squidbag

Syria, Blowback & Orange Moron

Our Resident Chump is profoundly stupid. I say this not to insult him, but simply to point out simple facts. Our government is being run by a child, and not even a very smart or precocious one; we have traded purple for orange and elected Veruca Salt. As much as I hate the President - and I do, going back to the 1980s - I hate even more what he represents in terms of my fellow citizens, this blind and ridiculous anti-intellectual bullying turn for the worse, the need to wade into the shit and live there, and the continuous participation in our own distractions as we needle and dissect the reactions of a chimp wearing a rug. (Yes, I made 600 things with his quotes in them; what of it?) Mostly, the things he does are designed to get our attention, to pull focus. When they're designed. Sometimes, though, sometimes they're just reactions, like reflexive moves on his part that maybe he doesn't even realize he's done until he's already done them. The thought is the action.

Case in point: Syria. You could make the argument that we've not had really strong foreign policy now from the executive branch since the end of the Cold War, but we've all had long enough to familiarize ourselves with blowback that I thought we all understood it. It's now clear to me that this is not the case. Please go away and read Chalmers Johnson's excellent book, Blowback, and then come back and finish reading this.

I know, right?

So, we're going to get involved in Syria, begin by proffering non-military aid, then get involved militarily against the Syrian government, then kill a bunch of citizens in "surgical strikes" (just what we do) and then, after ramping up our on the ground efforts and seemingly formulating a military plan for going forward and perhaps providing a little bit of a bulwark against the Turks, completely bail out while government forces still hold most of the country and while humanitarian crises are ongoing. And why?Because "We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency." Oh, well, that's all right, then. But wait, Orange Moron, didn't you also just get caught bitching and complaining about European countries decrying our pullout and say that it's their turn to fight ISIS? I thought they were defeated? Maybe they're just Trumpfeated, where you lie about beating someone. Much more expedient than actually beating them. (For the sake of the Resident, "expedient" means "quicker." Okay, "faster." ) Also, didn't we, like a week ago, say that this was a terrible idea, this pullout? And that it would lead to the "slaughter" of many of our allies? I mean, granted, we drone bomb civilians, but doing the numbers, that might be better than a "slaughter." Does anyone remember 1980s Afghanistan, where we trained guys, got their hopes up and then left, and it took them half a generation to raze the World Trade Center to the ground? You know, on 7-11? The Resident knows where he was on 7-11, I can tell you that much. More than anything, I think it's good that we're pulling 2000+ soldiers out of a land in crisis, but leaving more than 5000 at our border with Mexico. That seems important, especially in this time after midterms when the Caravan has ceased to exist and Sessions' prohibitions being contested and so on.

Or we're wagging the fucking dog again. The government shutdown, the new developments in the various investigations and every goddamn rat that bails from this dysfunctional ship of fools, we need to be looking the other way, and a nice fat foreign policy fuckup'll do it every time.

Trumper Villains

So, starting in 2017, I made a bunch of these. I calls them Trumper Villains.

For reasons what I should think would be obvious to people possessed of the standard five and change senses, the idea struck me (and not just me, let's be honest - other folk did variations on this, too, including one fellow who stuck entirely to the Red Skull) to put the words of Resident Chump in the mouths of comic book supervillains, who are, honestly, his inspirations and spirit animals.

I did like, 600+ of these. This one works particularly well, a little known novelty villain known as The Wall, of course, talking about the wall, of course. Perhaps not all of these are as spot on as is this one, but I did dig deep, using Tangerine Scream's tweets, books, quotes from media and his bleak-ass history, such as it is. It's appalling, and I hoped that putting his words into the mouths of super villains would not only give me a creative outlet that I enjoyed (which worked) but also throw his mouthiness into sharp relief, further highlighting the absurdity of thing he said (this worked less well). I underestimated the times in which we were living, and there was just too much bullshit being thrown about and I didn't have a big enough fan. Eventually, my efforts petered out, much like hope and optimism in this country before the giant MAGA Steamroller of Hateful Bile and Ignorance.

