Dazed and Confused!!!

Lots of stuff on my favorite movie of all time. . .


• Austin Chronicle: Most Likely to Endure --- 'Dazed and Confused,' a decade later
  
  
• Austin Chronicle: Beer Bust! --- 'D&C' 10-Year Reunion Party
  
  
• Austin Chronicle: The film that launched a thousand faces

Gardenblog Update

I have a bunch of new pictures posted at www.GardenBlog.tk

What I've been up to lately...

Sorry for my lack of posts of late, but I just haven't felt in the mood to blog. I have been writing though. I'm about 20 pages (double-spaced that is) into what I hope will be a book. It is a different book than I intended to write this summer (I'll still return to my first idea later on though, of a harmonistic commetary of the Gospels).

The current book in progress I suppose is a manifesto of sorts, a revoluntionary statement, a wandering procession of a confused person's mind. It is really something that is still evolving. Maybe it would be easier to just post what I have for preface right now...


Preface

This book is my attempt to regain my sanity. Over the last few years… no really my whole life, I have been trying to figure out what is truth, what is real, what is genuine. At times I smugly rested on what others told me was truth but in more recent years I’ve been questioning everything, to the extent that I feel lost. So many of the things I thought were absolutely solid truth seem so fluid now. Everything seems so vague… especially matters of faith.

The reality is that I am unsatisfied. I can numb this longing in a lot of different ways, but in the end when I can’t sleep at night, and my whole life seems to worthless and pathetic, I must return to the old questions.

This book is way of trying to articulate what seems real. I am still very confused but I hope maybe by putting these feelings and thoughts into solid words, that maybe I can find my way out of this abyss of emptiness and into a life of meaning. I hope in some way that my reader might find comfort and guidance in my twisted wanderings as well because I believe my dissatisfaction is not a unique experience.


I haven't decided yet what direction this book will go. So far I've talked about what it means to discover one's true identity, the critical imperitive of self-identity and that identity's significance in the community, the fact that love is meaningless unless it is specifc (generic bland "universal" love means nothing if it isn't specifc and unique to the one who is the object of the love)... I hope to move on to talk about the power of friendship, the power of autonomy, the difference between being interconnected as contrasted to being dependent on a sick and twisted societal system, and most of all I want to talk about God, about how it seems God works and doesn't work, and how God gives humankind dignity and worth.

Anyway, that's where my writing is focused on right now. I'll probably still blog some but it won't be my primary writing outlet.

Also, I do want to say that life is good. I go through phases of euphoria and depression but all in all things are good. I am in love which in general is both a misreable and joyful state of being. (but even in the misrey I like being in love more than not being in love --- if nothing else it makes me feel more alive)

Beyond writing and being in love, I work a lot and I daydream about summer traveling. Cornerstone will be good (assuming if I can figure out a way to get there) and the planned weekend Oklahoma roadtrips should be a blast.

Well that's enough to say for now. I've typed out plenty of verbal diareha for now as my friend K would say. She's probably right but sometimes it feels good to just say what's on the brain even if it makes no sense.

Hasta que la próxima vez yo escriba

The Matrix. . . Reloaded

I finally saw it tonight and am still realing from the experience. It is so very unlike what I had expected. It one giant mind trip that I frankly will still not completely understand even after I watch it five more times. I'll write a more cohesive review later, but for now I can't It is still too fresh and I feel like mind is on fire, with sparks sizzling out of my ears and my eyes ablaze with scenes of kung fu fighting taking place on top of an 18-wheeler's trailer that is going down a crowded freeway at 80 mph. This movie is better than drugs. It is philosophy, theology, the whole enchilada. It is beauty. It is horror. It is love. It is organic chemistry. It is electricity. It is man versus machine. It machine versus man. It is machine versus machine versus spirit versus man versus prophecy versus intellect versus hope versus every possible paradigm imaginable by man. It is like feeling the earth being shaken out from under you in a manner so horrific yet so amazing it is beyond my ability to convey. It is. . . (to be continued)

One more thing... Morpheus. He is a prime example of a true man of faith. I totally dig him, even more so than Neo. Neo seems to almost stumble into his divinity, to be pretty clueless half the time. Morpheus though. . .. he is the real oracle. He is the real prophet.

