Naternet

I can think of few things more useless than organized sports for 4-6 year olds. Teeball, flag football, basketball, soccer, volleyball, whatever - it's all a waste of time. Both for the parent and for the child. In fact, not only is it a waste of time for the child, but I think it's a hindrance, as well.

People over a certain age will likely remember a much greater amount of autonomy in their childhood than today's kids, or even people in their teens and early 20s. They can remember a time when kids were often pushed out the door into the summer sun and told simply to "go play" and weren't expected home until lunchtime or even suppertime. There was a freedom and creativity that came with those two words. "Go play" could mean anything. It was up to you, armed only with your imagination, to decide what that anything would be.

It could mean organizing a baseball game with other neighborhood kids. It could mean riding bikes around town for hours, with no particular place to go. It could mean heading into the woods or a grove of trees (depending on if you were a rural or urban kid) and building a tree house. It could mean hanging out at a nearby playground. It could even mean getting into trouble. The important thing was, it put the onus on you.

You learned how to behave in groups and how to make friends and enemies. It taught you how to work together and sometimes how to lead. It meant that you had to be creative, take chances, and capitalize on opportunities. All skills necessary in adulthood. When you step back and think about it, those unsupervised, playground interactions are stunningly similar to work and social interactions we have as adults.

I grew up with a stunning amount of autonomy, even compared to people ten years younger than me. (I'm 33) I fondly remember spending all day in the woods behind my house, building forts and concocting massively elaborate worlds and stories to go along with them. When my parents would take me into town I'd get to hang out and wander around with friends. Sure, there were plenty of days where I chose to veg out and play video games, but the remnants of my forts and escapades still litter my parent's property. Slowly crumbling evidence that I had a vibrant childhood.

I also played organized sports at an early age. But at 8, 9, 10 years old. We had spring basketball leagues and summer baseball. But I still had those years before, those years to start feeling my way around in this world on my own. And the organized sports weren't that strictly organized. There wasn't a massive support system propping them up and over inflating their importance. We barely had money for anything more than screen-printed t-shirts and hats. There was one coach for the whole baseball team and one coach for 20-30 kids at basketball camp. The one or two kids whose parents drove them to the "big city" to play in Babe Ruth youth baseball were mocked behind their backs. "Who does he think he is, with his full uniform and batting gloves?" It was more fun diversion and excuse to hang out with friends while starting to learn the fundamentals of the sport than anything else. Sure, there were some prima-donna parents who took it too seriously, but they were solidly in the minority.

The kids I see today and the articles and reports I read and hear about how cooped up and controlled their lives are makes me sad.

Continue reading

• #children
• #sports

The first time I heard the band Low, I wasn't sure what to think. Every note seemed to take forever. Every chord dragged on and on. I was an impatient kid. Raised on grunge, punk, Golden Oldies, Motown, and hard-driving country, the slow, deliberate, molasses of Low's songs frustrated me. But there was more there. I could feel it from the first moment I heard "Dinosaur Act" off their 2001 record Things We Lost in the Fire.

There was so much layered into the sparse drums, haunting keys, and fragile-yet-dangerous guitar. And those harmonies between Mimi and Alan…dear me...

Alan Sparhawk's voice always destroys me. It's raw, yet high and beautiful. Soulful, yet reserved and cautious. And Mimi, well, Mimi's voice is soothing like no other. It always seemed to float above the fray, lily-white and perfect.

There are a handful of bands who will always remind me of home. Whenever I want to go back to Minnesota, all I have to do is throw on some Replacements, or Weakerthans (Canadian, sure, but Winnipeg is close enough to home), or early Wilco, or The Hold Steady, or Low. Especially Low.

Those other bands, they can scratch the surface of home. I see the open plains when I listen to the Weakerthans or Wilco. Wide open, straight blacktop ahead to the horizon, high blue summer sky overhead. The Replacements and Hold Steady dig a little deeper into the psyche. Some of the 'Mats more tender songs, like "Here Comes a Regular" or "Skyway" are dead-on. But Low was always different, more honest and true.

Minnesota isn't always an easy place to live. At it's best, it's beautiful beyond words. At worst, it's frustrating and irritating. The hordes of mosquitos in the summer alone are evidence of this. But the stark beauty of a cold winter day or the warm and lush high summer or the apple-crisp fall are second-to-none. There were days when you could stop, look around, and just absorb the land around you and feel like the only proper response was to weep with gratitude and joy. Of course, you don't do this. You're Minnesotan, after all. Weather is handled like life. Put your head down and deal. Maybe with a little mild griping over coffee, but that's it. Snow storm in late April? Oh well…at least I'll get my money's worth out of that new snowblower.

