"Open Government"

Over the last few days I have become somewhat more interested in the marijuana legalization movement. This renewed interest is due mostly to what has been taking place on the Obama transition team's website: change.gov. The team has been taking suggestions and questions from the general public through the site for the last month and a half or so. They also have a satellite site called the Citizen's Briefing Book, where people can submit and vote on suggestions for the new president to look at.

Surprisingly (or maybe not surprisingly), there is one question/suggestion that keeps making it to the top of the list: the legalization and regulation of marijuana. As I write, this is is by far the top voted suggestion on the citizen's briefing book. It is difficult to find actual lists of the results of the change.gov question voting on short notice, but here are a couple of websites discussing the results of the first and second round of questions as far as the topic of marijuana is concerned. Marijuana legalization placed first and fourth in rounds 1 and 2 respectively for most highly voted questions. There are a number of reasons listed in the comments as to why people think this should happen, but I am not going to go into the details here. My purpose is rather to analyze the reaction of the transition team to this particular topic.

You can view the responses of the Obama team to some of these questions on the change.gov website itself, but to summarize, in both rounds the response was a curt

"President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana."

I can only draw a couple of different conclusions from the fact that this question is being ignored.

The most probably explanation in my opinion is that the Obama team thinks that a bunch of potheads rallied on the internet to skew this whole online voting thing in their favor and that if they ignore the issue it will just go away after a while. Additionally, they don't view the issue as anywhere serious enough to Obama's popularity to even attempt to address it with a thoughtful response. I mean, it really wouldn't have been too difficult to give something canned like:

President-Elect Obama recognizes the importance of taking a close look at the failure that is the war on drugs. However he feels that there are much more pressing issues facing the nation at the moment that must be dealt with first

This is, of course, a non-answer, but it at least wouldn't have been as much of a snub at the people asking the question. The fact that the question didn't even deserve a bullshit answer is blatantly insulting to a (I believe) significant number of Obama supporters who grow increasingly angry and who want answers.

The other possibility for why this question was ignored, is that the Obama team is too politically afraid of appearing sympathetic to a marijuana legalization movement in any way.

This is not the only issue being ignored by the Obama team. The top question from round 2 concerning whether Obama would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate some of the crimes of the Bush administration was basically answered with a written sound bite.

There are a number of video "reactions" on the citizen's briefing book website to some of the ideas suggested there. As you might have guessed, the ideas were chosen not by vote count, but more so by which ideas already aligned with what the Obama team was going to do anyway. This provides the illusion of input into a system that in reality is already decided and closed off.

I am not one to advocate a tyranny of the majority, but when very popular questions are ignored by a government that claims to be listening, well I have to wonder if we voted for change, or simply the comfort of a more subtle deception.

This really isn't about marijuana legalization or justice anymore, it's about a government that professes openness and honesty, but then hides behind sound bites and single sentences when faced with questions apparently too difficult to properly answer. I can't think of a better word to describe this than "hypocrisy."

The Finch and the Sparrow

A finch was flying around town one day and spotted a sparrow sitting in a cage just inside of an open window. Now, this finch was a bright bird and just happened to know how to handle such cages. She flew up to the cage and opened the latch with a flourish saying,

"I have rescued you, sir sparrow, you can fly freely to your heart's desire and explore what this wonderful world has to offer you."

Instead of thanking him profusely, as the finch expected, the sparrow shrank to the back of the cage, paralyzed with fear at the mere thought of leaving his familiar surroundings.

"Go away! The outside world is dangerous... I will die if I free myself!" He said.

The finch looked exasperatedly at the sparrow and spent many minutes trying to convince him why it was right that animals were supposed to be free, but the sparrow would not budge. Finally the finch gave up and left.

The finch was not ready to admit defeat. She pondered the situation for many days, struggling to imagine and understand why a bird would not want to be free. One day an idea struck her which she decided to try.

She flew back to the cage with the sparrow and once again found the window open. When the sparrow saw her, he shrank back in fear as before.

"Don't be afraid," said the Finch, "I just want to talk to you for a while."

The finch then spent the next several minutes describing the wonders of the outside world: what it was like to fly above the treetops on a warm spring day, how it felt to complete a nest built with her own beak, and many other bird wonders that we can only begin to speculate at. When she had finished, the sparrow's eyes were wide with all that he had taken in, but he still said,

"That all sounds wonderful, but I still think it is much too dangerous out there for me to try."