Pictures with my digital camera

I went ahead and splurged today (but one that I've been planning for months) on a new digital camera. Amazingly it is a 2.1 megapixel and only cost $137! (I remember not long ago when a camera with that much resolution would have been $300 or more).

So, here are my first pictures from the new camera... (click on the picture to view a larger version of it)




































These pictures were taken of a field behind all of the sprawl on the Noble Parkway in Norman (right behind the Borders bookstore). I call it my "Prayer Field" because I've had lots of good times of praying while walking around there. It is such a pretty oasis of tranquility and nature in the midst of the big-box stores and asphault parking lots. It probably doesn't look like much to those passing by, but I think it is a treasure. There's a little pond on one side of it, several old trees (which I bet were planted by early settlers), and lots and lots of native grasses and wildflowers. I counted tonight at least 6 different kinds of flowers, but the most showy display was by the bright red visual explosive power of the Indian Paintbrush (shown in the first picture). There's also lots of animals, bugs, skunks (I only know of their presence by the sad sight of one dead that I saw tonight), and lots and lots of birds.

I hope and pray they don't kill the field. It would be crime if they did.

Maybe they will keep it, but if they don't the field will always be there in these pictures and as ghost on the landscape, waiting the day when mankind no longer destroys beauty so mindlessly.

posted by JMB at 12:36 AM | link |

Light in a dark world

Streets.org - a ministry to men involved in prostitution

Reading about this ministry is such a beautiful thing. So few Christians follow Jesus's example of ministry to the outcasts (even the prostitutes) so literally. If only we all did this.

Random

• An artful flyer from a Miranda Stone concert from MirandaStone.com
  
  
• Larknews.com - satire
  
  
• Content & Context --- The Books & Culture Weblog
  
  
• Cockeyed.com: Guides to Sneaky Cheap things to save money --- Let me add a few more to the list... (1)Stealing toilet paper from public restrooms, (2) Stealing office supplies from work, (3) Having all the soup you want at Scholotzky's even though the sign says "limit one refill"
  
  
• Times Online (UK): Descartes for the 21st century, Jesus with cool shades and a beltful of guns
  
  
• MSNBC: Dixie Chicks booed at awards show --- Those who booed the Dixie Chicks are the ones who are ANTI-AMERICAN, ANTI-FREEDOM, and BIGOTED. I encourage all lovers of freedom and genuine country music (unlike most the schlock that was given awards at the CMA awards) to go out buy one of their albums right now.
  
  This part of the story though does warm my soul...
  
  
  PRESENTER VINCE GILL urged the audience at Wednesday night’s show to “Stop it, stop it.” He added: “You know who gets blessed when you forgive - you.”
  
  
  I'm glad to see at least a few country musicians having the courage to do what is right, but am still sick of hearing anti-American bigots like Toby Keith (and I don't care if you do sing that innane song "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" . . . you're anti-American if you want to bully people into not exercising their first amendment rights.) shoot off their mouths and embarrass America by your actions.
  

Photos from last weekend

• Can be viewed here. (I'm the goofy looking guy in a Hawaiian shirt in a few of the pictures).

Random:

• Fighting Whites --- Go Whities!
  
  
• Bushed.org
  
  
• B---S---job.com --- dedicated to the cult classic movie Office Space (filmed in Austin, TX)
  

Back from convention

I'm got back from Newcastle late last night from our Oklahoma Green party state convention.

The convention itself went well. Lots of good time with some of the coolest people I've ever known in a beautiful setting (this weekend has made me decide one thing for certain... I'm moving to Eastern Oklahoma after I graduate --- it is so beautiful and so unspoiled out there.) As ussual the business side of the gathering was pretty dry... at moments some tension in drafting our platform, but mostly it was the non-excitement of grammatical editing and rewording. --- I feel ok but not great about our finished platform. It is far superior to the National GP's platform (a horrible document IMHO) but is still more awkward and lengthy than I would have liked.

Today, I'm back in the groove of ordinary life. The first day working at my dad's law office went well. While it would still be way cooler to not work at all (hahaha, wishful thinking), I think the job will work out ok. My patience level has definitely improved since last summer and the pace of office work is much better than I would have expected.

Overall life is good.