But underneath that stoic mask is a cauldron of sarcasm, passion, and desire. Low hits that nerve with a chisel.

"when we were young / we wanted to die / but the sound of a drum / and the words of a child / brought different light / now no one can tell / the winter was nice / but the summer is hell"

"The winter was nice, but the summer is hell." That line sounds like home. I can hear people I knew say it, see it come from their lips. The it is so stark, so honest, and reveals more in nine words than could be said in ninety. Minnesota is probably best known as a sort of Lake Woebegone idyll, a rustic, pastoral, simpler place where all of the kids are above average, but our sense of humor is more often far darker than Garrison Keillor lets on.

Am I romanticizing my home state? Yeah, probably. But it's easy to do when you have such vivid reminders.

Low's new record, The Invisible Way is fantastic. A real return to form after a few jaunts away, that perfectly captures a band entering it's third decade.

I had a chance to record and edit a session with them for opbmusic a few weeks ago when they played at Mississippi Studios here in Portland. It was only the second time I've been lucky enough to catch them live, the previous was in 2005 when they were touring in support of The Great Destroyer.

I've done enough of these sessions to not get real star-struck when working in close confines with musicians whose work I've enjoyed greatly. In fact, I'll occasionally get too comfortable. Like when I let out an unconscious "Woo!" right after The Mountain Goats performed "This Year" for us. (such a great song, I couldn't help myself) But I was for Low. Never even had the sense to introduce myself, which I regret. That old Minnesotan "oh, I don't want to bother them" is still strong in me, after all.

In any case, here's a video from that session.

You can watch the whole session here. (The page doesn't appear to be up and running just yet. The videos just got posted this morning, so it should be up later today) You can watch them all on Youtube, anyway, but check out some of our other sessions if you have some free time. There's great stuff there.

• #low
• #opbmusic
• #minnesota
• #music
• #session

I wanted to write about the bombing at the Boston Marathon yesterday. Well, I didn't want to write about it, per se. Like everyone, I wish that it hadn't happened. But I felt the need to. I felt like I had something to say or some angle I could take to rationalize it going forward.

After years of writing, I've learned that you can prod words out, but only to a point. Once you start forcing things, it's bound to crack and fall apart. Often it's best to just pack it up and move on, especially with an event so muddy and still ongoing, as the Boston marathon bombing is at the current moment. But packing it up is hard. So bear with me.

I'm a redditor. For those of you who don't know, reddit is a gigantic internet community, with hundreds of specific "sub-reddits" for whatever topic you can imagine. During the last few mass killings, like Aurora and Sandy Hook, the /news sub-reddit has had the best, most up-to-date, and most comprehensive coverage. Imagine thousands of people searching for sources and information in concert, people at or near the scene checking in with sometimes first-hand updates, it's by far the first place I turn to when something awful or important happens.

Yesterday, volunteers from the event were checking in, runners were checking in, people in the crowd were updating us, news sources from all over were dissected, compared, and vetted, and ways to help were posted regularly. It was amazing to witness.

One of the first videos from the scene that I saw there was footage from a local cameraman who was at the finish line when the explosions occurred. The cameraman was only 100ft from the first blast, give or take. The aftermath was chaos. It was harrowing stuff. People running every which way, screaming, and that unsettling roar of mass confusion and pain.

The video is here if you want to watch. There's not much gore, but it's very intense and not for everyone.

What struck me the most in this video wasn't the horror of seeing an act of terrorism up close, but the amount of people who began running toward where the blast occurred.

The first responders, police working security, runners, spectators, and even some soldiers in uniform, all running to help, running toward danger. On some level, that's bravery in action, but on a deeper level, it speaks to an integral part of being human.

We need each other.

I also saw images taken right after the blast. Graphic, awful images of people missing limbs, covered in blood on a city sidewalk. (I won't link to them here, but it's not that hard to find them if you want to) Right there with the wounded were people improvising tourniquets to stanch bleeding and rushing them to safety, some first responders, some not. In the aftermath of the worst we're capable of, there were many more examples of the best we're capable of.

When I sat down to write about the bombing of the Boston Marathon, my first instinct was to rant and rave against terrorism. To assault it with a fusillade of profanity and anger and threats of righteous retribution. But what good does that do?

