This one’s a bit longer than my normal posts, just to forewarn you. Not much longer, but a bit longer.
I just finished Eugene Jarecki’s “The American Way of War.” The focus of this book is on the evolution of American foreign policy throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century. He explores the ‘mission creep’ in American foreign policy, the rise of the military-industrial complex (MIC), the reshaping of our political structure towards an inherently more militaristic versus diplomatic posture and orientation, and the concentration of power in the executive branch that began with FDR and has expanded steadily since.
Jarecki focuses extensively on the Bush Jr. administration and the Second Iraq War. This book is somewhat of a hybrid in that he spends a lot of time tying the present day to the past. We find Jarecki often flips back and forth between the past and present. I found myself struggling a bit reading this book. One, I find Jarecki’s writing to be a little incoherent and disorganized. Two, I found myself disagreeing with several minor and major points he made. Three, I had to keep reminding myself that this book was published in 2008 and the tide has shifted decidedly in our favor since then.
Ok, back to the book. In the Introduction and Chapter 1, Jarecki started by providing an excellent overview of the evolution of American foreign policy from the Monroe Doctrine to the Truman Doctrine, as well as a brief overview of the origins of the neoconservatives. It’s one of the best quick summaries of the evolution of US foreign policy that I’ve seen. I would’ve liked to have seen it go all the way to the Bush Doctrine, but I can understand why he didn’t.
Chapter 2 discusses World War 2 and the immediate aftermath. Jarecki covered a lot of ground here. He showed that the concentration of executive power really began with FDR, that our entry into World War 2 wasn’t as ‘unprovoked’ as it may seem, how FDR helped establish and mobilize the MIC to win World War 2, and the decision process that drove Truman to drop the atomic bombs on Japan following Germany’s surrender.
Chapter 3 focused a bit on the Truman Doctrine and the Domino Theory, but predominately on 1947’s National Security Act, which established the Department of Defense (DOD), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Council (NSC), and the Air Force. Jarecki details how each of these contributed to the concentration of military power into the executive branch (and shifted the power within the executive branch away from a diplomatic orientation toward a more militant one) and how these institutions contributed to various foreign policy incidents since 1947, with a special focus on the Bush Jr. administration.
Chapter 4 focused on Dwight Eisenhower, whom Jarecki portrays very favorably. The central focus was his farewell address, the first use of the term ‘Military-Industrial Complex’. After reading this chapter, it’s hard not to view him favorably as a prophet.
Interestingly, Jarecki portrays JFK negatively, as an opportunistic politician. Nobody ever portrays JFK negatively. It must be some kind of rule and I never got the memo. I found myself hoping he would take this further and attack JFK for causing the Cuban Missile Crisis and escalating our presence in Vietnam. Even though he didn’t, it was still courageous nevertheless to even remotely attack JFK. Also, this chapter makes me think that Jarecki didn’t view the USSR as a threat, which I think is incorrect.
Chapter 5 discusses the idea of military transformation as envisioned by John Boyd, but implemented by Donald Rumsfeld. Basically, the purpose of this chapter was to detail how poorly the government planned the Second Iraq War and how, if the plan truly applied Boyd’s principles, it would’ve been more successful. History has proven this view correct because that’s basically what we did.
In Chapter 6, Jarecki explored the MIC more deeply. He mentions that Eisenhower originally planned to call it the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex (MICC), but instead opted for MIC. He also threw the executive branch in there, so it really should be the Corporate-Congressional-Military-Executive Complex (CCMEC). I prefer the one I coined myself, namely Military-Industrial-Congressional-Executive (MICE) Complex, because mine flows better. The most interesting numbers in the chapter were the numbers of employees in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches at the national level, namely 5,000,000 versus 30,000 versus 34,000.
Jarecki starts Chapter 7 with a thorough list of the actions taken by the Bush administration that violate the Constitution. He also goes after Congress, the judicial branch, and corporations (Halliburton). However, his last section in this chapter, discussing John Yoo and the balance between security and liberty, is by far the most enlightening and insightful content in the entire book.
In the Conclusion, Jarecki discusses two particular experiences that shaped this book. One was his interactions with John McCain’s chief of staff (McCain appeared in Jarecki’s recent film called “Why We Fight”), and the other involves a series of visits Jarecki made to West Point. Here, he makes the effort to provide some solutions to the problems he’s detailed over the past seven chapters.
