Thoughts of a Canary

"Keep Austin Weird." That's the mantra of this city. I can't help but think of how that applies to the country as a whole.  We live in weird times, to say the least. Our current president is using a real issue  in the black lives matter/police brutality struggle to further an anti gun platform that contradicts the manifestation of the founding principles of this country.  Meanwhile our president nominees on both sides of the aisle offer a caricature of what a president could be both to us domestically and to the world at large. We're stuck as a country between the rock of a presumptive felon and a hard place of a bigoted narcissist.  What are we to do? Do we cast our lot with the one who offers a better diplomatic façade (also, hello Benghazi) or do we trust in a candidate who feeds on American unrest with a show of devil-may-care impetuousness. Either way poses a moral issue, no matter what you try to convince yourself with the lesser of two evils approach.  I ...

"You'll understand when you're older" We've all heard the phrase from our parents growing up. It is usually accompanied by a teenage eye roll and a spoken or unspoken (depending on the recipient) eye roll. For my own self, at least, these words came to ring true once I had the wisdom and maturity to accept them, begrudgingly or not, months or years after they were said. After many Lents and just as many Easters, these words are ringing again in my ears. I wasn't quite sure why they popped into my head, only that their arrival was strangely coincidental with the start of the Easter season, that most joyous of time periods that follows the most grave of liturgical seasons. Between mimosas and general congeniality, I was struck with the contrast between Lent, in which mortification and self-denial is preached and promulgated, and Easter, the greatest liturgical season, marked by joy and (most often) indulgence. After forty days of discipline,...

This blog has been petering off of late. That's such a weird phrase. A long time ago I guess there was some guy named Peter who had serious issues following through with things.  So it's been a busy few months. I've had a lot of thoughts to write down, but little desire to make the time to do so  I suppose that might be because every time I decided to write on a topic I had been thonking about a new one took hold all the more strongly. To reflect that I thought that it might be a good idea to tweak my TOC format a bit.  This blog is titled thoughts of a canary; what greater aptitude could there be than to give a bulleted list of my thoughts once a week! So please text/phone/email/carrier pigeon me your thoughts on the format tweak. You can tell me that A) You like it B) You love it or C) You only read this because I constantly pressure you to do so.  So without further ado, here's your 4/27/15 TOC: •Sexism is discrimination because of the sex of the person. The liber...

I had a good Lent. I think I benefitted from this Lent in a few different ways. Why, then, did Easter feel almost like a letdown??? I was at P3 last week (Prayer, Penance, Pub) and the priest giving the talk to all of us young people said something that I could really relate to. He said "It's easier to be holy during Lent." That's it. Pretty simple.  I look forward to Lent every year; it's actually my favorite ecclesiastical season (the hipster in me). The reason I enjoy it so much is that subconsciously I recognize that it brings us back to our roots as human beings.  Something I've mentioned in a couple of posts in the past is how radically the speed of our gratification has increased with the technology boom of the 2000s. Want to watch a show with your friends? You can watch the whole season in a day. Would you like to ask someone a question? Hit a couple buttons and it's sent.  What this power has done in the members of our culture is, in a word, coddl...

Happy Ash Wednesday to everyone! The advent of the Hipster Uprising has brought many unpopular things to the forefront of the trendy parade for the sake of simple irony. It's really quite amusing and for those in less urban areas completely unintelligible. Unfortunately this ironic effect is spilling over into the ancient and aesthetic Christian observance of Lent.  The purpose of Lent to the Chrisitan faithful is simply to unite with the sufferings of Jesus through sacrifice, and gain virtue through habitual practice of this sacrifice. I'll come right out and say we ourselves have lost the forest by focusing on the trees in this ecclesiastical season.  As a disclaimer this post is not directed at any individual or group of individuals, except for the group of Christians as a whole. It's a trend I've seen in myself and others, and it's gotten to a point where it's absurdity needs to be proclaimed.  We have all become a people of excuses.  In the time period wher...

There are very few things that I have found to be universally loved by humankind. While we have disagreements about things we fundamentally disagree on, we also have enjoy having fundamental disagreements about things we agree on simply for the sake of argument. We even gave this a fun name: Trolling. Anyone that has taken philosophy (read that in a snobbish voice) knows that there are some fundamentals that we have clung to for dear life through historical de-culturalizations, renaissances, and dark ages. As individuals we have disagreed on so much that in the past twenty years especially we have had to bring to the forefront some mutual human feeling so that we don't lose our kinship with one another. In the 1930s and 40s it was Nationalism, in the 60s it was free "love", etc. In spite of (and more to the point because of) this ramification of human identification, and in deference to the careful "tolerant" and "morally neutral" culture we've...

Matisyahu - The Jewish Reggae guy The other night I went with my old and dear friend Merco to see Matisyahu in concert. To say I knew very little about the man would be an understatement: 1. I know one song he's done: "One Day". 2. I thought he was black. 3. Not only is he not black and doesn't have dreads, he's Jewish. The first thing that really struck me was how few of the words I could make out. It truly sounded like he just made sounds into the microphone and threw in some English words every once in awhile to reassure everyone that he was actually singing about something. In contrast to most reggae out there, which is a ceaseless cycle of uninspired drum beats and toneless singing, he had very creative and lively music. But again, it was pretty much instrumental to my ears. The thing that truly made a profound impression on me was what is pictured above. Towards the end of his set, Matisyahu brought a menorah onto the stage and lit it ...