All of those feelings still bubble inside of me. I want to scream that whoever did this is a motherfucking coward. I want to lay out what I'd personally do to them if I had my chance, and a thousand other equally futile and empty threats. But that doesn't fix anything. That doesn't change anything. "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind" isn't just a witty rejoinder, it's a warning. Fear cannot be quenched with fear. Hate cannot be extinguished with hate. Darkness cannot be eradicated with more darkness.

That's why the people running toward the screams, toward the explosion, are the ones to remember. They are you and me. And our love for complete strangers lies dormant far too much. Those people are proof on the ground that our capacity for good is far, far greater than our capacity for evil. They are proof that darkness can be cleansed with light

That's just what they are, too. People. You and me. Not heroes, though that will get thrown around willy-nilly in the days and weeks to come. You can call them that if you want, and in some cases, maybe it's true. But just calling them heroes serves to distance what they did from ourselves, to say "wow, I could never do that." But we can. Every single one of us has that capacity to help each other in a time of need.

The stories of compassion pouring out of Boston today are almost overwhelming. It's easy to witness acts of terrorism and retreat into fear and distrust, but we must not do that. We must look at the acts of love, compassion, and amazing empathy and be heartened at the good that resides inside of us. That good needs to be cultivated and shared, fear be damned.

We all need each other. Never forget that.

• #marathon
• #hope
• #bombing
• #terrorism
• #boston

I've been rather sparse in posting here recently. It's my dead period. March/April of almost every year I go through an extended period of writer's block. Lately, I've had a string of topics that I've written pages and pages on, only to abandon them. Some just ended up boring, others I couldn't get right. Some of them may still see the light of day, but it's going to take some heavy lifting on my part.

At this point, I've kind of come to accept it as just a part of life. Spring doesn't inspire me. Such is life. Move on.

Speaking of moving on, I've joined another online -gram service. I now have an Instagram. I joined last week on a whim. Well, not entirely on a whim. I joined after Sara told me that she was creating an account.

I've always enjoyed snapping photos from time to time. And since I've found myself doing it more and more recently, I figured "why not share?"

So there's that.

Now that we have the housecleaning stuff out of the way, I do have a cycling post to get to…

Bike lanes are a bit scattered when you're traversing the suburbs around Portland. Yes, even though we're adjacent to one of the most bike-friendly cities in the country, it seems like proper cycling infrastructure is still lacking. Don't get me wrong, for the most part it's easy to get around Cedar Hills and central Beaverton on a bike. The farther you get from my neighborhood and the more close-in areas, though, the dicier it gets.

There's already the problem of bike lanes disappearing at intersections, which is hazardous to me as a cyclist, frustrating to the motorists who are trying to suddenly accommodate a bike in their lane of traffic, and a general pain in the ass to all involved. Inconsistent bike lane placement contributes to less riders. Less riders contributes to less attention paid by drivers to cyclists.

I experienced just this the other day on my way home from work. I'd just swung out of our driveway and down our short side street and onto 72nd avenue, which has a marked bike lane (for a little while, anyway, it's only about two blocks long).

The entrance to Lowe's was a block ahead, so I'm always on the lookout for cars and trucks turning into and out of Lowes, because it's a pretty busy location, and some trucks can have big blind spots. "Keep your head on a swivel," my high school football coach always preached.

Right as I was crossing into the entrance, this lady driving a Toyota Camry comes from behind me, and without even slowing down, turns into the entrance. I saw her in my peripherals just in time to hit the brakes, executing a momentary front wheel stand to keep from smashing into the side panel.

In the three years I've been commuting to work by bike, I've had a couple of close calls, but never at speed. Usually, it's someone pulling up to an intersection who wants to make a right turn and slowly edges into the bike lane. Most of the time, I get an embarrassed wave or mouthed "sorry." As good as some people are at seeing bikes, we all zone out from time to time in our cars. But I've never had someone almost hit me, not even slow down, and just keep going.

I was pissed.

The bike lane, when it exists, is a lane of traffic. So what this gal just did is analogous to being on a four-lane road in the inside lane, and making a right turn across the right lane. You wouldn't dare do that if there were cars coming, right? The threat of being t-boned as you turned should be enough to scare most sensible people from such an assholic move.

Yet, that's exactly what Ms. Camry did. Except in this case, the vehicle to t-boned her would've been a 200lb person atop a 20lb bike. Guess who wins in that collision?

I composed myself and then tore off after Ms. Camry, trying to wave her down in the Lowe's parking lot. At first, she tried to pull away from me. But it's a parking lot with other people and cars in it, so a high-speed chase is a non-starter.

Halfway through the lot, she stopped and rolled down the driver's side window. I rolled up and tried to keep from screaming a hundred epithets. That accomplishes nothing, even if it feels good. Besides, I don't like to get in the habit of cussing out strangers.

