The Cowtown Chronicles

Thanks to all our friends and neighbors who came out to buy our stuff this weekend. The proceeds from the sale will go to pay for gas and food on the trip north.

And just as suddenly, good bye! We’re moving to Alaska next week.

I have been feeling a need to write again, maybe because I’ve been rationing my ADD meds. Whatever the reason, I hope to be posting more stuff here. I’ve missed the outlet.

Watch for photos from our trip to AK on here, as well.

Jenna and I had an interesting discussion today about art as an existential concept.

We agreed that we both felt like while we could appreciate art for art’s sake, that we both felt like it was much more fulfilling to enjoy something practical and useful that’s also beautiful and “artistic.” I suppose that’s what draws us both so strongly to the Arts and Crafts movement and to early mid-century modernism. Both focused on the purity of the object as the basis for its beauty.

I’ve been thinking about art a lot lately, or perhaps less “art” as the concept is widely understood, but really thinking about Craft as something distinct but necessary for art.

This is probably because of all of the baking I’ve been doing lately, something that I’ve discovered is just as much craft as it is science and following recipes. In baking I’ve found something that I really enjoy doing that really makes me feel good both while doing it and because of what I’ve created. Few things in my life have made me feel as good as being complimented on something nourishing and delicious that I’ve made.

For a long time I’ve felt like I wanted to have a skill or a trade. Something like woodworking or blacksmithing that involves strength tempered with finesse and attention to detail. I decide that I’m going to find someone to apprentice with and try to go out into the world to earn my living as a craftsman. Then all of the typical self-doubt happens, where I question how I’m going to sell my work, how I’ll support myself while I’m learning, and so on. I have boundless admiration and respect for the people who’ve managed to ignore those things and gone out and just done whatever it is they’re passionate about.

I mean, duh! It’s because they dress all slutty and stuff. If they would only dress more modestly, they’d be “…individuals worthy of deep-seated respect and honor from men.”

Or at least that’s what Deliverance Bible Church’s pastor opined in Wednesday’s TCU Daily Skiff.

Here’s the interesting bit — Pastor Weatherford preaches for/at a church that not only accepts, but RELISHES being so-called “outcasts,” (which, based on the pictures on their website, means the tattooed/pierced/all-black-clothed/mullet/mohawk/punk/hot-rod crowd, not ACTUAL outcasts like orphans/immigrants/the poor/lepers/AIDS patients/non-white people). I’m sure he’s experienced his fair share of being judged based on his appearance by his peers in the evangelical community, yet he has no qualms about doing the exact same thing to 54% of his fellow students at TCU.

My favorite part is where he pulls the old “I’m rubber, you’re glue” trick and blames his own issues with lust and “impure” thoughts on the women (or rather the bodies of the women) he’s lusting about and objectifying. Then he brings it full-circle and blames the fact that he even needs to school us on this topic on the women’s liberation movement; the go-to bogey-uhhh-”person” for evangelicals caught in a vexing moral quandary about women.

Is this really the school of thought in mainstream churches, or is Weatherford’s column just a particularly egregious example of the tortured logic evangelicals will go to to justify their continued attempts to subjugate women?

Note: I linked to the TCU Chapter of the Tri-Delta sorority for illustration purposes only — I am in no way implying that these young women are dressed or behave in a “slutty” manner. I merely wanted to give an example of how the typical female student at TCU dresses, which I thought was nicely illustrated on that page. Maybe the average female TCU student doesn’t bend over quite so much when they’re in a group photo, but I think you get the point.

I regularly read Penelope Trunk’s blog — probably more for the entertainment and stream-of-consciousness writing than for actual business advice.

The article she posted today, though, motivated me to comment, which I normally don’t do. Unfortunately my comment is being held in a SPAM or profanity filter (sorry mom), not because I cursed out Penelope, but because I used my usual salty language to describe what the business community is doing to itself.

Essentially my thought is this:

How can any rational person look at our economy/business climate — where it’s not only okay, but widely expected and encouraged, for companies to not pay for services they’ve received — and think that this is healthy or good?

I don’t blame Penelope for doing what she had to do to keep her company and family solvent. I can’t say that I exactly blame the investor who gave her the money with the requirement that it not be used to pay back debt.

