Technology wins again

Well, technology wins again, folks.

In a course I took this past semester, a lecturer discussed with us patterns of adoption in regards to trends and technology.  In general, the adoption of innovations among a population follows a bell curve: innovators are the first to use the new technology, followed by a few early adopters, then the majority picks up and finally the laggards figure it out.  The innovators and early adopters run the risk of grabbing onto trends that turn into busts (see laserdisc), while the laggards still get angry when they receive text messages.  My father typically will reply to a text accidentally, thumbing a jumbled mass of letters.  He is not an early adopter.

Pirated from allinio.com

Nor, typically, am I.   I have always attempted to hang somewhere around the early majority, steering clear of myspace but jumping on the facebook bandwagon pretty early.  I didn't get an mp3 player until the ipod came out.  Occasionally I hold off even longer.  As you can tell from the archives, viva la re didn't start until last September, once I was pretty sure most people had given up reading blogs altogether.

I first learned about Twitter a couple years ago, and I couldn't really figure out why it was becoming a big deal (such a question shows why I am not a early adopter).  People explained to me that the whole deal was just like facebook statuses - which are perhaps my least favorite part of facebook.  I do not care that the girl who sat in front of me in 11th grade homeroom is headed to the beach, nor am I concerned with pictures of casual acquaintances' childeren.  However, an influential friend (though not one I consider an early adopter) named Justin Rigoloso joined a few weeks back, and I have been voyeuristically following him without an account since.  Today Twitter is making an honest man of me

Thus have I ventured deeper into the world of social media.  That's right - just look at the sidebar.  You can now follow my tweets here at viva la re.  If you are part of the early (okay, lets be honest - late) majority and you care to follow on Twitter, the handle is @vivalare_.  For those interested in following my person, Will Williams, you may send a followers request to @fbwwilliams.

(As a side note, check out the Rigolosos' blog linked in my sidebar.  It is the blog I started reading before I decided to start one of my own.  They may not be early adopters, but they are certainly influencers.)

Tax cut rhetoric and government revenues

And so the 24 hour election cycle continues.  Even though we are still a year and a half out of the 2012 presidential elections, Republican hopefuls are kickstarting their campaigns with intentions on limiting Barack Obama to a single term as president.  Several candidates are hoping to harness the populist power of the Tea Party, looking to maximize on frustrations over a struggling economy and government spending.  Issues such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and spending cuts are fueling the conservative fire, while others have been nearly altogether forgotten (the word education was not mentioned once during the first Republican candidates debate).  Most candidates (ABC news provides a list of contenders here) are lobbying to champion themselves as the Tea-Party-Friendliest, including upstart Michele Bachmann and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty.

While many shifts and surprises will change the direction of the campaign trail in the coming months, a safe bet for most candidates is to wield boldly Reagan-esque economic ideology, one that energized economically conservative bases last fall and remains promising in the midst of a poor job market.  Tim Pawlenty has done so, calling for an $8 trillion tax cut.  Citing Ronald Reagan's trickle-down economic policy, he claims that history has shown that tax cuts will actually result in no decrease in revenues.  According to Bruce Bartlett of Capital Gains and Games, Pawlenty is totally wrong.  Bartlett should know - he worked as an economic adviser for Reagan and G.H.W. Bush.  Here he shows how Reagan's cuts did not pay for themselves.  Nor, economists agree (an uncommon occurrence), have the Bush cuts.

Pawlenty is at best misinformed, at worst he is manipulating the truth as he jockeys for position in the coming year.  This brings me back to my frustrations with the current conservative deification of Reagan.  My libertarian friend Thomas Pearson will point out that the federal government grew more under Reagan than any president since Roosevelt.  And while his early tax cuts are the legend that fuels Glenn Beck, everyone seems to have forgotten that Reagan raised taxes eleven times.

