Obama’s latest address to the American Academy of Nurses and similar organizations has resonated deeply with his presidency: he has lost his sparkle. Powerful presidents have always commanded public attention; TR and FDR and JFK, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton reeled America in through tactical campaign slogans. “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” rings in textbooks while “Mistakes were made” and “I did not have sexual affairs with that woman” will remain notorious for years to come.

This election brought “A million cracks in the ceiling”, a Russian landscape by Alaskan outpost, and “Yes we can.” Barack Obama capitalized on verbal jingoism, outdoing Clinton, McCain, and Palin through sheer rhetoric, mixing mob mentality and one-line jingles to electrify the polls.

Obama has lost his spark- the latest Rasmussen poll reveals 39% of its constituents disapprove of Obama compared to the 29% who favor his policies. Contentious presidents have always existed, but Obama, victim of  Kill Polls, armed protest, racial slurs, and provocative outburst on the House floor, pursues an attitude of nonchalance. While Obama maintains his cool, he is portrayed as relenting, yielding, and flexible on controlling the Republican party, but, more importantly, weak on reigning in his own.

Obama needs to re-energize his rhetoric, to bring the campaign dreams of freedom, hope, and change back to the national sphere. No teleprompter, no staged cheer crowds- to earn our trust, give us something to cling onto. A word, a phrase, a paragraph. Remind us of our obligation to this country, and how the government will support the needs and movement of the people. Renew our faith in the government, so that hope moves beyond hoping for itself. Speak loudly and that will be your stick and crux.

Because Democrats hold power in Congress, the president is inclined to overextend. Obama needs to scream and shout and reassure us that “Yes, we still can.” This is no time to stay silent.

Of course I felt awkward, in a gym, the scrawniest kid out there. Long legs, thin waist, stick arms- I was a runner, not Arnold Schwarzenegger, but my hands inevitably found some weights, and soon I joined in the clamor of panting.

Surprisingly, much balance exists in a gym. Where I go, the lower floor consists solely of cardiovascular machines, and here runners- like me- dominate. Above, our strength diminishes and we mingle among a maze of breathing steel and steel-like flesh. Yet, no one laughs at my lack of repetitions; likewise, in runner world, I do not compare my treadmill pace to another.

Here, we all gather for a sole purpose: to remain fit. There are no judges, only teachers. The bench press is always supportive- it won’t crush me as long as I hold it up- but the abdominal lifts, kinder, release me only after a steep climb. Occasionally my mouth hurls expletives at bicep weights, until they remind me, “It’s for your own good.”

And everyone supports this good. Rodney on weekdays explains to me the function of this machine, that device, and I see those two elderly women, silent but enduring, lift and kick and toe raise with unnerving tenacity. Others inspire too. Always this man on the leftmost treadmill outruns me. On weekends I see other students and we begin an unnamed contest to run the longest, lift the heaviest (I usually win the former). Parents accompany their children, and mom and dad and kid make a vow to be healthy. Everyone else has done the same.

But there are days of disappointment: injury, illness, a machine that breaks and a broken bone later. There are days of tragedy. When I asked another runner why her husband no longer came, she mumbled, “He’s dead.” We bring our stories from outside in, to quell them with ellipticals that know (and share) our pain. I have told my anger to side bridges and swing-ups, my disappointments to a two-hundred pound leg press. Don’t cry- you still need to sweat.

I actually sweat more inside the gym than out, probably because twenty to fifty people are sweating around me, too. At school, cross country team splits itself into three divisions, and everyone runs a different time, length, and place accordingly. Likewise, at home my family shares no routine. Dad hikes on Sundays, mom does kickboxing, and my brother runs down courts playing tennis. My teammates, my family, me- we’ve all committed to our health, but in an imbalanced, lonely sort of way, where either laziness or insecurity distances one another into solitary footsteps and panting.

Out here, if you fail a test, it will crush you. I see old friends, changed, abandon one another for the slightest mishap and when good friends argue they leave each other for good.

Sometimes your parents don’t believe in you, saying success will not come because of your color, age, sex, or race. Or they give up on you, because it is now alcohol or violence that’s their kid. Then, back at the classrooms, cutthroats vie for grades and accolades and disregard the colleagues sliced down. Those students graduate alone.

