Why I Don't Like Harry Potter

There's been a recent Facebook fad about picking 10 books that influenced your life. Almost invariably among my friends, the Harry Potter series features heavily in, if not tops, this list. I can't argue with the popularity of this series, but it baffles me that out of all the literature ever written, a children's book should be so ubiquitous.

I've written something like this before, but it was on an older blog which I later deleted. While I've changed certain things for this piece, the theme is pretty much the same: I don't get Harry Potter. I've read them, and I don't get them.

My problem doesn't stem from the fact that these books are bad, per se; it stems from the fact that they're so popular. As a book for kids, or a book purely for entertainment, it's not the worst thing people could be reading, especially when you factor in all the Clive Cussler or Susan Donovan crap floating around. Compared to what most adults read, it's actually not bottom barrel by a long shot. However, and this has to be said, it's not exactly the best literature on the planet either.

This is a shame, because if there's one strength to the series, it's Rowling's ability to world-build. Sure, nothing in her world is particularly original, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily bad. In fact, the characters in and world of the Harry Potter series have a lot of potential for a decent writer, which is what makes is so frustrating that Rowling can't, or won't, tap that potential.

Let me give you some examples. I'm going to assume everyone reading this has either read them, or doesn't care about spoilers, so let's talk about the death of Fred in the last book. Death is a powerful literary tool. My understanding of Fred's death, just from reading the book, is that he was killed to demonstrate that things were getting pretty bad and that Voldemort and his followers were really really bad dudes. It was meant to introduce tragedy and drama into the book because a main character died. It's not a bad try.

There are a lot of problems with this approach, from where I'm sitting. First of all, it's the seventh book. If the feeling wasn't there that things were awful already, something wasn't done right in the last six books. In my opinion, that's actually exactly the case. Yes, Sirius is dead. Yes, Dumbledore is dead. But somehow, they fail to accomplish this sense of terror or hopelessness in the same way Fred's death fails to do so.

Death is just one of those concepts Rowling can't quite get the hang of, and this is where her issue with wasted potential comes in. In the case of the death of Sirius, where he literally falls into a realm of death, there's the opportunity for a powerful metaphor, or many powerful metaphors. She could have implied something about the transience of life, the permanence or lack thereof of death or many many other themes. As it stands, though, Sirius trips and dies and Harry is sad about it, and that's pretty much where that ends. If there's an attempt at any deeper meaning there, it's left unclear.

The same goes for Dumbledore's death. Snape kills him, and is clearly conflicted about it. Here is another huge opportunity to talk about murder, utilitarianism, and the human psyche, but it's largely not taken advantage of. Snape does what he has to do and feels bad about it, and that's pretty much it. At the time, we don't even know Snape had good reason, an aspect which she could have easily run with later to say something about the kind of psychological consequences such an action creates. This is an example of Rowling channeling M. Night Shyamalan more than Orson Scott Card.

Here's what I would have done if I had written the battle of Hogwarts: kill Ron.

Killing Ron would have had an impact that killing other characters just doesn't. Sirius' death doesn't really work because we only know him such a short time; Dumbledore's doesn't really work because we know that it needed to happen and that, in fact, he controlled the circumstances of it. If you really want to portray senseless violence, evil for evil's sake, the kind of evil that caused things like the Holocaust, you need to kill someone important and have their death be largely the result of wanton cruelty. Better yet, have Malfoy do it point blank and thoroughly enjoy it.

Think of how that scenario would play out. Think of how the death of the most loyal and largely good character at the hands of a malicious killer who enjoys killing would have played out in comparison to that of a dead clown hit by a stray magical bullet. How would that have touched you? Sure, you wouldn't be as happy, but I daresay that if you're a Harry Potter fan, that might have spoken to you on a deeper level. Even I know that, and I don't write best sellers. At most, all Fred's death does is say something about the death of comedy, which is ok, I guess, but a bit crude and clumsy.

The thing is, most of Rowling's attempts at drama or the themes it can elicit are a bit clumsy. She either lacks the ability or will to turn her world into something with the ability to say something any deeper than 'love triumphs over evil,' which, again, is a bit of a shame, because it's not like the world she's created would prohibit that in any way.

As another example of this phenomenon, let's examine Rowling's characters, who are largely one dimensional. Harry is the hero. Ron is the loyal friend. Hermione is the smart one. This actually doesn't have to be a bad thing. In fact, we can look at other literature that has one dimensional characters that actually works pretty well.