Friday Pick of the Week

Neo Jazz Collective performing at WE Garden

This past weekend Rachel and I attended West End Community Gardens' Summer Solstice Celebration.  The afternoon was filled with interesting people, delicious food and good entertainment.  Talent was everywhere, from the spoken word performed by Real Life Poets to the musical offerings of three different groups. Particularly impressive was the abundance of young talent at the celebration, including local acts In Her Image and Neo Jazz Collective.  The latter is particularly cool, as it is a music school for teens located in the economically disadvantaged area of Fairfield on Birmingham's west side.  The performers are mature beyond their years, already composing much of the music they perform.  Their track "Travelers" is the choice for today.  Happy Friday.

Find more artists like Neo Jazz Collective at Myspace Music

Kathryn Tucker Windham

Kathryn Tucker Windham, stolen from NPR
and Alvin Binn of AP.

As a kid growing up in Alabama, you couldn't make it through autumn without coming across Thirteen Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey.  Typically, sometime around mid-October, the school librarian would sit us down and read a story or two of Southern hauntings.  Other years a friend would write her name amid the turned edges of the well-used library index card and bring the worn copy of the book to reading time in class.  Kids would retell the tales, often affirming their truth by personally attesting to experiences with the spirits.  "My grandma lives in Carrollton, and we went to see the courthouse at night and we saw the ghost!" they would claim.  Others would attest to strange happenings in old homes, or family legends of visitors from beyond the grave.

Kathryn Tucker Windham could tell a story.  Her Thirteen Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey has kept many Alabama children awake through the night since its publication in 1964.  Her storytelling has continued through the years, as she conveyed weekly stories for Alabama Public Radio's Morning Edition.  Like all good storytellers, she transported listeners somewhere else.  Through her words, we traveled with her by train to her first day at the University of Alabama, or watched as she vividly described the burning house, and with it that damned piano, of her childhood music teacher.  Her stories of growing up in rural south Alabama were a window into the small towns where my grandparents grew up, her style reminiscent of the stories told by my grandmother.

Mrs. Windham passed away last week, after telling her stories for a full 93 years.  She will be missed, though her tales will certainly live on in elementary school libraries throughout the state.


Credit to Birmingham News for the video.

Summer solstice

An Incan Emperor Re-inactor.
Shamelessly stolen from realsouthamerica.com.au.

It is the summer solstice, friends - the northern hemisphere's longest day of light in the year.  On the seasonal calendar, it is the official beginning of summer, though here in Birmingham I think it arrived a few sweltering weeks early.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to experience June 21 in Cuzco, Peru.  Cuzco was the capital of the Incan empire, and the native religion remains deeply ingrained in the Peruvian culture.  For the Peruvians, as with all residents of the southern hemisphere, June 21 is the shortest day of sun - and thus darkness's final encroachment on daylight.  That day marks the beginning of Inti Raymi, the festival of the sun celebrating the god Inti.  Animal sacrifices are made, looking to appease the god and ensure a good spring.

Such a celebration makes me mourn the lost connection between our culture and the earth.  Myron the Soil Man, head composter at West End Community Gardens, describes agriculture and eating as entering into relationship with the earth: we give our toil and sweat to nurture the earth, and to us she returns nutritious food.  Relationships takes time, and in a culture where time and productivity are the most precious commodities, food often gets the short end of the stick.  Sadly we often choose the pornography and prostitution of processed foods and wasteful materialism over real relationship with the earth.  We perceive the earth as a resource to be allocated instead of the foundation of life to be dealt with respectfully.

The first fruits of our potted garden.

A few years ago I read through The Art of the Commonplace, collection of Wendell Berry essays.  The book was transformative.  At the end, Berry works to answer the question of what an average person is to do to begin to enter into relationship with the earth.  He simply says that we are to eat well.  We need to understand from where our food comes, and in that we will begin to understand our world.  Gradually, I have begun to take time to prepare fresh foods, not viewing cooking as a chore to complete but an opportunity to engage the earth.  One of the best things that Rachel and I have had during our first year of marriage is the opportunity to cook and eat together multiple times each week.