"You almost hit me. Please watch out."

She looked confused. "I saw you."

"Obviously not, because you turned right into me."

"But I had my turn signal on. I saw you."

"You were behind me, then turned right in front of me. I couldn't see your turn signal. I don't have eyes in the back of my head. Please watch where you're going."

"I was just turning-"

"I know, and you just about hit me."

She seemed completely oblivious. I re-enforced my point once more.

"Please just watch where you're going. You could've hit me."

"You should watch where you're going." Ms. Camry retorted.

Shifting blame onto someone you nearly hit with your 2000lb car doesn't sit well with me, whether I'm on a bike or not. You're piloting a large machine capable of massive damage when not operated safely, act like it.

"You turned into me, not the other way around. Be more careful. Watch where you're going."

My patience with Ms. Camry was up. It was time to leave. If I stuck around I'd just end up getting angry and diluting the message. I turned to ride back to the street.

"Maybe you should be more careful. Maybe that's why you ride a bike instead of drive a car." she called after me.

Okay, fine. I stopped and glared at her. "You need to fucking watch where you're fucking going. You almost hit me. Pay a-fucking-tention!"

I'd just changed this interaction from one where I had hoped to simply remind Ms. Camry that she should pay more attention to bikes to one she'll remember only for the foul-mouthed, angry cyclist who chased her down in a parking lot. Fantastic.

As I rode away, twitching with rage, I looked up to see a guy in a pickup truck, waiting to turn out of a parking row. I don't know how long he'd been there, but he must've seen our back-and-forth, because he looked at me, smiled, and clapped.

Knowing that at least someone else agreed with me made me feel a little better. Not every driver is an asshole, not every cyclist is reckless. Commuting can bring out the worst in all of us. So having someone bring a little levity always helps. Thanks, random guy in a pickup, I needed that.

• #commute
• #cycling
• #cyclogeddon

I like to go for walks over my lunch. It started when I worked in downtown Portland. I liked to walk around downtown and just interact and see all of the people bustling from one place to another. The vibrancy of sidewalk traffic was exhilarating, in a way, and helped to recharge me for the afternoon ahead.

Now that I work a little further out, my lunchtime walks are different. There are less sidewalks. Less people, too. Unless I want to walk the same route over and over again, I have to work to mix things up. So I find paths and trails and hidden ways around the office-park society I find myself in.

About a block away from my office is an open, undeveloped field. If you look carefully between two buildings adjacent to it, there is a path, mostly used by the homeless, out into the open meadow. I know that it's used by homeless people because I've stumbled across at least one guy sleeping under a pine tree near the entrance, and I also came across the encampment on the other side of the meadow awhile back.

It's pretty elaborate, from what I could tell without intruding. Set back in a copse of trees are at least three structures, covered in tarps, with a well-worn and well-hidden path leading down to them. Looking at Google Maps, I saw that they even have their own private lake back in there. Not too shabby. There are more of them in other little stands of trees in-between parking lots and big box stores. You'd be surprised how closely you're parking your $30,000 SUV to someone who sleeps under a dirty, ripped tarp every night.

I like to go out into that meadow in the summertime and sit and relax over my lunch. The sun overhead, a soft wind blowing through the tall grass, birds zipping to and fro, it reminds me of growing up in the country. If only the freeway wasn't right next to the meadow on one side, it'd be perfect.

I walk through nearly vacant industrial parks and past office complexes that are barely occupied. I walk down entire neighborhoods that are slowly being destroyed in order to build new office buildings. It can get depressing.

It's easily apparent that the people who live in those houses are clinging to their homes as hard as they can against an inevitable tide. Meanwhile, a 15 minutes walk away, there are perfectly functional offices sitting vacant, loading docks and warehouses silent and empty.

Space waste never made much sense to me. Suburban blight is a legacy that we're apparently content to pass along to the next generation, just because we want something shiny and new. It doesn't really help that this comes on the heels of half-assed construction from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, either. Some of these older buildings would probably be more expensive to bring up to code than just building a whole new one a few blocks away.

I also walk by people sitting in their idling vehicles, eating fast food over their lunch. Yes, actually sitting in their cars, on the street next to their offices, with the car running, eating fast food, for half an hour or more. I walk by so many that I sometimes wonder if I'm the one who is the freak, walking around when I could be sitting in my car, stuffing my face, with the A/C or heater on. People are weird.