This post was removed manually on 12-2-03.

More on the Texas legislative walkout

• Statesman.com: Wayward lawmakers back at Capitol, ready to get back to work now that redistricting is dead
  
  
• Statesman.com: Photos from the standoff
  
  
• Statesman.com: Stranger than fiction --- With screenplay about a walkout, life imitates art
  
  
• Statesman.com: Feds looked for plane trooper said was lost

More on Brenda Ueland...

Note: I'm typing this from Brian's computer in Holdenville while he is at work. Won't likely be online again until Sunday night.

The more I read of Ueland's book "If you want to write. . ." the more I get fired up. I would have to agree wholeheartedly with Carl Sandburg who said that it was "the best book ever written about how to write."

Anyway, here are some links that tell about her life. She sounds like a very interesting person, a femnist before it was cool to be one and someone who was committed to living life fully.


• Gray Wolf Press bio of Brenda Ueland
  
  
• Minnesota Historical Society: BRENDA UELAND --- An Inventory of Her Papers (lots of interesting tidbits of biography that the stanard bios leave out)
  
  
• Daily Celebrations: Brenda Ueland, A flame of Spirit

OK-IMC flyer

If you want to get involved, download this file in PDF format

Gone to Convention

Just to let y'all know I will be likely offline for the next few days. This morning I'm driving out to Seminole (1 hour east of here) to work with some folks on preparing for our Oklahom Green Party state convention, and then will be at the convention at Dwight Mission (near Vian in far eastern Oklahoma, about 30 miles west of Arkansas) until late Sunday night.

I'm so looking forward to this convention. Green Party politics is so un-like any of my past political experiences. It is really more of a gathering of friends than the typical cut-throat meanness of my past involvement with other political parties. It will be more like summer camp really than your typical political convention.

Texas politics... what a hoot

• OKIMC: Statehouse Democrats Flee Texas in Rift (originally an AP/NewsOK story) --- This is too funny to be true. A third of the Texas state house is now holded up in a hotel in Ardmore, OK to avoid arrest in Texas, with Oklahoma police saying the warrants are no good and the local Oklahoma sheriff saying they sure won't be arrested in Oklahoma! (Also Governor Henry reportedly has refused to extradict them... one of the few good things I can say about our Governor here in Okieland)
  
  Also see the Austin American-Statesman story --- Missing Democrats stall House for 2nd day (Photos here: can be found here.
  
  All in all, I gotta say good for the Texas democrats! I'm glad to see them stand up against Texas being completely controlled by the Repubs though gerrymandering.
  
  
• Randomwalks.com/drublood has this little blurb that is too funny (and absolutely dead on the money)...
  
  
  UPDATE: Another hero - New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid, who says this in answer to Governor Rick Perry's request to allow Texas officials to make arrests in her state:
  
  "Some are speculating this request from the Texas Governor's office concerns an effort to locate missing Texas House Democrats," Madrid wrote. "If so, Texas should understand that since ski season is over, the Santa Fe Opera has not begun and President Bush was just in town, I don't think they are in Santa Fe now. Nevertheless, I have put out an all-points bulletin for law enforcement to be on the look out for politicians in favor of health care for the needy and against tax cuts for the wealthy."
  
  
  
• News8Austin's coverage of the story also see Austin IMC's coverage
  

Tonight (oh glorious night!)

. . . has been glorious. It's hard to put this in to words, but I'l try anyway.

Ever since L-school finals ended I have felt like I've been in a haze of sorts. I felt unable to change gears to the summer routine. Finals had been such an intense time, of studying and terror, cigarettes and coffee and power bars; passing from that time to the next didn't seem real yet..

The last few days though, I've been slowly waking up. I decided not to go back to work immediately as planned (at my Dad's law office --- a good job but one that can be rather intense). Since I did need to make some dinero though, I've been doing some landscaping work for my Dad at the office and at my folks' house, but otherwise have been mostly working in my own garden and just be-ing.

That brings us to today. The afternoon was spent digging out old weedy flower beds at the office, then adding new soil and planting stuff. --- It doesn't seem that hard, but believe me those beds were a mess with old tangled bermuda grass and sundry weeds. By evening, I was wore out and my body ached so I took a long shower and then drove to Norman to chill out at the Border's bookstore for awhile.