As food has become a priority, we have begun making choices to be in intentional relationship with the earth.  Not too long ago, we began collecting our compost to give to friends who have a garden.  This spring, we planted a potted garden on our front patio, and this morning we collected our first two vine-ripened tomatoes.  We have additionally enjoyed cilantro, mint and lavender from our efforts.

And so this year I take a moment to remember the solstice.  Happy Inti Raymi.  Celebrate by eating well.

The complexity of Christianity in immigration politics

I know, I know, you are tired of reading my rants about Alabama's HB 56, but today I encourage you to read someone else's thoughts on the law - the North Alabama Bishop of the United Methodist Church.  Bishop Willimon enlisted our pastor, R.G. Lyons to compose an open letter to Governor Bentley, Senator Scott Beason and Representative Mickey Hammon.  The letter addresses the shortcomings of the law, according to the tenets of the Methodist faith.  As interesting as the letter are the comments posted below, revealing how troubling politics can be for members of a faith that must consider not only theology but also the machinations of their day to day life.  While the tone remains mostly courteous, the passions of the parishioners and pastors bleed through in between the lines.

Friday Pick of the Week

This week's choice comes from a band whose debut album has been one of my consistent music choices over the past few months.  If you only know Mumford & Sons from their radio releases, I highly recommend the entire album, Sigh No More.  The rest of the album has a bit of a different tone, and it is laced with great lyrics.  What's more, it tells a story, an attribute that I think adds to any album.  Today's pick is a short tour documentary set to unreleased music called "Gentlemen of the Road."  Enjoy.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Apparently I am on a president kick.  For the second time in a few months, I picked up a biography of an American president that challenged the depictions offered in mainstream history.  For the second time, I was not disappointed.

Image Credit: amazon.com

Growing up in the Deep South, the circumstances and saga of the American Civil war presented to me were occasionally in conflict with the "official" record.  In Alabama, those imparting the story like to emphasize the infringement of government on states' rights, and the travesty that is a federal government taking up arms against those who choose liberty over federal control.  In contrast, most textbooks (which we were taught to read with much skepticism) contest that the war was over the moral issue of slavery.  Monuments have been erected to Abraham Lincoln for preserving the Union and freeing the slaves.  I had thus found a skeptic's middle ground: the South hid the detestable practice of chattel slavery behind cries against federal infringement (a tried and true argument used to defend almost any morally repugnant practice we choose to employ; see segregation and, most recently, immigration), while Lincoln was an opportunist that seized on "freeing the slaves" to justify the violence of a war aimed at preserving the southern agricultural engine essential for sustaining the industrializing North.

According to Seth Grahame-Smith, I am way off.  In fact, the Civil War was contested for one purpose: the eradication of vampires from North America.  In Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Grahame-Smith presents a detailed account of Lincoln's life, based upon Abraham's never-before published journals.


As a child, Lincoln watched his mother succumb to a rapidly-progressing illness, only later to learn that what had been diagnosed as typhoid was actually the workings of a vampire to whom his father had defaulted on a loan.   "Henceforth," declared Abe, "my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose..."
Possessed of legendary strength, stature and ax skills, Lincoln engaged in a lifelong pursuit of eradicating vampires from the burgeoning country.  Grahame-Smith relates the story with consistency and detail, exposing the very real presence of death throughout Lincoln's life, as he lost mother, sister, fiance and children to untimely ends.  He depicts Lincoln as a complex character, filled with the wisdom and drive commonly attributed him, as well as an undying disdain for vampires.  This unique look at American history, and the role played by vampires in that history, provides a fun read.  Should you not have time to pick it up, a movie based on the book is set to release next summer.  If you are not convinced by this review, take a moment to watch the book trailer below.  Recommended.

Alabama's immigration bill's impact on its citizens' daily lives

Here's a great post from The Atlantic associate editor Conor Friedersdorf on the implications the recently passed immigration bill on Alabama citizens' daily lives.  The bill is a great example of conservatives talking out of both sides of their mouths when it comes to the role of government.  It is in times like these I wish the libertarian elements of the Republican party would speak up.