The finch smiled, as much as finches can smile, and said "I understand. Can I come back and talk to you some more tomorrow?"

The sparrow was more than happy to have someone to share conversation with for a change so he agreed. The next day the finch came back to the cage, but this time she brought some rare seeds (bird delicacies) with her. As she landed on the rim of the cage, she set the seeds down next to her.

"What is that?" asked the sparrow.

"These are some rare seeds I found, but I can't possibly eat them all and I have no one to share them with." the finch said sorrowfully as she began to nibble at a few of the seeds.

"Are they good?" asked the sparrow, edging closer to where the finch was standing outside the cage.

"Magnificent" replied the finch. "Would you like some?"

"If you have enough... can you put a few inside the cage for me?"

"I'm afraid not. These are so good I just can't stop." But even as she said this, the finch deftly swung her beak to open the cage. "You just have to take one step outside of the cage and you can have all the seeds you want. You can go right back in after, I won't stop you."

The sparrow slowly edged closer to the opening in the cage and hesitantly took a step out. He grabbed a few seeds and quickly hopped back inside. The finch just smiled to herself again before finishing the seeds and leaving.

Over the next few weeks the finch was gradually able to convince the sparrow to take greater and greater actions outside of his cage. She started small by asking him to help her spot something from the window, or having the sparrow help her find some soft material inside the house for a nest.

The finch took many persuasive angles for each of these steps, always keeping in mind the fear the sparrow had always had for the outside world. She eventually began to teach sparrow survival skills, including showing him how to open his own cage.

One day, about a month later, the finch flew to the window to meet the her friend for the final leg of a long nest gathering expedition. When the finch reached the familiar window sill, she was astonished to see the cage door open and the sparrow gone. At first she was worried, but then she saw a small piece of paper laying at the bottom of the cage. It simply said "You've shown me what freedom means. Thank you." Again, the finch smiled.

Music, Sweet Music I Wish I Could Caress

I've been slightly manic depressive for a few years now, not really severely enough to actually do anything about it or even be medically diagnosed. I say this because from time to time I experience periods of irrational depression and/or elatedness. They usually come close together, in pairs or cycles. Typically the periods only last for a few hours at a time, but those few hours can be quite grueling (or awesome, in the case of manic ones). I actually had my first migraine last spring, and I draw a parallel between that experience and my depression. It will start slow, gradually increase in severity until I'm almost completely incapacitated, then after a few hours eventually start to recede. Also like migraines, I have no idea what external or internal circumstances trigger my body to react in this way.

I have tried a number of things over the last few years to help cope with these sessions when they occur, some more successful than others. There are also a few things I have yet to try that I would like to, but have been too afraid. Many of these things you can find on most depression help sites, but I wanted to share my personal experience.

Disclaimer: I don't claim to be an expert on anything I write about on this blog, this being no exception. Any advice given below should be taken with a grain of salt, since it is based entirely on my own personal experience with a very mild form of depression. If you think you have clinical depression, you should seek help from a doctor. Thanks for reading my blog though :).

Reactive Things I've tried

• Drinking -- Alcohol is not a good depression remedy, for all the reasons usually mentioned. The temptation is hard to resist, however, when all you want to do is take your mind off of things. In most cases, it will probably keep your mind on things instead.
• Doing nothing -- Most of the time when I am depressed, I find it hard to do anything except lie down. It's not possible to sleep, and has contributed to my insomnia problems in the past. Other than drinking, this is probably the worst thing you can do when you are depressed in my opinion.
• Thinking "positive" -- I have always been sort of an independent, and probably arrogant, person. So when I considered the idea of "depression," I figured I could fight it off by just forcing myself to think positively. It turns out this doesn't work. At all. It just creates a battle in your own mind and causes frustration when it fails to work.
  
