Gina Harris's Blog, page 183

Thoughts on Duck Football

Yesterday I mentioned various reading lists, and for those I meant the ones that I have grouped together and entered into this spreadsheet that I use for organizational purposes. There are many other books that I plan to read, and some that I kind of know will be grouped together. This includes some football-themed books.
One of the football books is Death to the BCS: The Definitive Case Against the Bowl Championship Series by Dan Wetzel. Published in 2010, I am sure a lot of it will be out of date, but I assume that there will be some history there, and help in analyzing what they are doing now. I guess that is my way of saying that I am interested in football but not always up on it.
In college there was time to follow sports, and even for a while after, but I am so busy now, and watching a football game is not just a time investment; it is also really stressful. I was working during the Rose Bowl, so I kept the ESPN page up to check the score. We actually watched most of the Championship game, and that is why I have thoughts in the first place.
First of all, I am just thrilled for Marcus Mariota and the Heisman win. Yes, I know he has other trophies too, but that is a big one, and he is such an outstanding athlete while being such a good team player and leader that this is how it should be. Totally appropriate and deserved.
I'm not sure how I feel about there being a championship. I would probably be more thrilled with it if the Ducks had won, but I have been against extending football seasons in general because of some of the things they are finding with brain injuries. Also, decades ago I read an opinion piece by someone who loved that both the Orange and Rose Bowl winning teams would have signs "College Football Champions". The writer found it amusing and kind of charming, and it swayed me. Now you essentially have one more team that will end their season with a loss. It doesn't take away what came before, but still.
There was not a brain injury that I saw, but there was something flagrant, when Mariota was tackled after passing. It got an unsportsmanlike conduct call - which it deserved - but if anyone questions his decision to go to the NFL now, no, it's really logical for him to do so. You never know how long you will be able to play.
I get the concerns for the team about losing a strong player, but there are strong players left. I was really impressed with Marshall, Tyner is still around, and I have seen a lot of quarterbacks come and go.
Back in my day, Bill Musgrave was a really good quarterback, and he felt like a shining hope, but O'Neil did okay after that, and Harrington really wowed them, and had his own Heisman campaign, and it just continues.
It's the same with coaches. Rich Brooks was a step forward, and an important one, but the team continued to improve under Bellotti. I loved both of them. I took Football Coaching in spring of 1991, and every single coach taught a session. That's why I knew and liked them (as people, not just as coaches), but it also gave me a familiarity with the names, where years later I would still be hearing about Aliotti or Zoumboukos, or I would see Ratcliffe on the sidelines (still with 0% body fat). I liked the loyalty. I believe that the sense of continuity, and promoting from within, has strengthened the organization.
I had no memories of Chip Kelly, and as he started closing practices and things like that, I never grew fond of him. It felt like the program was becoming colder and more business-like. However, the team continued to do well, and he wasn't the end either, because now Helfrich is doing well. If you want to know how to build a strong football program, look at Oregon's history.
I also love that the NCAA agreed that helping parents attend the game was okay. There is so much money in football, and it could often be spread around better, but this was a good step.
I think that's pretty much it. I hope people aren't shunning Carrington too much. I hope he felt horrible and has learned something, but I hope everyone is moving past it.

Happy Book Day!

