:: My Divided Soul ::

I’ve had what could possibly be the strangest dream I’ve ever had in my life. Someone I know, who we will call X, decided to embrace Satan. So, X went to a parking lot to write out the “Twenty commandments of the Devil” on the concrete. Apparently, there are a lot more rules to follow when one worships Lucifer. I tried to stop X during as the laws of the damned were written on the ground, but all I got was an animalistic, eyes of fire growl in disapproval. I decide it is best to let the ritual finish.

So later, X and I are sitting on a couch. I proceed to grab X and throw this person to the floor. While continuing to strangle X, I repeatedly yell, “The power of Christ compels you!”

Any thoughts on the deep symbology there?

Justin has made a couple posts regarding the issue of the cartoons of the prophet Mohammad that appeared in a Danish newspaper and I have responded to them as comments on his weblog. I wanted to post my responses here as well. I would ask that you go read his entries as well, to get a different perspective on the issue. (I suppose this all means I should figure out how this whole “trackback/ping” thingy works.)

First of all, in response to his February 3 entry, “Idiots with Assault Rifles”:

There was a specific reason I didn’t get into the protests and threats of violence when I talked about the issue. It’s not that I “let them off easy,” it’s that too often when Muslims or Mideast politics are discussed in the media, it always moves to the issue of “idiots with assault rifles and masks” in a way that makes it seem they speak for the majority of Muslims. It amounts to subtle racism. For instance, during the day yesterday, the BBC’s story on the portrayal of Mohammad had two pictures with it: both of them showed people with masks and assault rifles. No pictures of the peaceful protests and boycotts were visible until you specifically clicked on the “In pictures” link. And even in that batch of pictures, there was a one of a person with mask, assault rifle, and book obviously meant to imply it was the Koran. Muslims are portrayed in the media as terrorists. I wanted to avoid having my entry focus on that part of the story in any way, as I think it is being focused on plenty in other places. In fact, it is only now in the face of these protests that we are hearing anything. These cartoons were printed back in August. So it is only once we have assault rifles and threats that it matters.

I think the same is true of the reaction to the victory of Hamas in Palestinian elections. Every article I have ever read that has anything to do with Hamas comes with a disclaimer: “Hamas has carried out numerous suicide bombings and is considered a terrorist organization by the US State Department and Israel,” even in articles that have to do with the deaths of Palestinian civilians at the hands of the Israeli army! Hamas did not get elected on the platform of “death to Israel.” In fact, it was not an issue they even brought up during the election. The were elected because of the social programs they have backed in the occupied territories for decades. They provided help to the people when no one else would. They also ran on a platform of removing the old, corrupt government. Up until this point, the United States and Israel have both said the Palestinians need to get rid of their corrupt officials before any true progress can be made.

Well, that is what the Palestinians did. And now aid to Palestinians is being cut off left and right because Hamas has guns and bombs (even though they have adhered to the ceasefire since August 2004). They are not even being given a chance. My hope is that the move to power will be good for Hamas and the Palestinian people. Energy spent trying to govern takes away from energy spent with more violent means. But the fact is, we won’t know until we give them a chance. Backing them up against a wall this early just makes the whole situations worse. At least Jimmy Carter has the right idea.

And in response to Justin’s February 7 entry, “Largely Ignorant Muslim Fundamentalists,” I wrote:

I think in some ways, this goes beyond just newspapers, though. This has been coming for a long time. As I understand it, Muslim immigrants are treated like second-class citizens in Denmark and other European countries. In Denmark, the current political climate is one of “immigrants, get out.” In fact, a person like me would have trouble in a country like that simply because of my last name. That is why I think the boycotts of Danish and Norwegian products are a reasonable protest.

It is true that the call for punishment of the newspaper by the government does not fit within Western governing practices. But it does with the governing bodies these protesters are used to.