All of us carry our own weights, in the gym, outside; and I grateful mine are heavy only at 8 P.M., weekdays, and 10. A.M.  on Sunday.  Everyone of us has shouldered dissatisfaction. And everyone of us can work it out, one bar at a time.

Fyodor Dostoevesky explores the tragedy of the human mind quite well, but his “Crime and Punishment” fails to stop me from burning his book.

A brief summary of the characters:

Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov: Crazy, whiny, selfish yuppie who murders a woman, does nothing with the stolen money, and, for the rest of the horribly long novel, tries to come to grips with his genetic insanity. Gives money to paupers despite poor.

Sofia Semyonovna Marmeladova: Forced into prostitution, her internal dilemma between supporting her family and maintaining her integrity leads her to cry every twenty pages. Probably crazy too.

Porfiry Petrovich: Possibly the only sane character, he remains pretty quiet throughout the novel, but repeats at last five times, “Crazy people turn themselves in.”

Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova “Donia”: She throws away her life to feed her brother. Even while in love, Donia, the empty tool of a person, only concentrates on Rodion. Though poor, gives money to poor brother. Very likely crazy.

Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov: Sees ghosts and has same internal dilemma as Rodion, but manages to find redemption by handing Sofia thousands of roubles. Tries to make babies with Sonia. Determined to be crazy.

Dmitri Prokofich Razumikhin: Either the dumbest man in the world or an extremely loyal friend. Gives his money, time, and practically life to watching out for Rodion, who walks away from Razumihin every time. He is the only character to actively pursue his ambitions by working properly for them. Sane but otherwise very stupid.

Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladova: Level 10 on the Craze-O-Meter. Her excessive pride and flamboyancy lead her to go bonkers by the end of the novel. Insanity possibly linked to tuberculosis. Spends half her money on a funeral, then dies that day.

Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov: Weak-willed father, despite being intelligent, drinks away like all Russians and blabbles about half-intellectual discussions after. Gets run over…by a carriage? Honorary mention for stupid.

Pulkheria Alexandrovna Raskolnikova: Clueless mother who condones Donia’s actions and gives money to Rodion. Goes insane near the end of the novel after realizing Rodion can’t be saved. Maximum stupid meter.

Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin: Pretty sneaky, but gets butt whooped by Rodion and his roommate after his plot is foiled. Hopeless romantic.

Two forms of music exist: euphony and dissonance. The latter comprises man’s realm, untamed and wild to the point of inexplicable wars, apartheid, My Lai’s, and Madoff-esque avarice. Then there the sweet symphony rings, melting away the human for a pure note. This is the David’s chord, but not only his. Minor fifths, major sevenths, subdominant, Sonatas, Beethoven and Saint-Saens- the musical masterpiece from life transcends the living.

A guitar strums “Your Love is Deeper.” I sing along, transfixed by the chorus of combined passion and exhilaration. When “Grace Falls Down”, my eyes follow the brick, hammering nails to Jesus’ bloody hands. In the Churchen Powerhouse, logic often falls prey to legend.

But fidelity to religion fades in context, as faith holds no monopoly on music’s magic. Artists, musicians, and artist-musicians profess the therapeutic mysteries of marcato beats. The mantra of music remains especially effective on commercials (Five-Dollar-Footlong, anyone?). Now the heralds of angels have converted song to fit their own machinations. Piety, devoutness, the connection with Lord Almighty become readily apparent in the spirit-shaking tune.

Somehow, the empyrean soundstuff proselytize, with impact. Laced among the songs un-punitive morals reminiscent of the Ten Commandments complement the black and white of keyboards, the silver of guitars. Beyond the din is “eschew greed” or “value the family” (the commandments exclude mention of how to treat non-believers).

To call me a Christian or Catholic remains inherently inaccurate. I do not adopt the morals, rulings, and, bluntly, restrictions of either denomination. If anything, the existence of God may possibly only be verified in music- formless, beautiful, divine to the ears.

The change from adolescent to educated, vote-worthy citizen springs forth in the most poignant way, the alteration of gums by wisdom teeth. The initial protrusion is awkward and unknown to the mouth and excess saliva, different sleep positions, and vexing- but not life-threatening- headaches certify the oral metamorphosis. Then devastation, the dentist abrasively saws each massive molar from their roots. This is called “change.”