But I did this 600+ times first. On the left (if you're on a computer, I don't know how this will work for phones and tablets) there's a photo album down there with the same name as this entry. Go check it out and laugh or cry six hundred or so times in a row. Become exhausted and bemusedly sad. This is being an American now.

Source Material? Aquaman? What?

Aquaman on NPR

I'm getting really tired of shit like this, and in this case, it's NPR who should be fucking ashamed. Take four minutes and listen to this ridiculous air-filler and see if you can figure out what my problem is.

Back? Okay. 

So, after insulting the character, this "examination" of Aquaman begins by letting you know he was created by Mort Weisinger and Paul Norris in 1941. I want you to remember that year, because it's going to come up again later. Also, for those of you playing at home, 1941 is three years after Timely Comics debuted Namor, the Sub-Mariner, who is the only other marine comics character anyone cares about. Anyway, after giving you the quick background that Aquaman is a comic book character, the piece bounces from his cartoon in the 1960s, to the SuperFriends cartoon, to the proto-memes that roamed the dismal valley that was the Interwebs of the 90s to the parodies of things like real memes and Robot Chicken. From there we talk about the HBO show Entourage for awhile and then we jump forward using language as a time machine a full decade to the era of the big superhero film, namely Justice League and now, the eponymous Aquaman. Glen here then sums up with a wishy-washy kind of point about how "the bros won," and what is lost when a character changes so much "in so short a time" by which I think he means 10 to 15 years.

Do you see it yet?

The "point," such as it is, fails to instill what is lost with any meaning. Are we meant to care about the discarding of elements from a character which no longer work when attitudes and mores change? If anything, that's a failure of marketing and commodification, not storytelling. Is it that something inherent to the character is lost during his recent broification? Is he no longer truly Aquaman, is that your point? Your point sucks, Glen. I think you might be a minor fanboy out of his league here. I think you might be someone who has made his collection of things into some kind of badge of authority (despite those big collections I see in the background) without learning anything about a character whose emblem you had inked permanently on your skin. Your piece is a waste of time and space, and it enrages me.

But that's still not the real problem.

The real problem is that your narrative is a complete fiction. You invented an endpoint and then strung together some stuff that happened to make it look like it created that endpoint. The reality is, the Jason Momoa Aquaman we see now is less of a shock to comics readers than it is to people who look at fucking memes because between 1941 and 2018, there was some storytelling happening, some character evolution, even some reflexive referencing of Aquaman's place in the DCU and the joke some people made of his presence, powers and appearance. And you may think that doesn't matter. You may think SEVEN FULL DECADES OF the character's PRIMARY FUCKING MEDIUM in stories doesn't affect this movie version. But let's say there was one good Aquaman story per decade. That's not too much of a fucking stretch, is it? That's seven good Aquaman stories. Seven good stories exceeds the quality output of some successful writers, and is way more than enough to evolve a character. So I think it fucking matters. I think maybe - just maybe - you could not pretend like nothing is happening on the comics page just because you're an ignorant loudmouth dork with a piddly stupid collection. I think you could consider, just consider - shutting your fucking mouth. I hate to go all Dark Fanboy on you, bud, but you failed to respect and so you deserve no respect.

And now look what you made me do, Glen. Defending Aquaman. We can talk about our own, GLEN. You have to earn the deep knowledge, fucking GLEN. Don't walk among us without doing the work, GLEN. You make me physically ill, you poser mouthpiece. This is like Ken Turan, all over again. Or that asshole Tim Hanley.

Three Years

It's been a little over three years since I really wrote stuff on here on a regular basis. I got busy, tired, unmotivated - pick one. Mostly, I blame you. The audience. The reader. The theoretical mass of broad, open faces focused on the the free "content" that I would occasionally fling across this page, like 10,000 drunken Jackson Pollack-inspired monkeys.