I would not be surprised to see this book end up on some college-level US history course syllabi. It was a work-in-progress while I was in college. Though I found Jarecki’s style to be a bit incoherent and hard to follow at times, there were flashes of profound insight, such as the John Yoo section of Chapter 7. This is a good read for anyone who wants to learn about the evolution of American foreign policy and the MICE complex, and in particular how these previous events set the stage for the Second Iraq War.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Peter King's Muslim Hearings
As you probably know, Representative Peter King (R-NY) held hearings in Washington DC regarding Muslims in America. I think they’re more political theatre than anything substantial and remind me of previous incidents like the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism. However, they raise some interesting questions (I’m not getting into King’s IRA stuff here). As with many issues, I’m caught in the middle.
On one hand, it’s unfair to demonize an entire demographic due to the actions and views of a very small, fringe minority. Just because there are Muslims in the world screaming, “Death to America!” or seeking to impose Shariah Law on America doesn’t automatically mean that I should suspect that all Muslims feel similarly. I’ll give benefit of the doubt. The reality is the vast majority of American Muslims condemn such radicalism.
On the other hand, we need to recognize the fact that there are people out there who hate America and want to hurt us. They must be stopped. Some (but not all) of them are Muslims. There is also a vocal, very small minority of the Muslim population that seeks to impose Shariah Law on America, and they too must be stopped. Terrorism and the broad imposition of Shariah Law are an intolerable assault on our rights. They’re also two topics I’d like to explore here.
Before this discussion can continue, we also need to recognize that the USA has no official religion. The USA is not a Christian nation. Nowhere in the Constitution is the USA defined as such. Furthermore, Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli from the late 1700’s explicitly says the USA is not a Christian nation. It reads:
“As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”
There is controversy about whether or not Article 11 appears in the Arabic translations, but the version of the treaty Congress voted on (and President John Adams signed) clearly contains Article 11. The latter point is a mortal wound to the argument that America is a Christian nation.
We need to remember this to frame our discussion because turning the conflict between the USA and terrorism into a religious one does not help us. It actually hurts us because it motivates those who would do us harm. Allowing them to portray our actions as an attack on their religion is a tremendous recruitment and motivational tool for them. We need to frame the conversation as the USA versus terrorists, not as the USA versus Islam.
Unfortunately, we can’t as effectively keep religion out of the discussion with regards to the Shariah Law movement. The plot thickens when we remember our 1st Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” So, is a law establishing Shariah Law constitutional? Certainly not per the Establishment Clause above. And is a law banning Shariah Law constitutional? Certainly not because of the Free Exercise Clause above, however I could (and do) argue that several aspects of Shariah Law are unconstitutional.
If the Constitution prevents the establishment and the outlaw of Shariah Law, then we’re just stuck, right? Not necessarily. There is ground for compromise. I believe Muslims are free to practice Shariah Law in the USA as long as their practices aren’t in violation to our Constitution and laws and they don’t try to impose it on those of us who don’t want it. As I said above, certain practices of Shariah Law are illegal and unconstitutional, so these practices must not be tolerated. The trick here, as with terrorism, is to frame the discussion such it’s not the USA versus Islam, but the USA ensuring everyone’s individual constitutional rights.
I’m generally an advocate of letting people live their lives however they want to as long as they’re not doing any harm to anybody else (sometimes, people make choices that I think clearly are harmful and I’ll try to persuade them otherwise, but in the end, it’s his/her life to live, not my own). It’s a simplistic view, I know, but we can balance everyone’s needs for freedom and security.
On one hand, it’s unfair to demonize an entire demographic due to the actions and views of a very small, fringe minority. Just because there are Muslims in the world screaming, “Death to America!” or seeking to impose Shariah Law on America doesn’t automatically mean that I should suspect that all Muslims feel similarly. I’ll give benefit of the doubt. The reality is the vast majority of American Muslims condemn such radicalism.
On the other hand, we need to recognize the fact that there are people out there who hate America and want to hurt us. They must be stopped. Some (but not all) of them are Muslims. There is also a vocal, very small minority of the Muslim population that seeks to impose Shariah Law on America, and they too must be stopped. Terrorism and the broad imposition of Shariah Law are an intolerable assault on our rights. They’re also two topics I’d like to explore here.