Flavorless, commonplace became salty, metallic, full of blood. Any charity beyond the initial precautions were forgone: no painkillers, long term plans, or extra gauzes. The wound eventually heals and the gaps close up, but the memory of mandible misery simmers, then explodes.

This country is in change. The Obama Administration’s negotations with Iran over nuclear policy has not settled well, and the Iranians remain adamant in the pursuit of alternative energy. But somehow ties to North Korea’s aggression are drawn, and suddenly the threat of nuclear war becomes juxtaposed on the news. Now the Axis of Evil may admit a new member.

Iran has been tarnished with political dissent and nuclear arms for its contigency to “high-risk” war zones. First Afghanistan plotted 9/11. Then Iraq somehow fell into the fray. And eventually Iran will be caught in the desert winds under the ploy, of what, “nuclear threat to democracy?” Contradicting explanations swirl in the desert winds of the Middle East, but underhanded tactics of fear mongering and lobbying have pushed the tenets of democracy and personal security to lands where airlift supplies are feared as bombs.

Declaring invasion on difference wasn’t hard, and it isn’t receding. Troops are being shuttled to Afghanistan, from Iraq, to pull down a curtain of terror. Iran is next under the cloud cover and “actions by Iran, and not al-Qaeda, are the primary threat inside Iraq,” says the Washington Post

America can not simply tear the mandibles from Iran. With over 70 million people and a relatively unified government (at least more so than its sister countries), nuclear weapons become minor concerns. Iran can wage a war of attrition to exhaust America’s remaining troops. Iran can erect a unified front to deflect hollow patriotism. Iran can learn from the bombed fields and dead journalists and it can change, while we resume the wars on enemies of our sacrosanct status quo.

America’s wisdom teeth are out. The country can induce a third war in a span less than a decade. But this time, we shoulder our own burdens, and no one will relieve the load of collapsed economies and daily deaths beyond a, “Told you so.”

If this country is truly ready for change, see the war for what it truly is. Afghanistan, Iraq, rubble. America hides behind 9/11 and freedom to continue a policy of war mongering not much different from the tactics of Korea and Vietnam. Our teeth may be removed but they suffer the consequence. Ravage a country, and the blood spills, the pain finally explodes.

- Submitted by Anonymous

Every Fifteen Minutes evokes irrational fear and intense emotions with the justification of it being for our own good. It gives the subtle implication that alcohol related accidents will be a big impact on all of us. Fortunately, this probably will not be true.

The program strikes fear in us by having speakers lecture about their own experiences with alcohol related accidents. Their presence and clear communication of honest grief makes the whole issue come to life. They turn a generally obscure experience into a very visceral one. Despite the short-term impact of the program, it’s very likely that it will either turn into a joke or be forgotten within a year. Intentions aside, the program cheapens the whole issue of responsibility and alcohol.

To their credit, the fundamental idea of the program is one I can support: we should all be more aware of the consequences of our actions and should acknowledge that bad accidents do happen. Beyond this point, the program deviates from what I can consider reasonable.

It’s undeniable that the program aims to lead students towards the “what if?” line of thought. What if it happens to me? My girlfriend? My parents? Such thoughts naturally lead to fear of the hypothetical trauma. With this awareness comes the key word of the program: fear. If we’re afraid of harming our loved ones, or ourselves, surely we’ll act mature and be responsible, right?

Wrong. To condition students to be mature, to make intelligent decisions, the positive aspects of such choices should be emphasized. We should be shown the benefits of general sobriety sans propaganda bullshit. We respond better to rewards than to fear of punishments. Especially when said punishments are scarce. How long can we be afraid of ghosts without seeing any? Obviously, fatal car accidents do happen (as opposed to ghost apparitions). However, the odds of us personally experiencing a fatal alcohol related car accident is much lower than EFM would have you believe.

If, as is claimed, there were a car accident involving alcohol in the United States every fifteen minutes, there would be about 35,000 such deaths per year. Having looked up several statistics, it seems that the actual number ranges from 20,000 to 25,000. For sake of argument, lets stick to the possibly exaggerated 35,000 deaths per year. Because the population in the U.S. between 15 and 64 is just over 200 million, the probability of personally being involved in such an accident is about 1 in 6000 each year. If we include loved ones (estimated at around 100 people- another exaggeration in favor of EFM) as well as ourselves to the number, we still get less than 2 percent probability of being affected. With such low odds, any fear that is churned in us at the Every Fifteen Minutes presentation will only diminish with time because the fear is not pertinent to our lives.