I should also point out there is a major difference between speech directed towards Muslims and speech directly towards their faith. Directly speech towards Muslims themselves does not lead to this kind of uproar. It is the fact that the faith itself has been insulted. Muslim leaders may call Christians or Jews inferior (find me a religion that doesn’t call others inferior or wrong–strong belief seems based in this fact), but the Danish newspaper insulted the faith itself. It would be the difference between showing priests as child molesters and portraying Jesus Christ as a child molester when that scandal broke. That is the difference, and it is a very important one.

Europe is now trying to play the victims when they are not. They have treated Muslims and other immigrants poorly. And now that there are economic and political implications, they are blaming the Muslim countries and saying they have to be so careful dancing around topics relating to Islam and that it is unfair. Well, I’m sorry that Muslims ask for respect towards their faith. Just because other people do not does not make Muslims wrong. I don’t think Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali can claim to understand that, even if she is of Somali decent, as she once said, “Measured by our western standards, [Mohammad] is a pervert. A tyrant.”

I’m not saying that means the Danish government should punish the newspaper, but we do at least have to understand why they are calling for something that seems so radical. All of this goes beyond cartoons now. We are talking about two groups of people that aren’t even on the same field, let alone able to negotiate. However, too often is the perspective that the people in these Muslim countries are just backwards people who need to get with the program and accept the light of the west taken. As we have moved into an age of being more connected to the entire world, being sensitive and understanding of others’ beliefs is that much more important. We can’t impose “western standards” on everyone.

The Muslim world has reacted very strongly to cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten. One of these images showed Mohammad with a headdress shaped like a bomb. Another had him saying that there weren’t enough virgins in paradise for suicide bombers. In Islam tradition, one is not to depict the prophet Mohammad, as it promotes idolatry. The anger in the Muslim world has lead to demonstrations and boycotts. It is only now, after many months and such boycotts and diplomatic sanctions that the newspaper is apologizing.

I find the newspaper’s images disturbing for two reasons. The first is that it reinforces the stereotype that Muslims are terrorists and that Islam itself promotes terrorism. This is a misconception Muslims have been fighting for decades. Yes, it is true that there are terrorists who are also Muslims. However, it is not true that Islam is violent by nature or that Muslims of the world are terrorists. This is the more simple of the two reasons I find the images offensive.

The second reason is the justification given for the images. The paper said, “Our right to say, write, photograph and draw what we want to within the framework of the law exists and must endure - unconditionally!” In other words, “the law allows us freedom of speech.” I won’t disagree that they have the right to say what they want to say. I won’t disagree that censorship by a government of ideas or media is a bad thing. However, I do disagree that having the freedom of speech means you should use it to say whatever you want, no matter how much it could offend people.

More and more often, offensive material in our society is being justified by freedom of speech or as having some kind of meaning as satire on the current state of affairs. It is true, satire often offends people. It is meant to. It tries to challenge us to look at what we think and what is going on in the world around us, sometimes even effecting political and social change that benefits us all.

However, while a lot of satire is offensive, not everything that is offensive is inherently satire. A dead baby joke, for instance, is not trying to make some sweeping social commentary on abortion. It is simply there to offend. Some find such things personally offensive. Others laugh. Some even do both. No one has illusions about such jokes. No one telling these jokes tries to wrap them up in some grand political meaning. They are offensive, plain and simple.

Now, anyone who makes offensive content can claim to be making social commentary on free speech itself. “I am defending my freedom of speech” has become the rallying cry of rude people who have nothing really interesting to say, but instead are being offensive for the sake of being offensive. Personally, I think Eminem is a great example of this. Eminem is not being satirical when he raps about homosexuals, women, and just about everyone else in the way he does. He’s not some brilliant lyricist trying to overturn the status quo. He is a person who is being offensive because it will get him attention and sell millions of records. No attempt to effect social or political change here. Nevertheless, this is the argument we hear. We hear from his avid fans that he’ll say anything and how awesome that is and people who are offended just don’t get it.

That is the essence of the problem: defending one’s offensive speech with “well, they are just overreacting” or “I have a right to say what I want” is no defense, it is simply a shift of responsibility from the person who created the offensive art to the person offended by it. It is like trying to say a woman who claims she was raped is at fault because she didn’t enjoy it. To shift the blame makes it easier for the entire world to become more offensive, to respect one another less and less.