Saturday was my birthday. I wish I had been in a better place emotionally for it, but there were still three things that were good about it.
There were a lot of Facebook greetings. Facebook will tell you who is having a birthday that day, and there is a pop up box where you can type your greeting in, making it really easy. Even knowing how easy it is, it still means something that someone does it, and when your timeline is full of people wishing you a happy day, it feels good, which I needed.
There were even some Twitter greetings. The Twitter greetings were mainly from people whom I am connected to on Facebook as well, which allowed them to know. Some people re-tweet their birthday wishes. If you do that more people will see it is your birthday, so you can get even more well wishes, but I did not feel comfortable doing that. I only clicked "Favorite" and replied "Thank you!", as well as liking all the Facebook posts, because they did make me happy. I just felt like re-tweeting would be too self-promotional.
Another thing that was good was dinner with friends, which I think I will post about separately, but it is related to the other good thing, which was books.
I am not finished with my Christmas books yet, but now I have more, and even more on the way. Karen gave me an Amazon gift card and Sonya gave me a Powells gift card. There is also the stack of library books that I have, so it all feels like progress.
I have written about my various reading lists at different times, and this relates to that, but let me also talk about Goodreads for a moment. Goodreads is how I know I read 100 books last year (and why being so close to 100 led to me reading two children's books on December 31st.)
As the new year started, Goodreads prompted me to set a new reading goal for 2015. Well, my first thought was 144, which is ridiculous, but reflects how many things I want to read and learn. The average was 64 though, so I set that. Perhaps it seems low for someone who read 100 the previous year, but a lot of that is because of comics - though I really do want to read a lot of comics. Still, if I read 64 regular books, plus 2 Caldecott winners and at least one graphic novel per month, then that is 100 again, and would probably be about right. It's still ambitious, but not impossible. I think.
Looking at the breakdown of the smaller reading lists, it gets much better. I had down four gardening books, and I got two of them for my birthday. They were books that the library had, but I think they will be handy as reference, so owning them seemed desirable, and I needed to add things to my wish list.
There were three books that I wanted to finish before starting my 2014 Native American Heritage reading. I just finished one, have one here, and I think I know when I can read the third. There had been three books that were part of pre-Halloween reading that the library didn't have and that were kind of expensive, the gift cards and new used copies showing up in stock means they are all on the way, as well as two really hard to find academic books that are starting to feel necessary to read sooner rather than later.
So, here's how I see things going down. Right now I am reading The Secret History of Dreaming and it will be followed by Sometimes a Great Notion. Then I am going to read the heck out of those Pre-Halloween books. I should then be ready for 1493. When that is done I will start alternating gardening and Native American Heritage books, then the pre-Italy and Black History books.
That is putting the drawing books on hold, but I feel like I need to do that until I have more time to draw, or the lessons get lost. I will probably get them back into the rotation in May, along with the books that are feeling necessary sooner than later. (I assume they will be pertinent to things that are coming up, but they are not directly related to each other in any obvious way.) I think I am going to order used copies of the other two dream books now, too, because the library doesn't have them, and this should be a good paycheck.
At that point I will be able to start working on fleshing out my education, so that's pretty exciting. All of the smaller lists combined equal 58 books, so if I read 64 this year, that means I can be caught up on those and into the School list of 98.
For the Caldecott Medal winners I am working from both ends. I just finished the 1938 inaugural winner, and I have the 2014 winner ready to read tonight.
For graphic novels - and I am saying that instead of comic books in this case simply because they are so far all more novel-like, this month is NonNonBa, which is on my shelf as I write, and next month I want to do Anya's Ghost. If there is another MOOC that could change the order around, and that would be fine with me. I find things through the MOOCs that I wouldn't find otherwise.
I admit my excitement level about this might be ridiculous, but it's there. Books! Come to me my pretties!
Also, for a long time, no matter how many books I read my to-read list was always three times as large as my read list. Well, a lot of it is just remembering books that I had read but never added, but I am getting close to having the "read" list equal half the "to-read" list, and I feel good about that. 
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/11092689.Gina_Harris

43 photographs

I am entering Phase II.
Phase I was having the songs of the day consist of a countdown, by year, to my birthday. That led to one blog post, but I often put additional details for why a song mattered for that year on Facebook. There were songs that almost made it and didn't, but mainly it was a matter of reviewing and remembering.
There was a lot of pain there. As I work on healing, a lot of that involves dealing with the past. At some point while I was counting down the songs I realized that the next step would be participating in Throwback Thursday.
If you are not familiar with the concept, it is a social media thing (Facebook and Twitter for sure, probably Instagram, maybe others) where on Thursday you post photos from the past. I have posted one here and there, but never participated on a regular basis.
There were 43 songs for 43 years, and I kind of want to do that again, but it won't be as clear-cut. For one thing, a lot of the pictures aren't dated. I know approximately when they happened, but not for sure. Also, there may be some years where I am not able to find any pictures. The number is definitely going to be 43, and they will be posted mostly chronologically, but I can make no guarantees beyond that.
This will be considerably harder than the songs. Well, it will start out okay, but it will get progressively harder. However, I am only doing it once a week instead of daily, so that should help.
The reason it will be hard is the same reason that I will not be able to find pictures for every year - I have always hated pictures of me. It's like, I knew that I wasn't attractive anyway, but then a photo would simultaneously flatten the image, thus making me wider, and create a record, so there was proof. I've hated that.
That being said, I do remember when I was younger looking at pictures from previous years and thinking that they weren't that bad. I had hated the picture in its year, but two years later it would be okay.
That may indicate that I was just becoming more hideous at a dramatic enough rate that it made the relatively recent past look benign by comparison, but there could be some other things going on there. Obviously, there's going to be a lot to unpack.
For right now, it's just one photo per week for the next 43 weeks, and getting comfortable with that. I'm sure the following phase which will involve selfies in some way will be more traumatic, but one step at a time.

