Hi! Public radio has provided clarity yet again.

For months now, I've been going around asking people why they think we're really going to war with Iraq. Terrorism? Well, not really, at least, there's no link to al-Qaeda. Oil? That seems cynical somehow. Stoke the electorate? If that were the case, the hawks would have had everyone on board the reelection train by now, and at times they did. But now the elections are passed, and war continues to loom. To finish daddy's war? No... Bush has neither the power within nor the understanding of the adminstration to fill out some vendetta by himself. So what?

Then David Sedaris answers everything. Well, not David Sedaris, but a radio show he hosts called This American Life. The show is becoming a Public Radio International staple, because it usually isn't so political. It is a weekly hour of radio devoted to presenting balanced illuminations on all sorts of aspects of life. It's sort of like 60 Minutes for people who like journalism.

Journalism is important, since the media has been hesitant to shift focus from the "War on Terror" that developed from the media volcano sprung forth from the barren news-media wasteland September of 2001. It's especially important now, though you wouldn't know it from the tone of the nightly news broadcasts, which still frame the world in terms of the hastily-defined "War on Terrorism" a year ago. The "War on Terrorism" has changed since then, mostly because American politicians have figured out just what that really means: a search for carrots in the neighbor's rhubarb garden. It's a strange juxtaposition, but at least our nation's leaders have finally pieced together just why they kept waking up together covered in dirt and seeds after all those drunken, late-night parties during the boom years. These sorts of revelations aren't always useful, natch, but sometimes you just have to know.

So. I had a point somewhere up there. Right. The reporter putting together this segment talked to policy makers, policy analysts, Iraqi exiles, and, just to tie things together, nine year-old children to come up with the first convincing scenario of why America is going to war with Iraq. A big part of it is a sort of "Wilson plan for the 21st century": inject real, Arabic democracy that works into Mesopotamia and the despots will begin to fall as the citizens see that a representative government can work for them. This has the benefits of stabilizing oil trade and furthering an American agenda abroad, yes, but the rhetoric and plans would never have advanced to this point if Saddam Hussein weren't such a pain in the ass. From here, the backstory becomes murkier, but the central thread is that a lot of people within the military and intelligence communities have been looking to tumble his regime for a long time. A Bush administration looking for targets after last September was enticed, and here we are.

This is the very short version, and a lot of it is inferred, but I'm starting to think that this is about right; that there was never anyone who planned for things to work out this way; that the next twelve or twenty-four months will not go according to any one master plan. When small things become very large, chaos theory teaches us, no one really has control over what happens. It just happens.

That's all the heavy stuff for tonight, though.

To everyone who saw Joan's work on cable television, hi! You know, if you moved to California and got to know Morgan Webb, maybe she would like you. And maybe, if you did your best to be a good person, after a while she might like you even better, in a different sort of way. Romance might even follow--candlelit dinners, long walks on the beach, meeting the parents, that sort of thing. I bet that if you followed that process through and really put your heart into it that then, just maybe, one thing would lead to another thing and you would get to see Morgan Webb naked. I'm just speculating! These are not promises or prophesies or even some special knowledge I have because I know her; she is a stranger to me too. All I can promise you is that you will not see Morgan Webb naked just by coming to this website.
I don't fully understand why I have to keep saying that, but according to our usage logs, some people still don't quite understand how the world works. I guess it's part of being young? Something.

Sorry about the delay if you already got the picture. If it helps to make up for it, here's that short again about two other people who go on a date, but get to experience one thing leading to another:

It's called Lily and Jim, and it's by Don Hertzfeldt. I will make it available for another week or two, as a reminder that in these holiday times, it could be worse. Funny to people watching, but somewhat worse for you.

Well, that did it. Somehow, in the past 24 hours, I managed to crank out better than 3,000 words and hand in a whole bunch of papers and projects ON TIME. It feels really good to have something solid down on paper, it really does. Sure, probably half of those words were not in English, but in the gruesome computer language C... though I know that the robots will understand them. There are few pleasures greater in life, I think, than meeting deadlines.

Being able to profundicate on the fly about a topic that you know something about, that your audience knows little about and regarding which there is a plethora of information available, though... that's quite fun too. Today, that profundication was my short paper on the state of nuclear waste management. I haven't slept in a while, and I did absolutely no editing before finalizing it... so I'm pretty sure I'll wake up tomorrow morning, look at it, and recognize it as the pure, stupefyingly dull blather what it is. But I had a strangely good time writing it... and it's for a non-graded class. So it doesn't really matter.
Heh. Looking at it now, I can see some of the... unique liberties I took with
standard English grammar. Ah... cut, Rob. Cut cut cut cut cut.

If this is the first thing you've read here in a while, you might want to check the 'Old' section over there. I've written a little bit lately. Though you might not want to check it... it's kind of weird, and I remembered while thinking about things the other night that shouting one's feelings is never as effective a means of communication as is stretching out on a small, metal-frame bed; shifting ever so slightly as to settle one's arms and legs into the soft recesses of an ordinary-looking tan comforter as one's head rests on the metal bar between two stubby posts at the foot of the bed, and together with steel and jacket and shoes staring up at the ceiling for minutes, or maybe hours, awash with invisible waves of comfort that for a while is all that can possibly exist.

