to the museum on State Street, and some construction behind Hill Auditorium. But, overall, central campus has retained the same layout that I walked and rode during my undergrad years.

    The notable sites I make a point to see when I visit are:

    • The men’s bathroom in Angel Hall near the Fishbowl computer lab.
    • The Starbucks on the corner of State and Liberty.
    • The Borders on Liberty.
    • The Big House.
    • Stucchi’s (Ice cream).

    In line with the nostalgia of visiting Ann Arbor, I found the slideshow, “Time Machine: Traveling into the past in Mason Hall,” by James Tobin. Go Blue!

  • Welcome back, me.

    Ah, it feels good to be back. I’m looking forward to sharing the stories that interest me, my accomplishments, and whatever else I can scrounge up.

    I’ve bounced around over the last couple years when it comes to what to blog about. There was my recoil from a personal details period. Then the all golf months. And then there was the brief attempt at a photoblog, a.k.a. silence. Don’t get me wrong. I love taking pictures, and I hope you check mine out at on my flickr page, but nothing beats writing. Daily.

    Enjoy.

  • Creativity and Inspiration

    There are a few places I feel inspired and “at home”:

    1. College campuses
    2. Good concert
    3. Film festivals
    4. Some conferences

    My experience with the later two is macro enough to not be jaded by any of the politics involved. My time in college was the last truly free thinking time in my life. The classes and the people allowed that. Since then the focus has been on becoming more focused – on closing doors – on growing up. I know a concert is good if I leave feeling excited – giddy, almost. I think to myself, “Why am I not a part of this more often?”

    It would be amazing to find something that allows me to experience this creative satisfaction and inspiration every day. Maybe that is what people feel when they say they love what they do. Finding the right mix of people, events, activities, and then stepping up to the plate yourself is the tough part.

  • Work and Creativity

    There is a massive clash between the work I will end up doing as an attorney and my desire to be creative. Sure, many have bridged the gap, either (1) by finding creativity within the law, (2) by being satisfied to explore their creative interests outside of the law, or (3) by leaving the law to be creative — whatever that means.

    #1 isn’t really the creativity I’m talking about. No matter how brilliant one’s ability is to view the law, it does not become art. In fact, if the law became art at any point, I think we would all be in trouble. There is already far too much room for interpretation in the law without it being subjected to the massive number of quandaries tossed around at art museums and shows. If law became art, law school would be irrelevant, lawyers would be useless, and there would be anarchy. There is no institution overseeing the creation and interpretation of art like there is the law. That just sounds absurd.

    #2 is what most people do — they turn their dreams into hobbies. This is the sad reality of having to make a living. The opportunity cost of wanting material things, having a family, and living comfortably means saccrificing your dreams for most people. I do not dream of being an attorney. I see it as a way to make a good living. A way to support a family. A path to security.

    #3 is what I would do if money were no object, and I hate that it comes down to money. I say that and I think of my friends that have corporate jobs. I think of the job I had at an Internet start-up. I think of the foolish demands to which we subject our precious time. I think back to my time in undergrad reading about Ponzi schemes and the “castle in the clouds” where as long as you can get the next fool to buy into your foundationless story you’ll be OK — never mind that what you are selling has no value if the next person doesn’t buy into it. That’s what life feels like at times — not that it’s valueless, but that we’re all doing something because it fits in the grid — because it propagates the masses — because it’s what was done before.

    These thoughts are far beyond creativity. Creativity is the antithesis to work for me. The time I spent writing fiction, nonfiction, or pure gibberish when I was younger is the exact opposite of what is considered productive or successful now, yet it was freeing and inspiring. Although writing was far from easy at times, I loved the idea of it. I loved the blank screen — the blank page. I still love blank journals — I just bought a new one and plan to fill it with unproductive gibberish and stuff. Just stuff.

    I’ve been thinking about all of this for a long time — years.