When you're a pedestrian, you're essentially invisible. I've cut through back lots and climbed over fences and no one seems to notice or care. I'm not trespassing or leaping over razor-wire fences or anything, but still…

For example, there's a Lowes one street over from my office. I've walked around the back of it, past the contractor area, many times. There will often be pallets of fertilizer, grass seed, concrete mix, whatever, just stacked around waiting to be put in the right place. More than once, I've just hopped on top of these pallets and jumped from one to the next in full view of employees. They might think I'm nuts, but none of them have ever said a peep.

Mostly, though, I'm alone on these walks. Occasionally I'll see other lunch walkers from nearby office buildings, but not that often. I get to explore the slowly crumbling suburban landscape with relatively few impediments for a half hour every workday.

Those little nooks and crannies, the flowers and weeds pushing their way through cracked concrete, the moss creeping over abandoned parking lots, are where I find solace and peace on stressful days. On less stressful days, it's just fun to explore a little, stretch my legs, and get some fresh air.

Go for a walk over your lunch sometime. I dare you. I'm going on one right now...

If you've been paying attention the past few months here on Naternet, you may have noticed that I have been using Rdio for sharing music. Not iTunes. Not Amazon. Not Spotify. But Rdio.

I started looking into Rdio last fall, using the free trial version at work to listen to music over lunches, etc. I liked it, but the idea of paying a subscription music service has always given me pause. I'm from the Napster generation AND the music store generation. So if I wanted an album and couldn't buy it, I'd find another way to get it. Paying someone for the privilege of listening to their music collection seemed, well, weird.

I'd only been making the effort to actually buy albums instead of just downloading them for a few years. The results were mixed at best, as I set up bunches of self-imposed rules to the process of how I went about getting an album. Is it on an independent label? Buy it. Is it a band who has already made it big and continues to tour in arenas? Download it. Is it a band for which I plan on listening to/have listened to more of their albums? Buy it. Is it a band that I'm merely curious about and aren't sure I'll really like? Download it. Local band? Always buy.

And it goes on like that. It really is hard to keep it all straight. Especially once it got down to if/then reasoning like; I'm going to download this band's record, but I'll go see them live in a month when they come to town and I'll buy a poster or t-shirt, too.

Anyway, I was getting tired of my way of doing things. I felt like I was getting more and more isolated in my musical tastes because of all the arbitrary rules and barriers I'd set up. Not to mention bane of 21st century media consumption, just plain forgetting about that song I just listed to a half hour ago.

So, starting in January, I purchased the basic subscription service from Rdio, downloaded the app for my iPhone, installed it on my laptop and work desktop, and was off.

To say that it's changed how I consume and collect music is an understatement in the least. I've always diligently maintained my mobile music collection, going all the way back to my first iPod in 2001. Well, since January, I've added exactly one album to my iTunes library on my iPhone. The Resoelectric's High Water. (which you should totally check out, yourself, it's good) I almost instantly turned to using Rdio as my main music app on my phone.

The immediateness of it is what I like the most. I can hear a song on the radio, or have someone mention a band in conversation, and have it synced to my phone within seconds. I've always loved that rush of listening to a band or song that is completely, utterly new to me. That feeling of personal discovery and connection been gone for too long. I'd routinely find band names scrawled in the margins in my notebooks, noticing them months or sometimes years after I'd first hurriedly jotted them down.

Starting from zero with a music collection has been interesting as well. My music library at home has it's roots in my very first iMac. Chunks have been lost over the intervening years. Sometimes big chunks. But I still have some of the original .mp3s that I downloaded from Napster in there. It's grown large and immovable, resistant to change. So starting with nothing in my library almost brought on a bout of agoraphobia. Over time, though, I've grown to love it.

It's led to a more paired-down, but highly interconnected library of music. Like that scene in High Fidelity when Rob is reorganizing his record collection autobiographically. (no fucking way) Everything in there is built off something else. Listening to one album, I think about another band I used to like that sounded similar. Search for them. Grab some of their stuff. Listen to it. And that leads me to think about a record I'd been meaning to get. You get the idea.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that I've evolved. I'm no longer entirely beholden to my physical music collection. Physical in this case also pertaining to the hard drives my music is stored on. I haven't bought an actual, physical CD in years. Sure. I still use it at home. But more and more I'm leaning on a subscription-based service for my mobile, daily music intake. It's a step I never imagined I'd take, until I bounded forward with both feet.

I know you're probably wondering if I'm being paid to say this, or given some sort of special consideration or whatever. Well I'm not.