All that said, my heart does go out to those who lost their loved ones. Not just in accidents due to alcohol, but all loss; it’s painful no matter the cause. Mortality is a sad fact of life, and we are all doomed to suffer it. I understand the pain and guilt that can drive people to want to help avoid deaths. However, the Every Fifteen Minutes program, no matter how benevolent its intentions, is not the positive impact its proponents would have us believe it is. It relies on cruel methods of getting a message across; the program seems to exist under the banner of ends justifying means. Even there, it fails. The fear and emotions involved with the program are not based on solid rationality, but on shallow control. The program tries to control us into acting mature rather than nourishing us until we naturally are. In its attempts, it deceives us into believing we are in danger. Even when successful at that, it fails in the long run when the fear loses relevance and the message becomes a joke.

The days of mad mobs and lynching and Montgomery strikes is over, run over by the civil rights movement. If validation of racial equality is required, glance at the presidential power- half colored, half white. American. But despite the cheery assertion of racial equality, blinding joviality fogs the notion that the -ism- racism, classism, sexism- exists, dangerously lurking beneath implicit barriers.

We remain segregated, and voluntarily so. The projects of Compton remain predominantly African American, and Beverly Hills a swath of white. And despite their proximity to colored and the lack of regions, neither muddles the mixture, allowing certain colors (and classes) in, eschewing non-Blacks with fear and crime.

In the West, Asian populations are received as intellectual coolies, Hispanics Gringoes. Both are typecasted immediately: the former a quirky intellectual, the latter a family of ten.

Assimilation, appearing to proselytize, reveals society’s inherent differences through television portrayal. Children shows are incredibly susceptible to this principle. Behind the Anglo-Saxon actor or actress follows the goofy, often inept, Latino, Chinese, or black sidekick. Many sitcoms cast the racially disadvantaged as needing the superior White man.

We remain segregated and yet have come far. Bill Cosby revealed the strength of a Black community. Hispanic and Asian stars slowly inch onto the mainstream. We have tread far, but the steps of hypocrisy still hound us. Inherently, invisible, racial stereotypes still nefariously pervade our minds, secretly assaulted. To go further, drop the preconceptions, the expectations and pause to see the world.

All colors.

To Be Detached

The impetus of journalism is the “shot”, a single, profound piece, effected by meaning and visual pleasantry, which affects the masses. So each reporter lies in wait, by the derelict paths of the homeless or under the podiums of scandal-swiped politicians, hoping the fluke of the perfect photograph will thrust him or her into fame.

To achieve infamy- a month of musing and then a portrait in some museum- a reporter must always remain vigilant. Their eyes watch the world, awaiting the snapshot. The commonplace becomes discarded, while the lens only capture the unique, the profound, and the significant.

So a photographer does not capture life. He or she truncates it to minor pieces of dazzle and glamour. This segmented limb of a life is the subject, which a photographer could grant no import at all. Take the case of Dorothea Lange, renowned photographer of the Depression Era. Showcasing a battered people, she recorded the faces and facts of the Walking Wounded, but rarely handed aid. Similar parties include Civil War daguerreotype artists and onsite journalists. All are afflicted with “photographic objectivity.”

This is the plight of photographers, voyeurs, journalists, and expository fame seekers. Eyes hidebound and narrowed, each waits under the cool hood of the car, lens staring at a mother picking peas. They follow the war ravaged townsfolk as children wade in mudbaths. In the city, the camera idles in front of the homeless.

To vicariously engross oneself into the subject proves both rewarding and overwhelming. The photographer joins the picture and realizes the subtleties and nuances of the physical world. But the perks become irredeemable when considering the anguish of the house-less man, a bruised body from domestic violence.

Reporters, journalists, find themselves caught between a net: remain aloof and detach from the world; appear solicitous but suffer the consequences. If these chroniclers of humanity’s history are to succeed, they must redefine photography to include the capacity for empathy and the resolve of distance. Only then will the “shot” become life.

The Exciting Life of Dust- Floating!