I wandered several of my favorite sections thumbing through books: first gardening, then religion, and finally settled on books about writing and getting published. In the midst of my browsing, I stumbled across a little paperback volume that contained the supersonic velocity that I believe has already changed my life... If you want to write: A book about Art, Independence, and Spirit by Brenda Ueland.

I can't really explain why this book resonated so, but it did (and I've only read the first 30 pages or so thus far). She takes the thoughts of Emerson, mixes them with the Christian-mystic-madness-joyfulness of William Blake, jumps into the mind of Van Gogh, and then proceeds to pluck kernels from Tolstoi's head... and does all of this is the most pithy, irreverent, and downright joyful prose I've read in eons!

Of course I bought the book (along with Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster, also the author of A Celebration of Discipline) and read till closing time. After Border's closed, I walked out into the field behind the store (just a vacant field, often full of wildflowers... strangely enough a place where I've often gone to pray when in Norman) in the fullmoon lit night with clouds at times playing peekaboo with the moon, and prayed like I haven't in a long time. It was so, so good.

It seemed like a lot of things came together all at once. I felt the reawakening of my dormant desire to write. I felt the goodness of lifting my arms out into the night sky and feeling the breeze. I also felt remarkably free. . . strangely enough, I felt in my heart that I had finally shed some of the pervasive guilt and surrow that has been stalking my soul. I don't really care to go into detail about the particular issues that I was experiencing guilt over (sorry, just a tad bit too public, but I'll be glad to share the story with any friend who asks off-line), but I finally came to realize that the guilt I was experiencing was NOT from God. There was something about this revelation of freedom and the empowering glorious feeling of the cool breeze in this May night that made me feel so alive!

I still can't explain what happened tonight and reading back over this post, I don't think I explained it well at all, but that's the story. I do know for sure that's its time to live completely this summer. I may or may not work at the office some, I haven't decided that yet, but I KNOW that I will write. I have at least two books bouncing around in my skull and my heart and its high time to get them written. My first priority this summer will be to write. The rest might just have to go on the backburner.

Quote of the Day

For when you think of it, the only way to love a person is not, as the stereotyped Christian notion is, to coddle them and bring them soup when they are sick, but by listening to them and seeing and believing in the god, in the poet, in them. For by doing this, you keep the god and the poet alive and make it flourish.

- Brenda Ueland in If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit (page 6), 1938

More tornadoes

Last night was a pretty crazy evening for Oklahoma weather. There were multiple storms across the state with one large tornado that came through the OKC metro area. The damage was bad (but as bad as yesterday) but thankfully there were no fatalities and only 5 injuries.

All of my loved ones are ok (at first the tornado appeared to be coming this way straight east from Union City but then veared north towards Mustang, Bethany, and OKC

Tomorrow

I'll be riding in the SCAT (South Canadian Annual Tour), a bike tour in Newcastle. Not sure yet if I'm riding the 26 or the 46 mile ride. Probably the 26 if the wind is still strong from the south (last year that wind ate me alive). Added at 8:43 a.m., May 10, 2003 - I ended up not riding in SCAT. I hated to miss it but I had to stay up late last night because of the severe weather, so 7:30 a.m. start time was way too early for me. Also the wind was nasty from the south this morning.

Then in the afternoon I'll be at Code Pink's Mother's day peace rally in Shawnee to speak on behalf of CROP. I hope to see y'all there.

Photos from yesterday's tornado

My friend Scott Hannan (who lives in Moore) took some compelling photographs of the storm (immediately after the sirens turned off) and of the damage afterwards.

What am I going to do this summer

It's finally hitting me today that I really am a 2L now and have an entire summer before me in all its glory. So... what will I do with it?

Here's the plan for now...

Job: Starting Monday I'll be working for my Dad's law office in Newcastle as a legal assistant/secretary. I've worked for him off in on in the past (for about a year all together) and enjoyed it. In many ways he is the kind of lawyer I aspire to be (I'm biased of course), but the pace in the office can be brutal. I'm hoping though to preserve my sanity by only working Monday-Thursday about 30 hours a week. --- I also will continue to preach (for as long as they'll have me) about 3 times a month.