• Being around others -- This sounds like a good idea off the bat, but it really isn't. Whenever I am depressed and around other people, even if they are having a good time, I am pretty impervious to the mood. It also makes me feel like I am having an adverse effect on their fun, which creates a spiral of depressing thoughts.
• Cleaning -- This has probably been one of my most successful remedies for depression. I think it helps for two reasons. One, you are doing something, which helps take your mind off of depressing things. Second, it makes you feel better to have accomplished something. I also think a clean environment has an overall general positive effect on mood.
• Going for a walk in nature -- This is one of my most recent attempts during less severe bouts of depression. I like this because it allows me to get away from everything and clear my head, while being in a peaceful and serene environment. I recommend finding a place outside of town, or maybe in a large park where there aren't very many people. I hesistate to recommend something like this for severe cases however, since being alone in an unfamiliar place probably isn't such a great idea

Proactive things I've tried

• Meditation -- Meditating has done wonders for both my approach to every day life and my own internal monologue. It helps create a positive outlook on life from within, without forcing yourself. in a way, you develop the ability to recognize emotional responses to stimuli, but have a choice whether to allow those emotions to manifest themselves (this is different than burying or hiding your emotions). It also helps to accept things as they come and deal with them, not dwelling on the past, but learning from it and looking to the future. This all sounds like common sense stuff, and it is, but being able to calm your mind and train it to think this way is less than easy.
• Sleeping more -- This is a no-brainer as well, but I do seem to notice a correlation between lack of sleep and frequency of depression.
• Recognition -- This is one of those "admitting you have a problem is the first step" kinds of deals. Recognizing that my depression was not the direct result of some external issue and that there was nothing I could do to make it go away really allowed me to get my head around things and deal with it. The fact that I know now that it will go away after a few hours goes a long way towards helping with this when it occurs. Interestingly enough, recognition of the manic side of things was not as obvious. It was sort of a surprise one day when I was loving life and I realized "There is really no reason for me to be this ridiculously happy, especially when I felt so horrible just last night..." I was able to recognize it better from that point forward.

One thing I haven't mentioned yet that I do quite often is play the guitar. I haven't mentioned it because it gets it's own sort of special category, since I love to do it both when I am depressed and when I am manic. Guitar is a form of meditation for me and allows me to take my mind off of things when I am depressed. It is also super fun, which makes it a good thing to do when I am manic as well :). That is really what prompted this post in the first place.

Medatative Running

Aside: This is the triumphant return of my blog, so expect more frequent updates in the future. We'll see how long I can keep this up before it dies again.

I recently started running (again) and have resumed a practice that I found refreshing and useful a few months ago. "Meditating", or clearing your mind, while running is an interesting and fun exercise. I first started thinking about it when reading about walking meditation. Then I ran across a post by Leo from Zen Habits that described being in the moment while running, which is essentially what I am trying to do. I won't go into too many specifics here, check out the previous post if you want to learn more about it. I will say, however, that one trick that helps me clear my mind and focus is that whenever distracting thoughts surface I acknowledge them, but then imagine them floating past me as I run by so they don't stick around for long.

If your a runner (or even if you're not) I suggest giving this a try and see if you like it. One of the important things to point out from the Zen Habits post is to try the concentration in bursts at first, since it is somewhat difficult to hold while your body is under stress.

Project Charlie

"You can't be somebody you're not"
"Just be yourself"

These are both phrases that I have heard multiple times throughout my life. In movies, TV, and classrooms these are fairly common themes that are typically given a positive spin. A classic example is the scenario where a "socially challenged" student tries to impress a girl by doing various things outside of his normal routine. In the end he wins her over by just "being himself." The morale of that story is to just be yourself and everything will work out in the end.

Here's my question: Why?

Without delving too deep into exactly what is "self" and how each of us is really defined as a person, I'd like to just probe into this common theme a little bit. To start with, it would seem to me that by always being "yourself" you would remain in a static state of personality. I would argue that people grow and change (for better or worse) by doing things outside of their normal routine or set of actions. So in a sense you can only grow as a person by not being yourself until not being yourself becomes part of your self... Yeah that sentence sucked but hopefully you get my point.

Let's look at a few other phrases that might pop up at certain points:
"You're just not our type"
"You're annoying"
"Why do you always have to be such a dick?"

Now if any of those statements were made in your direction, you could respond with "But I'm just being myself" and everything would be OK, right? Obviously not (in the majority of cases). So there you either have two options: to change your habits and personality to better fit in or please the other person, or don't change and settle with the results.

So say you've decided to try to change your personality or whatever to better please the type of people making the three previous comments. This may have unintentional consequences. First, you may begin to displease people that were happy with the way your personality currently is. Second, you may just end up looking like a poser or trying way to hard. (Too bad there is no way to regression test your personality against cases like this...)

