Another One Bites The Dust...

... or rather makes me bite the curb.

I just found out today I was rejected from UCSB. My hope of getting into any Ph.D. program is dwindling.

News.

I still have no job (since May 2008).

I did not receive a Fulbright Scholarship (January 31).

I was rejected from Virginia Tech (February 17).

Four more schools to go.

"I know things are getting tougher when you can't get the top off the bottom of the barrel. "

The Day The Banks Collapse.

So this calendar I got from my friend J.B. is eerily prescient. For this weekend, it discusses the attitude toward the banking system in American history:

"American presidents have long held misgivings about the country's banking system. In 1816, for example, Thomas Jefferson wrote to his old friend John Taylor, declaring: 'I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.' In 1836 Andrew Jackson disbanded the second federal bank, remarking, 'The bold effort the present bank made to control the Government... [suggests] the fate which awaits the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution.' Later, speaking to the bankers, he was more blunt: 'You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out,' which he did. Even auto entrepreneur Henry Ford is said to have cautioned, 'It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.'"

~ Jeffrey Kacirck, Forgotten English (2009 Calendar)

Unfortunately, while many feel antipathy towards the banking system, there is no hope of the executive branch ever routing out the "den of vipers and thieves." (This would make Andrew Jackson severly upset, I imagine.) Even eerier is the fact that the father of the American automobile industry is quoted here as well, as if tying in the failure of banks with the failure of the auto industry. Of course, despite the willies I felt at having read this, it could all just be a coincidence: today, according to the desk calendar, is the "Feast Day of St. Meingold" [My gold?]. St. Meingold was the patron saint of bankers.

Rabbit, Run!

John Updike dies at the age of 76.

While I certainly am not a huge fan of Updike's work, it certainly comes as a shock that he is gone, as death always seems a shock. Still, Updike was prolific in his work, and that must be appreciated to some degree.

In happier news (I do not mean to dwell on death, O Reader!), I had an interview yesterday with a temp agency and I pretty much nailed it. I did feel awkward, however, that I have a graduate degree and I was applying to become a legal secretary (and a temporary one at that, too!). But being temporary is fine as of now, because I'm banking on (and banking during these times is troublesome) the fact that I will get into at least one of the Ph.D. programs to which I have applied.

Please Leave The Light On...

My grandfather passed away on Monday, and we buried him yesterday. He was 88 years old. Rather than reiterate something I've already typed this morning, I shall post an e-mail to a friend that has most of the facts down.

I'm sorry that I haven't responded for so long, but I have a good reason. My paternal grandfather passed away on Monday, and I spent all day Sunday and early Monday in the hospital. Sunday morning he refused to get out of bed, and so my father had to get the paramedics to help him down the stairs. We took him to urgent care at the clinic he usually goes to for check-ups (my grandfather doesn't have insurance, and, at the time, we didn't think he had something that could not be cured, so we avoided going to the hospital), and the doctor there said he needed to go to the hospital. He was not breathing properly, and was not getting enough oxygen in his system. They put him on oxygen, and he seemed to be improving, so my father and I thought that we could arrange to have oxygen tanks delivered to the house and we could watch him ourselves. The doctor at the clinic understood our situation and arranged everything. But when we tried to get my grandpa in the car, we realized he was much worse than we had anticipated; so we drove him to the hospital ourselves.

It took a while to get a room (apparently if you don't have an ambulance deliver you to a hospital, then there are all kinds of delays), but we got one. The doctors were either unsure of what was wrong with him, or they did not tell us: they said that he had congestive heart failure, but they did not give a reason for his heart giving out. It could have been the lungs, or it could have been something else. They ran all kinds of x-rays and tests, but to no avail. They sedated him and kept him on oxygen. His blood pressure was normal (which was weird, because my grandfather had a history of high blood pressure), so still we thought that he could make it out of it. He had to be taken to the Critical Care Unit where he kind of woke up, but he did not respond to questions. He had just been talking that morning, but since the visit to urgent care, he stopped speaking. Later on, it appeared that he was stable, so we went home (by then my mother and my sister had come to the hospital). At 10:00 pm Sunday night, the hospital called us and said he was doing worse. My and father and I went over and stayed until 3:00 am Monday morning, when it looked like he would improve. We got some sleep, but at 7:00 am the hospital called again--this time the doctor he normally sees was there--and said he was doing much, much worse. He was on morphine and everything, and he could not breath by himself at all. My father and I went again, and soon after my younger sister and mother came, and they took him off the oxygen. He died within an hour and a half.