Writing: In June my focus will be on doing my law review comment. I'm looking forward to that as I have an interesting imigration law case to do, but also dread the hours I'll have to spend on it. After teh law review comment is done, then I'm hoping to at least make a dent on one of my life goals... to write a book.

I doubt I'll finish it this summer, but I'm seriously considering writing a book about the social justice teachings of Jesus. It would talk about issues like non-violence, concern for the poor, living simply, etc.

Travel: So far I have several short trips planned. The biggie will be the Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, IL. It is a Christian festival that is a bit like Woodstock (sans drugs), lots of good music (plenty that sucks too... especially the Tooth&Nail clone bands, but the folk/accoustic/hippie jam band stuff is might fine listening), seminars from a Christian-leftist perspective, an independnet and foreign film festival, and of course lots of meeting old and new friends from all over the US and Canada.

I had considered not going this year, but after a couple of opportunities fell in my lap I couldn't say no. The first is that I'm going to be the reporter for The Vagrant Cafe. (I have gone in the past for EXITzine but Exit is no more.) I really dig Vagrant and the freedom they're giving me to cover C-stone however I want to.

I'm also going to be participating in a Q&A session about blogging at the festival's Praire School of Writing. (They had a cancellation which is why I'm getting to do it.)

My other planned trips are to visit my friend Kimberly down in Austin, and also to make some Oklahoma road trips with my friends Rachel and Brian.

Other stuff: Lots of other stuff is in the works. I want to start painting again. I want to do some serious decoration/remodeling of my very humble abode. I have lots of things I want to do with the Green Party this summer. I want to lose some weight.I want to get serious about bike riding. I want to garden like a happy fool.

Eye-witness report of the Tornado touch-down in Newcastle

• OK-IMC: What I saw today when the tornado first touched down
  
  The damage thus far has been devastating. Parts of OKC and Moore have been demolished. There have been reportedly so far 96 injuries but no fatalities.
  
  What is most shocking about this storm is that much of the storm's track has been the same as that of the massive storm a few years back (the May 3rd storm, I forgot the year maybe in 1999?) except that it began further North this time so Bridge Creek was spared, and that the tornado's strength was not as bad (F-2 or F-3 for this one, the big storm a few years back was an F-5).
  
  
• I'll report as soon as available about the relief efforts. If anyone is aware of anything in this regard, please email me at jmb(at)jmbzine.com or post a comment to let us know.

My First Year of Law School is now officially completed

I completed my Property final about 45 minutes ago and am numb and awed that this experience is actually over. I don't really believe it yet but I'm sure it will sink in soon. --- I'll be heading to the after-finals shindig this afternoon and then after that I just want to sit at home and do nothing.

The last 12 hours or so have been rather intense. Last night I left the computer lab at 11:15 p.m. and drove to the Waffle House on I-40 at the MLK exit. I ordered some coffee and a double order of hash browns covered and chunked (Yeah I fell of the Atkins wagon. I hope to be back on it next week though.) and then made flash cards for everything in my mini-outline. I crammed on that until I think 2 or 3, bought an alarm clock at the truckstop next door (I was a bit nervous about oversleeping) and then slept in my car at the truckstop for until 7.

I then woke up, drove back to OCU and took a shower at the gym, did my last minute cramming and took the final at 9.

The final went better than expected (I'll post a play by play of it later for those of you who are taking Schwartz next year). I know I screwed up 1 of the 6 sections royally but the other sections I feel good about so at least I know I didn't flunk. (Heck, maybe I'll get a C+ which for Schwartz is not bad at all.)

So it is over. It feels a bit anti-climactic right now but boy am I glad to be done.

P.S. - Thanks K and the rest of you who prayed for me on this one. I really do think it helped. I was more calm for this final than for any of the others amazingly.

My stupid Property Outline

. . . can be downloaded here but I'll warn you I'm as dumb as brick when it comes to Property. All standard disclaimers apply. Reader beware of my ineptitude in propery law.

L-School Update

From a cell phone conversation with a very patient friend who listened to my ad naseum griping about studying property...


You know what it sounds to me. You just don't give a f*** anymore.