As an experiment, let's compare the characters in Harry Potter to the characters in Atlas Shrugged. I'm not asking you to like the latter, and I'm certainly not asking you to agree with it. It absolutely has its flaws; it's heavy-handed, overwritten, and, like Harry Potter, the characters are so one dimensional that they might as well be anthropomorphic straight lines. However, there is a difference. The characters in Atlas Shrugged are one dimensional in the same way that characters in Greek drama are one dimensional: they are literal embodiments of human traits and characteristics. In fact, they are embodiments of one trait or characteristic in particular. For instance, Henry Rearden, as a character, is Pride, imprisoned by his wife Lillian, or Guilt. Only when Pride (Rearden) is free of Guilt (Lillian) does he reach his full potential. Simple? Obvious? Certainly. Atlas Shrugged takes most of its cues from ancient Greece, where that kind of story was common and effective. Atlas Shrugged, as a book, makes its simplistic characters work for it to form a coherent philosophy. For better or for worse, and for all its numerous flaws, it is effective literature. It works.

The characters in Harry Potter, however, are tropes. They are cliches. I'm not saying there isn't some crude meaning there. Harry embodies love; his parents saved him by sacrificing themselves and, in fact, he dies to save his friends. (Of course, he comes back to life, which has its own set of problems, which I won't get into here; if I got into every literary issue I have with Harry Potter, I would be here for a long long time.) It's actually a good theme, and a simple one. Voldemort is evil. He is the embodiment of evil. He kills and tortures for little to no reason. Again, fair enough, and a decent theme.

Here's the problem though: through tools like internal or external dialogue, Rand's characters put forth a philosophy. We understand what they represent because we've felt it. When Rearden feels successful because he's accomplished something, but is made to feel guilty about it, or simply fails to be recognized for it, that's something we can relate to. When Taggart's life work is destroyed, it's something we can understand, because we've all had something important to us taken from us, and risen from the ashes anyway. This allows these one dimensional characters to work. However, it's hard to relate to Harry because very few of us have lived under shitty parents and then found out we were super famous and had a shitton of money in a bank somewhere, and, oh, also are the prime target of the world's foremost mass murderer. Yes, we can relate to him as a good guy who sometimes is conflicted. Yes, we can relate to him as a child learning to grow. Those things are only so useful however, and, to be honest about it, if you want a story about growing up and feeling uncertain despite being fundamentally good, I have a book for you that will do the same thing in fewer pages and in a more novel fashion written by a certain Mr. Sallinger.

Harry is the main character, so it's a bit troubling that relating to him is something you have to take an effort to do, rather than having the book make you relate to him by virtue of its writing. The problem is that Rowling's primary strength is her characters. It's actually what she does best, despite herself, and yet, somehow, she doesn't do it that well. This same issue with flat characters and her failure to use them correctly plagues the entire series. We have what could be a fantastic villain, Voldemort, who has no internal dialogue, very little backstory, no real indicator of what makes him tick. We don't even get the sense that he's just evil for the sake of being evil, like a magical Hitler, because his end goals aren't really ever stated. He's just bad and we're supposed to understand that because he does bad things. The potential for either depth or representation of real world evil is there, but it's not properly used.

That last sentence is the fundamental issue I have with most of Rowling's work: it could do so many things and does, in fact, do a lot of them, but without doing any of them particularly well. It puts forth some ideas, but not particularly strongly. It has potentially decent characters, but doesn't do a lot with them. It's not as efficient as it could be. Any way you examine Harry Potter, from a literary aspect at least, it's just kind of mediocre writing. Going back to our earlier comparison, Ayn Rand has her own books that aren't particularly great, which is exactly why I'm using her so heavily as an example. Like Rowling, she's a best selling author with fundamentally flawed works. For instance, We the Living comes to mind. However, even that book, while heavy-handed, at least kind of works. It's an example of a fledgling writer with raw skill writing a bad book, but making it work to make a point about a real world circumstance, as opposed to a bad writer trying to work with good themes and ultimately coming up with less than she could have. What I'm trying to highlight here is how two different best selling authors make or don't make fundamentally problematic books work based on their comparative skill at writing.

I'll say what I've always said, at this point: none of this is bad on its own. Harry Potter is a kid's book. It is a book for children. As such, it's far better than a lot of things kids could be reading and I commend it for that. I really do. But saying that your life was influenced by it is a bit like saying that your life was influenced by Walt Disney: you're essentially saying that your life was influenced by something trite, designed to be easily digested by preteens, and just a tad racist. What are you saying about yourself? What are you saying about the wealth of literature you could have chosen? When you think about it, really think about it, is it a good thing that Harry Potter influenced you so much? If that's true, are you as well read as you should be? If you are, isn't that kind of a slap in the face to literature that actively tries to say something about the world and the nature of man, and does it in a technically sound manner?

