We

Saturday night (uh...Sunday morning) I tried to figure out who was up with the "We" commercials.  It's Al Gore.  Al Gore founded the Alliance for Climate Protection which is trying to raise public and political support to solve the climate crisis.  Over 2,000,000 people have signed on to their campaign, and last night I did as well.

What does this mean?  Probably nothing, but I support the Alliance's efforts to keep environmental concerns at the front of American discussion.  The evidence is clear that humanity has put an imprint on our surroundings which has had a profound impact on our planet.  Resistors to the green movement must only disagree as to the urgency of this problem.

...and its fun.

Attribution

I feel bad, I meant to attribute the picture at the top of this blog, however now I cannot find it.  So...I hereby claim the picture at the top of this blog is not the property of myself, someone else took it, and from the looks of it, created the scene depicted herein.  Whoever you are, this picture inspires me, and makes me hopeful.  It signifies life in difficult times, to me, idyllic country.  Thank you.

Happy Holidays

December is the holiday jackpot.  Christmas, Chanukah, New Years Eve...they take place the same time of year.  There is a reason.  Without the holidays, December would suck.  My least favorite month is November, because the plants die, it is rainy, and cold.  If November is a sucker punch, December is the realization the guy who sucker punched you could also kick your ass legitimately.  So we have solved this problem by celebrating things now.  It is unlikely Jesus was born December 25th, and Chanukah is not the most important day in the Jewish calendar, but it is cold.

We string lights, to keep us from the winter darkness.  We might put a tree in our homes in an attempt because we feel bad for them, and because we need air.  I think it is wonderful, thank you ancestral problem-solvers.

This December Micki and I will be really taking it to Mr. December & and Mrs. January.  We are leaving our cold puke-filled* town, for a hopefully less cold, less barf-filled ideal.  C'est Paris, et Koln, Allemagne.

That's right we refuse to not live this winter, and we're telling the Big Bad Recession to huff, and puff, and blow us to Europe (and all of our money into the wind... ... ...I mean United Airlines).  I am excited.  Let us be free of the vomitous plague!

Micki and I have recently purchased a Flip Mino video-recorder and it is coming with us.  Inspired by the Year in Europe podcasts, I hope to be adding videos documenting our adventure, taking Jinklets to another dimension.

*Omaha is not "puke-filled" as such, however I have reason to believe there is puke somewhere tonight.

Future

What is my thing?

Specialized Division of Labor.  Find one thing and get really good at it.  What is my thing?  Is there a way still to like it?

$140,000 student loan debt.  What was I thinking?  Then again applying for a job paying 35,000 dollars means other things paying that much I suppose would work.

Bar Exam, MPRE?, Job Search, Finals, Disinterest, Apathy, Devils, Demons, Drains.

Dawn, Dew, and Greens.

Incompletes

I need to finish a blog.

I have written two or three blogs in the past weeks, but I don't finish them.

I will attempt to be more concise in the future.  The purpose of starting a blog was simply to get writing in a unstructured way.  To let my thought become words.

...

That's it.

Obama St. Louis

This weekend Micki and I are in St. Louis to visit my family.  After we got to the house around 7:30 Friday night, my family minus Chris went to eat in Des Peres at The Corner Pub.  I had a burger topped with crazy amounts of cheese.  It tasted good, but I felt bad.  At home, Micki and I told my mother we were going to Paris; the reception was lukewarm.

Today we went to Eckert's, but not before we drove past the Arch grounds to see the crowd assembled for the Obama rally.  Of course 100,000 people were there!  I can't believe it, but I am enthusiastic there are so many St. Louisians are for Obama.

  

Eckert's was fun...  I chased Andrew around the Orchard, and I became disheartened when I could not catch him at all.  I must workout.  We got apples, pumpkins, cider, etc.  Fun-ish.

Conservative Instincts

Yesterday, giddy as I was from the growing confidence I have that Barack Obama will become president, I found an excuse to call home and talk politics.  Excuse: Debates over + My mother's statement maybe the debates will clear things up for me.

The debates didn't clear things up for her, she is leaning...Clinton.  She will write Clinton in, unless something convinces her to jump to Obama in the next 2 weeks.

Then I talked to my brother Chris.  "So you're coming home?"  "In two days."  "You voting for McCain?"  "Not a chance"  "Obama's a Liar, infanticide, capital gains tax(?)."  "When did he lie, you've been fooled, capital gains tax(!?!)."

Why does my family support McCain, or better asked, why are they closed off to the idea of an Obama presidency.  The vote totals in my family this year will be 3 McCain, 1 Obama, 1 Clinton.  Generally I know why they are Republicans, abortion bad, taxes bad, government bad.  Of course I strongly, violently, hopelessly disagree with their political instincts, but how were these instincts formed?  How were mine formed?  In my family these instincts, for me and them, are solid as rock.

It seems clear they are formed as children.  I can remember Chris lobbying me as a 4 year old for Bush in 1988, and again in 1992.  The strongest issue for him has always seemed to be abortion.  He wrote an apparently researched paper on abortion in high school, had said various democrats want to kill unborn children.  The whole "It is a private choice to be made between a woman and her doctor" thing does not register at all.

There is also a distrust of government, and a seething hatred for taxes.  Chris works hard for his money and he doesn't want government to take it.  Government of course uses the money to provide police, education, national defense, money when you are old so that you can live, and other things, but there's no chance this matters.

As for my father and my brother Mike, they are less vocal about these insticts, but they are there.  My father has listened to Rush for decades, and when I made it a habit of listening to NPR on the kitchen radio, I found Mike listening to Rush on the same.  My family's Missouri home is close to Webster University, and once we we driving through campus and my father saw two young men holding hands, and he turned his eyes away, and made clear he thought it disgusting.

So three of five voting members of my family are COnservative Republicans, and even today with 10% of the country finding the country on the wrong track, they do not consider voting for any democrats.  The instinct was there early, but how did it start?  This post does not know, but a majority of Americans do not have it.