She was dead on the money then, but I'm starting to freak out now. I'm debating now whether


1. I will stay up all night studying (final is at 9 a.m.),
   
   
2. Stay up for a few more hours studying, and then drive to a truckstop and sleep in my car so as to avoid the morning comute, or
   
   
3. Just say screw it and quit studying now to drive home (25 miles away, but 45 minute drive in the morning with traffic) to sleep

More Dazed and Confused stuff

You can tell I'm either really hate Property and don't want to study it, or am really obsessed with this movie (the answer is both). Anyway though, via The Moontower, I found this list of Austin area sites were the movie was filmed: Dazed & Confused Location Guide

Dazed and Confused

• Ebay: Pickford's Car (More on this car can be found at http://www.dazed-and-confused.net/cars.html --- (This was the car that Mitch threw the bowling ball out of.)

Yeah for Wal-Mart

• This will probably be the only time you'll see me lauding Wal-mart on this blog, but this is too good to not comment on... MSNBC/AP: Wal-Mart yanks racy magazines --- Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. has pulled the men’s magazines Maxim, Stuff and FHM from its shelves, deeming them too racy for its customers.
  
  Very glad to see them do this. I'm sick of having my mind assaulted everytime I'm in the checkout line, and I'm sick of seeing women being made to feel that they don't measure up if they don't fit the standard portrayed by those magazines.

Oklahoma City Live Music

• From Carter Sampson's email listserve:
  
  
  Joe Mack
  Bridgewater
  Carter Sampson
  
  Live at Trainhoppers
  1738 N.W. 16th OKC
  Friday May 9th
  8pm
  $5 at the door
  B.Y.O.B.
  Please come out and support local live music!!
  
  
  
• BTW, here are a couple of pictures of Carter Sampson playing at the legendary OKC venue The Blue Door: Picture #1 - Picture #2
  

Jerry Falwell's big mouth

• Jerry Falwell complains about "censorship." --- Is he smoking crack? Falwell complaining about censorship is like Bill Clinton complaining about infidelity in American society.

Random

• NW Indiana Times: Celebrity's not in it for the fame --- Two of this band's members are from the now broken up Rockabilly band Shifter 5 (formerly known as Prophecy). You can download some of the new tracks from their new album at www.mp3.com/celebrity
  
  
• I got this in an email forward...
  
  
  What the American Flag Stands For
  by Charlotte Aldebron
  
  The American flag stands for the fact that cloth can be very important. It is against the law to let the flag touch the ground or to leave the flag flying when the weather is bad. The flag has to be treated with respect. You can tell just how important this cloth is because when you compare it to people, it gets much better treatment. Nobody cares if a homeless person touches the ground. A homeless person can lie all over the ground all night long without anyone picking him up, folding him neatly and sheltering him from the rain.
  
  School children have to pledge loyalty to this piece of cloth every morning. No one has to pledge loyalty to justice and equality and human decency. No one has to promise that people will get a fair wage, or enough food to eat, or affordable medicine, or clean water, or air free of harmful chemicals. But we all have to promise to love a rectangle of red, white, and blue cloth.
  
  Betsy Ross would be quite surprised to see how successful her creation has become. But Thomas Jefferson would be disappointed to see how little of the flag's real meaning remains.
  
  Charlotte Aldebron, 12, wrote this essay for a competition in her 6th grade English class. She attends Cunningham Middle School in Presque Isle, Maine.
  
  

L-School Update

Crim Law went about how I expected it would with 3 hours of sleep and a paranoid brain. --- Actually it went better than one might expect, but I still expect that to be my low grade. Incredibly ironic since that is a subject I'm most interested in actually practicing someday. Oh well it's done at least. Now all I have left is Property. I got a ton of work to do on it but I definitely see the end in sight on it at least (and I started studying it a few weeks ago, so it's not quite the panic the others have been)

L-School Update

It's 3 a.m. and I have a final at 9 and I can't fall asleep! Panic setting in. I would take some nyquil or something but now it is getting to close to morning and I don't want to be zonked out. I hate finals!!!

Well if you're also unable to sleep and worrying about your criminal law final feel free to download my mini-cram outline for Johnson's Criminal Law Class No warranties or guaranties on it. It is very weak and is mostly cut and paste from other outlines.