I'm not saying you can't be influenced by Harry Potter, but I question whether it should be that influential as a work of literature when there are so many fantastic and meaningful books to choose from. I've mentioned a few here, and guess what? They're by no means the best. Not by a long shot. There are literally millions of books in the world that say so many things in so many languages. I am not urging you to stop reading Harry Potter. I am urging you to take advantage of those millions of books and perhaps pick up one that isn't a kid's book with, and there is no way around this, clumsy, mediocre writing. Harry Potter isn't bad, but unless your age is lower than a school zone speed limit, you can simply do better. There's an entire world out there. Take advantage of it.

Why I Love Beer

Today I'm going to talk about something political, heavy, and divisive.

Just kidding. I'm going to talk about beer.

I love beer. If you don't, that's fine, but I challenge you to find a beverage as versatile and unique. Want a cheap beer you can get wasted on with your bros? American industrial lager has you covered. Want a beer you can enjoy in front of the fire on a winter's night? Try a heavy stout or porter. Want a light beer you can drink all afternoon and not feel disgusted with yourself at the end of the day? Probably going to want to go with a saison. Beer can have high or low alcohol content, be light or dark, chock full of various flavors or devoted to only one or two distinct flavors. Beer can be anything you want it to be.

For all its diversity, however, beer is a simple drink. Unlike say, wine, aged for years and saved for a special occasion, even the best beer (in most cases) is made in the span of a month and goes bad in about a year. Beer isn't a conversation piece, or something you open on a very special occasion. There aren't beers from 1906, and if there were, you wouldn't want to consume them. Beer is something you drink. Beer isn't about show; beer is about taste. You brew it, you bottle it, you drink it, you brew more beer. It encourages you to enjoy it. You don't feel guilty about opening a really nice beer.

This simplicity is what makes it easy to experiment with beer. Want to do something crazy with your next brew? Want to make a grapefruit and hot chili porter? Go for it. If it goes wrong, make a new batch. Beer is the perfect beverage for free spirits. And there's a certain advantage to a beverage that only takes about fifty dollars and a month or two to make: if you did mess up, or even if you just aren't satisfied with your results, you can repeat the process, tweak your recipe, and get it right where you want it at very little cost and with very little comparative effort. Beer is the perfect beverage for control freaks

However, as simple as beer is, it easily matches wine or whiskey for sheer complexity of flavor. Even the worst beers have a certain unique taste or tastes to them. Let me give you an example. The beer I'm having right now is a George Killian's Irish Red. It is not a good beer, but it's not terrible either. It kind of fills that middle role for people who want a decent beer with a somewhat different taste, but don't want to pay a lot for it. I happen to have some around from helping a friend move into his new apartment.

What you may not know is that Killian's is a Coor's product. It wears the label of "Irish Red," but, like Goose Island, it's owned by a major producer of cheap American industrial lager and designed to compete with the craft beer market at a lower price point. However, I wouldn't necessarily need to look at the box or the price tag to figure that out. Irish Red Ale, according to the BJCP, should have "moderate caramel malt flavor and sweetness, occasionally with a buttered toast or toffee-like quality..." Killian's does not entirely lack these tastes, of course, but lurking under the maltiness is the telltale hint of that metallic tang so often present in American industrial such as Budweiser or, appropriately enough, Coors.

This doesn't make Killian's a bad beer, but it does make it different than a traditional craft Red. For all I know, this is intentional, designed to appeal to those coming from Coor's more mainstream offerings. I honestly don't know. What I do know is that that taste alone makes Killian's not quite a pure Irish Red, and not quite your standard industrial. It's a midrange beer, a beer designed to fill a gap. It has a purpose, and it fills it well. That one flavor, not even a particularly desirable one to many, tells an entire story about this beer, its origins, the recent history of the commercial beer market, and the niche it's trying to fill. That's the dynamism of beer.

One may not think that a taste like that in a beer is a good basis for comparison to wine in terms of complexity. However, I'd argue that it is, because if you can get that much information out of a bottle of red-colored, malty Coor's Light, think of what you can get from a high-end craft beer or a homebrew. One distinct flavor, multiple flavors, subtle tones, anything you'd get from wine, you can absolutely get in beer, and you do. Go to any homebrewer's meeting and you'll get not only some of the best beers you've ever had, but a unique story to go with each beer.