Since then, there has been a flurry of activity. My younger brother and older sister have come home. We had to make funeral arrangments. I waited with the dead body at the hospital until the mortuary came and picked him up. There have been so many telephone calls and friends coming to visit. We buried him yesterday, and I spent yesterday preparing and attending the funeral. I had to say a few words about my grandfather, who I've only really known for four years (about the time he came to live with us from Pakistan). Of course, there were fond memories of when I was a child and visiting him in Pakistan and he coming to visit us in California, and I tried to convey that, but the eulogy was awkward and broken. I spent the past four days in a weird state, trying to maintain focus and consciousness, exhausted. I will never forget watching him die and the way he looked after he had passed.

For a year and a half before I attended Rutgers, I used to walk with my grandfather in the mornings before I went to work because he had fallen down because of a drop in blood pressure and, while scared of that happening again, he needed exercise. He had always been fairly healthy for someone his age. He had a pace-maker and had suffered two heart attacks in the 1980s, but the only medication he was on was blood pressure medication. About this time last week he was only complaining about feeling tired and weak, and Thursday and Friday he had temporary moments of confusion (he thought Thursday was Friday). He told me that it was nothing serious. But on Saturday it was worse, although he could still get up and walk downstairs. Sunday he just refused, and Monday he was dead. That fast.

So there's shock and sorrow and fear. I would have written to you sooner, but I just couldn't relive the events and maintain enough focus. I couldn't really talk to some of my closest friends on Monday and Tuesday. Plus, I needed to write this down first before speaking. I need to go over it, edit it, and just let the words travel from the innermost recesses of my mind to the tips of my fingers, purifying themselves along the way, saying only the choicest words for the occasion. While I do have a journal, I was still too close to the events to make the entries coherent, and, sadly, I ran out of pages in my journal by Sunday night. I have not had time to buy a new journal, so I've been scrawling the entries on the inside back cover. I'm going today to get a new journal, somehow fitting because a new chapter has started today in more ways than one for me.

(Edited for content and minor errors.)

Muhammad Shahid Ali Kazmi
1920-2009

I'll give anything to bring you back to say good-bye.

Overwhelmed, Unemployed...

I'll probably be posting on this again since I have so much time to kill. I doubt anyone will find this small patch of internet--an infinitesimal spot in an infinite expanse--interesting, but for my own sanity I will post current goings-on and such and pretend there is an audience that cares.

First things first (and exciting news, that first of first things), is I have jury duty. In the past, jury duty was a dread, a bane, an evil which I would do anything to avoid. In fact, I have been summoned for jury duty three times in my short life, and I never once set foot in a courthouse in response. I always sent an excuse. They were always valid (the first time I was summoned to the San Diego courthouse, but I was attending the University of California, Irvine; the second and third times my job would not pay for me to attend jury duty), and I was always relieved that I was never questioned or coerced to attend. Now, I plan to not only respond to the summons, but I hope I get on a jury, just so I can earn some money and do something. Such terrible, terrible times we are in when one looks forward to his "civic duty."

In other news, I thought I was done applying to Ph.D. programs (I just finished the Virginia Tech application last week), but it turns out I will apply to two more schools: Pennsylvania State University and the University of Washington in Seattle. On top of that, I will probably apply to Virginia Tech again for their MFA program (it sounds like a good deal), and I need to finish UCI's law school application too.

That, so far, is all I would like to post for now, O Reader. Unless I get a job or I fall into an even deeper malaise, be sure to check back often for more updates. (I pray they will be more interesting than this one.)

I Guess They're Taking His Guns Now.

Rest in peace, Charlton.

Talking Brings It Out

Stop whining.

But seriously, the article brings out a good point--talking does not make me feel any better. Although the article is geared toward women (cf. the "Be more like a boy" section), it can apply to everyone. So, take Dahl's advice, because I don't wanna hear it.

