Here is a random picture from hiking at home. I just thought it would be nice to post something more important than politics.

Bush and the United Nations

Wow. The blog got some political dialogue going. Here is what I've got to say about burning the UN flag as a way to support George W. Bush.

Bush does not hate the United Nations. He does not want to pull the United States out of the United Nations. He tried to bully his way through the United Nations with poor information until this process was halted by specifically the French government. If you look back, Bush and Blair were in the process of getting UN approval for some action against Iraq when France stopped the process by declaring that it would veto anything regarding Iraq. This eliminated the United Nations as a means for legitimizing the war. Since then, Bush has been critical of the United Nations for not supporting its previous resolutions to hold Iraq accountable. BUT, he has spoken at the United Nations many times since then, he has supported the United Nations as a solution to other problems, and he has also supported post-war legislation regarding Iraq passed by the UN.

In short, Bush is dissapointed in the UN but he is not against it to the point of pulling out of it or burning the American flag. The fact that the UN isn't as strong as it should be is a shame, but it is because of countries like us that are living in a paradigm where sovereignty and relative power MUST come before diplomacy, equality, and peaceful solutions. For the UN to be effective we must give up some of that autonomy, and that is something both Bush and Kerry explicity state they will not ever do.

Michael Moore

So the big political event of the semester was last night: Michael Moore visits Willamette.

Michael Moore is pretty controversial, and there have been plenty of arguments about whether or not all of this student money should have gone to Michael Moore. The conservative zillionaire alumni got pissed. The College Republicans got pissed. I'm sure all the people who were in the traffic last night got pissed. However, as ridiculous as many of his claims are, Michael Moore gets people talking and that was the point.


Michael Moore speaks at Willamette Monday night.

His speech last night wasn't focused on issues at all, it was a bunch of Republican bashing, but that is what we should have expected I guess. I was hoping for a little more substance, but Moore has never really provided that. He is a loud obnoxious voice that spews his views to get people talking. I agree with a few of the things he says, but the way he does it isn't very convincing.

Now, I liked Bowling for Columbine all right, but Fahrenheit 9/11 was a little too ridiculous for me. All anyone needs to do is read a newspaper consistently to see that Moore's arguments are easily refuted and that much of his evidence is circumstancial and misconstrued.

I'm glad he came because people that wouldn't be talking about politics are talking about politics are talking about politics. However, I don't like the talk that I'm hearing. So far today no one has said, "Moore really made an interesting point about..." No. Everyone is talking about the way he mocked the Republicans that came as they marched out and how he said "Bush has killed over a thousand Americans. How many has Kerry killed? None." It's dialogue, but it isn't the right type of dialogue, but it is what we should have expected from Michael Moore.

Dumbass of the Day: Salem's Statesman's Journal reported today that one of the protestors at the Michael Moore speech was given a citation for burning the flag of the United Nations. Who the hell would burn a flag of the United Nations? How does that support George Bush? How does that protest Michael Moore? Does that make sense at all? If anyone can tell me why burning the flag UN has something to do with protesting Michael Moore or supporting George Bush, please post a comment and let me know.

BRONCOS 5-1

Broncos go 5-1!

The Broncos extended their winning ways this week by defeating our rivals, the Oakland Raiders, 31-3. That is just pure humiliation to all the dopes in silver and black and it's gotta just make them want to throw up in their mouths to see how much better we are. It's time for Oakland to take off their helmets and head in. Those guys suck.

Bring it on New England. We will destroy your little Cinderella story.

Fahrenheit 9/11

So Michael Moore is coming to campus tomorrow so the night before Kelly and the guys and I decided to watch his latest movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. Let me just say that I thought Bowling for Columbine was much better done.

I don't know, maybe it is because I know a lot more about Bush's foreign policy than I do gun control (the topic for Columbine) but it was just full of lies and deception. He misconstrued just about everything. Now, I thought a lot of what Bush did was wrong before the movie, so I'm not just sticking up for what I think. However, I found the movie pretty ridiculous and anything but convincing.

anyways... what do you think? I guess we'll find out in about... 16 days.

go vote.