Before this discussion can continue, we also need to recognize that the USA has no official religion. The USA is not a Christian nation. Nowhere in the Constitution is the USA defined as such. Furthermore, Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli from the late 1700’s explicitly says the USA is not a Christian nation. It reads:
“As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”
There is controversy about whether or not Article 11 appears in the Arabic translations, but the version of the treaty Congress voted on (and President John Adams signed) clearly contains Article 11. The latter point is a mortal wound to the argument that America is a Christian nation.
We need to remember this to frame our discussion because turning the conflict between the USA and terrorism into a religious one does not help us. It actually hurts us because it motivates those who would do us harm. Allowing them to portray our actions as an attack on their religion is a tremendous recruitment and motivational tool for them. We need to frame the conversation as the USA versus terrorists, not as the USA versus Islam.
Unfortunately, we can’t as effectively keep religion out of the discussion with regards to the Shariah Law movement. The plot thickens when we remember our 1st Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” So, is a law establishing Shariah Law constitutional? Certainly not per the Establishment Clause above. And is a law banning Shariah Law constitutional? Certainly not because of the Free Exercise Clause above, however I could (and do) argue that several aspects of Shariah Law are unconstitutional.
If the Constitution prevents the establishment and the outlaw of Shariah Law, then we’re just stuck, right? Not necessarily. There is ground for compromise. I believe Muslims are free to practice Shariah Law in the USA as long as their practices aren’t in violation to our Constitution and laws and they don’t try to impose it on those of us who don’t want it. As I said above, certain practices of Shariah Law are illegal and unconstitutional, so these practices must not be tolerated. The trick here, as with terrorism, is to frame the discussion such it’s not the USA versus Islam, but the USA ensuring everyone’s individual constitutional rights.
I’m generally an advocate of letting people live their lives however they want to as long as they’re not doing any harm to anybody else (sometimes, people make choices that I think clearly are harmful and I’ll try to persuade them otherwise, but in the end, it’s his/her life to live, not my own). It’s a simplistic view, I know, but we can balance everyone’s needs for freedom and security.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Listening to the Voice of Reason on Nuclear Power
As you know, Japan was rocked by a massive series of earthquakes, aftershocks, and tsunamis. The Fukushima nuclear power plants are in trouble as a result (I’m not going into the technical details here because the story’s still developing). What I want to talk about is what this means for nuclear power.
Let’s take a look at the industry before this weekend before we look at how it is now. Nuclear power provides about 20% of the USA’s electricity, however we haven’t really built any new nuclear plants in the past couple decades. There are several reasons, including an overly cumbersome approval process, the Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) mentality, and financial concerns, but they all stem from the fact that nuclear power is irrationally feared and hated. The anti-nuclear fear mongers did a (sickeningly) great job turning the public perception against nuclear power following Three Mile Island (TMI) in1979 and Chernobyl in 1986. If anybody wants a case study on how to wage a fear-based campaign, this is the perfect one (we’re also seeing that replayed today in oil due to BP’s disaster).
How can I say the anti-nuclear fear is irrational? It’s very simple. In the 30+ years since TMI, our technology and knowledge bases in many heavy industries, including and especially nuclear power, have had tremendous advancement. The industry has learned from the incidents at TMI and Chernobyl and has evolved. In addition to the high level of redundancy and back-up systems built into nuclear plant designs (triple redundancy is common), they have procedures and contingency plans for just about everything.
The cruel irony is that those who fear the old designs and campaigned against new nuclear plants have actually succeeded in perpetuating the danger posed by those older plants by not allowing the older plants to be replaced by newer plants. They really didn’t think that one through very well.
How do I know all this? Not only has my father spent his entire career in nuclear power (military, then private sector), but I’ve also got an engineering background and I previously worked at a nuclear plant.