It's just the way we're wired, I guess.

On that note, if you can, you should go
here and listen to Billy Collins be... well... Billy Collins. It is Keillor infested, and I apologize for that to the appropriate parties, but if you're okay with that, it's Billy Collins, for crissake. Our poet laureate and last best hope. I had never heard him read his poetry before, and he has a fantastic monotone that... well, just go listen. Skip ahead to 3:45 or so in his first clip if you just want to fill your secret cow fetish or something.

Your BONUS MOVIE FILE for the day: Lily and Jim, by Don Hertzdeldt. It is the story of a boy and a girl who think they have given up on love. 32 MB on a reliable server linked to Internet2, and well worth the wait.

"Linking inhibitor neuron output to inputs can make the robot aware of rythmic pulses and rock.
"Dimmu borgir, witchery, napalm death do not use the very low power wfm (.5mw - 50mw) ***very dangerous.
--robot friend's notice.

...what it all really comes down to is that something needs to change. I'm not sure what. I might need to change my career path, or I might be happy if I just get some new friends or do something small every day to better myself, like running a few miles or listening to a little Brahms. I think Cadet King would highly encourage both, and that seems like a pretty good standard to me. But flygirls and flyboys aside, I will work towards either making my life a little better somehow by the end of the next term, or I will flee Iowa for Hawaii or Canada or somewhere. This is a goal. I can work towards goals. I hope it will be enough.

Here are some (somewhat bland) photographs I took back in November with the crappy Government of the Student Body digital camera... sort of a "day in the life" thing? I went out with the camera looking for interesting things to photograph around campus... and sadly came back in an hour with a handful of snapshots. However! Here is a taste of the expansive Republic of Iowa:

• 
  My bookshelf. It's not as messy now.


• 
  This is what I'm doing right now, actually, though I'm off to the market in a few.


• 
  Not-quite Japanese graffiti. I tried translating it, and it works out to something like "NEW #1 ~~ CLAN!".
  I hope the person who put it there knew what he or she meant.


• 
  Blurry picture of a lake. I learned that night that old digital cameras have very long exposure times.


• 
  The radio station staff, in their day of hey. A few of those kids are gone now, which is too bad.

I tried to capture with the camera the awe-inspiring quantity of crow guano that now blankets every surface, but was unsuccessful without the use of a tripod. If it helps though, ponder this one word: SNOW.
Ecch.

So here's how it is.
I'm sitting in my room in my boxers just thinking, because I don't know what else to do. I been in Iowa for less then two years, and already I've lost my will. The same problems are there that have been there my whole life, problems I addressed long ago, but now... that's not enough. Since coming to college, I've just muddled about, scraping along and getting by in my classes.
I set off after graduating from high school to figure out who I am and catch a whiff of some greater purpose. But I haven't found a damned thing. Not a person, not a cause, not a place where I belong... not a trace of something nor someone I can feel good about devoting myself to! Not even a few friends I can have a good time with every now and then who believe in life beyond The Great Bottle. It's gotten to the point where it doesn't matter when I succeed because no one will hear about it. When I fail, no one will gloat. Everyone has stopped listening, and I've stopped giving... and I really don't know what to do.
I have to do something. Something! A new major, maybe, something less isolated; or a new college, one where the people don't all seem so hollow and empty inside (if such a place even exists!) Or maybe I just need to make some new friends here... start going to class again, rebuild my body and mind. Friends who think, even! But I don't know where to look that I haven't already. Or where I would go that would be less desperate and desolate a place than Ames, Iowa.
But I can't help feeling like it would all be okay if I could just talk to someone over coffee, and maybe even listen again. Care again. That was always enough to keep me going before. Maybe that's how it is now.

~

I have twelve days more in Iowa. Nine before transfer applications start coming due, and nine before finals start. Nine days to do everything.
It will have to be enough, won't it? Everything will work itself out in the end, I'm sure... I probably just need a little patience. Eighteen months isn't so long a time, when you think about it, right?
...right.

on consumption.

Oh, a postscript for radio heads. I was at my uncle's house for a while on the American Giving of Thanks Day. Me, Angela, the parents, aunt, uncle, and Aunt Bev. I'm really not sure how I'm related to Aunt Bev except to know that she's not really my aunt, but comes to family outings anyway. So there she was, slightly senile, sitting in a chair, and there I was, standing, reading the newspaper in the dining room. Silence.
I turned the page.
Silence.
An old, fat Persian cat lazily sauntered across the room.
"Do you know how to play cribbage, Robert?" Aunt Bev said suddenly, motioning to a board on the dinner table.
"Never really picked it up," I said crisply. "So many pegs, and cards, and ah..."
"Neither did I. Some friends tried to teach me the rules once... you take the cards, and set your peg down, and somethin'-somethin'-something fifteen. It's all crazy."
I thought of someone, and I smiled right then and every time I saw Aunt Bev for the rest of the day.

"I am cancelling you.
The brazillians and their skills together."
--robot friend's notice.