Perhaps the most annoying aspect of dust invades every corner of our lives. At home no furniture or table is spared the layer of silky grime, which always manages to settle regardless of the incessant wiping or cleansing. The air is filled with dust, but the dust chokes the air. Eventually the lifeless spores tumble into a nostril, a tract, a sneeze, and inside our bodies, outside our lives, the dust pervades our very soul.

The dust begins a particulate, broken from a cotton blouse or emancipated from a pile of sand. Intelligible parts intermingle and intertwine– one and one, two and two– until the progenesis of a single,  swelled puff of grey. The parvenu of new birth darts left, right. It has no purpose.

Confused, the particle weaves through the skyline and assesses the situation. Here, on this solid and not-as-tiny-as-me world, it is out of place, not belonging to the solid of trees who consign it to the wind, or the river that nulls a dust speck’s existence. But the dust eventually, on a fluke, trips through an eave or windowpane and joins the masses. It has found its brethren- more dust!- and a purpose.

Now the dust dances and prowls over carpets and soggy dog fur, making homes in patches and tickles in noses; now the dust slowly retreats under dark avenues of unexplored sofa sinkholes and the depths of cabinets; and now the dust dies, swept to the Great Beyond on a stab of Windex.

That blast of turquoise cleaner, the peak of a journey, has ended the dust. Despite the ubiquitous nature of dust- to always return in droves- the climax remains the same: demise. It is a life unworthy of living, tossed to happenstance and flukes, simply hedonistically absorbing the moment. There are rocks for that.

No, the dust blankets the floors and walls and tabletops in a grey, pastey will and testifies to its existence, no matter how troublesome, in the ability to affect and effect. Some men talk of dust; some women sneeze by dust. A child dies from dust, and dust saves a child. Absorbed by its fate, the only sign of immortality a worthless speck of dust can contrive is influence, because death is as troublesome, merciless, inescapable, consequential, and pervasive is as dust is itself, and other dust as well.

Death, dust, neither can find salvation in life until each stops wandering through the air, hoping to find companions, until dust ends its charity of death, and until the future dies to allow the present to live. Dust is too engrossed in what-if’s and can-be’s andswamped by achievement, success, life, a successful life. Deny the dust dream, Dust, and be as dust be. Realize the wandering and lone existence are just as “effective”: you notice the green of leaves, a gargle of a dust-murderer. And when the jet of cheap window cleaner arrives, you know you have truly lived.

Here, on the battlefield, females are a rarity. It is a fantasy world, made up of Magic cards, blazoned with fanciful beasts, landscapes, and blood-tipped spears. Despite a mutual knack for fantasy and science fiction, I have never seen a girl don the part as my opponent sorcerer, declaring attacks or buttering up defenses.

The game, Magic the Gathering, requires tactics. A player utilizes multiple modes of battle- attrition, diversion, sacrifice- to trump the opposing side’s defenses. And so a possible solution is identified. Women are not tacticians. Odysseus devised the Trojan Horse, and Zeus plotted and schemed to overthrow Father Chronos. Which is a misaligned trope, as Atalanta brought down the Mycedonian Boar and soldiers pray to Athena for victory.

Perhaps it is the sense of dominance. The game requires invading an opponent’s sphere, revealing superiority through strength and mental aptitude. Yet females are more literate than men studies show, making them more viable magicians, and eventually more superior.

Then there is the barbarism. Most cards claim some queasy paraphernalia- knives, staves, fire whips and thorn pits. Yet, brutality is not limited to the X Chromosome. Mother Andrea Yates drowned her three children. Angry at her husband, Diane Down shoots her three children, killing one. Both sexes bear a crucible of shame, on ink and inkless reality.

Why have I never seen any girl play Magic? The same reason Hillary Clinton was yelled “whore”, or men appear homosexual by ostentatious dress. It is the same reason girls wear jeans, but only men are heard of as sexist and chauvinists. It as an underlying current of society to toss the cards and recognize only the emptiness, the difference. Both men and women are murderers, hedonists, nihilists, and sorcerers, but our societal expectations, soaked with political correctness and euphemisms, make us male rapists and female victims, Pantene-prunes and unshaved hooligans. A class, a group, a sex, forgets that both cards are square, both sexes people.

We see everyone as a deck.