Let’s do a simple mathematical exercise to demonstrate the irrationality of the fear. This is the kind of stuff I do for my day job, but in aerospace instead of nuclear power. We have a redundant system, so we need two failures to create an unsafe condition. It’s an AND gate with two inputs. We’ll assume that each of those events has a 1% probability of occurrence. 1% is actually a very high probability in my line of work. We’re almost always required to be several orders of magnitude below that, as high as 0.1% to as low as 0.0000001% depending on severity. I’m using 1% to simplify this example. To figure out the probability of the AND gate, we multiply the two event probabilities together, so we’re doing 1% * 1%, which yields 0.01% (if this was an OR gate, we would add the probabilities, so 1% + 1% yields 2%). If we have a triple redundant system with three events at 1% each, we do 1% * 1% * 1% and we get 0.0001% (3% for an OR system). Nuclear systems are often triple-redundant, so even using a very high number at 1%, we’re looking at a 0.0001% probability. 0.0001% means one in a million, but remember, we used a high number in 1%. If you take that down an order of magnitude to 0.1%, we get 0.0000001% or one in a billion. These are worse odds than winning the lottery.
So what happens now? The anti-nuclear fear mongers are ready to exploit this crisis by declaring this is proof that every nuclear power plant must be shut down because they’re dangerous and all that nonsense. 23/104 US nuclear reactors are similar to Fukushima’s per the Nuclear Energy Institute. The pressure is already mounting to retire these “unsafe” plants. However, we must remember that the Fukushima incidents are only happening because of an epic natural disaster. It took an 8.9 earthquake, a tsunami, and a 6.6 aftershock to cause this. It should not be an attack on all nuclear power. Also, remember that nuclear power plants do not possess the destructive power of nuclear bombs. In brief, the physics don’t allow it.
Don’t let yourself get fooled by the anti-nuclear propaganda. Their fears don’t hold up upon critical review. Let reason prevail over fear. Nuclear power is still safe.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Snyder v. Phelps
1st Amendment rights to free speech have been in the news a lot lately. First, there were legislative responses to the Arizona shooting that would have curtailed our rights to free speech. More recently is a Supreme Court ruling in the matter of Snyder v. Phelps protecting free speech. A little background on the case is in order.
Matthew Snyder was an American soldier who died in Iraq in 2006. His body was returned to the USA for burial. The Westboro Baptist Church, lead by Fred Phelps, showed up to the funeral and demonstrated, holding some very homophobic and anti-American signs. Their basic view is that the deaths on 9/11 and soldiers’ deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are God’s way of punishing America for accepting homosexuality. It’s complete nonsense to me. A few weeks later, Albert Snyder, Matthew’s father, saw a poem posted online that attacked his son and the way he raised his son.
So, Albert Snyder sued Phelps for intentional emotional distress. Snyder won $11M at trial, later reduced to $5M by a judge. A Federal appeals court threw out the verdict, and it made its way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in favor of Phelps (Alito was the lone dissenter). 8-1 is a landslide by Supreme Court standards. Did the Supreme Court get it right?
I think they did. As revolting and nonsensical as Phelps’ message is, he does have the right to express it under the 1st Amendment and it appears Phelps was fully compliant with the law, even if I don’t think he was compliant with the laws of human decency. The demonstrations were done in full compliance with local and state law and they were peaceful in that they weren’t disruptively violent. What it comes down to is the government cannot control (for the most part) what is said, but they can control where, when, and how something is said provided all views are treated equally and there is no discrimination or preference of one view over another. The problem of offensive speech is a high-quality problem to have because it means we truly have free speech. Look at some of the more repressive nations to see what life is like without it.
This is, in my view, a classic example of the, “Can you? Should you?” dilemma. Can Phelps say the stuff he said? Yes he can, per the 1st Amendment. Should he have taken such an approach to convey his message? From the perspective of showing common decency and respect for a group of mourners, absolutely not. I somehow doubt the Phelps family would like it if they had demonstrators at one of their funerals maliciously inflicting emotional distress upon them as they grieve. I don’t know whether the Phelps family was out there to get their message across or to deliberately and maliciously inflict emotional distress on the Snyder family (or maybe some of both). Based on what I know, I’d guess predominately the former. Obviously, it was an effective publicity stunt because it got their message out there and the Phelps family probably sees it as a worthwhile venture, despite the emotional distress they inflicted upon the Snyder family (intentional or not).
The Supreme Court’s ruling should be viewed as a victory for free speech, but it should not be all that surprising. From what I can tell, there was no libel or slander (knowingly written/spoken lies) here. In those cases, one generally has to be able to prove that the defendant was knowingly lying when making a statement for it to be considered libel/slander and subsequently collect damages. Based on what I know, I would have been surprised if Snyder could meet that standard.
