Give it to the pregnant teenager!!!!

The official M.A.Y.A. Years Oscar picks will be coming shortly (please exhale. It's for your good.), but clearly, the viewing audience knows that Juno should win. (It really should, it was quite good.)

In other news, things are rapidly coming together in terms of this M.A.Y.A. going East. More to come shortly as well.

the GLUE that holds cities together...

I heard about the Great Lakes Urban Exchange a little while back and it's really cool. Started by two M.A.Y.A.s, GLUE hopes to help shape the debate about the development in post-industrial Great Lakes region. Fantastic stuff.

I've been into development issues since I've started writing over at Four Story. Issues of urbanism and community are so important, especially in the light of rapid change in cities, trying to shift to the new economic winds.

the journey on newsprint...

Today was a bit of a milestone for me: I recycled most of my own newspaper clippings.
I still have my portfolio, but all the papers that I have saved for close to four years are now in the recycle bin near the Iacaboni Library.
Just like that. It was a trip going through them once more, remembering what I had done and what I should have done better. That subhead is too big. That front didn't turn out right. Eh, maybe Toni was right about this one page. Just that one.
Included in the pile were all my notes from the Texas Theater project. Lint will know about this, but while in San Angelo, I ended up writing an expansive article on the Texas Theater, the main movie palace in downtown. It was my attempt to try and understand this place I called home for 14 months and maybe my way to try and get Angeloans to know about me.
It was sad to throw the notes away: part of me wanted to keep them, just to always have them. Nevertheless, I have the memories and the experience, plus the final product, so my work was done, as were those notes.
I did promise Glen that I would return to San Angelo once the theater was renovated, if it ever would be. Last time I heard, it's aiming for fall of this year.
I can't wait.

Raise a Valley girl in the way she should go....

Clearly, this poor child won't depart from it. Thanks to Karina for passing this along.

No, Se no puede....

Well, I think we know what the spin against McCain is going to be in the general election.

couple of thoughts about super tuesday...

1. All politics is local and once again, that is proven true. Here in Los Angeles County, where Clinton carried it strong, the mayor was a campaign co-chair, as well as influential congresswoman Maxine Waters and County supervisor Gloria Molina. That is a large constituency, particularly Latino. I read over at Talking Points Memo that the endorsement of city mayors was the most influential in key cities. I don't doubt it.
2. This election is going to truly ride on this idea: will a movement translate into votes? Meaning, young voters are coming out in droves for Obama and while it appears that no Republican candidates are attempting to acknowledgment their existence, it comes down to the fundamental adage that old votes, young protests. Hence, Clinton can gain more than Obama, especially if yoting drives at colleges haven't yielded positive results.
3. What I think it is going to happen with the Democrats will be a near-mirror of the 2000 election. Remember, America isn't a direct democracy. It isn't majority rules, but rather representative and proportional. If it comes to a brokered convention, the key will be what they call superdelegates; party elites that can vote however the hell they want. So, who will stay with Bill Clinton (because that is what it comes down to) or go to the new guy.
4. I feel like I should apologize on behalf of the national media. They really don't know what they're doing.

Tuesday is super duper!

Go vote if it's your turn to vote!!!

Rev. Jim Wallis spoke at All Saints last night in support of his new book, The Great Awakening.

It was quite good. I like Sojourners and what he has to say, but I do have to say that some people make really stupid comments in the name of Biblical interpretation or whatnot. Oh well. I commented to Joy that I wonder where people learn theology. Of course, I think of my own background and I know that answer all too well.

No matter...back to planning a move.

Do we love ourselves or are we in love with ourselves?

Nice editorial from I'm guessing the school paper of the University of Western Ontario on whether our generation just can't enough of our own greatness or if it's something else.

I've never really known what to think of this degree. It's difficult to compare generations because each generation constructs its identity in relation to what is going on. We didn't have a depression (well, not yet at least) and did have to defeat Fascism. But, we have been the beneficiary of great wealth and growth, even if it isn't completely adjusted for inflation.

Thoughts?

One for the money

Alrighty, the date is set. Let the countdown begin!

In speech and debate, we call this "kicking ass and taking names."

No matter your political preferences, Obama is a master at giving speeches. This might be his best yet.

The Messy Commons

Last night, Rev. Billy spoke and people listened.

A theater troupe out of New York City, Reverent Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir tour the world and perform "interventions" on various consumer stops. He was the grand marshal at Pasadena's Dooh-Dah parade and he made another stop at All Saints. He is the subject of "What would Jesus Buy?" both a book and a documentary.