Band Review: Woodie Alan

In July I read Alan Paul's book Big in China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising a Family, Playing the Blues, and Becoming a Star in Beijing. The subtitle is important, because the book is not just about the band: family, work, and the ex-pat life are also important topics. The band was important too, though, and I eventually wanted to review them.
The CD, Beijing Blues, is available through Paul's web site (all of the links are specifically for Paul), and can also be listened to via Spotify.
It is a very respectable blues offering. Much of what struck me in the book was about the guitar, and that does stand out. I know that Woodie Wu plays dobro as well as regular guitar, and that may be how some of the effects were achieved, but they get great sound.
That being said, I was pleasantly surprised at the use of harmonica and horns. There is always a good balance of the different elements to make the song feel right. "Got Love" is a good example of that, but they cover a wide range of ground. There is the funk of "Sri Lankan Sunset", the aching beauty of "Anjing Shenghuo", and a high quality live recording of "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go", which was my favorite.
The only real misfire, in my opinion, was a blues cover of the hymn "Will the Circle Be Unbroken". On the first listen I really hated it. After listening three times I was over hating it, but I still don't love it. It may just not work for me as blues.
Woodie Alan nevertheless works really well for blues, and they have a good story. I recommend the book and the band.
http://alanpaul.net/woodie-alan/the-cd/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpdnUnPoW74vxIa825Lt-2Q
https://www.facebook.com/AlanPaulauthor
https://twitter.com/AlPaul

Band Review: Jude's Way

Jude's Way has a nice little funk going on. An electronic alternative duo from Baltimore, they currently have an album, Out of the Blue,  available on Bandcamp.
Songs tend to be instrumental and very danceable. I especially enjoyed the video for "Told You Not To Go There", which reminds us that not everyone is equally comfortable getting funky, but when you give in it does feel good.
http://www.kadesound.com/jw.html
http://judesway.bandcamp.com/album/out-of-the-blue-2
https://www.youtube.com/user/JudesWay
https://twitter.com/WayofJude

Hardly even a real post

I guess I am writing about not writing. I feel a need to put something up.
The problem is not that I don't have anything to say; I have too much to say. There are all of these different paths to go down, but they would take multiple posts, and I don't like starting a series on a Wednesday, because I won't get back to it until Monday. Also, I am not sure there is a point in pursuing some of them now, though I might get back to them later. So I am just going to state my problems tonight, and then at some point during the two music reviews, travel review, and preparedness post, decide what I am going to write about next week.
The first problem is that I am tired. I worked over fifty hours last week, and will this week too. The overtime is allowed because we are busy, and that also means that I am working a little more frantically, even if it were normal hours. Normally my job doesn't take up too much mental energy, but it can, and right now it is.
The tiredness is worse because I am lonely and feeling disconnected. That is not a new thing, but there are spells where it is worse, and I can't handle it as well when I have less physical energy. This means I am having crying jags and feeling colder, and also being more irritable, because there is nothing left. I will overreact to simple questions. Even when I manage to make conversation, it is more strained, like my volume is louder and not relaxed. I am aware of it, but I can't change it right now.
Also, I have given too much time this week to educating people. This is not a good use of my time. They don't really want the education, and I don't enjoy it, but there are some things that I really cannot let stand, and since I am the one looking up articles and going into complicated explanations, it takes a greater toll on me.
(I ranted on Facebook that I can do this, and after I keep making my points, and they don't have anything to say, they just ask "Well how do you propose to fix it?" I think I need to quit answering that question. I mean, I usually have some ideas, but it's always lengthy, and really, since we got there by them denying that anything needed fixing, and that's just a reaction to being wrong, the proper response is probably something like "The first step is to get people to quit denying the issue" or something like that. I don't know. I am really tired.)
I am still worried about money. That one isn't going away. It is frustrating for me because I think the best chance of making any money is a screenplay, and I meant to be working on that, but I can't seem to work on anything but the sequel to Family Blood. Okay, I published two books last year, but Carahad already been written, and just needed some editing, and with Family Blood, already having it in screenplay form made it just a simple matter of adapting. Starting a novel from scratch takes longer.
Still, it seems to be necessary. Maybe someone needs it, and that could be me. The characters are dealing with grief and issues of self-worth and healing, so there are connections.
That's where I am basically - exhausted and lonely. I am going out for my birthday Saturday, and I was looking forward to it, and now I am not sure that I am, but I hope I still will. I just know that the week after our first normal week, I want to take off.
I will say, that without knowing whether I am going to spend more blogging time on politics next week, one of the things that came up in other discussions was unpaid overtime. I am getting paid for it, so I have an incentive, but it is brutal. Seeing the toll that it is taking on me and knowing that some employers will take that labor without compensation reminds me just how evil they are.

