stubrock's Xanga

Sunday, October 04, 2009

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 18:38:37 GMT

Hey everyone (err, one..),

Not much to update on. That's why I've been away for so long. I'm still at the same job, still in Knoxville, still not hanging out with anyone in my own area code. Especially depressing, since today marks the one-year anniversary of my moving here. So.... what's new?

Since last update, I've read The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren, Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell, and Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. Velvet Elvis was pretty good, and TWHF was a great read.

Book Club is no better than last reported. In fact, it's worse. In fact, no one has come to Book Club for several weeks, save Bob. Bob doesn't read the books, though. He makes up for it with good company and plenty of conversation, which is all I ever really wanted out of the book club, anyway.

I bought a brewing kit yesterday, and I've currently got a homemade IPA bubbling away in my kitchen. This batch will be ready for bottling on Saturday, and then it's on to a good wintertime porter. I hope to have my second batch finished, bottled, and ready by Thanksgiving.

That's about it, really.

Oh yeah, and I'm missing the Cleveland County Fair.
Damn it.

THE BEACH

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:08:18 GMT

I took a vacation last week, the first real one I've had in a few years. I went to Oak Island, NC with my girlfriend, her sister, and a couple others. We rented a house for a week, within sight (and sound!) of the ocean. It was scrumtrelescent. We basically sat around all week. It was great. I cooked a few meals, played in the ocean, watched movies, sat in the sand, slept in, played in the ocean some more, ate seafood, and walked down an empty beach after each dinner. That's about the full itinerary, really.

Summer's going along kinda slowly. I really wish I had more friends (read "ANYONE") to hang out with sometime. Most nights and weekends are spent alone and/or with my girlfriend, or sitting at cafes with a slow-reading book. Everyone close to me lives in and around Cleveland, or further, and I'm fairly inept at getting into any social scene. I'm not really sure what happened. This used to be what I was good at. Part of my problem is not being in school. There, I could easily connect with dozens of like-minded individuals and have someone to call at anytime and hang out. Now, I'm not taking classes, and I've moved away from the school and only town I've called home for the past 7 years. I live in a non-neighborhood of apartment buildings isolated on the backside of a desolate shopping mall on the empty side of an ever-thinning, urban-sprawling Knoxville. My horizons are not bright. I lead a book club on Wednesday nights, but regular attendance (or even repeat attendance) of members is rare. The last time, no one showed up but myself. I'd take that as a hint to change things if I didn't get differing feedback. Every week it's "Hey, sorry I wasn't there..." and "Yeah, I'm really glad you picked that book! I can't wait to talk about it!"... But then when it's time, I'm left wondering if I've done something to disinterest people or even turn them away entirely. I don't know. I've finally been given a full load of hours at work this week, so I'll be busy enough to keep other things off my mind...

... not that Panera Bread gives me much to think about.

Gardens and Book Clubs

Fri, 29 May 2009 18:44:48 GMT

So uh, it's the weekend.

I've planted the beginnings of a small garden on my apartment patio/deck. I've got two tomatoes, a bell pepper, banana pepper, basil, thyme, and cilantro. It's gonna be epic, trust me. (Eventually, ok? eventually...)

Last week my pastor volunteered me to take over command of our church's book club. I'm thinking of covering Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution. It's kinda awesome. Apart from that, I have no idea what I'm doing. Any ideas or suggestions for making a book club work? I'd like it to have a lot of discussion, and maybe some activities. So far, all we do is show up, and no one has a clue what's going on, except that we've all read or are reading a common work. The dialogue is random and sparse, and we rarely stay on topic. I'd like to be able to change all that. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I'm off to start my weekend. You guys stay classy.

Who Wants Some Tongue?

Wed, 13 May 2009 19:56:56 GMT

   Stephanie called me on my lack of updates, so here we go...