What I’m most surprised about is Alito’s dissent. He’s generally committed to protecting free speech. If I had to hand-pick one justice to be the dissenter here, Alito likely wouldn’t have been my first pick (I don’t know who would’ve been). I figured this was a straight-forward case and expected to see a 9-0 ruling for Phelps.
In case anybody’s curious, the court’s opinion can be found here. It contains the syllabus, Roberts’ majority opinion, Breyer’s concurring opinion, and Alito’s dissenting opinion. It’s only 36 pages, but the pages aren’t very densely-packed and there are numerous footnotes, so it’s not a terribly long read. That said, it takes a certain type of person to enjoy reading such documents (some say it takes a masochist).
Links:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-751.pdf
Matthew Snyder was an American soldier who died in Iraq in 2006. His body was returned to the USA for burial. The Westboro Baptist Church, lead by Fred Phelps, showed up to the funeral and demonstrated, holding some very homophobic and anti-American signs. Their basic view is that the deaths on 9/11 and soldiers’ deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are God’s way of punishing America for accepting homosexuality. It’s complete nonsense to me. A few weeks later, Albert Snyder, Matthew’s father, saw a poem posted online that attacked his son and the way he raised his son.
So, Albert Snyder sued Phelps for intentional emotional distress. Snyder won $11M at trial, later reduced to $5M by a judge. A Federal appeals court threw out the verdict, and it made its way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in favor of Phelps (Alito was the lone dissenter). 8-1 is a landslide by Supreme Court standards. Did the Supreme Court get it right?
I think they did. As revolting and nonsensical as Phelps’ message is, he does have the right to express it under the 1st Amendment and it appears Phelps was fully compliant with the law, even if I don’t think he was compliant with the laws of human decency. The demonstrations were done in full compliance with local and state law and they were peaceful in that they weren’t disruptively violent. What it comes down to is the government cannot control (for the most part) what is said, but they can control where, when, and how something is said provided all views are treated equally and there is no discrimination or preference of one view over another. The problem of offensive speech is a high-quality problem to have because it means we truly have free speech. Look at some of the more repressive nations to see what life is like without it.
This is, in my view, a classic example of the, “Can you? Should you?” dilemma. Can Phelps say the stuff he said? Yes he can, per the 1st Amendment. Should he have taken such an approach to convey his message? From the perspective of showing common decency and respect for a group of mourners, absolutely not. I somehow doubt the Phelps family would like it if they had demonstrators at one of their funerals maliciously inflicting emotional distress upon them as they grieve. I don’t know whether the Phelps family was out there to get their message across or to deliberately and maliciously inflict emotional distress on the Snyder family (or maybe some of both). Based on what I know, I’d guess predominately the former. Obviously, it was an effective publicity stunt because it got their message out there and the Phelps family probably sees it as a worthwhile venture, despite the emotional distress they inflicted upon the Snyder family (intentional or not).
The Supreme Court’s ruling should be viewed as a victory for free speech, but it should not be all that surprising. From what I can tell, there was no libel or slander (knowingly written/spoken lies) here. In those cases, one generally has to be able to prove that the defendant was knowingly lying when making a statement for it to be considered libel/slander and subsequently collect damages. Based on what I know, I would have been surprised if Snyder could meet that standard.
What I’m most surprised about is Alito’s dissent. He’s generally committed to protecting free speech. If I had to hand-pick one justice to be the dissenter here, Alito likely wouldn’t have been my first pick (I don’t know who would’ve been). I figured this was a straight-forward case and expected to see a 9-0 ruling for Phelps.
In case anybody’s curious, the court’s opinion can be found here. It contains the syllabus, Roberts’ majority opinion, Breyer’s concurring opinion, and Alito’s dissenting opinion. It’s only 36 pages, but the pages aren’t very densely-packed and there are numerous footnotes, so it’s not a terribly long read. That said, it takes a certain type of person to enjoy reading such documents (some say it takes a masochist).
Links:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-751.pdf
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Album Review - “Town Line” by Aaron Lewis
I've never done an album review before, so let's see how this goes.