Narrative

There are three things that have happened recently:
A bomb was planted outside the office of the Colorado Springs chapter of the NAACP.Two men shot up a magazine office in France, killing 12 and wounding eleven others.Boko Haram massacred people in Nigeria. The death toll may be as many as 2000, but counting has been difficult.The first question would be which has gotten the most news coverage, but that's too easy. The first significant coverage of the NAACP bombing was how people were upset that it wasn't covered, starting about two days after it occurred. The Boko Haram story has been seen on a news crawl across the bottom of the screen, but Charlie Hebdo is getting major coverage of the incident itself, the response by other cartoonists, the social media response, think pieces about the social media response, the protest march, and stories about how the leaders at the protest march staged a fake photo opportunity.
That makes the question "why"; how do the news channels choose what to cover?
There is a saying, "If it bleeds, it leads." Based on that, the NAACP bombing isn't that big a story. Fortunately the gasoline can did not detonate, so there were no fatalities. However, still based on that, the priority story should have been Nigeria. There are a lot more dead, and the threat of much more destruction, because the Charlie Hebdo shooters are dead now but Boko Haram is still active.
Of course, Nigeria is very far away from the United States, and Boko Haram is not a direct threat, perhaps, but based on an elevation of domestic interests, then the NAACP should have been the lead story. That is terrorism on our native soil, because when an anonymous bomber targets an organization working for social good, what else could you possibly call it? Yes, the Charlie Hebdo shooting was an assault to freedom of the press, but the NAACP bombing is a general attack on civil rights. That sounds important, right? But that's not how it played out.
It is possible that the story of brown people shooting white people was considered more urgent and important than a white person trying to blow up black people or black people massacring other black people. I don't want to think that's how it goes, but it's possible.
I mean, you can't give equal coverage to every story, but you will still cover a lot of stories and combined together they will create some kind of narrative about the world. So let us consider that in light of this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/21/randolph-linn-fox-news-mosque-arson_n_2345708.html
An Indiana man got riled up by Fox News before setting fire to a mosque.
I don't doubt that the beer played a role, but reading his responses to the judge, he knows no Muslims, or anything about Islam, only what he hears on Fox News and on the radio.
"Every day you turn on the TV, you see Muslims trying to kill Americans."
But you could see Muslims killing other Muslims, which might lead you to believe it wasn't merely a matter of race and religion, or you might see racists trying to set back civil rights, both by crude methods like bombing and more sophisticated methods like rolling back sections of the Voting Rights Act. There are a lot of different potential stories out there, but this is the one he received.
Which is of course one reason why it is important to have more than one source of news, but it might also be something for each individual source of news to think about.