   Not much going on recently, really. One thing, though. I have discovered a new favorite food, and I'm almost afraid to even tell you what it is: tripe and tongue. I mean, not together. Well, not entirely together. I found a half-hidden tienda on Washington Pike with a dining area in the back, next to the butcher counter. After watching way too many episodes of Anthony Bourdain and reading two of his books, I decided that organ meat couldn't be as bad as I imagined. So I go in to this shady (literally) little place, and, lo and behold, they offer fresh, made-from-scratch tacos with beef tongue and tripe. I know most of you are beyond convincing, so you may stop reading whenever you'd like. For the rest of you, however, know this: beef tongue is incredible, and beef tripe is even better. I'm actually kind of upset that I've lived so long without realizing it. Tongue (or La Lengua, for those of you with el español. Also, for anyone who may actually try to order some "off menu".) is almost identical to slow-cooked pot roast. It's skinned and cut into small pieces (or large, depending on the serving style) so that it's actual place of origin seems quite normal and benign. The same goes for the tripe, except that its taste is less like steak and more like crispy awesomeness. If you've ever had fried calamari, imagine if the little rings of squid were left unbattered, and then very quickly stir fried (for those of you who haven't had fried calamari, you're missing out). The meat is super tender, with little crispy edges. The taco shells are soft, doubled corn shells, and otherwise filled with heaps of cilantro and diced onion, served with quartered lime and salsa verde (also essential ingredients to the whole). They go for about $1.50 apiece, so with a large horchata, it makes for an incredible and cheap meal. A note, however, to the gung-ho: don't order either of these if they aren't made freshly. I once had some lengua and tripa that had been scooped from a steam table, where it had been sitting for several hours, and it had lost all flavor and texture. Not unsafe, just kinda gross. So there you have it. A new food! **Now be adventurous, go find una restaurante where the servers don't expect to see white people, and ask if they have tacos de tripa, or los tacos de lengua.** Trust me, it's totally worth it.



**Repeat after me, "tee-EN-ay Lohs TAH-cohs day TREE-pah?" or "... ... TAH-cohs day LEHN-gwah?"

Homelessness

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 01:37:04 GMT

     I haven't lived in Knoxville for very long, but something I was aware of almost immediately is the seemingly large number of homeless people in this town. I don't know if there are more here than is usual, but it would look that way, especially if you were to walk or drive through the Gay / Jackson block of downtown. Of course, that's the block which houses a large homeless shelter and, I presume, a soup kitchen. The people in need of shelter and food generally don't stray far from this block, and it shows. Once I was driving past the shelter at dusk, and there was a line of people down the sidewalk and wrapped around the corner of the building. I know Knoxville isn't a small town, and that homelessness is fierce statistic which is ever-present, but the number of people I see huddled on street corners seems disproportionate.

     Now, I've taken classes on sociology, urban missiology, etc., so I'm as aware as most of the prevailing reasons and causes of homelessness. I realize that many are homeless due to irresponsible decisions, drug addictions, etc. A very high percentage of homeless people have some form of mental illness. These causes are sometimes combatable, and I've met more than a couple people who have been homeless at one or several points in their lives, and who are now relatively stable and self-supporting.

     What I don't understand is why I, and many others, have never given much thought to the epidemic that is homelessness in America. Sure, there are people who are inevitably going to end up on the streets due only to their reckless lifestyles, but there are entirely too many living in tents and cardboard boxes who don't deserve it. There are two thing which recently prodded me to think about the subject.

     The first is this: My girlfriend teaches English as a Second Language to elementary students whose families have immigrated from several countries, mostly eastern Europe and Africa. The question arose one day of whether people ever gave money to the poor, and one of the Russian girls responded, "We gave money to the poor in my country, but we don't do it here because there are no poor people in America." I thought to myself, well, according to Russian standards, she's probably right. Ponder that for what it's worth.

     The second is this: I attend church at Knoxville Life Church, or KnoxLife. It's located in the Old City, near the homeless shelter. We have a very nice man who's recently joined us on Sunday mornings, I'll call him Dean, and he happens to be homeless. He dresses well enough, he's clean, and very polite. I've never once heard him approach anyone for help or assistance. I can't say I know him well enough to know why he's homeless (but I intend on finding out). What bothers me is this: while walking through church this morning when everyone was still mingling, I walk past Dean and another man, and I overhear their conversation. The one man is relatively new, introduces himself, and asks Dean about himself. Dean responds, "My name's Dean. I'm a homeless guy." My heart immediately sank. I mean, what the hell, man? How long do you have to be homeless before it becomes a part of your self-identity? When someone asks who you are, you no longer say, "Oh, I'm a student / lawyer / teacher / plumber...", or even "Oh, I've been laid off, times are hard, etc.", to just "Oh, I'm a nobody. I have a name and a cardboard box." What does that do to a person's self-esteem? It's just mind-boggling to me. I can't get my mind around it.