This is Aaron Lewis’ debut solo country/acoustic album. He’s also the lead singer for Staind. They’re a hard rock band that first formed in the mid 1990’s and they’ve been going strong since. From what I can tell, this album doesn’t mean they’re breaking up. It appears that Aaron is just doing his own thing while the rest of the band takes a break before working on a new album to follow up Staind’s sixth album, 2008’s “The Illusion of Progress”. I’ve been a fan for well over a decade, have all the albums, and I’ve been to four concerts (three Staind plus Aaron Lewis’ acoustic once).
I’m glad to see it, to be honest. Staind fans have known for years that Aaron is a very solid acoustic performer, so this has been a long time coming. “Town Line” has seven tracks, however three of them are various versions of “Country Boy” and one of them is a new version of a song from “The Illusion of Progress” called “Tangled Up In You.” The fact that there are three versions of “Country Boy” on this album makes the album a bit hard to listen to on a long car drive (even if you really like a song, when it’s 3/7 songs you hear, it gets old after a while).
The album starts with “The Story Never Ends.” I think it’s about living in a more rural setting, how it’s home for him, and how he misses it on the road. This is overall the best song on the album to me. The lyrics are very well-written and the song flows quite nicely. What it also really does well is sets the stage for the album. The sound and the words make it very clear that this is different than Staind. It’s a very light and actually happy song.
Track 2 is “Vicious Circles.” I think it’s about getting the message right so that the cycle of misery can be broken. Cycles are a common theme in both Staind’s and Aaron’s music (indeed, Staind’s third album was called “Break the Cycle”), along with remembering the pain of the past to appreciate the joy of the present. I find the evolution of Staind’s and Aaron’s music fascinating. This one’s also a good one.
Tracks 3, 6, and 7 are various versions of “Country Boy.” One is the original, one is the radio edit, and one is acoustic. It seems to have a similar theme to “The Story Never Ends,” but it goes in a different, slightly darker direction. It’s a reflection on Aaron’s career with Staind so far and it basically says that you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy. Also, the song makes it clear that Aaron’s a Tea Party supporter. It’s a good song to listen to, but having three versions on a seven-track album is a bit overkill for me. The name truly lives up to the nature of the song.
Track 4 is the new version of “Tangled Up In You.” It’s a love song that I’ve got a strong emotional attachment to with my girlfriend. We were thrilled when Aaron did an acoustic version at his local stop on his recent tour. This version has a much more country sound than the original version from “The Illusion of Progress” and featured a back-up female vocalist. It didn’t work for me and I thought the original is far superior. In fairness, that’s probably because of my personal emotional connection, but I also don’t think it’s a song that truly lends itself to a country sound. Aaron’s vocals were on-point, as usual, but the back-up vocals killed it for me. I think changing the back-up vocals is all that’s necessary to make this song work, but the original’s still unbeatable for me.
Track 5 is called “Massachusetts.” Any resident of the state will appreciate this song. Even as a non-resident of the state, I can appreciate this song. Again, it’s very well-written. I think of it as a Massachusetts-centric version of “The Story Never Ends.” He also talks about his wife and daughters a lot in this song.
Overall, it’s a great album. I highly recommend it for rock fans. If you like it, catch him or Staind live if you can.
This is Aaron Lewis’ debut solo country/acoustic album. He’s also the lead singer for Staind. They’re a hard rock band that first formed in the mid 1990’s and they’ve been going strong since. From what I can tell, this album doesn’t mean they’re breaking up. It appears that Aaron is just doing his own thing while the rest of the band takes a break before working on a new album to follow up Staind’s sixth album, 2008’s “The Illusion of Progress”. I’ve been a fan for well over a decade, have all the albums, and I’ve been to four concerts (three Staind plus Aaron Lewis’ acoustic once).
I’m glad to see it, to be honest. Staind fans have known for years that Aaron is a very solid acoustic performer, so this has been a long time coming. “Town Line” has seven tracks, however three of them are various versions of “Country Boy” and one of them is a new version of a song from “The Illusion of Progress” called “Tangled Up In You.” The fact that there are three versions of “Country Boy” on this album makes the album a bit hard to listen to on a long car drive (even if you really like a song, when it’s 3/7 songs you hear, it gets old after a while).