Not a real pastor but speaking the truth like an old-school prophet, he talked about what does peace look like. Really. Is peace just the absence of war and violence? If and when we withdrawl our troops from Iraq and everywhere else, does that mean we have peace? No, peace is not the absence but rather the presence. It is the fulfillment or the awareness of the pieces of living. Similar to the amazing presentation given by the Desmond Tutu Peace foundation, peace is the awareness one has that every tool needed to live well is available and at their disposal.

For Rev. Billy, the marketplace has been replaced by the supermall. The marketplace wasn't just the market, simply to buy some fruit and go home. It was the centerplace of community. People talk, engage, argue, rebut, refrain, kiss, make up and become better humans. It was in the commons that language created culture. He used the metaphor of the stable and the manager to capture the re-invention of peace. The kings went to the baby, the bastard child of two young adults that weren't in the conventional model. It was more than a photo-op for Hallmark, it was a moment enshrined in eternity.

Yet, we are consumers and we find meaning in products. Corporations, the transnational ones, are our new empires. We copy and manipulate the human experience to brand.

Yes, yes, this is all true and all abstract. Of course, we don't like overspending. Of course, our allegiance to deficits to create false profits is ruining us. Of course, America has created an economic model that will destroy the world when the rest of the world tries to emulate it because Radio of America told them this is the best model of meaning. Of course, of course.

Rev. Billy gave an answer. Simple, yet radical. He said that in our private lives, we all know and most have peace. We communicate in loving homes, we make love to our beloved, we teach our children well. Privately, peace abounds. The question is how do we make public the private? Public peace. Commons peace.

We need the commons again.
I need the commons again.

Rev. Billy also said that everyone should recite the First Amendment every day, so here it is:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Messy. But real is messy.

Hate being sick and unemployed...

What is the point of a cover letter?

Seriously, it is becoming the bane of my existence at the moment. In three paragraphs, I'm supposed to introduce myself, tout my experiences and give the future employer enough warm fuzzies to give me a ring so I can bomb the interview?

Eh.

(Being sick sucks also. Being sick and trying to write cover letters is an exercise in blunted madness.)

Measuring unemployment...

There's a great article in the New Yorker about the model for measuring jobs. I've always wondered how in the world they got the numbers they got. I figured it was always reports from unemployment, but that really is only a small part of the whole puzzle.
Anyways, take a read.

Isn't youthquake a disco tribute band?

Oh wait, that's bootyquake. Never mind.

In any case, this BusinessWeek talks about us and how we hate debt.

Youthquake is alive and well, friends.

Only the things that make or break us...

I don't know about you, but these are exciting times. A new year, a big election, lots of changes in the horizon. Exciting, indeed.

This is hopefully the starting point of a conversation, at least, that's the goal. This isn't a debate about which political candidate is better because this isn't a partisan blog. This is a place for political thought, because the policies and positions in this country affects all M.A.Y.A.'s. In the spirit of full disclosure, I am a registered Independent, but was Republican when I first voted at age 18. Now, I'm looking for the best candidate that can bring about the change (there's that word again!) in this country.

I want to know what people think are the issues that greatly affected M.A.Y.A.s. Remember, M.A.Y.A. is Middle Aged Young Adults, so college-age and up. Here are some ideas, let's see if we can add to it.

1. The Economy. In the past debate, John Edwards mentioned a study that suggested that 20 to 30 million jobs will be lost. In mentioning that study, Edwards stated that those who stand to lose the most will be college graduates. I didn't see that particular study online (does anyone know what it is? Send me the link and I'll hook it up), but if that's true, that is huge. It directly conflicts with the perpetual narrative that college and post-graduate education is the remedy for lost jobs, in the manufacturing sector and otherwise. If specialty work is thinning, it does force professional works to take up jobs where they do exist in large amounts. In the case of today's economy, that's service and retail. But, many jobs don't provide a living wage and benefits, so it's either multiple jobs or other supplemental work.
It seems like society is in transition and the economic component is rapidly changing. Questions of the role of digital in the changing economy, the morphing of manufacture and the rejection of corporate America. Most of the rhetoric aims toward restore industrial jobs, because of the previous generations. However, with our generation, what does the job field look like? What is the role of government in encouraging change? And what about this abolishing of the income tax?

2. Health care. It's my opinion that health care is the leading domestic issue in America. It's agreed that something is very, very wrong when costs are $2 trillion, yet, almost 200 million Americans were not insured at some point in the past two years. The two political parties are offering two very different philosophies on the role of government in health care. Fundamentally, is health care a basic right that the government must provide Americans under the Preamble where the government is to promote the "common welfare and secure ourselves and our Posterity?" Is health care a commodity that is accessible only to those to access the market? Someone in between?

3. The War. Iraq is the result of a way of thinking. What is the role of America in the world? If the world is our neighbor, how do we treat our neighbors? More so, is it the role of government to attack and declare war on religious groups, knowing that religious extremism is only defeated by moderates of the same religion?