I'm not the kind of person to shout loudly to anyone who will listen what app or service I use and enjoy. I'll make recommendations to friends, but I'm not going to shill to strangers. Not that we're all strangers here, but anyway, I like Rdio. I really do. Six months from now I could hate it, but unless they do something incredibly stupid I doubt it. I've been pleasantly impressed with Rdio so far, and that's something I don't say often. Hell, I just used it a few hours ago to listen to Rogue Wave's second album after my friend, Adam, told me to go back and check it out. I love being able to do that. And it wasn't too shabby of an album, either.

• #reviews
• #music

Source

I finally made it out to see a live show in 2013. It took almost three whole months for me to get off my butt and go, but it was well worth the wait.

I've been a big fan of The Joy Formidable since I picked up their EP A Balloon Called Moaning a few years back. But every time they came to town, I managed to miss them for some reason or another. So this time around I grabbed tickets a month ago to make sure. Turns out, I needn't have bothered. The show was maybe 2/3 full at it's apex. Kind of disappointing, but it was a good crowd, especially for a Monday night show.

The openers were really what made the night for me. Fort Lean and Guards took me by surprise. Fort Lean played a nice, poppy, polished set. Just really solid. Guards came on like they were the headliners and backed up their bravado in spades. I'd listened through their latest, In Guards We Trust over the past few days and really enjoyed it. I've always been a sucker for tortured power pop. The smattering of psych rock and new wave with a pastiche of soul sealed the deal.

But live, they were a surprise. Much more doom and heavy-handed, in a good way. Instead of the airy lightness that permeates their album, live they chugged along like a high-octane diesel. Either bow down or get out of the way. It was like listening to a different band play the same songs, and I liked it. It's not often that a band completely surprises you in a live setting. It was refreshing and intriguing. There were a few "okay, what next?" moments.

Guards really came out and owned the stage. For a middle opener, it was odd to see such swagger. Usually, they come out and try to get as many songs into their set as possible. Guards reveled in extending songs into jams and freak-outs and really grabbed the room by the throat. Great set, great band, go fucking check out their record.

The Joy Formidable, in comparison, were slightly lacking, but not by much. They were tight, focused, and ear-shatteringly loud for just three people. The bar had been raised to such a high level that anything short of a transcendent performance wouldn't have held up.

Ritzy Bryan (real name) has a voice that can float over the churning swirl one moment and slice right through it the next. She bounces around the stage like a pixie on speed, anchored by drummer Matt Thomas (who she oddly referred to by his entire name throughout the show in what I can only assume is either an inside joke or just something the Welsh do) and bassist Rhydian Dafydd. Dafydd impressed with heart-quickening bass lines to counter Bryan's glimmering, frenetic guitar work. All in all, they were bombastic, electric, and polished.

Front to back, a great show, and a great way to finally kick off my 2013 concert season.

Here, have some audio links:

• #concert
• #live
• #music

When asked about why he's not changing his position on same-sex marriage, despite overall public opinion swinging heavily in favor of it, Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss had this to say:

"I’m not gay. So I’m not going to marry one.

Which makes about as much sense as me saying, "I'm not hungry. So you can't eat that sandwich." or "I'm not tired. So take this No-Doze." or "I'm not diabetic. So I'm not going to let you have any insulin."

Chambliss' statement shows a stunning lack of ability to empathize with people other than himself. It fits with the "fuck you, I got mine" attitude that has become the calling card of the GOP these days. It's behind so many of their core issues.

Like cutting back on "entitlements." Fuck you, I got my retirement pension. Fuck you, I got my Medicare and Medicaid. Fuck you, I'm not poor so I don't need to worry about those who are.

Or continually fighting tax increases on the rich (which are at historically low levels). The definitive fuck you, I got mine.

And of course the irrational opposition to marriage equality. Fuck you, gays getting married is icky.

Chambliss, for those wondering, is retiring in 2014 when his current term ends. Not that that would matter much, since a majority of Georgians are opposed to gay marriage and are probably cheering Chambliss' snide remark on the subject with a rebel yell.

Chambliss weaseled his way into the Senate in 2002 with a patently disgusting attack ad on decorated veteran and triple amputee Max Cleland.

No matter your political stripes, you have to admit it's pretty low to call a man who gave up three of his limbs in service to his country a coward and to associate him with Saddam and bin Laden. Especially in 2002. So it's pretty impressive to see that Chambliss has sunk even lower as he's about to stroll out of Congress.

But back to the topic at hand.

