Vegetarianism

I lament to say, I think I am turning into one of THOSE Vegetarians. You know the type. they are preachy, and snobbish. Well, maybe not preachy, but definitely snobbish about what I eat. I have found myself rather disenchanted by my parents offering me pizza and semi-innocently saying "you can just pick out the sausage", or making beef or chicken stew and loading it up with extra vegetables "so that you can eat, son". I appreciate their effort.
I do!
Honest!
But... picking out the meat in a dish kind of defeats the purpose. I have not yet figured out how to articulate why being offered meals like that irks me. It simply does. It's like doing one squat and saying you work out 5 days a week. But in grumbling about the misguided efforts by my family of celebrated omnivores at accommodating my decision to go vegetarian, I feel like I am being the kind of vegetarian which pisses ME off. The preachy, better-than-thou vegetarian, often vegan. Which I do not want to make a sweeping generalization about vegetarians or vegans. There are some very nice vegetarians and vegans out there! They post encouraging things for the struggling recently converted vegetarians like myself! I just don;t want to be this preachy self-absorbed douchebag about my dietary choices, though in an omnivorous and malnourished nation like ours.... you kind of have to in order to eat.

Adventures in Teaching or Biting off more than I can chew.

I successfully completed my first week of teaching and have been busily coordinating and concocting some plans for the school year. I have no clue how I will be able to balance out working at Oak Forest High School while sponsoring Art Club, Teaching the Community Arts Sustaining Academics Program, and Co-leading and continuing programing for the Vet Art Project. Where there is a will, there is a way. I still have a month in which to set down as much of the groundwork for the Vet Art Project and balance out my schedule of staff, department, and programing meetings as all of this will play a part in how I am able to do my jobs.
At OFHS, taking full advantage of the fact that I am only teaching one section of art, I have compared notes on all my students and touched base with as many of the Social Studies and English teachers to basically get the gears turning on cooperative lessons bridging art and historical context in academics. I already have one teacher who would like to co-plan a lesson on the Reconstruction in post Civil War America, and the Fox Sisters basically purporting to be supernatural mediums, and pairing it with a black & white drawing lesson.
In my concerted efforts to go out and do things and not be such a hermit, Thursday, I had gone to a speaking event at the National Veterans Art Museum. There I met two very cool veterans, Brock & Jake and reconnected with other cool veterans I had met before (Barry & Sabrina). Brock & Jake have been traveling cross country talking about their visits back to Afghanistan and have so many striking, shocking, and beautiful stories about their experiences. I had dinner with all of them afterwards were we chatted and met up with another veteran who had recently come back from Afghanistan the evening before. After this encounter and dropping Brock off at Midway to catch his flight, I stopped by Atomic Sketch afterwards to check out the art and acquired some artwork for my personal collection as well as talking with some of the artists at Atomic Sketch about the possibility of having them come speak to either my class, or for Art Club. Altogether it was a rather busy evening.
This got my gears turning, in which in the most grandiose delusions, I could have a panel of veterans speaking about their experiences and discussing how a decade's worth of war has shaped our culture as is, as well as what is going on as well as giving a first person perspective on what military veterans have had to go through. At its most humble, having a few guest speakers either for my own classroom, or for art club to do demonstrations and share a little bit of their experiences. With everything I will have to do over the course of the school year, it is exciting and new, and at the same time I ask myself: Am I biting off more than I can chew?

Impersonating Penguins

I had a most interesting experience today longboarding with some friends. There is a 9.5 mile trail/loop in a forest preserve not far from my house. My friends and I decided to go at it since it is a nice trail for biking, walking, skating, or whatever means of efficient ambulation you have. About 8 miles in there was a fork in the road which led to an offshoot, or you could keep going on the trail loop. My friends, being more avid and experienced longboarders than I had gone right and were turning around after a pair of cyclists directed them to the left as the route to continue the loop. This turn, I made with a gliding graceful effortlessness which made the subsequent events all the more contrasting. The turn was immediately followed by a downward incline which allowed me to pick up prodigious speed. I think I might have gotten a good 15-20 MPH on this downhill, which made the physics of what happened next all the more extraordinary and possibly, had someone had the fortuitous foresight, viral video fodder for the internet.