Nobel Peace Prize Part 2

So a few days ago I wrote a somewhat negative article about my thoughts on this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner. Today I learned a new fact about her.

She thinks the white man put the HIV into Africa to kill off the black man.

wow.

West Wing and my Life

So my roommate and I try to schedule time with each other by watching episodes of "The West Wing" on DVD. I know this sounds a little dorky, but we are both politics buffs and it is a pretty good show!

Whether or not you like the show it gives Bracken and I some good bonding time away from all the stuff that stresses us out. Today's episode was especially relevant to my life though.

In today's episode Sam, the President's speech writer is asked to the opera by the cheif of staff's daughter. To keep his daughter away from Sam, the cheif of staff assigns him to write a birthday message to the undersecretary of the Treasury Department. Asking the main speech writer do do such a worthless task was pretty comical and Sam got pretty pissed off. That isn't funny until you read my previous blog. Then you might understand why that made me smile.

Anyways, I'm off to bed. Long week ahead, and they're only getting longer until Kelly and I go down to San Diego!

one final thought: as sad as it is, I'm glad that today Superman can finally walk again.

Weekend Review

Well this weekend I wrote a paper, watched some football, and had a choir concert. Yeehaw.

The paper I wrote was on American foreign policy during the Cuban missile crisis, the 1973-1974 energy crisis, and the normalization of relations with China in 1978. The prof is a pain in the ass so we'll see how this one comes out.

The choir concert was okay, but we had to restart a song which is ridiculous. the good thing is that it wasn't our fault. the douche who blew the pitch pipe blew the wrong pitch so there was nothing we could do after that. So first you can blame him, then you can blame the conductor for not noticing that the pitch was a full fourth too high.

And lastly, football. The Broncos won today 20-17 over the Carolina Panthers. hell yeah. Quentin Griffin did not play. Hopefully he's out for a while!

The game wasn't televised here because Seattle was playing at the same time and they lost in overtime. bwa haha. I got to listen to Seattle fans bitch.

Mondays suck, but here it comes!

Nobel Peace Prize

So today the Nobel Peace Prize went to Wangari Maanthai, an obscure environmental activist in her home nation of Kenya. I've never heard of her and neither have any of you, but I read her profile and I'm happy for her. But why is that we have to look all the way to 1970s Kenya to find a Nobel Peace Prize winner?

Now, I'm not saying that it was a bad year for the award because she was from Africa. The last four Nobel Peace laureates from the continent are especially deserving. Kofi Annan is the Secretary General of the United Nations. Nelson Mandela peacefully brought the end to the most racially supressive minority government on the planet. Desmond Tutu was a moral guide to his people as his nation as South Africa went through the process of Democratic change.

What does it say about the world when its biggest honor doesn't go to a President who avoided war, a negotiator who brought conflict to an end, or a hero in the international community. It means the rest of us have to quit blowing shit up. We've abandoned peace for a fervent pursuit of security, and only the people with the access to terrorist info know how well its working. The people have no way of knowing if what we are doing is effective because we don't see the terrorist plots that get thwarted. It requires a lot of trust, a lot of trust that's difficult to find amid accusations of WMD and false links to al-qaeda.

Instead the world's greatest honor went to some one completely unknown. All the people we know about blow shit up!

Here is another thought. Maybe being an African woman helped her here and the Nobel committee was looking do something different this year (she's the first African woman to win). I mean, FIFA explicitly said the 2010 World Cup would be in Africa, so other organizations do it as well. BUT, if the international community can pay enough attention to Africa to give one of its obscure activists the Nobel Peace Prize then maybe we should pay it enough attention to end the 30-odd wars going on there. The media has finally taken a look at Sudan, but when will the governments? When will the people?