     So, I've set a mission for myself. Over the next several weeks, or possibly year, I want to learn more about homelessness, and, more specifically, Dean. What creates a man like that? How does he look at his own future? I want to understand these things so that I might one day be able to help people like Dean. I feel too many people just write off the homeless as a chronic symptom that can't be helped. They ignore the problem and hope that someone else tackles it to make it go away. I've got news for those people:

     Homelessness isn't going away.

     I'm going to learn something about this, and by God, I'm going to do something. And if I don't accomplish anything, I'll rest easier knowing I tried. How many of you have the ability to help one innocent person on the street? How many of you do anything about it?

James 4:17 (New International Version)

¹⁷Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 23:07:36 GMT

The True Cost of Iraq

One year ago today, I wrote/quoted a post delineating the true costs of our occupation of Iraq. The following is the same post, but with the numbers (read: body count) updated. I am attempting to present this in an objective manner so that you might make up your own mind over why we are in Iraq, etc.

It seems to me that so many Americans are concerned with our troops being in Iraq, particularly because our troops keep getting killed. Out of curiosity, I looked up the number of casualties due to the "Iraq War", and I'm surprised at what I find. Firstly, I find that the difference between the minimum and maximum killed is vast. However, I also find that many more civilians have been killed than have soldiers and "insurgents" combined. Here are some numbers:

U.S. Armed Forces: 4,273 killed, 31,153 wounded
Journalists: 225 killed, 14 kidnapped, 2 missing
Media Support Workers: 51
Aid Workers: 95
Iraqi Security Forces: 11,453
Contractors: 1,308 killed, 10,569 wounded, 18 missing
Iraqi Civilians: 654,965 (per study done by Johns Hopkins University)

Total Violent Deaths As A Result of Conflict: 1,033,000 people

The lowest commonly agreed-upon estimate I can find for the total deaths resulting from violence happening on or since the U.S.-led invasion in the spring of '03 is around 100,000 dead, with the maximum reaching all the way to 1.1 million.

One million people is a little hard to believe, but when we have seven or more studies agreeing that the lowest count isn't below 100,000, I start to wonder. I wonder why America has such a hard time dealing with our occupation in Iraq. I wonder, because the people who mourn our soldiers the most seem to be the ones who champion the cause of our invasion and subsequent "war". Do the ones who mourn our loss realize that Iraq has lost somewhere between 100,000 and 1,000,000 people as a result of the violence and chaos which began in 2003? The official U.S. military casualty count as of March of this year was 4,268 soldiers.

Money Lost

The U.S. has also spent, and lost, billions of dollars fighting in Iraq. The Congressional Research Service estimates our spending at about $2,000,000,000.00 a week (that's 2 Billion), while economist Joseph Stiglitz (recipient of the Nobel Prize in economics) estimates the cost closer to $12,000,000,000 a month. What's more, the money we're spending on the war is borrowed money. According to the Congressional Budgeting Office, the Iraq War could end up costing us $2,400,000,000,000.00 ($2.4 trillion) by 2017 (thanks to interest), with only $1.9 trillion going to Iraq and $500,000,000,000 just going to pay the interest on borrowed money.
Stiglitz has further noted that "...the total costs of the Iraq War on the US economy will be 3 trillion dollars ($3,000,000,000,000) in a moderate scenario, and possibly more." He goes on to say, "The figure we arrive at is more than $3 trillion. Our calculations are based on conservative assumptions. They are conceptually simple, even if occasionally technically complicated. A $3 trillion figure for the total cost strikes us as judicious, and probably errs on the low side. Needless to say, this number represents the cost only to the United States. It does not reflect the enormous cost to the rest of the world, or to Iraq."

Success Rate

According to the U.S. Military, we've taken out a total of about 16,842 insurgents since the beginning of the invasion. Call me pessimistic, but those don't look like very good numbers.

Something To Think About

As the total passed 450 Billion dollars, the cost for the Iraq war reached approximately $1500 usd per person in the United States. If the Iraq War were to wind up costing 1.9 trillion dollars, the cost would be over 4.2 times higher ($6,300 per United States citizen.) This would put the expense at $25,000 for an average family of four (or $32,000 per family if Afghanistan is included.)

As a comparison, with this money he estimates that one could have built 8 million houses, paid 15 million teachers, paid for the child care of 530 million kids, paid for the scholarship of 43 million students, or offered social safety net for 50 years to Americans. Stigltz also said that United States help for Africa (the ENTIRE CONTINENT) is only $5 billion yearly, soon to be superseded by China. $5 billion correspond to only the spending of 10 days for the war by the United States.