If that's not enough of a demonstration, consider that Budweiser and one of my favorite commercially available beers, Old Engine Oil, are both beer. I'm sure you're familiar with the appearance, and maybe the taste, of Budweiser. Old Engine Oil looks like this:

As you might imagine, the taste of these two beers is wildly different. Yet, they are both beer.

This brings me to another facet of beer. Beer is a peasant's beverage. It is the people's beverage. Hell, it's everyone's beverage. When you see a construction worker on the street, you generally don't assume he's going home and cracking open a bottle of wine. However, he's not cracking a bottle of the stuff pictured above either. This is yet another example of beer's range. Everyone can drink beer, from the richest to the poorest.

That being said, even generally high end beers aren't especially expensive. Sure, there's the occasional double digit bottle, but for the most part, you don't pay more than six bucks for a beer outside of a bar. Beer may be complex, but it's not expensive.

Perhaps that's what I'm struggling to really say about beer and why I love it. It's hard to describe exactly why beer is so great precisely because beer is... beer. It's complex, but it doesn't invite you to make a big deal out of it. It appeals to the hipster who wants to impress his friends by drinking some unnecessarily hopped up IPA as easily as it appeals to the factory worker who goes home and has a can of Miller Lite at the end of a day. Beer is all things to all people. It's accessible in a way that wine or whiskey can never be.

To be fair, I know nothing about wine or whiskey, and I'm sure I've made some egregious errors in defining their characters. That being said, at the end of the day, I can't think of a drink as diverse as beer, or a drink with more range. I can't think of a beverage as simple, cheap, and accessible, yet as simultaneously complex as beer. I can't think of a drink you can pound back all night with your best friends or simply have one of at home for a nice relaxing evening. That's why, beer snob though I am, I will drink any beer put in front of me. Yes, some beers are better than others. Yes, a good beer is preferable to a soullessly created, industrial beer. But at the end of the day, beer is beer. It's a drink that has mountains of class while remaining essentially modest, and that commands my respect.

I'm going to go grab another Killian's.

Robot Jesus

I don't like thinking about death. I don't think anyone does.

As an agnostic, I'm often faced with people fundamentally misunderstanding my religion. They think I'm not sure about what I believe or that I'm an atheist with no conviction. Nothing could be further from the truth. What I believe, in a nutshell, is that God exists in everyone as a certain force that drives people. For example, one of the many ways I "worship" is driving. I'm good at it and I own a car designed for people who are good at it. Those people didn't have to design my car the way they did. There's no reason to. They did it because it was something on this Earth about which they cared, and that (no pun intended) drove them. The SRT4 project, like many projects, was more than engineering; it was a project personally close to those who worked on it.

How is this religious? Those behind the development of machines like this did it for people like them and people like me, and when I drive that car, testing my limits and its limits, I feel a bit of what the engineers who designed the machine felt. I feel connected to the Earth (in the form of the environment in which I am driving), connected to myself (in the confidence of my skill to manipulate the machine to take that corner and not end up in the ditch), and connected to those who built the machine to take full advantage of both these things, make driving an experience, and provide the link between life and living.

Some people feel nothing from driving. I can guarantee, however, that they feel what I feel about driving in some other way. If it sounds crazy and shallow, understand that there are precedents for these exact types of experiences in Buddhism and that some of our best native writers wrote about it.

Why do I bring all this hippee shit up? Well the timing is important, given what day it is. While the above might lead you to believe I mean 4/20, I actually mean Easter. I don't follow the Christian religion; however, I don't hate it either. It's actually a great religion, not least for its ability to be all things to all people. The Bible, for it faults, can be adapted and used in almost any context. As anyone who has read it (and I have) will find, the Bible provides a variety of complex and valuable metaphors that can guide one through life effectively. (Hell, even Jesus loved metaphors. Otherwise why would he have told so many parables?)

Although there are those, many of those, who believe that Jesus was literally resurrected from the dead and literally resurrected others from the dead, given the state of medical science 2000 years ago, I have to assume this is yet another Biblical metaphor, and a good one, that teaches us something about conquering death through spirituality.

But what do I know? I'm just an atheist without balls.

However, while Jesus was able to conquer death metaphorically and create one of the largest belief systems on this planet, he did actually die, and, in all probability, stayed dead. The first man or women to literally, truly conquer death will likely do so via a computer.

If you thought my beliefs were weird before, you may want to stop reading.

Offensive to religion or not, the probable truth is that our mind, our being, and our soul is wrapped up in encoded chemical data stored in a combination storage device and central processor. The problem is that the CPU and drive are powered by a relatively weak and inefficient power supply and mainboard that are pretty easy to disrupt and wear out in a pretty short amount of time. Like it or not, machines are more durable than we are. In order to conquer death, we need to figure out a way around this.