The shift of blame continues in the form of calling any attempt at tolerance “political correctness,” a phrase with a negative connotation of excessive sensitivity in order not to upset those who aren’t thick-skinned enough to take a little criticism. I agree, there are some things that push sensitivity too far. The whole “Happy Holidays” vs. “Merry Christmas” is a shining example. I never had an objection to Merry Christmas. No matter what words are used to express the sentiment, the message is still the same: a wish that one is happy during this season and has warm and friendly experiences. The message is a positive one.

On the other hand, accusing those who get upset at the depiction of their prophet as a terrorist of being overly sensitive is trying to justify offensive statements. Depicting Mohammad with a bomb as a headdress does not express good feelings towards anyone. It does not attempt to question the status quo. It does not make some broad commentary on the situation Muslims face in an attempt to bring about change. It is offensive for the sake of being offensive. It serves to reinforce stereotypes that cause all followers of a religion to be watched carefully out of fear. It angers a group of people in the hope of getting attention. It is hate speech, nothing more.

I am certainly not calling for the Danish government to punish the newspaper or to limit freedom of speech. In the same way, I don’t think Eminem CDs should be pulled from the shelves of stores. However, what speaks about us as a society is not just the freedoms we have, but how we use them. Exercising one’s freedom is a wonderful testament to those who fought to win us those freedoms and the struggle many faced to change wrongs they saw in the world.

Nevertheless, one should always keep in mind that having the right to be offensive doesn’t mean you should be. I’ve seen people say in response to the reaction on the part of Muslims that they should just cool it because other groups are subject to such offensive imagery, too. How is that a justification? Although it is a cliché, it is still true, “an eye for an eye leaves us all blind.”

So where does this leave the situation? Danish products have been boycotted in much of the Muslim world, resulting in sales in that part of the world approaching zero. In fact, Arla Foods has been forced to lay off 125 workers as a result. I have to say, good for the people who are participating in the boycott! I’m not sure I buy any products produced in Denmark. I believe I will take a little closer look, however, and make sure I do not. I hope that such boycotts send a strong message that such hate speech is not tolerable. It does not make us better off as individuals or as a society.

A few days ago, Nasheet posed an interesting question: “Do people ever really change? Or is every “change” a step closer to being who you truly are to begin with?” It is a question that I have been asking myself a lot lately.

Recently, my life has undergone a number of changes. Some of them have led me to be more of the person I have wanted to be. I go to the office for eight hours a day. I go to the gym six days a week with Milind. I occasionally practice rudiments on the drums. These are things I have told myself for years that I wanted to do, because I thought they were good for me. However, up until this point, I have never been able to do them consistently.

What has me concerned a bit is wondering if I can keep it up. There often seems to be a discrepancy between the kind of person one wants to be and the kind of person one actually is. Deep inside, am I actually the person I want to be or are these changes just temporary? My hope is that they are more long term. But have I always had the energy to do these things and just never done it or is there something inherent in my personality that means I am doomed to fail at these endeavors?

In the end, we cannot escape who we are. I have seen this time and time again in other people and in myself. For instance, I find parties to be very awkward situations. I have since I first started going to them in college. For the most part, I try to avoid them or, if I do go, I don’t go for very long. I always feel out of place. At first, I believed it had to do with the fact that I did not drink alcohol while others got very drunk. However, this discrepancy no longer exists, as I do drink now and the parties I go to are not full of lunatic drunks. Yet no matter where it is or with whom I’m out, a party makes me want to curl up in a corner. (For an accurate description of I how a feel, see lyrics for “Costume for a Gutterball” by Finger Eleven.)

So I have gone three paragraphs without really answering the question at hand. I suppose for more trivial matters, it is possible to change who someone is. These are the parts of us that we might be willing and able to change for another person, like a boyfriend or girlfriend. They are parts of us that only make up the surface of who we are. These things change to suit the situation we are currently in: what time we get up, whether we put one or two spoonfuls of sugar in our coffee, etc.