The album starts with “The Story Never Ends.” I think it’s about living in a more rural setting, how it’s home for him, and how he misses it on the road. This is overall the best song on the album to me. The lyrics are very well-written and the song flows quite nicely. What it also really does well is sets the stage for the album. The sound and the words make it very clear that this is different than Staind. It’s a very light and actually happy song.
Track 2 is “Vicious Circles.” I think it’s about getting the message right so that the cycle of misery can be broken. Cycles are a common theme in both Staind’s and Aaron’s music (indeed, Staind’s third album was called “Break the Cycle”), along with remembering the pain of the past to appreciate the joy of the present. I find the evolution of Staind’s and Aaron’s music fascinating. This one’s also a good one.
Tracks 3, 6, and 7 are various versions of “Country Boy.” One is the original, one is the radio edit, and one is acoustic. It seems to have a similar theme to “The Story Never Ends,” but it goes in a different, slightly darker direction. It’s a reflection on Aaron’s career with Staind so far and it basically says that you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy. Also, the song makes it clear that Aaron’s a Tea Party supporter. It’s a good song to listen to, but having three versions on a seven-track album is a bit overkill for me. The name truly lives up to the nature of the song.
Track 4 is the new version of “Tangled Up In You.” It’s a love song that I’ve got a strong emotional attachment to with my girlfriend. We were thrilled when Aaron did an acoustic version at his local stop on his recent tour. This version has a much more country sound than the original version from “The Illusion of Progress” and featured a back-up female vocalist. It didn’t work for me and I thought the original is far superior. In fairness, that’s probably because of my personal emotional connection, but I also don’t think it’s a song that truly lends itself to a country sound. Aaron’s vocals were on-point, as usual, but the back-up vocals killed it for me. I think changing the back-up vocals is all that’s necessary to make this song work, but the original’s still unbeatable for me.
Track 5 is called “Massachusetts.” Any resident of the state will appreciate this song. Even as a non-resident of the state, I can appreciate this song. Again, it’s very well-written. I think of it as a Massachusetts-centric version of “The Story Never Ends.” He also talks about his wife and daughters a lot in this song.
Overall, it’s a great album. I highly recommend it for rock fans. If you like it, catch him or Staind live if you can.
Friday, March 4, 2011
What Black History Month Made Me Ponder
It was Black History Month in February in the USA. I didn’t post anything about it, but not from lack of effort. I actually have a two-parter about black voting history in the USA (they started as staunch Republicans, but gradually drifted towards the Democrats and have been a solid Democratic voting bloc since the mid 20th century), reasons why I think they’re heavily Democratic today, and why they should vote for the GOP instead. I decided to save that for next February because that’s an election year (total teaser, I know).
Race isn’t something I generally discuss here. It’s also generally not something I think much about beyond comedy (I sometimes enjoy racial humor). I figure it’s not fair to laugh at a crack about somebody else and then take offense when the comedian jokes about you (obviously, it’s ok to be offended when it’s malicious and/or can be reasonably interpreted as such). You have to be able to laugh at yourself. For example, I personify the stereotype that white men can’t dance and lack rhythm. My girlfriend mocks me relentlessly for it and jokes that she’s going to make me do Zumba with her (I hope she’s joking). So, my thoughts in this post exempt comedy and matters where individual traits like race and sex make legitimate statistical differences, such as insurance and profiling.
Black History Month made me think about why race isn’t very predominant in my mind. I think the main reason is the way I think of people. I think of individuals as individuals first rather than members of certain demographics. I see myself, for instance, as Tim, a person with certain (positive and negative) character traits who also happens to be a white male, rather than seeing myself as a white man named Tim who has certain (positive and negative) character traits. In essence, to me, the micro trumps the macro. It’s who the person is as an individual that defines a person in my eyes more than what groups they can be compartmentalized into.
Do things such as race and sex contribute to defining who a person is? Absolutely. But, is it fair to make assumptions about people and stereotype them based solely on these traits? I don’t think so because you don’t know the person yet. It’s that whole, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” thing. You’ll get burned if you make assumptions about people based on their skin and sex. I thought the whole point of not being a racist was to avoid negatively stereotyping and making assumptions about individual people based on their skin and sex.
