an ode to aaron burr

A poem that I wrote for a friend of mine as a troll about a year ago, which was inspired by the artwork of C. C. Barton.

Early one July summer morning, the grass still wet with dew;
Aaron Burr faced Hamilton,
Below the towering cliffs of the Palisades.
Arriving by barge, ten paces apart they stood;
The mist of the morning sun hanging heavy with their fate.
In the dense Weehawken woods,
A duel between a cur and a gentleman.
Hamilton fired first, his trick pistol sending the shot high.
The scoundrel undone by his own dishonor,
A look of shock and surprise.
And there stood Burr, majestic, defiant,
With a glint of victory in his eye.
Burr, unwavering, returned the shot;
Hamilton reaping what he sowed.
His honor defended, his work here done,
Burr turned about in silence, and marched back towards the barge;
Whereupon seeing a coney eating a strawberry,
He wept quiet tears of joy.

kony 2012: help or hype?

Joseph Kony certainly isn't a nice guy, and anyone doing what he does (i.e., trying to establish a theocratic government in part by abducting children and turning them into soldiers or sex slaves) definitely needs to be stopped. That said, my opinion of the viral KONY 2012 documentary is that, while it does a good job of tugging at your heartstrings and is a great marketing tactic for Invisible Children Inc., there are a couple of things that bother me about it. One is its approach, which I found too reliant on emotional appeals and sensationalism. Another is its oversimplification of the issue and events in Uganda in general.

As for the group itself, they're not without their fair share of controversy. For example, according to a 2011 Foreign Affairs' article, Invisible Children "manipulated facts for strategic purposes, exaggerating the scale of LRA abductions and murders and emphasizing the LRA's use of innocent children as soldiers, and portraying Kony -- a brutal man, to be sure -- as uniquely awful, a Kurtz-like embodiment of evil." And according to financial reports, Invisible Children only spends about 31% of total funds on directly helping anyone (e.g., last year they spent roughly $2.8 million out of $8.9 million directly on projects in Africa, with the rest being spent on things like salaries, transportation, awareness programs, and production costs for films). In addition, they many also help support the Ugandan government/army and the Sudan People's Liberation Army financially, both of which have been accused of committing their fair share of atrocities, including things like rape, looting, and the use of child soldiers.

In short, I like the idea of people trying to make a positive difference in the world, and I think the video is an innovative way of raising social awareness and inspiring people to get involved in a good cause, not to mention a brilliant piece of marketing; but you may want to think twice before donating to Invisible Children and/or spreading this video around. And if you do want to help but don't feel comfortable with Invisible Children, there's a host of other organizations out there to donate to. For example, The Daily What suggests Africare, AMREF USA, Children of the Nations, and Water.org, all of which have "a sparkling four-star rating from Charity Navigator, and, more importantly, no interest in airdropping American troops armed to the teeth into the middle of a multi-nation tribal war to help one madman catch another."

Update (12:56pm): It seems that Invisible Children has responded to all the criticism surrounding their KONY 2012 campaign, addressing most, if not all, of the issues mentioned above here. I don't really have the motivation to dig deeper and respond to their response, so I figure I'll leave it up to those who want to donate to Invisible Children to decide whether they're legit. I was simply suspicious of Invisible Children due to all the negative things I read about them, and just wanted people to think twice before throwing their money at them.

library.nu

In another victory in the ongoing battle to expand intellectual property rights and privatize knowledge, the publishing industry (which has had its fair share of beef with public libraries) has successfully shut down the unauthorized internet library Library.nu and protected their profits, while poor students and scholars lament the loss of a virtual fount of knowledge:

The disappearing virtual library

Sure, I realize that most people want authors to be 'fairly compensated' for their work, and many probably even feel the same about publishers and booksellers (especially local ones). However, looking at the bigger picture, many of the people who want or even need these texts are denied easy access.

It wouldn't be so bad if intellectual property law and the repeated extension of copyrights (particularly here in the US by copyright holders such as Disney, Time Warner, etc.) weren't becoming increasingly more unreasonable, or if publishers didn't routinely ignore certain markets (predominately non-Western ones). But they are, and they do.

birth control bs

It appears that political discourse in this country has sunk to such ridiculously low depths that women who think health plans should include birth control are literally thought of and overtly labelled by some as sluts and prostitutes:

Dear Rush Limbaugh: Birth Control Doesn't Work Like Viagra

(Then again, maybe it's always been this low.)