Creepy? I don't know. I do know that science fiction literature and film from The City and the Stars to Caprica have covered the topic about a billion times, so I'm not saying anything new here. The first true Lazarus will be a robot.

There are many ways this process can go, actually. Cryonics, robotics, virtual reality, and cloning are only the most popular. However, who's going to embrace it? Death is, allegedly, part of the human condition and figures heavily in most world religions. Those who worship a man who they believe literally died and came back are, ironically, going to be the most vocal in opposing this stuff.

Despite this, some religions actually have heavy emphasis on conquering death. In fact, when you think about it, reincarnation makes sense in a very literal way. When we die, our molecules are broken up and the elements of which we consist are redistributed. In all probability, we were a fly at some point, or part of one. And yet, again, the religious camp will, in all likelihood, hinder the progress of transhumanism, because it is, they say, "unnatural."

Transhumanism might indeed be unnatural, but, as an agnostic, I look at it in a very simple way: we don't know what happens when we die. Despite rhetoric about heaven and hell, I have no real evidence that either of those exists outside of a metaphorical framework, and I'm pretty happy where I am. In fact, who's not to say that heaven isn't happiness and hell, sadness? Who's not to say that heaven and hell are just spiritual metaphors? All I know for sure is that I'm going to die someday and that, while I don't really fear it, I'm also perfectly ok with living right here. So put me in the robot body.

I should hasten to add that you may think you don't have to think about this stuff, but the future is always here faster than you think. We can already simulate a rat's brain with a computer to a small extent. We can now bring dead people back after several hours by injecting their circulatory system with frozen saline. All this is pretty unnatural, but it may help people with brain injuries to recover or give people who have died another chance at life. If your God is against that, than screw that guy. He should have been a robot.

Transhumanism is big and its scary, but it's part of what I believe and it's coming sooner than you think. Although I'm in the minority, I hope against hope it will come in my lifetime. As someone who lives on Earth and loves life with the fanaticism of a religious zealot, I want to be there.

I was recently asked a question by a good friend. I was asked if I could get a ride to space for free, would I? I was apparetly in the minority who answered that I absolutely would, no questions asked. I would also likely be shitting myself the whole time. It would be worth it. I feel the same way about transhumanism. Am I afraid of it? Yes. Terrified. If the proponents of this movement are correct, Singularity will be the single (no pun intended) most frightening thing ever to happen to man. It may also be the be most dramatic. For bad or good, it's not something I want to miss.

The best, or perhaps worst, part? It's even possible that, with the pace of technology being what it is, I won't. You may not either. While I love humanity, I don't object to being something more. Machines aren't perfect, but neither are we. Machines don't hate each other, and they don't hurt each other. Machines don't get sick. They don't die. Maybe, as transcendent humans, we won't either. I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords. Take your side.

A Well Regulated Militia: Necessary to the Security of a Free State

Recently, the state of Connecticut passed some rather harsh gun laws, which do not, as one might expect, target criminals, but rather law-abiding citizens. This law, while not directly affecting criminals, has nonetheless created many of them. Before reading further, I highly suggest you read this article.

I can't say I would take the time either, so here's a summary: Connecticut officials estimate that 85% of gun owners in the state of Connecticut simply ignored the new laws that require registration of certain semi-automatic rifles.

One representative, Senator Tony Guglielmo, is shocked: "I honestly thought from my own standpoint that the vast majority would register..." he said. Frankly, I'm shocked too. I'm shocked that 85% of people targeted by this law decided to do the right thing. Another quote by Guglielmo is revealing: "If you pass laws that people have no respect for and they don't follow them, then you have a real problem."

Connecticut officials certainly do have a problem, and it's a problem they should bear in mind next time they attempt to pass an unpopular and un-Constitutional law at the expense of innocent civilians. The problem, for Guglielmo and others like him, is that people don't like to be told what to do, a fact Guglielmo discovered when he discussed the matter with a Connecticut gun owner: "I said, 'You're talking about civil disobedience, and he said 'Yes.'"

Guglielmo's surprise is valid. Civil disobedience is all too rare in our day and age. There was a day in this country, some years ago, when a group of officials sent their red-coated enforcers to confiscate the arms of the citizenry. On that day, those enforcers failed. Call me cynical, but I would never have expected that the same result could occur in 2014.