In Conclusion

So in conclusion, why are we in Iraq? What's the real reason? Why have we risked, and lost, so much? More people die in African and Asian countries than Iraq every year thanks to preventable problems, like starvation and infection, but you don't see America saying, "Hey, we need to help these people!"

What makes Iraq so different, that we felt like saying, "Hey, we need to help these Iraqis..."

Monday, March 23, 2009

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 02:33:48 GMT

Baking

Tonight, I will try my hand at baking bread. It's my first time, I think. I got a starter a little over a week ago from a friend, and it was supposed to be used to make Amish Friendship Bread. Well, it's not. After some 'net research, I'm fairly sure it can be used to make sourdough. I found a recipe online, and what starter wasn't used in the bread, I fed and put away to grow some more yeast. I love the idea of having billions of tiny organisms growing and living in a bowl in my kitchen, getting to feed them, and then getting to eat them. Ha! It's symbiotic, really. And they never die. I just keep feeding the starter, they keep multiplying, and I keep making bread. I might just have to take up baking way often. I don't know, we'll see. Keep your fingers crossed on this one. It's going in the oven now...

Friday, March 13, 2009

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:07:46 GMT

So, uh, yeah.
I'm back, again.
Not much going on, now. It pains me to come on here to blog about my non-existent life, but I feel worse not saying anything at all. So, uh... Oh yeah, I totaled my girlfriend's car last week. Ok, not really. Some other chick hit us, and she totaled the car. Ok, not really. I pulled out in front of someone, they were going way faster than the 35 mph limit, I moved over after she honked at us, but she was moving over into the other lane, too! She wasn't even going to slow down. She just decided she'd blow right around us. Wrong. Seems I was quick on the draw, and was already in the inside lane before she got there. And the next thing I know, I got whiplash. Damage to her car was a dented license plate. Damage to us was a slight dent on the passenger rear fender. Took it to the shop, and they call it a total loss. Total Loss. What the crap. They say the damage extends to the actual rear frame / chassis of the car. And we're like, Geeeeeeeeeeeeze! What the crap? Insurance tells us we can grab $ forty-six hundred for it, pay it off, and still have around $1600 to put down on a new car. We weren't enthused, to say the least...

On a good note, I totally found the movie Brick at Big Lots the other day for $3. Score.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:04:05 GMT

DEATH

Ok, nobody's dying here, but I almost wished I had. I got food poisoning (or, more correctly, a foodborne illness) on Tuesday night, and I'm still recovering from it. It didn't help that I'd donated blood just a couple days prior. If you've never had food poisoning, (1) you're really beating the odds in this country, and (2) you don't want it. I mean it. It's not worth any time away from school, work, etc. You lose all your fluids every imaginable way, including, but certainly not limited to, vomiting, cold sweats, and general inability to swallow water (or anything else for that matter) for some time. For the entire night I felt like I had a knife in me. Not to mention a crazy headache, probably brought on by the fever, which also contributed to constant waves of chills, nausea, and the occasional delusions and strange dreams. So the next time you wish you could get sick so you can call out of work, wish for a cold or flu. Wish for hanta virus. Just don't wish for food poisoning. You'll regret it.

Actually, nobody should ever wish for hanta virus. I got a little carried away there.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:25:00 GMT

Um... Hi?

Yeah, it's been a minute.
I'm sorry.
Let's try not to make this awkward.
I guess I just haven't felt much like talking? Also, I don't feel like I've had much to say. I wanted to blog, but every time I'd get here, words just wouldn't come. Along with most people around the country (and the world, now), the last several months have, at most times, been for me either uneventful, or just plain disheartening. I know some folks feel relief when they type out their strife. It's therapeutic. They feel some sort of imaginary solidarity with readers, even if no one comments on the rants. It's make-believe support. That's my feeling on it. Except in my case, I don't get that support, the feeling of solidarity and union with the masses. When I write about my stress, it forces me to dwell on it. Quite frankly, it stresses me the ---- out. It's downright counter-productive. Those who know me well enough know that while I outwardly handle bad situations rather nonchalantly and with good humor, inside I'm being eaten away by stress and self-loathing. I turn to distractions to take my mind off of life, and I tend to lose myself in them. I live in a pretend world. So, in a sense, I guess I medicate myself with the same delusions of the bloggers with baggage. I really shouldn't put them down. At least their actions can't hurt them and put them at a greater disadvantage than where they began.
Whew.
I feel better.
Kind of.