I must pause for a moment to discuss the downhill first and foremost. I live near Chicago, where everything is predictably flat. For the most part. There are softly rolling hills, if they could even be called that! Just understand that when I say hill, or downhill, this is referring to a segment of trail in which one must put forth minimal effort beyond leaning weight forward, if at all on a longboard, or a bike to increase speed to an equivalent of pedaling, or kick-pushing at maximum effort. That note/reference made clear, continuing....

I am barreling down this incline at an accelerated pace. A cyclist is at the base of a concrete and metal bridge over one of the many streams and brooks which dot the forest preserve. My lane is open, and I feel confident in my neophyte experience I can clear through. My eyes rapidly scan in that seemingly super-human speed in which your mind races and takes in all environmental information which permits, what at times seems to be automatic responses by more experienced individuals. As the distance between the bridge and I closes my eye catches the difference in tone of the concrete on the bridge. I can say I was maybe about 50+ feet away.
At 40 or so feet away I see a difference in the level between the concrete of the bridge and the trail. I calculate this to be between 1 and 1.5 inches. My body tenses in anticipation.
At 30ft, I have the infallible certainty that my 68mm wheels will not roll over that 1"-1.5" offset. I am wholly aware that my longboard has transformed from a leisurely ambulatory mechanism to a catapult/slingshot which is engaged with me as the human ammunition. There are two 8 inch steel supporting struts on either side. The one that concerns me most is the one on the left side of the bridge as that is the lane I am traveling in.
20ft. I lean slightly right, placing myself just left of the center dividing line of the trail.
10ft. My hands reflexively come up a bit to protect my face. I am eternally grateful I decided to invest in a helmet for longboarding, and doubly so that I am wearing it.
5ft. I square my shoulders and as my feet come free of my longboard. I do not scream or shout. I had no time. I am merely scanning the ground in front of me hoping I do not spear myself on one of the many twigs which last weeks storms littered on the concrete bridge. I fly for some indeterminate distance before having the wind knocked out of me. I slide gracefully like a penguin, Edward Norton's power animal in the movie adaptation of Palahniuk's "Fight Club" every nano-second, and planck time wistfully wishing it had been ice or snow as that would probably not have hurt as much. My hands bore most of the brunt of the graceful, and apparently gymnastically professional fall. My shirt had a few holes poked in it from my midsection dragging across the concrete. My pants to gained a "distressed" look fashionistas will pay 500 dollars for at some classy designer boutique. Even my Chuck Taylor lowtops got a scraping.

I got up to assess the damage, my hands looking bloody with drag marks on my palms. I noticed my left pinky finger opened up like a cherry cordial candy with a bite taken off revealing the cheery within, blood emerging like syrup, and Was that a pebble or a woodchip embedded in my finger? Was that a pebble or woodchip embedded deep in my finger where I need tweezers which I do not have to get it out?! My board rolls by me as I get up, and my first instinct is to get back on it and keep riding. The cyclist offered me his first aid kit, which I felt sure I did not need. It was all superficial wounds anyway. The cyclist and my friends remarked on how fortunate I was that I was wearing a helmet, that I did not impact the strut of the bridge, and how I fell like a pro and took the fall like a champ!

A little bit down the trail... like maybe 30ft, My vision blurred as whatever adrenaline high I was on which gave me the sense of well being rapidly faded. I took a seat on my board just off the side of the trail, fighting off waves of nausea and a strobe effect which my vision seemed to come and go like a looney tunes cartoon, and everything was dotted with grey blue and black motes. After a few minutes of swatting at mosquitoes which proved to be painful since my hand were scrapped, and made me look like I was in worse shape than I actually was because I was leaving blood stains where ever I squished a mosquito, my friends and I got back on our boards, finished the trail, and made our way back to my place where my friend used his medical expertise to dig the pebble which had become engulfed by my pinky. Apparently I clot very quickly and he had to reopen the wound to dig the debris out... quite possibly the least brave I have ever been while having someone tend to some injury or draw blood or what have you....