However, I believe there are parts of our personalities that are always with us and changes tend to guide us towards that person. In fact, we can spend a lot of energy trying to change not to be that person, or trying to avoid that person. There can perhaps be no greater fear than knowing you are not who you want to be. Changing to try to avoid this person only gets us in trouble, as we end up back as that person again.

Whatever we change into comes from some potential within ourselves. I imagine one could relate this idea to René Descartes’ Third Meditation, “Concerning God, That He Exists” from his Mediations on First Philosophy. In the Third Meditation, Descartes argues that the fact that we can perceive ourselves as imperfect beings means we must have some notion of perfection against which to compare. However, this perfection against which we compare is not a part of us, so it must be that something with that perfection exists if we are able to perceive the difference.

Perhaps the same can be said about the person we change into. In changing into someone I am not currently, I must have some perception of the difference between that person and who I am right now. In order to perceive that difference, such a person must already exist. Therefore, changing as a person is a step closer to being someone who truly exists to begin with.

Follow me, if you will, through the mindset of a drummer deciding to buy new drum heads:

“Well, I really liked that Evans EC2 head Phil had on his drumset. It seems that I should put them on my toms.” Cost so far: $66.

“And while I’m at it, the snare batter head is getting pretty beat up. I should probably replace it, too. That Evans St Dry head looks to be exactly the kind of sound I want, especially compared to my current head.” Cost so far: $80.

“Hmmm…while I’m at it, I might as well replace the bass drum batter head. That Evans EMAD head is getting very positive reviews and drummers I like with very nice sounding bass drums use it. I should get one.” Cost so far: $117.

“Oh, I also need a patch for the bass drum head so I don’t break it.” Cost so far: $122.

“Oh, oh, the head on the bottom of my snare drum has never been replaced. That means it’s been on the drum for 10 years! I should get a new one, while I’m replacing heads.” Cost so far: $132.

“Now that I think about it, I can’t have Evans drumheads everywhere else on my drumset and have Remo heads on the bottom of the toms. I mean, isn’t the best way to ensure compatibility and good sounding drums to use the same brand on the top and bottom of the drum? I’d better get those G1 heads for the bottom of my toms.” Total cost: $175.

I have been known in the past to put up lists of my favorite albums released in a year and talk about them. This year, I thought I’d do something a little different. What follows is a list of my favorite songs from the year, in no particular order. Not all of these are singles; they are simply my favorite songs from albums I have purchased and enjoyed in the past twelve months. I would recommend any of these albums in their entirety. However, if you feel like getting just one song, you can follow the links to preview and/or buy them from the iTunes Music Store.