Why do I blame the collective you, other than it's simply easier than taking personal responsibility? Here's why. When I would spend days crafting a blog entry with a solid, escalating, logical argument full of insight about something, I would get a couple of reads and likes, and the attention would die down quickly, like an X-rated metaphor. When I would rant silly, like a bolt of driven rage pushing across pixels and filled with invective, my readers would reward me like a banana dispenser in a chimp piloted spacecraft.

Pavlov. You rewarded me for paying less attention and half-assedly throwing my shit at a wall until it stuck interestingly, and discouraged me from craft. To the point that I ceased to craft at all. Your fault.

Not really, though. In the meantime, we've seen the ascension of Twitter, which is a much more efficient way of ranting - so much so that our Least Executive, Resident Chump, uses this as his secondary form of communication, just after his primary form, assaulting people. I can't tell you how disappointed I am - I see the Chump election as my fault, in a way: I was vigilant during the President Monkeyface administration, and we got the Obama years. I take a break from blogging for a scant trio of annums and people from Appalachia team up with the Mercers and elect a reality show dickbag to the fucking White House.

This is why we can't have nice things, America.

So, I'm back. I have probably stuff to talk about. My kids are older, I'm trying to change some stuff, and the new job I posted about is now three years old. America is in the midst of a great Crappening, lots of comic book-related stuff is part of our country's mainstream conversations, and people are still doing that religion thing, so I should have some stuff to address, yeah?

Demons

Reading a book about Kurt Cobain's legacy right now, and I have happened upon a part of it that deals with the recurrent fact that Aberdeen (where he's from) and surrounding small burgs have not wanted to erect statues or name anything after him because "won't somebody think of the children" and "what kind of message does that send about drugs?"

You know, guys - he made music, too.

Why this is relevant right now? Why THIS, of all things (okay, there was also a copyright thing I had to deal with) pulled me out of a three-year break from blogging? Because I feel like there's an obvious parallel to our current series of escalating (or swirling) situations. Should Kurt Cobain's drug use and suicide and poor-decision-making skills fuck up our relationship with his music? I would land in the "decidedly not" camp, where I would prepare Pennyroyal Tea and for any other recent camp arrivals. But is it that easy?

People don't want to watch the Netflix House of Cards because Kevin Spacey's recently been outed as a career Uncle Touchy Rapist Dickhead. Granted, he's a sexual predator, and while his victims have every right and responsibility to speak out, shouldn't his other actions be able to stand on their own? Does this have more to do with what we imagine (him diddling unwilling guys off camera during the production of Se7en) than his actual performances? I think it does. I think he pissed in the pool of his own performances, and now we don't want to get in any more. I don't know if that's fair, and I don't really care if it is or not. Everyone's going to have to deal with this in their own way.

I do NOT think that it is an endorsement of someone's past behaviors to experience their art, though. Unless their behavior kind of fucks up the whole basis upon which you were evaluating them and their output, the two should be able to be separated. Not every act carries every other act with it. Know how I know? Hitler is worse than Jeff Dahmer. You can look it up. He is. Stalin, for some reason, is only worse than Hitler depending upon who you talk to, but at least there's a metric in place there. So, yes - for matters of egregious and inarguable evil, we have matters of degree. We just do. Otherwise, "worst shooting in American history" would be a meaningless fucking phrase. By that same token, it is not necessary to evaluate someone's whole life based on one event.

Let me clarify: Spacey and Weinstein and O'Reilly and the President are obviously sexual predators. They keep doing the same things, over and over again, forcing themselves on others as part of a sexual power dynamic - so, yeah, defining their entire output through gross-tinted glasses is certainly fair, and probably logical. Do that if you see fit. And if you're a victim? Well, you know better than anyone else, so no one's going to tell you what to do. Also - the zeitgeist of people coming forward (blogs say "zeitgeist," it's a thing) to force what one can only hope is a paradigm shift (also "paradigm shift") in the patriarchy (that one's not funny anymore) is ultimately a good thing, so whatever pushes that up the mountain, good on it.

