So, here it is, after a couple of weeks of absence, and I have a bunch to say about a bunch of different stuff, some controversial, some boring, but all brought to you in my (thank God) inimitable style. I really don't know where to start, and I will probably be supplementing with several blogs over the weekend, rather than one long rambling one as is my wont.
I have been getting ready for the start of the school year over the past couple of weeks. This means that I took a trip to Reno, spent time with wife and her family and my family, wrote lessons and problems and tests, and generally kept myself busy - all the while with thoughts running through my head that I felt needed to be set free to wander the untamed wilds of the interweb. Of course, I never actually got to do any of that, being distracted by so many other things, so I just had a bunch of racing thoughts running on a treadmill in my head, making sincere attempts at coalescing from their insubstantial state to actual words that could be understood by my fellow human beings.
So, first some good news. My niece, who had a vascular deficiency in her brain that we discovered when it ruptured on a roller coaster that I had taken her on at Six Flags Marine World. Since I am the only other one in the family who likes roller coasters, my then 8 year old niece relied on me to take her on rides. We were there on June 25, 2006 (my 35th birthday, three days before her 8th) celebrating, when she started complaining of a severe headache while we were on a ride called the Hammerhead. I thought it was weird because headaches are not normally a symptom of motion sickness. Anyway, long story short, we figured out pretty quick something was wrong, so my brother and I took her home, leaving my wife, his wife, our mom, and his other two kids to have fun for the rest of the day. She threw up on the car ride home, so we started to think severe motion sickness again, but when we got to her house and started walking up, she couldn't lift her right foot over the threshold. Long story short, we went from there to the hospital, where she spent the next three weeks in intensive care. They thought she would have to have brain surgery then, but fortunately, the rupture had actually destroyed the improperly growing vein, and it seemed to have grown back properly.
Anyway, the point of this whole story is that she just got an MRI last Thursday, and the doctors think she is completely fine. She is scheduled for another one in two years, and if that one is clear, then they are 99.9% sure that she is in the clear, as it were. OBVIOUSLY, VERY GOOD NEWS!
Anyway, I am in my classroom right now, watching Kairo (the Japanese version of "Pulse") and writing this, which I will soon finish so I can work on my website for school. However, one last comment - on the way to school today, I heard some song by the frontman from Rage Against the Machine's new band, "One Day as a Lion". Apparently, he made some asinine comment about the name being both a warning and a promise. Okay, I understand the guy's a Marxist, but Marx and Engel both wrote of the great revolution of the proletariat where the capitalists and the bourgeois would be swept away (and, yes, they did mean killed - they both referred to that specifically). Why the guy who took three million dollars to re-form a band for a couple of shows at a music festival last year thinks that he is not a capitalist, I have no clue. Yes he is well educated, but he seems remarkably naive and lacking in introspection. I might have a little more respect for his position if he just redistributed his wealth a bit in a non-capitalist way (for example, by giving me a bunch of it - from each according to his means, to each according to his needs, right). Hell, he could even give me all of it - since I am not burdened by the artificial Marxist conscience (which isn't really a conscience at all - but that's for another blog on the philosophical implications of atheism) I would put the money to good use - for myself and for others.
Anyhow, see you later.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
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2 comments:
Welcome back Prof.! Great news about your niece!!...and I remember how upset you were about it all.
Also, about RAGE, I love their music bro. I like that they elicit discourse about politics and inequality and how they communicate it all in a very angry way...cool with me. Most musicians would rather talk about relationships and sex and partying and breaking-up and hate and narcissism and booty and tits.
Frankly, I really don't listen to lyrics. I like Rage because they ROCK. To me, their lyrics sound like cool syllables strung together to form really cool strings of syllables. Also, I truly believe that subversive music isn't damaging to our culture, that it is in fact essential and important. When it comes to music, my intolerance goes another direction. I'll talk more about that to you in person.
I listen to both lyrics and music, and I find that I usually need both to really like a band (not always though). Rage does rock, but the lyrics always sound like he's whining. I'd be in heaven if I could find a karaoke version of some Rage songs.
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