Because this beckons some manner of reaction

Pretty much every news source, internet, televised, and broadcast has been flooded with the news that Osama Bin Laden has been killed by U.S. Military action. My reaction was at first skeptic, and now cautious. Killing or capturing Bin Laden has been a tantamount priority in the mission in Afghanistan. He and the Al-Qaeda have been an adversary and figurehead for radical perversion of Islam. On May 1, 2011, The news channels and President Barrack Obama have confirmed that Osama Bin Laden has been killed through U. S. Military Operation. I wonder, and question what effect this will have on Operation: Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. I wonder if troops will be brought home, or how much longer will they be deployed overseas? I wonder if Al-Qaeda will attempt some manner of retribution for the death of one of their public leaders. I wonder if there will be a a strain on Pakistani/U. S. relations. I stand, cautious and watchful, hoping that things will improve of only slightly.

Busy-ish

The past month or so I have had a few obstacles and hurdles to contend with... as I am sure we all have at one point or another. I think I might have exhausted my student's interest in Graffiti... or at least in sculpture and graffiti because of some of the rules I imposed on their project. Rule #1: No curved lines, Rule #2: all angles must be in increments of 45 (45, 90, 135, 180 etc...). Thus far the project went on for nearly a month in a half with only about half the students actually getting anything done. Which was mildly frustrating to say the least. The work which has been completed however is rather impressive and amazing. Beyond that, there has been the challenge of documenting progress, which is difficult because students, I have found out, are notorious fr destroying work they do not see as successful. If they have thrown out drawings from the beginning of the year, I have nothing to compare then with now.

أنا إرهابي : فكرة تحديث

أنا إرهابي has been evolving a bit, if not in form and formal presentation, but in applicable concept. I have been presented with two conceptual quandaries. One is the prospect of owning the label of "Terrorist" is far too confrontational. In the face of everything that is happening with what essentially amounts to separate media echo chambers in which each side accuses the other of being terrorists to one degree or another. Generally, I agree with some progressive principals: Equal rights for all, woman's reproductive health is a between a woman and her doctor, and generally speaking, religion likewise is between you and your god or no god if you so choose. To the conservative fringe, and the conservative fringe of the fringe, such beliefs and inclinations are seen as a form of terrorism. There is a myth perpetrated that to go against what are seen as conservative principles is somehow Un-American and you are effectively a 'terrorist'. Or another of my favorite myths, that progressives, liberals, and even center-left people have a deep-seated disdain and hatred for America. I find the thought laughable, and at worst deplorably close-minded. Conceptually, owning the phrase "I'm a terrorist" or "أنا إرهابي" would be seen by this possible audience as a defiant declaration which would validate their worst suspicions. They would totally miss the point. The echo-chamber propaganda spin would be something along the lines of "They admit it! They really are terrorists! We are justified in waging war against the godless liberal left!". It amounts to a rallying cry which poses those who are different as enemy, and attempts to dehumanize stated enemy in order to justify violence as an appropriate response.
The second is the possibility of presenting the project as a passive voice, basically questioning the premise that because people hold beliefs essentially opposed to certain, for lack of better descriptor: biblical moral principles, those people are somehow terrorists. It is another angle for the concept of owning this idea that those who would oppose your views would be your enemy and at worst, terrorists who are looking to destroy one's way of life.
"I believe that the lesbian couple who has been together for thirty years deserve to get married as a symbol of their devotion to each other, and in that receive all the legal benefits that a civil marriage bequeaths unto them. In believing that, I'm a Terrorist?" Rhetorically, phrasing it in that way rings dramatically different. "I believe Planned Parenthood is an important resource for women in low-income circumstances, for that, I'm a terrorist?" Presented in this manner, أنا إرهابي questions the dehumanizing effect which violent rhetoric puts forth on those who politically do not agree with you. We have freedom of speech, but with such freedoms, do we really exercise the responsibility of how the words will impact those who listen?

أنا إرهابي

I have been absent from here for a while. In recent months I have been percolating an idea which is mildly radical, but I have been reticent to move forward on, mainly on account that it is a drastic idea. To the extreme conservative and fringe elements of conservatism, and religion, someone who is homosexual or just not heterosexual, represent something so abhorrently reprehensible that we can be likened to terrorists. I thought about taking this a step further and owning such a term. In order to bridge the link between Wahabi Muslims who have often been the perpetrators of many of the past decade's terrorist attacks, through a simple act of language "I am a terrorist" or "أنا إرهابي" has become the new subject matter. At this point in time I am still playing with the phrase as a calligraphic form, but also as a label. We'll see how this idea develops.