I DO blame the business community in general for their complete and utter disregard for honesty and fair dealing with other people. The (real or imagined) expectation of double-digit growth every quarter is causing people to completely lose their minds. Companies cut corners and build unsafe (or minimally functional) products, they cut support staff for those products, pissing off their customers, they cut pay and benefits for their employees, all so they can report that they’ve beat their estimate for the quarter to please some institutional investor to whom the company is just a 3-letter abbreviation and a share price. It’s bullshit, it’s wrong, and until that behavior stops, we’re going to continue the death spiral our economy and country is in.

The not only knowledge, but EXPECTATION, that startups screw vendors over all the time is infuriating to me. I thought the gold-rush, grow exponentially, expand-expand-expand days were over? What happened to slow, responsible, sustainable growth?

The knowledge that I can expect to be treated this way is one of the main reasons I’m so fearful of becoming a freelance anything. How can I willingly risk everything I have creating a new business if I can’t count on the people who contract for my services to pay me? They expect to be paid for the services or products that they provide, right?

Well, really I think it’s more than a bit full of itself, but I do appreciate and respect its position as a(the?) premier world city.

I also LOVE the NY Times. I read it as often as I can. Lately that’s been pretty often due to the student readership program at TCU — which puts stacks of The Gray Lady in bins all over campus, free for the taking.

Imagine my surprise today when “all the news that’s fit to print” included an op-ed on Judge Sharon Keller, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals judge who refused to keep her clerk’s office open an extra 20 minutes to allow a death row inmate’s legal team to file new motions based on a pending Supreme Court review of lethal injection.

Okay, so what? The good, Christian, peaceful, other-cheek-turning people of Texas ritualistically kill retards and foreigners on the taxpayer’s dime all the time — why is this worthy of an opinion piece by the Editorial Board of the NY Times?

It’s news because Fort Worth State Representative Lon Burnam has filed a resolution to impeach Judge Keller for “…gross neglect of duty and conducting her official duties with willful disregard for human life.”

Good on ya, Lon, for calling for an investigation into this Judge’s actions. As the opinion piece in the Times says, if the facts of the matter are as the condemned man’s lawyers have said, then Judge Keller should be removed from office, relieved of her state retirement benefits and disbarred. (Maybe even tried for negligent homicide? I’m sure there are legal indemnifications for judges acting in their official capacity, even if they’re acting improperly.)

If the allegations are false and the attorneys just didn’t get their paperwork done in time without talking to anyone at the court, then no harm, no foul, and Judge Keller keeps her job, etc., and we can let the voters decide in 2012 if she gets to come back.

Oddly enough, I also read the S-T today. I usually stay off the opinion page, because the letters to the editor are usually so stereotypically “White Bible-Belt ‘Conservative’ Texan” as to be embarrassing for the rest of y’all. One of the letters, predictably, calls for Rep. Burnam to “…go do the job he was elected to do and let the judges run the courts.” Well, Mr. Walter Degner of Arlington, perhaps you should go back and read that trivial slip of paper called The Constitution. Each branch of government exercises some degree of oversight and control of the other — Mr. Burnam is doing EXACTLY the job he was elected to do, and should be applauded for that.

Yep, that’s General David Petraeus (captured via iPhone on my TV) right here in Fort Worth. Sorry you missed the game now?

If there was ever any doubt about Obama being the “change” president, this should erase all of it.

Rick Warren To Give Invocation At The Inauguration; John Williams, Aretha, Yo-Yo MA, I. Perlman, Too – Marc Ambinder.

Semper Fi, everyone! If you’re “over there,” keep your head down and come home safe.

- Sgt. Pete
USMC (Fmr)

My friends know that I’m kind of a curmudgeon when it comes to sports, especially professional sports. There’s really no reason for it besides that I just don’t feel like because someone has the genetic gifts and dedication to eventually get paid outrageous amounts of money to play a game, that they then qualify as a “hero.” I know, it’s petty and sounds bitter, but that’s pretty much it.

Every once in a while, I see something that demonstrates that there’s some truth behind all of the BS that high-school coaches spout about teamwork and sportsmanship. Here’s the latest example. (Why is it that so many of the inspirational sports stories we see these days are coming from college women athletes? More evidence that the men are just in it for the money and glory?)

(Thanks, Victoria!)