That day is important to remember, because it, like so much in history, gives us insight into our own era. Take the reaction of the state of Connecticut. Some, such as "undersecretary in the state Office of Policy and Management" Mike Lawlor, are talking tough: "Like anything else, people who violate the law face consequences. … that's their decision. The consequences are pretty clear. …There's nothing unique about this..." But the state's words don't match its actions. Connecticut recently extended its deadline for registration of these semi-automatic rifles, in the vain hope that some will register for it if given a little more time. Others in the government claim that the issue isn't defiance; people simply don't know about the new, and highly controversial, law.

Such implausible hopes and claims are face-saving measures which recall those made by the British government previous to the Revolution, and should be met with the same jeering derision proletarian colonists gave that government. The fact of the matter is simply that the state is afraid.

Those who refuse to give up their weapons aren't ignorant. They know all too well that the state cannot possibly create hundreds of thousands of criminals, particularly when those criminals are armed. It is unwise to make an innocent man a criminal. It is dangerous to make an armed man a criminal. It is devastating to make a community criminals. It is suicide to make a community of armed men criminals. A community of men and women who have been made outlaws, who have no further regard for the state and for whom the state has no regard, and who are armed, is an unpredictable and volatile community indeed. The state knows this.

They know, as well as those men and women in Connecticut who refuse to obey unjust law, that citizens who are treated as criminals do unpredictable things. They stand in fields against better-armed and better-trained foes and die for what they believe. They walk through snow without shoes, cross icy rivers, for the rights that they have lost and cannot regain but by force. This is not a scenario desirable to the state.

Possible violence aside, the state also knows it cannot jail or fine hundreds of thousands of men and women whose only "crime" is what type of property they choose to own. There are not cells enough, courts enough, for this. When so many stand and silently utter, "we are Americans; our right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" then there is little the state can do, short of outright tyranny, something a state government, or a national government, cannot and will not maintain on such a scale.

This, I submit, should be a lesson for all Americans, no matter what their stance on gun control. When we refuse to comply, refuse to play along with the machinations of a corrupt state, we can make a difference. Perhaps had more Americans done so earlier, thousands, American and otherwise, would not be dead in the Middle East, we would not have our government flying deadly drones over our cities and towns, and an innocent man, a heroic man, would not be ironically exiled to a state whose freedoms are fewer than ours, and the rights for which that man still fights would be intact.

This is a lesson. It is a lesson for the state of Connecticut and a lesson for men like Mike Lawlor. It is, however, a greater lesson for us. As we do not, and cannot forget events like Lexington and Concord, we cannot forget the lesson hundreds of thousands of citizens in Connecticut are teaching us: oppression can be resisted, and peaceably. All it requires is that we simply do not give such oppression our consent.

Prosser? I Barely Know Her!

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is the whitest holiday ever.

I'm sure a lot of people, both white and black, would disagree with that statement, but I stand by it. To prove it, I could point to the fact that most people don't know anything about King, or the Civil Rights Movement. After all, unless King's oft-quoted dream speech involved the dream that Americans would get a sweet three-day weekend and watch a lot of football while consuming a six-pack of Bud Light, I think most people "celebrating" the holiday are largely missing the point. However, more at the heart of the matter is what that point is and what it means for Americans white, black, and other.

This weekend, I was assigned a book about border conflict in the United States during the antebellum period. The book was entitled Border War. However, I am halfway through the book, and it has yet to mention John Brown once. The book is actually about slavery and slave resistance in the border states. Nevertheless, I don't think the title is misleading. Slavery was, after all, a form of violence, and was met, in many cases, with violence. For hundreds of years there was a civil rights movement in this country which involved white people attempting to coerce black people into subservience by force, and white and black people resisting that concept by, in many cases, murdering members of that first group of white people, as, frankly, they deserved. This is the civil rights movement, and interpretation of it, that you don't get in your high school history books. It was brutal and bloody by necessity and it took place because one racial group decided to tell another one what they could and couldn't do.

This is not, however, the picture you get from Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I'll give the holiday some credit for being created via a multiracial effort, and perhaps it's unfair of me to be cynical about it, but it seems to me that a state holiday focusing on peaceful white and black efforts to overturn Jim Crow via the efforts of one man misses the point almost as much as Natty-guzzling frat bros cheering on the Dallas Pantherhawks (or whatever fictitious teams the kids are into these days). The multiracial resistance to oppression carried out by private and public interests should be celebrated. However, as a nation, it is supremely important to remember how changes in the law regarding race in this country came about. Violence is not ideal, but it is, at times, necessary, and for centuries in this nation, it was necessary for one group of people to violently resist another in the name of liberty and equality.