I'm probably just being an asshole about all of this and should just be happy for the lady who plants trees in Kenya, but I'm grumpy. I woke up again to another terrorist attack, this time in Egypt. I can only think logically about this shit for so long before the fact that assholes are blowing shit up just really pisses me off.

For all the terrorist/world leaders reading my blog: STOP BLOWING SHIT UP

This is probably my favorite picture of home. It was taken at the perfect time in late May when the trees are green but the snow was still low on the mountains. I took this on the way up Byer's Peak. It was a beautiful day to hike alone. It was cool and clear - my first hike after my sophomore year of college when my mind was anything but cool and clear. I hiked up into that bowl for hours, alone on the trail. Nothing makes you think about life quite like being alone stuck on a headwall, or in this case being tracked by a grizzly bear, with the nearest person a few hours hike away. Suddenly all the crazy shit that matters on the valley floor is obsolete and you find some sort of peace that can't be replicated in Oregon. It can't even be replicated in Silver Creek Falls where "hiking" is a paved path. It isn't even replicated in National Parks and Forests where roads and picnic tables are all over and you have to have passes to park at certain trailheads. There's just something nice about busting your ass in silent beauty, not knowing how you are going to get back and not even caring if you'll be able to get down the way you came. Finding answers in tundra berries and granite slabs. Turning problems into impossible slopes and miles of bouldering. Going in with stress and a headache and coming out with scratched hands, trashed pants, wet shoes, sore shoulders, a camera full of pictures, and a hell of a story. It's crazy to think that I'll be back for a week or so in May and that's it...

Weird Dreams

So I've decided I'm going to have to start putting dreams on here because the ones I've had lately are just too weird to not recount. Tonight I had a dream that Rob Sumner was hooked on the Beauty and the Beast computer game and decided he was going abroad in his own room so that he cuold just focus on it and not have to deal with classes. That isn't too funny, but if you knew Rob you'd realize how completely ridiculous this is.

The night before I had a dream that my fraternity brothers turned into velociraptors and Kelly and I were hitting them with aluminum bats to keep them from eating us. I felt bad for hitting them but Kelly said we had to or they'd eat us. When we killed or knocked out (not sure which) all of them they turned back into my best friends and I broke down.

The night before that I had a dream that one of Kelly's best friends at Willamette and I were walking next to this nearly frozen lake (think Portage Lake) and all of a sudden she just jumped in decided she was going to swim. I told her that was a dumb idea and that I wasn't going after her and drowning in freezing water but she didn't listen. Anyways, she got too cold to move and ended up going over the waterfall at the end of the lake. Kelly broke down tried to go in after her but I told her she would have the same fate if she jumped in.

The night before that my dream was completely in babble Korean and a bunch of Korean bikers were falling hundreds of feet from the sky on their bikes and they were trying to land on the ground on their bikes. Of course this didn't work for any of them and the crowd was pissed.

I'm not too worried about the last one and the first one, but the middle two are a little scary. In both dreams either my friends or Kelly's friends are dying and Kelly and I are left in a completely helpless position where there is nothing we can do to stop it. Maybe I'm subconciously worried about graduating and leaving these guys. Hell, I'm consciously worried about that. I loev thishouse right now and I don't want to think about not living with 30 guys I know I can count on. I've been thinking about that a lot lately. However, Kelly isn't taking away from that at all right now. She's over at the house all the time and has become great friends with tons of guys. I don't feel like she's pulling me away at all. She's actually hanging out with my friends more because all of her friends have moved off campus. Have any other analysis?

Hike at Silver Creek

One of many waterfalls on Silver Creek near Salem.

On Sunday a bunch of guys from the house thought it would be fun to hike around Silver Creek Falls State Park. It isn't much of a hike by my standards but it is pretty and we had a good time. This is a picture of one of the seven waterfalls we hiked past and Paka and I took a little swim at the bottom of this one. It was pretty damn cold!

Mt. St. Helens erupts Friday, but this was just a hiccup. The big eruption with lava and everything is suppossed to come soon. They give it a 70% chance of erupting in the next month.