4. Social justice. At the root of most of society's ills is a lack of commitment to justice. What does justice look like today? How do we address systemic poverty? Discrimination? Hate? Is social justice the duty of government or the individual? Both? Neither?

5. The Environment. Put simply, the Earth doesn't need humans, but humans need the Earth. I feel that climate change is the symptom of the greater problem, which is waste. Waste in the sense that we use what we do not need, as we have taken excess as a barometer of success, not illness. With overpopulation and nations taking on their own industrial revolution in the same wasteful manner that the U.S. developed, we got more problems coming. What do we do?

Those are four that stick out for me. What else is important? Are none of these things important? As we move to our own adulthood, what is the road toward responsibility and growth? What's the road toward something else entirely?

Let's talk.

GO!

Well, just as soon as it came, 2007 is about to leave.

Such a blur, such a dream.

If my calculations are correct, I'm officially past the "young and stupid" phase of the M.A.Y.A. development scheme and can still claim "student" status for the next seven years, but only on a forbearance basis only. Let's hope I don't have to do that.

I've spoken in other places about the completion of the stuff from the five-year wish list and other such things. Frankly, I've reached the limit of my development at this stage of my life. It's not that I'm running out of new things to say, it's that the ground has been covered and re-covered already. It's time to go.

Quarter is 25, right?

The new online show "Quarterlife" is now on MySpace TV. I've only seen the first episode and it look promising. There is talk that it'll be on NBC sometime next season because they are in dire need.
In either case, it'll be interesting to see how they genuinely resonate about issues of twentysomethings. It is by the same people that did "Thirtysomething," so they have a thing for generational stuff.

In other news, my brain is mush because I finished my first draft of my thesis yesterday, but I promise to start doing more next week.

I'm investing in a good time instead of a good mutual fund...

Raise your hand if you freaked out about retirement in the past 24 hours.

If you're 35 and younger, I see that hand not raised.

Honestly, unless you're a heavy investor and are trying to catch up to Buffett and Gates, most M.A.Y.A.'s don't think about much about retirement, investing, or even savings.
A MSNBC article on slacker savings talks about the same things. Frankly, Gen Xers aren't saving much and consultants fret about not having clients with disposable income in 25 years. One company has created the GendeX Mutual Fund, an investment portfolio geared to the Gen X crowd. Only requiring $100 to enroll and a mutual fund package that includes investments in Apple and American Apparel. Not shabby, even if the fees are a bit expensive.
Investing doesn't have the same ring to it as it did for my parent's generation. Mostly, people want to buy a house (which I've already done, and let me tell you, be VERY CAREFUL) and enjoy life.

I'm sure there are various reasons, but in my opinion, the main issue is that framing the future isn't the same for this generation as it has been for previous generations. There is no set period to retire, as there is no set period to work. In that I mean that people will work in many different places and probably do a few different things. The initial plan of 401(k) and pensions were based upon compensation for staying with one company. As it is with health care, that simply isn't the case anymore.
Plus, what do you invest in? Mutual funds are quickly becoming a business with service products. Honestly, how many of your friends now sell some sort of insurance and investment plans?
Even fundamental, the growing gap in costs vs. salaries is beyond ridiculous and combined with a deficit philosophy, it's nearly a necessity that people borrow. While personal finance "gurus" can write column and column on how to live within your means and how not to eat sushi all the item to cut down on debt, it's disingenuous to those that have to be in debt to survive. That doesn't even get into loans for education...don't get me started on that.

If anyone wants to truly encourage saving and investment, it has to be in the rubric of values and realities that actually are values and realities. Mutual fund packages have to be smaller, creating more opportunity for diversity and long-term growth. More emphasis has to be on more choice in companies to invest in (yay sustainable investing!) and more options in alleviating and refinancing debt.

We aren't slackers, we're smarter than that and understand that the values of prosperity and livelihood has changed. Maybe Wall Street and MSNBC will get that someday.

Tribal rule 1: You do not talk about Fight Club...

Tonight, I saw tribalism at work.
Honestly, I would say that I've seen tribalism at work my entire life. It's not that hard to find.
In particular, social groups and friendship circles are tribalism in this day and age. More so, there is nothing more tribal than a church youth group that evolves into the church young adult group.
Growing up, I belonged to a church youth group. I use the word belonged loosely because I always felt like the outsider, but for the purposes of this, I belonged to the group. The church I spent most of my adolescence in was relatively small, but a close-knit bunch. The church branded itself a family church and that mentality permeated everything. I would say there was about 20-25 of us that were very close in the church context. We sat together, hung out together after services and ran the Sunday School. Mostly, we played volleyball. Frankly, it was akin to a cult ritual. Every Wednesday before youth service, every Thursday when we traveled to Huntington Beach and the high holy holiday, the Memorial Day Picnic, we played volleyball.
Yet outside of the church, we were complete strangers. We went to different high schools and while we might congregate at the Bible Club during the week (well, not at my high school), we didn't associate in the same peer groups and pretty much didn't acknowledge each other's existence.
It's an odd dichotomy. Outside the religious sphere, the same concept is prevalent. Most people in their 20s and 30s--maybe even their 40s--band together. It's almost like the new family, except that it isn't a family. There are family values, for sure. But the shared interests are in things to do, not things people are.
But the church youth group I grew up in was a tribe. And like tribes in the past, once you leave the tribe, it's near impossible to return. You're out, you are out.