Random

• Austin IMC has quite a bit of coverage of Saturday's peace & freedom convergence at the state capitol. (Excellent pictures) --- No coverage from the Austin A-S though, which is surprising. They had been doing a decent job of covering anti-war stuff until now.
  
  
• More from Austin IMC on the attempted peace protest in Crawford, TX and the UNCONSTITUTIONAL FASCIST arrests of Americans who were exercing their rights in a lawful fashion. Certainly they can require a permit if you're marching in the street or blocking traffic but not if you're on the sidewalk. It appears to me that the Mayor and Police Chief of Crawford are PUPPET THUGS of the administration, committed to keeping free speech from occuring. Well this is still America, and we (theoretically at least) still have rights. I hope those arrested not only fight their charges, but also sue the pants off of the Mayor, Police Chief, and the city government of Crawford.
  
  
• Statesman.com: Old Man of the Mountain falls --- New Hampshire saddened by collapse of its rocky icon --- This is so sad. (If you are unfamiliar with this mountain, look in your pocket at your change. The Old Man is on New Hampshire's state quarter.

Visiting a Mennonite Church

• This Sunday since I was not preaching at my own church (on vacation because of L-school finals), I visited Joy Mennonite Church in Oklahoma City. I have been wanting to visit them for some time, as I had met their pastor Moses Mast and his wife Sadie at past Oklahoma City peace vigils, and was always awed by their kind loving attitudes and their commitment to bring God's peace to this world.
  
  The worship itself was very simple and casual (It reminded me of my own church, except even more laid back). Some of the members dressed in more traditional Mennonite-garb, others wore shorts and sandals. A good number of kids and older folks as well (not any single people my own age, but that seems to be pretty common in most smaller churches in Oklahoma) What I think digged the most though was the racial diversity. (Even their guest speaker that morning was Black.)
  
  I don't think I'll be leaving my own church (I feel a definite connection and love for those folks), but I also really dig those mennonites. I hope I can go and visit them again.
  
  
• ThirdWay.com - an interesting website about Mennonite beliefs and practice
  

OK-IMC Update:

• The Oklahoma Independent Media Center (www.okimc.org) is now full-member of the global Indymedia.org collective is linked up from their front page. --- I am extremely excited about this!

A recent project

• Proposed Version of Section II of the Oklahoma Green Party platform. Feel free to read it and send me your thoughts, or better yet come to our state convention (if you're a Green) to participate in the platform ratification process. (I did slip in one joke plank. You get extra points if you can find it.)

The Dixie Chicks

Well it looks like ol' Jerry Falwell has stuck his foot in his mouth again.

He has some nerve dogging the Dixie Chicks after saying that God allowed the terrorists to attack America because of the work of . . . civil liberties groups, abortion rights supporters and feminists. Sheesh!

In contrast, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks stated a what many reasonable Americans believe. . . that Bush is an embarassment to us all (and not only to Texans but to all of America) Maybe it was in bad taste to say it the way she said it (I frankly don't find it nearly as offensive as what comes out of Ashcroft's mouth everyday.)

What Falwell said is vile, and what he is saying now about the Dixie Chicks just makes him look silly and stupid.

L-School Update

• Yesterday's contracts final went well for me. It was one heck of final. One giant fact pattern which had almost every element of Contract law from the whole semester worked in. My Professor might be sick and twisted for putting us through that, but he is a genius for being able to pull it off. Wierdly enough thought I felt better about than I did for Civ Pro.
  
  
• Things are now a bit more laid back. I have Criminal Law on Monday and Property on Wednesday but those look better to me. We'll see though.
  
  I am so ready to be done with L-school.

More Random

• Oklahoma.Indymedia.org - The OK-IMC was finally accepted into the world-wide Indymedia collective (www.indymedia.org). We're not linked up yet on their front page but should be so soon.
  
  
• Dazed and Confused 10 Year Reunion Party - This is too good to be true! I so wish I could go. --- In the end, I have to confess that D&C probably is my favorite movie of all time. I dig a lot of movies, but that is the one that I can see over and over and not get bored of. So many good lines, and of course its set in Austin back when things were still cool.

Random

• I'm taking my Contracts II finals in a little over an hour.... it is looking better than it did yesterday but I'm still skeeerred.
  
  
• MSN: How recycling your PC just got easier