Lest anyone should call me bloodthirsty or divisive, let me point out that America's national holiday, July 4, celebrates a violent division. We do not, however, see that violent divide as negative. It would have been phenomenal had King George simply peacefully allowed this nation to separate from Britain, so that no one died. But he didn't, they did, and we celebrate it much in the same way we celebrate MLK Day (albeit with more explosives). It would also have been great if people had decided not to enslave and oppress black people in this country, and if no one had had to be killed to reverse that, but, once again, they didn't, and they did. Remembering that isn't divisive. Instead, it should remind us of what happens when one group of people oppresses another, the consequences of that, and perhaps goad us towards cooperation and a day when racial differences are irrelevant.

MLK Day, however, at least in the popular mind, is about one man leading a movement to peacefully resist the state. It does not discuss the violence of the period during which MLK lived, nor the resistance to centuries of oppression before that. It is a perfect state holiday: it allows us to believe that peaceful measures alone can persuade the state and the general public to change its ways, when history demonstrates otherwise. It focuses on Martin Luther King Jr., a black man that Americans can be comfortable with, instead of say, Gabriel. It also views American struggle through the lens of simple black/white racial issues and presents Americans with a concise and happy resolution which never actually existed. Racial issues, as well as issues of class, gender, and sexual orientation, continue to plague this country. MLK Day should be a reminder of that, and a spur to real unity, not a celebration of a false one. While this is exactly what it is for some, it is not what high schools and the state focus on. Perhaps instead of closing schools, we should keep them open and dedicate the day to understanding the real history of race in this country, the ways in which it still affects us, and working on possible solutions.

There is nothing wrong with setting aside some time to think about race in this nation. There is something wrong with approaching it in a way that helps alleviate America's discomfort with race and perpetuates avoidance of actually delving into the issue. MLK Day, or at least the way we celebrate it, does little to solve anything. Instead, it distracts us from real progress towards healing the greatest issue this nation has ever had and understanding what caused it in the first place.

Though, on the bright side, we do get a three-day weekend. Go, Pantherhawks.

Let it Snowden

In today's coffee and boredom-fueled post, I'd like to talk about an entity which has irreversibly harmed this country, whose actions are clearly treasonous, and which should be held fully accountable for it and punished to the fullest extent of the law. I speak, of course, of the NSA.

In the media shuffle surrounding Edward Snowden and the NSA, it seems the real crime in the picture has been lost. There are those who call Snowden a traitor, claiming that his illegal actions merit extreme punishment. If this is the case, then certainly the NSA deserves punishment as well. They have, after all, broken an entire Constitutional amendment as well as violated numerous privacy rights.

And yet, the media has focused primarily on Snowden. One could make a variety of guesses as to why, among them being the drama of the story, which almost certainly sells; however, I would posit that the real criminal here, the state, has simply done an excellent job with its PR. By appearing to be the victim and the wounded party, the state has deflected attention away from itself via its willing partner the media and placed the blame squarely on a man who it has ironically forced to escape to a former Cold War enemy. In short, the more the state shouts that Snowden is a criminal and a traitor, the more you can be sure that the real traitor, the state, is guilty as charged.

What it comes down to is a question of accountability. A state which classifies its crimes can never be held accountable for them. It is one thing to classify a military project designed to protect one's citizenry. It is quite another thing to classify a system which works directly against one's own citizens. The state claims that it listens to our calls and reads our emails for our safety; however, I can think of no one more dangerous to my safety than an overarching entity with a monopoly on power that both makes the rules and is allowed to break them, and that, as we have found, monitors all our personal correspondence. I doubt very much that a handful of men with homemade bombs and AK-47s hiding in caves are as dangerous as a well-equipped and well-informed mafia whose legitimacy has been established with the majority of the population.

That legitimacy, however, appears to be rapidly diminishing, thanks to men like Edward Snowden. It takes a brave and honest man to do the right thing, despite the personal danger and discomfort that might cause. It takes a traitorous coward to commit a real crime and then blame someone else when you get caught. People may not always have the best grasp on politics, but in a large number of cases, they know right from wrong in this instance. No matter how much the state howls that it has been wounded, the real wound would be the one it fears most: lack of support.

There is a real fear in the statements of those like John Bolton, whose hyperbolic claims of what he thinks should happen to Snowden are tinged with an underlying, desperate plea not to discuss the real issue publicly. For those in power it is no great thing to have your secret programs leaked. The issue isn't that the populace found out about the NSA's spy programs; the issue is that it might anger that populace.