I Guess New Jersey's Good For Something...

It's not only the official dump of New York, but also of space!

I Look Like A Car Crash.

I got this through the e-mail from my sister:

Hey,

This is not to make light of your accident, but I thought you might find this New York Times' story amusing.

Sophia

Lesson for Newark’s Streets: Look Left, Right, Left Again

By KAREEM FAHIM

Published: April 5, 2007

NEWARK, April 2 — In this city where traffic signals are sometimes mockingly called suggestions, scores of children, walking or playing, have been hit by cars over the past few years, many of them within sight of their homes.

Kyle Cross, 13, was struck by a car as he crossed West Kinney Street early one morning last June, sending him to the asphalt with a concussion. Kyle fared better than his sister Maxine, 18, who was hit two years earlier, on Springfield Avenue.

“It knocked her in the air and broke her arm,” said their grandmother Elena Whitaker.

As Dr. David Livingston, the chief of trauma at University Hospital, put it: “We were admitting kids left and right.”

Compared with some children hit by cars, the Crosses were lucky: From 2000 to 2005, the hospital recorded 12 fatalities out of the hundreds of young pedestrians it admitted who were seriously injured by cars.

In 2005, 6,723 pedestrians in New Jersey were struck by cars, a year in which the state ranked eighth in the nation in pedestrian fatalities, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Agency. That year, 644 of the state’s pedestrian injuries, nearly 10 percent, took place in Newark, according to the state’s Department of Transportation.

But Dr. Livingston said the stream of pedestrians injured by cars energized a local coalition including representatives from the mayor’s office, the Police Department and the schools. “We thought, what could we do to try and fix it?” he said.

Part of the answer was simple: teach Newark’s children to look both ways. Dr. Livingston developed the curriculum based on a model created at the University of Miami. On Friday, in the auditorium of the New Horizons Community Charter School here, he sat in the bleachers and watched the results.

A first-grade class lined up by a make-believe curb made of blue paper tape. A woman holding pictures of a sport utility vehicle hurtled —ambled, rather — down a “road” in front the children. When the menace had passed, the students checked for oncoming “traffic,” and when it was safe, skipped across the road. There Sharon Clancy, a health educator from University Hospital, waited for them with a sticker and a wide smile.

“We love you,” Ms. Clancy told the assembly. “So we never want to see you at the hospital.”

Dr. Livingston and his colleagues who developed the program hope to introduce it to schools throughout Newark and surrounding towns. There is a classroom component, in which children are encouraged to use drawing, spelling and reading to learn about walking safely. And the Miami curriculum was modified in one important way: snow was added to the lesson.

“We believe that children, especially in elementary school ages, don’t understand how big a car is and what it can do to them,” said Dr.Livingston. “Kids have to walk to school, they take public transport. They’re out in the street. That’s real.”

Leigh Ann Von Hagen, a project director at the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University, said that “people think it’s easy to walk around urban areas,” but that streets and sidewalks are often in disrepair.

In cities like Newark, pedestrians negotiating six-lane thoroughfares are vulnerable to cars, especially where crosswalks are faded or nonexistent. Speeding cars are common, pedestrian safety advocates say, and stolen cars move even faster.

Sometimes, there is no telling where the danger will come from. Justin Walcott, a soccer-loving 10-year-old, was being robbed, his mother said, when a Jeep plowed into him and at least two other people on a sidewalk in Irvington in June 2006. Justin lost his right leg just below the knee.

Along with University Hospital’s school program, a $74 million statewide project administered by the Department of Transportation to re-engineer intersections is getting its start in Newark’s downtown and in the Ironbound district.

In addition, the Essex County prosecutor’s office is expecting a state grant that would help send police officers into Newark’s streets to enforce the law against drivers who do not yield to pedestrians.

At New Horizons, Ms. Clancy asked the children questions. “How many of you have known someone who was hit by a car?”

Almost everyone raised their hands.

She also took questions. “No, never run into the street after the ball,” she said. “Let the ball hit the car.”

Had they seen anyone run through a stop sign before?

