That last blog sucked

What I was trying to say yesterday was that I started off last week with a lot of confusion about my classes. I just now straightened out my last problem and am feeling much better about my time here. I should probably be reading up on these issues that are coming up in my English class regarding the New Orleans tax assessor consolidation and the levee board consolidation, but whatever.

I just now had my first guitar lesson ever. I can't wait to kick ass. Its going to happen pretty soon.

The stuff I said yesterday about not making any friends is pretty true, but I do know a few graduate students who go to this church that my brother and I have been going to on Sundays, they're really nice.

I really do feel pretty out of control still, but at least I have a chance to get over it now that I've gotten all my class conflicts straightened out. I'll blog about political stuff soon.

My first weeks of college

I haven't blogged in a while. I am currently living in Gretna, LA (West Bank, yo!) with my brother Travis, and we don't have internet access right now. We're going to be moving to a different house in a few weeks.

Anyway, UNO has been a pretty flabergasting experience so far. I've been feeling quite out of control of my life for the past few weeks because I can't get on the net at any time that I want and I missed my first class of college because I didn't even know that I was supposed to be there! I found out the next day that there are three parts to this music theory course that I'm taking, at least I've got my schedule figured out now, I think.

I've got this constant feeling like I'm doing something wrong, like I'm forgetting something, or like there's another piece of important information that I'm unaware of. Every moment that I get to relax, I've got this fog in the back of my mind that says there's somewhere else that I'm supposed to be. And my dad keeps emailing me saying we're out of daytime minutes on our cell phone plan, haha.

The weirdest thing about this experience so far is that I haven't made a SINGLE friend yet, nor even had a conversation with any of my classmates. Nor do I feel like I'm accepted by them, as if that mattered. I go to school, sit in the front, listen to the instructors, do what they say, and leave without having shared anything with anyone. The only exception would have to have been yesterday at my ensemble class. At least I actually talked to a few people.

I must seem depressed but I expect things to improve.

George Allen’s Macaca

From Crooks and Liars:

Sen. George Allen has a funny way of communicating with the only non-white at an all Republican event.

S.R. Sidarth, a senior at the University of Virginia, had been trailing Allen with a video camera to document his travels and speeches for the Webb campaign. During a campaign speech Friday in Breaks, Virginia, near the Kentucky border, Allen singled out Sidarth and called him a word that sounded like "Macaca."

"Lets give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia," said Allen, who then began talking about the "war on terror." In an interview, Sidarth said he suspects Allen singled him out because he was the only non-white face in the audience, which he estimated included about 100 Republican supporters.

He could have at least asked him his name since he’s been around his campaign. And yes, what does he mean by Macaca?

If spelled M-a-c-a-c-a, the term refers to a species of monkeys in the Eastern Hemisphere. "Is he saying Sidarth is a monkey?" [Webb spokesperson Kristian Denny] Todd asked. The word M-a-k-a-k-a refers to a town in South Africa. Todd accused Wadhams of "reaching" for an explanation for Allen’s comments. "The kid has a name. This is trying to demean him, to minimize him as a person," Todd said.

Click here to see the original post from Crooks and Liars.

Here's the video below. I don't need to comment any further on this because its completely clear from this video that George Allen is a complete douche bag and should be sacked.

"The best one we've had so far"

I was eating at a taquaria in Pasadena, Texas yesterday with my boss, Larry, and two of his other employees. There was a picture of "The Mexican Elvis" on the wall; I didn't catch what his name was but the story about his alleged assassination by a past Mexican president led Larry to start talking about how "everyone wants to hang Bush". He actually said that President Bush is the best president that our country has had so far! Then he went on about how we should ANNEX ALL OF MEXICO.

He didn't explain why Bush is the best, so I'll explain why Bush is the worst.

1. The tax cuts that "help the economy" are really only helping the corporate elites who benefit from them the most. A glance at some of the numbers may tell you that the economy is strong right now, but a glance at any current personal bankruptcy statistic will show you that something is very wrong. If the economy is doing so well, why are so many people filing for bankruptcy these days? Why hasn't the minimum wage increased since 1997?

2. King George has changed the purpose of the war in Iraq twice now. Before 9/11, he was perpared to go to war because of the whole "No Fly Zone" thing. Immediately after 9/11, Iraq was supposedly stocking up on nukes. Now after thousands of our troops have already died not to mention a countless amount of Iraqi civilians, we're there to "promote democracy" in the region or "restore peace/freedom/stability", whichever sounds right at the time. How he has gotten away with this is completely beyond me.

3. His first veto of his career squelched research that could likely find cures or treatments to currently incurable diseases. His explanation was that stem cell research kills innocent life, even though the research would be done on stem cells that were never going to live in the first place.

4. Lets not forget that whole "Mission Accomplished" fiasco. That was just stupid. (He's the first president to appear in military uniform while in office, only preceded elsewhere by people like Castro and other totalitarian types).

5. He has not shown any kind of concern about the coruption of the Mexican government--corruption which forces so many Mexicans to flee here (sometimes legally). In fact, Bush's relationship with Vicente Fox (Mexico's current president) is quite a friendly one.

6. His administration's shaky consistency on getting permission for domestic wire tapping (which has always been approved when they actually ask for it) is suspicious at best.

7. His old "Axis of Evil" remarks jeopardized relations between South and North Korea, as well as secular progress in Iran. There was a tremendous amout of normalization being made, but North Korea shut its doors to the South after Bush put them in his Axis of Evil. Also, many people in Iran were becoming religiously tolerant and non-violent, but after Bush's remarks they fled back to the Ayatollas and other Islamic fundamentalist leaders.

Need I go on? You could find just as many bad things about every president that we've had, but in no way could anyone in their right mind truely believe that Bush has been the best.

Roots of hardcore

Dead Boys, 1977