"I'm not gay. So I'm not going to marry one." Really? Really?! Immediately that statement fails the logic test. It's patently asinine reasoning even for a six year old. Just because gay people can get married doesn't mean that any of them want to marry you, Saxby. Nor does it mean that anyone is going to force you to marry some dude. It simply means that everyone has the same right to marriage under the law. This is a stupid argument to begin with. Why not just relegate "marriage" to places of worship and have the government issue civil unions? Since it seems to be that most arguments against marriage equality are relgion-based, why not let the baby have it's bottle and move on?

Bigoted, hateful, stubborn places of worship can decide not to marry two guys or two gals. But those guys and gals can still get a certificate of civil union from the government and enjoy all of the tax breaks and hospital visitation and survivorship rights and everything else, same as anybody. Religion doesn't have to enter into it. "Tradtional marriage" can be saved, for those who still like to delude themselves that that means anything. The rest of us can move on with our lives.

It really shouldn't come as a surprise that Chambliss holds this view on marriage equality. In 2010, an aide to Chambliss was fired for posting a comment on a blog stating that “All [gays] must die”. Obviously, Saxby likes to surround himself with some like-minded folks.

What people like Saxby Chambliss don't understand is that marriage equality is going to happen. It is. 58% of all Americans are now in favor of marriage equality. That number only gets higher when you look at younger demographics. For those of us under 34, and even those of us under 49, marriage equality is essentially a non-issue. Over 2/3 of people my age, countrywide, support it.

Marriage equality is going to happen, and Saxby and his knuckle-dragging brethren will end up in the same company as the bigots who fought integration in the 60s.

Go back to your first month of college. You barely moved into your dorm room, were still shaky about which buildings were which, and had yet to discover the cheapest 24 hour pizza delivery place. Life was a vortex swirling all around you. And every vortex has an eerily calm center.

That eye of the storm got to you when you were at your most unsettled. it made you feel like you had control, like the spinning had slowed and you had your feet on solid ground again. Sometimes, it was someone who became a trusted friend or partner or something that became a cornerstone of your life going forward. More often than not, though, it simply gave you the illusion of safety before dumping you back into the maelstrom.

Let's call mine Amanda. Mostly because that was her full first name. I'm not very good at making up fake names. I can't remember her last name anyway, so its a moot point. She found me my first week at Moorhead State.

My friend, John (actual made-up name), introduced us. John went to school across town at North Dakota State, and late in the first week of school, he called me up and asked if I wanted to hang out with two girls from my campus. One was an old friend of his from summer camp and she had a new friend from her dorm floor who wanted to come along.

So we met up and headed out on the town. We did those things that kids do when they're truly on their own for the first time. We drove around our new city, made loops through the different campuses (there were three, two state schools and a lutheran college). We talked about where we came from, laughed about differences, commiserated over similarities. We went to Taco Bell after midnight, because 18 year old stomachs are cast iron.

A couple of days later, the girls wanted to go out again. This time it was more of a "date" date, a movie and chain restaurant dinner- the ubiquitous midwest date night. So we caught a third-rate college comedy starring Mark-Paul Gosslear of Saved By the Bell fame and ate at Applebees.

Since John drove, we went back to MSU first. My roommate was out for the weekend, so we all went up to the top floor of my dorm to hang before calling it a night. I lived on the 7th story of the tallest building in town, 15 story Neumaier Hall. (which would be rubble within a year) The view from the 15th floor was pretty cool, so we wandered around the dark, vacant floor. With extra-tall floor to ceiling windows surrounded on all sides and two big, open common areas populated with couches and low wooden tables, it quickly became one of my favorite places to just sit and relax.

After a half hour or so, we went back down to my room. John and his friend decide to leave. She was tired and wanted him to walk her back to her dorm.

Amanda stayed behind.

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• #wistful-nostalgia

We are seeing a sea change in our culture here in the US. It's happening much faster than I ever thought it would. This change is being fought tooth and nail by it's opponents. But it's a losing fight.

The change I'm speaking of is a socially liberal one. One that recognizes the increasingly obvious inadequacies and fallacies in our laws and is finally moving to change them as public perception is tilting heavily in their favor. The move in perception is happening quickly and decisively, but the only way to turn that into change is to force those in power to recognize it and act.

In a new poll released on Thursday, California is shown to be heavily in support of gay marriage. Like, 61% to 32% in favor, a margin that - surprise, surprise - is even more disproportionate in younger age groups. 78% of those polled under the age of 39 were in support of gay marriage.

Many states and even the President have filed briefs with the Supreme Court in support of equal rights for gay couples who want to get married. Popular opinion has lagged behind this issue for far too long, but now it's finally picking up momentum. The momentum is so strong that some prominent Republicans are joining in.