Friday Pick of the Week

For the past ten years, I have had the distinct honor to know one Christopher Barefield.  Bare, as so many know him, is, in short, one of the best friends I have known.  I am endebted to him for a wide range of hobbies, and together we have put thousands of miles on vehicles in chase of various pursuits.  Whether camped out in the Kephart Shelter of the Smoky Mountains, fly fishing Wyoming's Green River, leading a climbing route in Kentucky's Red River Gorge or summiting Washington's Mount Rainier, I have been privileged to his company and thoughtful insights.  More than the adventures, though, I have enjoyed the abounding conversations we have shared.  Whether subjects deep or light, together we have laughed and struggled through life.



Chris and I upon Rainier's Summit


In addition to hobbies, Chris and I have also shared abundant music.  Thus, in honoring him, I have selected a song for the Friday Pick.  We've listened to a lot of music together, so today's choice was difficult.  Should I choose a track by My Morning Jacket?  What about Fleet Foxes?  Perhaps Yonder Mountain String Band's immaculate cover of "Girlfriend is Better?"  How many times has Colby Callait come on the radio and one of us asked to leave it in the name of "waiting for the next song?"

Today, Chris and I will climb into the car for one last road trip, at least for the next little while.  In honor of him, here's a song that has accompanied us many times.  For my money, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon is one of the best albums I have owned.  In a moment of transition, I present to you "Time."  Happy Friday.

Alabama takes on a familiar role in civil rights

Image Credit: Colorlines

It has been nearly 50 years since George Wallace's stand in the schoolhouse door, where the Alabama governor stood at the doorstep of the state's flagship university, "seeking to preserve and maintain the peace and dignity of this State, and the individual freedoms of the citizens thereof," and denied entry to African American students admitted to the school.  Alabama, at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement, often found itself standing on the wrong side of history, not to mention morality, in the name of protecting state's rights, amid a plethora of other excuses.  As we know, the students were ultimately permitted to attend classes, and the segregationist governor ultimately lost his battle to prevent desegregation in Alabama.


The state government, now controlled by the party of Lincoln for the first time since Reconstruction, has again reasserted it's position as the nation's leading opponent to civil rights.  This morning, Robert Bentley signed into law House Bill 56, described as the harshest and most comprehensive state legislation against illegal immigration in the nation.  As reported by Julianne Hing of Colorlines, the law will attack immigrants at almost every level of their existence.  Following Arizona's lead, law enforcement will be required to screen all who are under "reasonable suspicion" of being undocumented.  Hispanic children will require documentation to attend schools, those requiring medical care will be required to present papers and those entering into contracts will not be able to enforce them if they cannot confirm their immigration status.


Alabama lawmakers have chosen to ignore both common sense and real reform in order to send a message to Latinos: don't come to our door.  The draconian provisions will almost certainly never go into effect, as civil rights activists have successfully relied on the federal courts to prevent such measures in other states.  Lawmakers will almost certainly echo Wallace's appeal to state's rights (though none decried the federal government's interventions during tornado recoveries in the state) as we re-live the battles of the 1960s.


And while the vote will certainly appeal to the lawmakers' bases, it will ultimately prove a long-term setback for the state in the face of the changing population.  Republicans across the US are choosing to maximize on the current climate of recession-induced populism at the expense of building relations with the fastest growing ethnic group in the nation.  Instead of choosing to take Utah's lead of a balanced, reasonable law, Alabama has elected to chase out a critical component of the current workforce in the name of promoting jobs for Alabamians.  The promise is false, as the immigrants that will leave are not vacating spots for which other Alabamians are applying.  In the words of Bart Wallace, "(I) hope the state of Alabama lawyers up because they (are) fixing to have a multitude of lawsuits on their hand over this immigration bill."  I wonder where the legal fees will come from in Bentley's spendthrift budget.  Something tells me that even in the face of financial woes, funding will be found.   In the end, Alabama takes another step back, again to the place of leader against civil rights.

Friday Pick of the Week

I first came across Brooke Fraser when I was in her homeland of New Zealand with Rachel this past Christmas. I particularly like this one.