I've never been a big fan of trying to "fit in" or of fitting into a mold. However the point I am trying to haphazardly get across in this post is that change isn't always a bad thing. It's how people grow. Don't be "yourself" all the time. Try being somebody else for a day. See what happens, see what you can learn and take away from the experience to improve your own lifestyle and how you interact with other people.

I'm calling from your house, in your room, in your name, lying in your bed, following your dreams.

On Talk Radio

I'm finally plugged back into the Lifestream and halfway settled in my summer abode, so it's finally time for another wordy and rambling post.

I was on the road quite a bit this past weekend and in order to make the time go faster, I tried listening to talk radio. This is something I hadn't really ever done before so it was a new experience and my impressions of it are limited to a few hours of listening. Normally I wouldn't make judgments and what have you with such short exposure, but I need to vent some frustration.

First of all while browsing through the AM stations trying to find something interesting, I was surprised how poorly most of them came in. The only ones that came in really clear were either sports stations or evangelical Christian preachers. I did manage for short spurts of time to tune into a few politically oriented stations.

One of the first stations I started listening to was a discussion between the host and a Maryland professor about Capitalism's affect on American society and how it has changed over the years due to increasingly heavy advertising and marketing. At first the discussion was somewhat interesting and there were decent points brought up on both sides of the issue that at least gave me something to think about. After a while the discussion, which had started out with at least a thin layer of respect and open-mindedness, began to get more heated. Both men started repeating themselves constantly while not answering the other person's point, and their arguments got weaker and weaker with less evidence. I got the impression that the radio host was incredibly pompous while the professor was probably just extremely earnest. The affect was the same on either side regardless.

This is a trend I noticed pretty consistently as I scrolled through the stations. The worst ones were the shows that had no opponent and no discussion. It was basically just some guy masturbating his ego and spouting off his opinions as if they were most obvious thing in the world. You'd have to be blind or an idiot to not see his point. A lot of talk was about some 350 page immigration reform bill that no one had read. The bill had not been released to the public yet. Most of congress hadn't even seen it and these guys were all giving their opinion about whether it was/wasn't good.

That last paragraph was kind of off topic. The main problem I took from this experience (as well as my limited podcast debate listening) is that people don't come to a debate/discussion with any intention of listening. Most of these situations that I have seen don't have people coming to try to debate each other in order to find common ground or understanding. Their main goal isn't even really to debate their opponent's arguments. They come with the idea that they will just say what they believe over and over until somebody accepts it. I desperately crave to hear a debate where both parties understand and respect each other. Where quality responsive arguments are made. Where facts are used from credible trustworthy sources. Where the tone of voice isn't one of malice or aggression. Where there is an air of friendship rather than hostility. I want to see people come together not necessarily with the intention of "winning," but instead with a thirst for understanding.

That being said, I think it is quite necessary for a person to stand strong behind her thoughts, beliefs, or ideals. You can still be passionate and champion an idea without holding a strong animosity towards those behind others.

When I look up to the skies I see your eyes a funny kind of yellow

Post Explosion

So apologies for the three rapid posts. The one right below this is kind of long, but make sure (if anyone actually reads this) to check out the one two posts down.

The previous post is my attempt at publishing a Google document directly to my blog. Turned out to be kind of a pain to get it to not be formatted stupid.

A little background on the story: This story is a collaboration between my friend Ben and I that we worked on using Google's online version of Microsoft word. It was a pretty neat experience. The software is nice for collaborative work, because it auto-saves as a revision about every 30 seconds while you are working on it (This might be changeable). It also allows simultaneous edits and keeps track of previous revisions for easy diffs and reverts. However it is still limited by the fact that it is a web interface.

I came up with this story during about half of an Explosions in the Sky concert (hence the title). It was an amazing experience. Anyway I told Ben about it right after the concert and he said I should write it down. Being the lazy guy that I am, I balked at the concept until he said he'd help me with it. So a few days later I wrote down everything I could remember about the story and sent the notes to him. Ben took the notes and composed the story below, adding his own ideas here and there throughout as well and the first draft was born. We then set up a Google document for it allowing us to make multiple revisions and leave comments without ever having to really communicate too much (we go to different schools).

The story itself is kind of weird. I'm somewhat interested to see what other people think of it. I may write more analytically about it in a later post. For now I think I've taken up enough of the blogger server space for one night. Peace.