“My mom did,” a girl in the front row said. “Because she had to go to work.”

Swift For The Quick

"He likewise directed, that every Senator in the great Council of a Nation, after he had delivered his Opinion, and argued in the Defence of it, should be obliged to give his Vote directly contrary; because if that were done, the Result would infallibly terminate in the Good of the Public" (Gulliver's Travels, III. vi. [p. 176]).

Into This Ashtray Life

Violins.

I hope everyone gets the butt of this sick joke.

There Was Only One Catch...

I am back in New Jersey for those of you that knew I went home. I thought I would have posted pictures and stuff, but breaks are made for breaking promises. Sorry to all (or any) of you that wished to see pictures. I might post some later.

I have recently been reading War As I Knew It by General George S. Patton, Jr. It makes for a compelling read given the current military situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also serves as an interesting comparison to Catch-22. I am not sure if Heller read War As I Knew It, but Colonel Paul D. Harkins's footnote on page 184-6 so strongly resembles an episode in Catch-22 that I laughed out loud in the airport as I read it. Here it is, in its entirety:

"On or about the fourteenth of December, 1944, General Patton called Chaplain O'Neill, Third Army Chaplain, and myself into his office in Third Headquarters at Nancy. The conversation went something like this:

General Patton: 'Chaplain, I want you to publish a prayer for good weather. I'm tired of these soldiers having to fight mud and floods as well as Germans. See if we can't get God to work on our side.'

Chaplain O'Neill: 'Sir, it's going to take a pretty thick rug for that kind of praying.'

General Patton: 'I don't care if it takes the flying carpet. I want the praying done.'

Chaplain O'Neill: 'Yes, sir. May I say, General, that it usually isn't a customary thing among men of my profession to pray for clear weather to kill fellow men.'

General Patton: 'Chaplain, are you teaching me theology or are you the Chaplain of the Third Army? I want a prayer.'

Chaplain O'Neill: 'Yes, sir.'

Outside, the Chaplain said, 'Whew, that's a tough one! What do you think he wants?'

It was perfectly clear to me. The General wanted a prayer --- he wanted one right now --- and he wanted it published to the Command.

The Army Engineer was called in, and we finally decided that our field topographical company could print the prayer on a small-sized card, making enough copies for distribution to the army.

It being near Christmas, we also decided to ask General Patton to include a Christmas greeting to the troops on the same card with the prayer. The General agreed, wrote a short greeting, and the card was made up, published, and distributed to the troops on the twenty-second of December.

Actually, the prayer was offered in order to bring clear weather for the planned Third Army break-through to the Rhine in the Saarguemines area, then scheduled for December 21.

The Bulge put a crimp in these plans. As it happened, the Third Army had moved north to attack the south flank of the Bulge when the prayer was actually issued.

PRAYER

Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies, and establish Thy justice among men and nations. Amen.

REVERSE SIDE

To each officer and soldier in the Third United States Army, I wish a Merry Christmas. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We march in our might to complete victory. May God's blessing rest upon each of you on this Christmas Day.

G. S. PATTON, JR.

Lieutenant General

Commanding, Third United States Army

Whether it was the help of the Divine guidance asked for in the prayer or just the normal course of human events, we never knew; at any rate, on the twenty-third, the day after the prayer was issued, the weather cleared and remained perfect for about six days. Enough to allow the Allies to break the backbome of the Von Rundstedt offensive and turn a temporary setback into a crushing defeat for the enemy.

We had moved our advanced Headquarters to Luxembourg at this time to be closer to the battle area. The bulk of the Army Staff, including the Chaplain, was still in nancy. General Patton again called me to his office. He wore a smile from ear to ear. He said, 'God damn! look at the weather. That O'Neill sure did some potent praying. Get him up here. I want to pin a medal on him.'

The Chaplain came up next day. The weather was still clear when we walked into General Patton's office. The General rose, came from behind his desk with hand outstretched and said, 'Chaplain, you're the most popular man in this Headquarters. You sure stand in good with the Lord and soldiers.' The General then pinned a Bronze Star Medal on Chaplain O'Neill.

Everyone offered congratulations and thanks and we got back to the business of killing Germans --- with clear weather for battle. P.D. H."