Fear is a tool the NSA understands implicitly. They tried to use it by threatening Snowden with death, which didn't work. They are trying to use it through tapping our phones and reading our email to control us. However, fear is a double-edged sword. The NSA fears us far more than we fear them. The Snowden issue hasn't gone away, and that worries them. A quick public anger can be handled easily: find a celebrity who's gotten themselves addicted to coke as a distraction. Say there's a "War on Christmas." Whatever it takes. However, a slow, increasing burn is a real problem. Eventually, it can start a fire that can't be easily put out.

I hope this has given whoever stumbles on it some food for thought. I hope I have brought some new information to that person. And as for you, NSA agent who gets stuck with reading this, I know you've known all this all along. Now you know that we know it too.

government:~$ sudo poweroff

If you're going to shut down the government do it right.

Ever since the so-called "government shutdown," I've noticed absolutely no change in my life. Despite alleged lack of government services, far too much money continues to be taken out of my paycheck, traffic cops still swarm the streets of D.C. (which I visited this weekend; spoilers: it's not a riotous hellhole), and politicians continue to get paid for not working. If I didn't occasionally see ominous headlines from CNN (despite my best efforts), I'm not sure I'd know anything was wrong.

Of course, one might argue that this is because I don't work for the National Park Service. One would be right. However, the fact that "government shutdown" only applies to a select group of people is indicative of the problem; while those initiating the shutdown continue to get paid, those who didn't have a lot of say in the matter don't. Recently, President Obama stated that Americans weren't pawns in some kind of political game. Aren't they?

The government "shutdown" is, in actuality, government action, and a typical one at that. Shut down welfare and people would be burning down 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (hi, NSA!) as I type these words. Shut down the police, or, worse, the payroll system for our so-called "representatives," and those who initiated the shutdown in the first place might actually suffer. What's an old white guy who likes generous kickbacks to do?

The answer is simple, and insidiously so: hurt the people - but not so much, of course, that they agitate to a point which might threaten the existing power structure. Maybe just enough so that they'll give in to whatever you want them to. The government shutdown is a pressure game, and it's not aimed at one interchangeable political party towards that party's opponents. It's aimed at you.

Politicians aren't working right now because they don't have to. The Republicans only have to not negotiate with Obama, who only has to not negotiate with the Republicans. Pressure from each respective constituency will eventually, each side hopes, build up enough for one side to cave. Meanwhile, each side sits back and collects a paycheck - taken from the tax collectors, who, curiously enough, are still working in some capacity.

There's a certain justice in this in that those who voted for those in power are getting to see the consequences of affirming the legitimacy of the state. However, for those like myself, who support no particular party, the shutdown comes as no surprise; it is the natural result of a fundamentally broken political system whose current defining characteristic is action by inaction. How to end the deadlock? Simple. Shut down the government.

I'm not talking about just shutting down the national parks. I'm talking about everything. Stop collecting taxes. Stop paying the politicians. Stop sending out the welfare checks. No military? No police? I wonder how safe Obama and his Republican colleagues would feel then. Actually shut down the government, ascend into anarchy, and watch how fast the two sides decide to negotiate.

That won't happen, of course, and that's probably a good thing, because this country isn't exactly prepared to stop being babysat by their Big Brother (yet). My point is that the government isn't shutting itself down. If anything, it's attempting to demonstrate its power through an alleged lack of efficacy. It will probably work, because, while it is exceedingly dangerous to take away a man's food, it's pretty safe to just make him slightly uncomfortable, which is exactly what the government is doing.

Obama was right, of course, when he said that Americans aren't pawns in a political game. He didn't know it, but he was. The reason the government will never (willingly) shut down, is because, unlike pawns, an irate citizenry can quickly become a major problem for those in power. The way the shutdown has been carried out is, in actuality, an excellent glimpse into how the state operates, and Americans should take note. Perhaps the best answer to the shutdown, since we can't actually do what I've described above is to instead just go with it.

The answer to this problem isn't storming the White House. It calls for something far more unorthodox: ignoring the politicians and their silly power games. Keep doing what you were doing as if nothing was happening. If Obama says we aren't pawns, prove him right. A state which can mildly agitate its citizens stays comfortable. A state which heavily agitates its citizens is in trouble. A state whose citizens no longer regard it, and instead display an abject and total disregard for it and apathy towards its posturing is finished. If we put such pressure on the government that it resumes normal operation, it knows we still care about it and need its guidance. If we get along just fine without it, people may start to understand that maybe certain parts of it aren't actually necessary, and that, for a government which depends on public support, is an experiment it will never want to repeat.