• 30 Seconds To Mars - “Attack” (from A Beautiful Lie): I first hear “Capricorn” by 30 Seconds to Mars and enjoyed that song from their first album. But the rest of the album didn’t impress me too much. This song grabbed me much more than “Capricorn” did and I find the album to be quite spectacular. This first single mixes electronic sounds and raw rock energy to create a powerful song. The drummer also has a unique perspective on time that adds a lot to the album.
• 311 - “Frolic Room” (from Don’t Tread on Me): 311 has consistently released awesome music. I also recommend seeing them live, if you get the chance. Their latest album has a distinctly more reggae sound to it than previous works. Normally, I really dislike reggae, but 311 has a way of rocking it out in ther typical style that makes it very enjoyable. “Frolic Room” is the best example of the mix of reggae, funk, and rock on the album.
• Dark New Day - “Pieces” (from 12 Year Silence): I’ve already talked about the Dark New Day album. Nice, straight up, loud rock music.
• Eisley - “Lost At Sea” (from Room Noises): Eisley is just a gem of a band that has come out recently. I find their sound to be unique and great music for when you are in a happy, carefree mood. Lovely and hypnotic.
• Fort Minor - “Remember the Name” (from The Rising Tied): Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park proves to be a creative hip hop force on his solo debut. The beats on this album are fresh and exciting. This song in particular grabbed me the first time I heard it. How many hip hop groups do you know who take three string players out on tour to authentically reproduce the music on the album? Incidentally, the percentages rapped about in this song do add up to 100. I’d say that makes Mike Shinoda pretty lyrically adept.
• Idlewild - “Love Steals Us From Loneliness” (from Warnings/Promises): Idlewild is the best band you’ve never heard of. Chethan will back me up on their awesomeness. The latest album demonstrates a slightly softer side of the band that has come a long way from their early days as a pretty bad indy/punk band. This song, the first single from the album has the crunchy guitars and interesting lyrics (”Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the past/It’s only the future that didn’t last”) for which they are known.
• Jason Mraz- “Song For A Friend” (from Mr. A-Z): While this album is not as impressive as Mraz’s first one, it still has some stand out tunes like this one. Clocking in at 8 minutes, it’s also quite a long track for a pop album. After getting quiet for a time in the middle of the song, it kicks into this beautiful and inspirational climax for the end of the song.
• Maroon 5 - “Wasted Years” (from Live Friday the 13th): Without a doubt, the new track featured on this live album is my favorite Maroon 5 song. It has a funky feel to it from the moment the drums and keyboard drive the tune at the beginning.
• Nine Inch Nails - “With Teeth” (from With Teeth): Trent Reznor is a musical genius. He finds new and creative way to turn sounds that are ugly individually into unbelievable songs. The new album is much more straight ahead than his last effort, The Fragile, which is an awesome album. The title track off of With Teeth has a beat I find interesting and have trouble getting out of my head after listening to it.
• Sevendust - “Pieces” (from Next): I already talked about this song. Wow, it is loud and amazing. Listen in particular for the the measure in the middle when the drummer screams the words “You’ll know” over a pounding double bass drum roll.
• System Of A Down - “Hypnotize” (from Hypnotize): Much has been said about the Mesmerize/Hypnotize set of albums released by this band this year. System has really put forth the best work of their careers. The first single from the second album they released this year contains all of the classic System of a Down traits: unique songs that change in unexpected ways with intriguing vocal harmonies.

The ground is currently covered with a healthy layer of white stuff. The weather folk haven’t done the best job of predicting the snow, though. This is the second storm in as many weeks that they have claimed would bring plentiful snowfall, only to get little snow. Well, if you can call 3-4 inches a “little snow.” Instead of the 7-11 inches predicted, we got a bit of rain and freezing rain. I think the temperatures turned out to be a little higher than expected.

Nevertheless, I took advantage of the wet, heavy layer of snow resulting from the 33-degree temperature today to make a new friend:

He waves at those who pass by the house. He would have been closer to the road, but that big snowball on the bottom did not want to budge from its current location. It’s cool, though, because he gets to rest against the house.

Anyone have a good name for him?

I have added pictures from the CS Holiday Party this year. I’d say it was about what one would expect. As is the case now, you will need to register to get to the pictures.

The Joel Baines Trio, the band Dexter and I play in, have a show Saturday night at 9pm at the Fisherman’s Pub. We’ll be playing mostly modern rock tunes for the night. We even have a special guest singer with us, Stephanie May, who will belt out some classic songs. There will be no cover for the show, so bring all of your friends and celebrate the end of Cornell classes with us!

The Fisherman’s Pub is located at 323 Taughannock Blvd. (Old Taughannock Blvd., actually) , between Castaways and Kelly’s.

So to summarize:

What: Joel Baines Trio show with Dexter and me
When: Saturday, December 3 at 9pm
Where: Fisherman’s Pub, on Old Taughannock Blvd.
Why: Rock ‘n Roll!

If you’ll be in Ithaca that weekend, hope to see you there!

Due to the increasing use of my pictures in unauthorized, inappropriate, and insulting ways, I have restricted access to my photo gallery. If you would like to view the pictures, please register. Note that all registration requests go through me.

For those of you who came from Google Images or something like that in the hope of finding some great picture to put on your web page, may I recommend you read this enlightening page regarding the theft of pictures.

I liked the idea of having my pictures out there for people to see. I liked getting comments in the gallery where people said they enjoyed my pictures. But that enjoyment has been scarred by the way I have seen my pictures used.