Here’s an example. I was called “privileged” simply because I’m a white male and told that it must’ve been nice to have done so well at the expense of everyone else. I’ve recently learned that this term is used in a sociological context, but my first reaction was to interpret it in an individual context, so a big contributing factor was miscommunication and misinterpretation. Still, there’s much more wrong than right about that statement and I found it insulting, responding rather scathingly that I really wouldn’t know.
To me, it implied that because I’m a white male, my family and I didn’t have to work hard and were handed everything. That’s nonsense. My grandparents came to America following World War 2 (he was a Polish soldier and she was an English nurse) and started a dairy farm. My dad had a choice of whether to stay on the farm or not. He couldn’t afford college, so it was either the military or farming. He chose the military, made his way through the Navy’s nuclear program (a program which only the smartest and most determined people survive), and built a career in commercial nuclear power. I went to college for engineering (which is a hard academic path, as demonstrated by the fact that engineering only has about a 33% graduation rate) and that’s my current job. That’s not exactly a “privileged” upbringing, now is it? Methinks not. Then again, what would I know? :-p
In my mind, we’re all humans first. I don’t care what skin color or sex people are. Those traits in and of themselves won’t determine my opinion of a person. That’s what the individual him/herself will do. Likewise, at the end of the day, in American political discussion, we’re all Americans, and that’s why I try not to attack people/groups. I try to attack/defend the idea, not the person/group.
Race isn’t something I generally discuss here. It’s also generally not something I think much about beyond comedy (I sometimes enjoy racial humor). I figure it’s not fair to laugh at a crack about somebody else and then take offense when the comedian jokes about you (obviously, it’s ok to be offended when it’s malicious and/or can be reasonably interpreted as such). You have to be able to laugh at yourself. For example, I personify the stereotype that white men can’t dance and lack rhythm. My girlfriend mocks me relentlessly for it and jokes that she’s going to make me do Zumba with her (I hope she’s joking). So, my thoughts in this post exempt comedy and matters where individual traits like race and sex make legitimate statistical differences, such as insurance and profiling.
Black History Month made me think about why race isn’t very predominant in my mind. I think the main reason is the way I think of people. I think of individuals as individuals first rather than members of certain demographics. I see myself, for instance, as Tim, a person with certain (positive and negative) character traits who also happens to be a white male, rather than seeing myself as a white man named Tim who has certain (positive and negative) character traits. In essence, to me, the micro trumps the macro. It’s who the person is as an individual that defines a person in my eyes more than what groups they can be compartmentalized into.
Do things such as race and sex contribute to defining who a person is? Absolutely. But, is it fair to make assumptions about people and stereotype them based solely on these traits? I don’t think so because you don’t know the person yet. It’s that whole, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” thing. You’ll get burned if you make assumptions about people based on their skin and sex. I thought the whole point of not being a racist was to avoid negatively stereotyping and making assumptions about individual people based on their skin and sex.
Here’s an example. I was called “privileged” simply because I’m a white male and told that it must’ve been nice to have done so well at the expense of everyone else. I’ve recently learned that this term is used in a sociological context, but my first reaction was to interpret it in an individual context, so a big contributing factor was miscommunication and misinterpretation. Still, there’s much more wrong than right about that statement and I found it insulting, responding rather scathingly that I really wouldn’t know.
To me, it implied that because I’m a white male, my family and I didn’t have to work hard and were handed everything. That’s nonsense. My grandparents came to America following World War 2 (he was a Polish soldier and she was an English nurse) and started a dairy farm. My dad had a choice of whether to stay on the farm or not. He couldn’t afford college, so it was either the military or farming. He chose the military, made his way through the Navy’s nuclear program (a program which only the smartest and most determined people survive), and built a career in commercial nuclear power. I went to college for engineering (which is a hard academic path, as demonstrated by the fact that engineering only has about a 33% graduation rate) and that’s my current job. That’s not exactly a “privileged” upbringing, now is it? Methinks not. Then again, what would I know? :-p
In my mind, we’re all humans first. I don’t care what skin color or sex people are. Those traits in and of themselves won’t determine my opinion of a person. That’s what the individual him/herself will do. Likewise, at the end of the day, in American political discussion, we’re all Americans, and that’s why I try not to attack people/groups. I try to attack/defend the idea, not the person/group.
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