So there you have it. That screams Catch-22 all over it. Patton's demand for the prayer, the fact the cards weren't issued on time for the planned attack, the very prayer itself, it all is disturbingly comical. I wonder if literary analysis has been done comparing Catch-22 and War As I Knew It. That's something I want to look into, but given that school starts tomorrow, I probably will not have time.

I pray that everyone enjoyed their holidays.

Call Me (Ish)Camel

First:

"In the fields the plowing is done with the most peculiar combinations of animals. The peasants either use a horse and a camel, a burro and a camel, a bull and a camel, or a bull and a horse. I am informed that they cannot use two camels because they fight each other. Any animal hooked up with a camel becomes disgusted and loses interest in life" (War As I Knew It, p. 19).

Maybe I'm hooked up to some invisible camel.

Second:

"Only the learned read old books and we have now so dealt with the learned that they are of all men the least likely to acquire wisdom by doing so. We have done this by inculcating the Historical Point of View. The Historical Point of View, put briefly, means that when a learned man is presented with any statement in an ancient author, the one question he never asks is whether it is true. He asks who influenced the ancient writer, and how far the statement is consistent with what he said in other books, and what phase in the writer's development, or in the general history of thought, it illustrates, and how it affected later writers, and how often it has been misunderstood (specially by the learned man's own colleagues) and what the general course of criticism on it has been for the last ten years, and what is the 'present state of the question.' To regard the ancient writer as a possible source of knowledge--to anticipate that what he said could possibly modify your thoughts or your behaviour--this would be rejected as unutterably simple-minded" (The Screwtape Letters, p. 150).

This relatively long passage came to my mind immediately this morning as I watched Banned from the Bible on the History Channel. The show dealt with questioning why many early Christian texts were not included in the New Testament. The issue of the validity of those texts was not raised. The Gospel according to Mary was not included because the Church would not accept a defiant female voice. Some of the other apocryphal books were too Gnostic. No one discussed, or even raised the possibility, that the apocryphal books were not included because they were not true. They looked at nearly every possible angle: the influences of the texts on early Christians; how the apocryphal books were consistent with the New Testament, and where they differed; how early or late the various books were composed, and their possible authors; how they were recently discovered; what motives the early Christians had for including and excluding certain books; everything except the question: "are these true or not?" It shocked me that such an obvious question was not raised at all.

I guess even a devil cannot lie all the time.

That's all I care to post for now. I'll try to get some pictures up.

Disarm

I'm coming home,
I'm not bound anymore
On the brink of nothing
I'm just starting something.

I am dog boy,
Overwhelmed,
Unemployed
An arsenal of outbursts,
But I'm just saying it first.
I don't want to lose
Everything that we grew.
I'm not cutting you down,
I'm just carrying the axe.

Knowing it's half bad,
Knowing its a little sad,
And there's blood on our hands;
I hate this.
No one at the wheel,
Everyone is here to feel.

I'm coming home.
We aren't sound anymore,
I can't build a purpose
In this falling structure.

I'm not tearing it down,
I just can't find the sound.
I'm disarming the bomb before it goes off.

Knowing it's half bad,
Knowing it's all smiling sad.
And the gun in my hand is empty.
I am Mr. Guilt;
Everyone is here to feel.
I thank you all so much for my next trick,
Next trip,
Drive home.

(What's happening)
(Let's go)

No hard feelings.

~Bad Astronaut

Does Anyone Read This Anymore?

I hope not. If no one has perceived by now how inferior my page is in the blogosphere (which may not be a "sphere" at all), then at least there is the realization that I do not update anymore: a cause to abandon reading this page altogether. I post anyway: to waste time, to avoid responsibilities.

Today, as most of us know, was election day. Who are what we were voting for, I have not a clue, probably like most Americans. I have a vague idea of what the elections are for: the House and the Senate and various other positions, but I do not know who was running, or what the candidates' political agendas were. I did not even read the news on who won. Ignorance is bliss, they say.