Besides the stupidity of the comparison (as well as the current debate surrounding birth control in general, in my opinion), I think it illustrates the prevalence of misogynistic double standards that still pervade our predominately patriarchal society. It seems to be culturally acceptable for men to have lots of sex, not to mention for them to use drugs to enhance and facilitate sex; but God forbid a women suggest her health plan cover birth control!

It's even funnier coming from conservatives who are so dead set against abortion, seeing as how they're essentially fighting tooth and nail to deny women easy access to things that actually help prevent unwanted pregnancies. The insanity of this logic blows my mind.

we're sorry for being sacrilegious

The recent news that the White House is "apologizing for the burning of Muslim holy books in a pile of garbage at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan" has some people up in arms because they think it makes us look weak to have our president apologize for soldiers burning copies of the Quran while Muslims routinely burn our flag.

My opinion, on the other hand, is that it's entirely understandable and appropriate for the current president to apologize for this incident, regardless of whether it was intentional (the military's current position is that they were unintentionally burned, and that they're investigating the matter in order to ensure something like this doesn't happen again). For one, article 11 of the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli stresses that the US has (or at least had) a tolerant and respectful attitude towards Muslim nations and Islam in general:

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

The president is commander-in-chief of the military, and as such, he or she is ultimately responsible for the conduct of the US military. The desecration and/or destruction of a holy text by professional military personnel (as opposed to flag burning by random, irate individuals upset over foreign occupation) is not only disrespectful, it's a danger to our troops that are still there considering the fact that it was done in a predominately Muslim nation by an occupying force that's predominately Christian, which will undoubtedly increase the already high tension between the two groups. If the reverse were to happen here, with Bibles being burned by a predominately Muslim occupying force, I'm sure that Americans would be equally as outraged.

Instead of showing weakness, I think the official apology shows strength of character and sets a much-needed moral example (even if just superficially), and is the least the current administration should do. That's my two cents, at any rate.

solidarity for never?

Just read an interesting article in the Guardian: "All together now: Montaigne and the art of co-operation."

While I wholeheartedly agree with Richard Sennett's overall conclusion that, "As social animals we are capable of co-operating more deeply than the existing social order envisions," I question whether cooperation and solidarity are as mutually exclusive as he seems to imply.

On the one hand, I can certainly see how the desire for solidarity has the potential to invite command and manipulation from the top in that people are often willing to hand over authority to someone or something they feel can lead them out of bondage and into the proverbial promised land. As Eugene Debs so eloquently warned the working class about the inherent danger of this follow-the-leader mentality:

I am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, someone else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition; as it is now the capitalists use your heads and your hands.

But on the other hand, it's difficult to ignore the role that class plays in social relations, especially when such a small percentage of the population possesses the vast majority of wealth and power in society. And if solidarity naturally leads to tyranny and so easily perverts cooperation, what alternative framework/tactic should the left utilize to radically change the existing social order in such a way as to make cooperation more prominent while at the same time making grievous socio-economic and political inequalities less so?

Where would the Occupy movement be, for example, without a modicum of solidarity in its 'us-against-them' form, without any anger aimed at Wall Street and the 1% of the population that essentially rules over the other 99%?

Here, Sennett offers no solutions beyond an appeal to Montaigne's "emblematic, enigmatic cat." In one sense, what he suggests sounds progressive and socially revolutionary; but behind it, I see an inadvertent argument for simply leaving money and power right where it is while simultaneously ridding the left of one of its primary tools in combating ruling-class hegemony: unity.

"love in vein"; happy valentine's day ♥

At first glance, a song that's essentially about shooting up heroin may not seem like the best thing to post on Valentine's Day. But if you think about it, it's actually quite fitting considering that what we call love may very well be the result of a complex array of chemical reactions in the brain; and morphine, the active ingredient in opiates such as heroin, has a chemical structure similar to that of endorphins, endogenous opioid peptides that are produced by the brain when one is in the throes of love, and which help to relieve pain and produce feelings of pleasure and well-being. Heroin, endorphins, it's all the same really.