Meanwhile, the decriminalization of marijuana is chooming forward in both opinion polls and actual action. Advocacy groups are targeting more states to bring up the issue for a vote, hoping to join Washington and Colorado in legalizing the use of marijuana by responsible adults.

These are both things that, in my opinion, should be non-issues and are representative of manufactured wedge issues. Gay marriage hurts doesn't hurt you any more than "traditional" marriage does. Responsible marijuana use doesn't hurt anybody any more than responsible alcohol consumption does. For far too long, conservative culture warriors have spewed all sorts of invective and hyperbole to stem the tide of non-issues like these. But sticking a finger in the dike will only hold back the water for so long.

But it's not all roses and champagne. The Supreme Court has been hearing arguments regarding the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and is hinting at striking down it's most important provision, Section 5, an act which would essentially neuter the Act and open the floodgates for voter suppression. It's no surprise that the five conservative judges are behind this push.

Conservatism - or at least the current bastardized iteration of it - is lashing out. Going after the voting rights act, trying to enact onerous voting restrictions with very little lead time for voters to comply, cynical redistricting to ensure safe seats for elected officials(to be fair, both sides do that, the GOP just does it more), the whole "right to work" push in multiple states to neuter unions, and attempts to do away with winner-takes-all for the electoral votes of only states that the GOP sees as slipping out of their control.

I'm not a paranoid person by nature, but you have to admit that all of these things happening at the same time, often backed by the same groups(ALEC, for example - not this one, this one), is fishy. It reeks of both coordination and desperation. They know the voter base is shifting away from them, and instead of adjusting to the changing times and demographics, they're digging in their heels and denying reality. It's not a pretty sight.

This is what happens to a political party who aligns itself with a conservative social ideology - through the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family, Moral Majority, etc. - once that social ideology has been rejected by a new generation of voters.

The youngest generation of voting-age Americans is the least religious yet. This secular and/or unaffiliated bloc of people grew up with access to more information and has had an easier time getting behind the bullshit and misinformation peddled as gospel by these farcical religious fronts as well as the political party they usurped and re-made in their own image.

It's what happens when a political party disregards reality. I mean, during the last Presidential election, the GOP had created such a feedback bubble that they thought Romney was on his way to a blowout win heading into election day. You can deny reality, but eventually reality is going to smack you in the face.

A larger and larger amount of young people are seeing through this. They know that abstinence-only sex ed is bullshit, that the War on Drugs is a losing and pointless effort, that gay people getting married doesn't hurt them one iota, and that those efforts, along with very thinly veiled racism, overt sexism, and a stridently me-first ideology are more than off-putting, they are wrong and incongruous with a healthy society. Teaching people to "hate thy neighbor" isn't a good thing. Especially when that hatred is unfounded.

But they also realize that truth doesn't lie with one party or the other. That there isn't just a Democratic or Republican way to look at the problems we face. For that reason, we are also seeing more and more political independents crop up in polls. People are loathe to identify as Republican, which has been declining for the past decade. Those identifying as Democrats has stayed relatively stable, but Independents has skyrocketed over the past ten years.

I am one of those Indies. When I first registered to vote, I registered as a Democrat. I came of age during the Clinton years, when the divide between the two parties became strikingly apparent.

More than anything, I hated what I saw from the Republican party during that time. I saw a bunch of petty, self-interested men stomping their feet like spoiled children who were told "No" for the first time ever. I saw politicians who were just fine with wasting time and money to score political points. Seeing that steered me away from politics so completely that I didn't even bother vote until I was 24.

The more I paid attention to politics, the more disgusted I got with both sides. Not equally, of course. I like to say that both sides are bought by powerful interests and don't have my best interests in mind, but the Dems at least try to throw us a bone every now and then. Issues are never just black and white, left or right, blue or red. This should be obvious, but if you look at politics today, it's so rare as to be extinct. So for me, it makes more sense to vote issues and not ideology.

If there's a Republican who shares many of my views, I'll cast my vote their way (sadly, this happens rarely). If there's a Democrat who I agree with on most things, I'll vote for them. If I agree with a third-party candidate like a Green Party, Libertarian, Progressive Party, etc., I'll fill in their circle on my ballot.

We're starting to see the rise of the socially progressive, politically independent, fiscally frustrated generation. Once we finally get our hands on the controls, hopefully we will be able to steer this ship in the right direction by casting aside and/or dealing openly with that which divides us and tackling the issues that matter together.

It might be more than a little pie-in-the-sky, but a man can hope.