I usually feel guilty on election day for not voting. I do not vote for a multitude of reasons, ignorance being the primary one. If I am not at least aware of what the issues are, who is running, his or her stance, or even what the House and Senate really do (I have forgotten a lot of what I learned in AP Government), what gives me the right to put my opinion on a ballot and attempt to say who is supposed to run our country? An uninformed voter is dangerous. But the effort of keeping up with politics is taxing, especially when one could not care less what Kerry said about the soldiers in Iraq (or the Republican-run government), or could not care less about any other mudslinging that usually occurs--not only during elections, but throughout the year(s).

Everyone, however, is political to some degree, as Orwell points out (quite rightly). Even the statement: "I am not political," has political connotations: not being a member of a party or involving oneself in politics makes a statement about the party system and politics itself. So I confess that I, if reduced to confining myself to a party, lean heavily toward libertarianism (if the link to Lew Rockwell's website did not give you [O reader, should you exist] that indication). Naturally, the guilt that I felt today for not voting led me to see what on Lew Rockwell's website could justify my own ignorance, laziness, et cetera. I found Jeff Snyder's article, which, if you have the time, is good to read.

Snyder brings up an interesting--and valid--point: voting does not change things. We have all been taught that it does; that our opinion matters. But does it? Snyder clearly thinks it does not:

"If the Republicans retain control of the Congress after the history of the last six years, they will conclude, rightly, that they can essentially get away with anything, confident that their base will never abandon them as long as the party leadership and its associated spokesmen in talk radio, newspapers and evangelical Christians can continue to successfully portray the Democrats as closer to Pure Evil in the lesser of two evils sweepstakes known as elections. If the Democrats gain control of Congress, or at least the House, there seems precious little cause for celebration. This is the party that, given a President who lied us into an unjust and illegal war, who admits violating statutes and the Constitution and arrogates to himself the right to exempt himself from laws, cannot even bring itself to promise that, if it obtains majority control, it will end the war as expeditiously as possible, repeal the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act, defund the President’s illegal activities or commence impeachment proceedings."

We, as a nation, are stuck in the mess we are in, with little (if any) hope of change despite the election today. This is some sort of game, Snyder posits, that we believe we can win. But even if the parties do change on election day, "it is a delusion to believe there are two parties which stand for different principles, when one party never repeals or revokes the acts made while the other party was in control, but leaves them standing while pursuing its own, new agenda." This statement rings true: I cannot remember a time when a change in the Executive, Legislative, or Judicial branches of government really changed anything for me. I hear things: once we had a surplus, now we are in (huge) debt; the economy was doing well, now it's doing poorly, et cetera, but daily life goes on. I went to work, or school, I did my daily activities, and though prices went up (like for gas) they never did go back down, making it hard to distinguish the cause between inflation, greedy business owners, or those running the country. Whether a Democrat or Republican is in office, the status quo appears to be in tact. Change really comes through action and not an affirmation of your opinion, as Snyder tells us. I agree with him.

Snyder does not want to dissuade anyone from voting, as he states in his second paragraph. If you (O reader, if you are still with me) did, all the more power to you. I remind you that I looked up the article to avoid feeling guilty, and found the argument interesting. You should really read the article, as Jeff Snyder is far more eloquent and brings up more points. I think I have spent enough time already.

It's Just Language...

I have neglected this for too long now, and even though I have a ton of stuff to do, and a ton of stuff to say about New Jersey, I will postpone those musings for now. In its stead, I will use the cheap bloggers link device in order to not neglect this thing, but not spend time posting something original. Cheesy, huh? At least I didn't misspell "bank" in Cyrillic.

The American Drive

Utah















Iowa





Illinois

Where I've Been, Where I'm Going

Ferry-Land









Monumental





I've Got An Ape Drape


The George Washington Bridge


Majestic


The Best Ad In NYC


It's Always Time for Hofstra


Benjamin Franklin


Thomas Jefferson


This Is Not a Building


That's nice...


But the Sculpture Sucks


Socrates or Bust





Celestial


Harold and Omer

Why Does Britney Shpears...?

I have pictures from the East Coast that I will post, an E. Coli scare that I possibly could mention, and probably fifteen points I could make on the state of the Middle East, but instead I will post this: Oops! She's done it again!

Enjoy!