Fired up

A friend of mine lost his job recently.
I found out when I heard his voice over the news. I looked, and yes, that was his face, and his name, and him being interviewed about the job loss.
He had, in frustration over how black lives are given less value by law enforcement and media, posted something on Facebook about how we should see cops die, and then there is the funeral and honors and everyone grieves and it was completely different. That went viral, and his employer fired him.
(I am not going to name him or his employer, but if you're interested and have not heard of it, it can be found. Honestly a lot of the online coverage has not been very good reporting, but for the interview that I saw, I believe he represented himself well.)
My first response was to groan and think "Why?", but I still felt that the firing was unfair. I went to the employer's site and complained. I was generically thanked for that feedback, which meant absolutely nothing, but I also got a fair amount of blowback from other people who saw it, and there were some interesting things about that.
One is that my friend later told me that the post that went viral showed an edited page, and he didn't know how that happened. He still had posted something, and Oregon is still at-will employment, so that doesn't make as much difference as it could, but that still bothered me.
Also, one of the replies that I got to my post came right out and said that people were searching for posts in support of Mike Brown and Eric Garner, and those people were being reported to their employers. I had known about the police calling at least one Ferguson protester's employer. That was in person, but I couldn't really be surprised that there was online targeting happening, and that probably explains how my friend's post got picked up.
In addition, apparently I almost got a threat. My sister saw one person ask how my employer would feel about my comments. When I went to look, it was gone, probably because nothing I said was really incriminating. I said that it was unfair to fire him over personal speech, and that it was also very clear that the post was not an actual call for violence - not terribly extreme.
It was interesting that anyone jumped on my post at all. I did write it on the page, but it was not linked to a post about the firing or an article. Again, it lends credibility to people being out there looking for things to jump on.
Their arguments actually reinforced my support for my friend. I thought what he posted was a poor choice, but all of the complaints that came at me, and initial posts on articles I saw, were saying how they would be afraid to shop at the store where he worked. I don't believe them for a minute. I know he's not dangerous. While I am sure that - as a tall and muscular black man - they would be scared to see him in an alley (though he dresses well so would probably not be wearing a hoodie), I don't think anyone sincerely believed he was calling for violence or that they would be in danger while he was working.
He said a shocking thing to make people think. I got that from the beginning. Seeing how fiercely that is opposed - and not just opposed when seen, but people are actively seeking out dissent so they can attack livelihoods - that is why you need freedom of speech. And no, I do not think that means that his employer can't fire him; it means that his employer shouldn't fire him.
People say a lot of horrible things, and they may get ignored, or they may get vigorously defended. "That's satire", "you just don't have a sense of humor", "they've got a right to say it". Except that when you are arguing that black lives matter, some people will really go out of their way to stop you from saying it.
(Or they will try and hijack it to "All lives matter" which is true, it just misses the point that black lives are not treated like they matter and that needs to be addressed.)
There are people who don't want it addressed. They cannot be allowed to make that decision.

Band Review: Andrew Ferris

Andrew Ferris has elements of pop, folk, and indie, and those things are completely fair to say, but my strongest thought was that there is sort of a combination here of James Taylor and the Smiths.
I know that sounds strange. I believe the James Taylor vibe comes from the heavy acoustic elements, and maybe also from the voice. I remember seeing an update from Andrew a month or so ago that said he was going busking, and that sounded totally plausible.
On the other hand, the lyrics, and the sometimes atypical musical combinations, did make me think of Morrissey. The first song I heard was "Smile" which is surprisingly upbeat for starting out about how we are all going to die, but then also it is on the Yellow Lorry album, and there is a Red Lorryalbum, which may have gotten me thinking about "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out".
Not all of the songs are in that vein. Sometimes it feels like there is almost more of a country and Roaring 20s influence, which gives a fair amount of variety. There is a sense of playfulness and humor to many of the songs, especially "Something Changed." My favorite song was probably "With This Heart".
Fully acknowledging all of that, my overall thought is still James Taylor and the Smiths. I know that would not be for everyone, but if you think it might be for you, I don't know where else you would get it.
http://www.andrewferris.com/
https://www.facebook.com/andrewferrismusic
https://www.youtube.com/user/AndrewFerrisMusic
https://twitter.com/iamandrewferris

Band Review: Lowws

Lowws is an indie pop ambiance band from Oxford. That is their description, but I have to say that even though there are not currently many songs available, they convey greater depth than most of the other ambient bands I have listened to. There is emotion in the music, and an air of something otherworldly.
Previously known as The Sea The Sea, the band is currently doing some regrouping and getting ready to strengthen their web presence. They have potential, and should keep up their efforts.
https://www.facebook.com/lowwshq
https://soundcloud.com/lowws
https://twitter.com/LowwsHQ