I bring this up because much of the people that formed the tribe of the church group I grew up in have formed another tribe at another church. Because of school and such, I don't associate with most people from way back then. Every so often, I'll see them at social gatherings. Nevertheless, nothing has changed. Just like it was for me when I was younger, they hang out together, go to parties together, club together, then go to church on Thursday night together. Since they are older than 21, they really drink together. Really, really drink together. Tonight, many of them were in the back yard of a house, listening to bad 80s music before the cops came and cleared out the joint.

In a way, I feel sorry for them. I used to think they are stuck and combined with an environment that doesn't encourage growth, they have nothing to gain from growing up. Yet, I'm starting to understand it know as just another expression of something that is deeply rooted in all of us: the desire to belong. That transcends religious and secular.

With a tribe comes tribal rules. They are different for each tribe, but usually they go along these lines: Join the tribe, take on the values of the tribe, stay within the boundaries of the tribe and most important, don't join another tribe. Once the tribe is set, other members have to go through an initiation of some sort to join. Once you're in, you are in.

I wonder what is the difference between a tribe and a community. There are community values and expectations and roles that people play, just like a tribe, a group and a family. Those things are common, but what are the differences? Like I said, the instances where people said something was a community was really a tribe. My church upbringing was tribal in every sense of the word. APU's attempt at being a tribe and calling it community is laughable and yet quite sad.
So, what's a community? How does community work for those that are waiting to get married until later, having children until later and taking longer to ascertain identity and commitment? Is community worth sacrificing individual wants and desires?

NOTE: I often wonder if people reading this and other blogs are taking these as advice to stay the hell away from religion. I come from a religious viewpoint, yet it really has nothing to do with religion. What I trying to do in my quirky at 2 a.m. way is make sense of the dynamics in people being in groups and it becoming more than hanging out with friends on a Friday night. But I do caution anyone and everyone to never attend a church that says it's a "family church." Trust me.

Transcribing a paradox

It's almost midnight on Thursday and I find myself in a peculiar position.

Before I go on, I have to say that it is very peculiar to have to bless yourself after you sneeze. Try it sometime. It feels weird, trust me.

Anyways, I'm trying to motivate myself to further the transcription of the interviews for my thesis. I should be done with them by this weekend, which was the goal and I should be done with the first draft by November 15, which was the goal as well. However, I've hit that point that I knew I would hit when I first took this topic and idea on a few months back. I thought I had prepared myself for when this moment came, yet the moment has come and I'm truly not prepared.

My topic is religious identity and interfaith relations, specifically with this organization in Los Angeles. I wanted to observe an interfaith community and see how they deal with religious identity on a personal and collective level. So far, so good. The problem is that this topic doesn't lend itself to a nice, tidy thesis that such topics as "Why MySpace is factually the Anti-Christ" or "Branding cheese in the 21st Century" do. Not dissing anyone else studying cheese, but this was the decision I made.
By going through these interviews and meetings and examining the research and what is happening, it becomes obvious that this is just the starting point. It's not even the starting point, it's the point that one starts. There is a very long, robust, diverse documentation that needs to be done out there, much longer and better than this clunky thesis for a clunky masters.
Nevertheless, here it is. I refuse to give absolutes because there are no absolutes. I refuse to create theories because one theory works in one context and another theory works in another context. Plus, academia is for wimps.
Thus, what in God's name do I write about?

It really dovetails into my current state of mind at the moment. There is SO MUCH out there, SO MUCH to do, SO MUCH to see, SO MUCH to experience, SO MUCH to live. Where does one start with SO MUCH? Annie Lamott would say start where you're at. Right now, I start at a paradox: the urgency to make money because I'm about to run out of reserves and I want to leave L.A. and breathe new air (literally) and finally create a community and finally meet somebody and finally start a family; and the patience to wait for the hottest coal that's burning, the patience to wait for the right time, the right place, the right girl, the right (....).

That is the paradox of the bridge from kid to adult. At some point, values and priorities are going to line up and take their place. When the list solidifies, the moment comes when you wake up in the middle of the night or somehow stop cold in your tracks and you have to pay attention. You have to care.