However. One act does not define a person. If it did, Mother Teresa would be only a racist, while Dr. King would be only a philanderer. Gandhi would be only a misogynist, and most American soldiers would simply be hired murderers. By contrast, Charlie Manson would be a musician, Jim Jones a preacher, and Hitler a landscape painter. You could pick one single act of any other kind committed by any of those people and define them by that. "That Gandhi, what a cloth-maker," is simply not a thing that people say. People are all the sum total of all of the things that they do, and we all have to weigh that out. Context is hugely motherfucking important. People who meet me now think I'm both better & worse than people who have known me for a while, because they're working off of a limited data set.

I say all of that to say this: Don't let actors (or anyone else) fuck up your enjoyment of their output. They did a job, that job is done, and it's a separate act from all the other stuff they've done. Learn to ruefully shake your head and appreciate and/or judge things in a full context. This is a part of growing older. You can enjoy NFL football and hate criminality, concussions and morons. You can like Heinlein's writing and acknowledge that he was a fucking terrible human. Everyone's got a hard-on for Agatha Christie again right now, but WOW at the racism in her books. Her mysteries are awesome, but I can see how black people and Indians would categorically turned off by them. I don't let Tim Allen's cocaine-dealing and Republicanism fuck up the Toy Story movies for me, and you shouldn't either. If you can't get around something, fine. We can sympathize. But if someone else can, you probably ought not judge.

NFL-uva A Problem

I don't know if you know this, but when you go on Facebook, take to comments fields and indeed, interject into actual IRL conversations stuff like "Abolish Football," you sound like an ignorant and hypocritical reactionary. I have this on good authority, too - mine.

Those of us who enjoy the game understand as best we're able that you wouldn't miss it - you don't "get" it and you never have, and this is the time of year that you get to feel superior to people who insist on watching a game. You don't "get" football in the same way that I don't "get" fashion, cat videos, reality TV, religion, blueberries and people who "don't read." "Getting" something is often a transcendant and ephemeral experience that is impossible to quantify for someone else. The act of even attempting to explain it renders the explanation useless. This much I understand. I also understand that when a thing is broken, our society conditions us to throw it away rather than fix it, and that this is perhaps not always the wisest or most responsible course of action, no matter what you reflexively fucking opine.

The NFL is indeed horribly broken - the culture of domestic abuse, so long the subject of studies and research, has now been captured in actuality on film and in photos, perpetuated by homunculoid creatures like Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson. The NFL's decade spanning cover up of the long-term affects of concussions and other head injuries to players (as chronicled here and here in League of Denial) was, perhaps, criminal, and certainly immoral. The way the organization inconsistently and laughably "enforces" its own rules - Sean Payton and Bill Belichick, I'm looking at you - erodes any faith the average person has in fair play at a high level. Most teams pay their cheerleaders minimum wage or less - exposure (no pun intended) is meant to be an intangible perk of the job. Insensitivity predominates: the Redskins steadfastly refuse to change their name, and no one's even talking about the Chiefs. To round this out, some quick names from recent history would include Pac-Man Jones, Tank Johnson, Michael Vick, and Plaxico Burress.

Some teams seem to have bigger problems as a franchise than others: Peterson's Vikings had a big rape party on a boat a few years back, but we have short memories, so no one's talking about that anymore, while Rice's Ravens had another famous Ray who may or may not have been a murderer, depending upon who you ask or what might have been in the backseat. Tennessee's Titans had a QB who threw his shoulderpads at fans, and there's also the murder of Steve McNair, shot by his mistress. The beloved Packers had the virulently anti-gay (and possibly racist) Reggie White, and let's not forget (no matter how much he'd like you to) Brett Favre's molestation charges and dick pictures. The Steelers still have a maybe-rapist at QB; the Cowboys have Jerry Jones. I'll just leave that last one for you to consider.

(As a quick aside: those of you upset at the appeal of Ray RIce's suspension? We're mad at the NFLPA, which is the Players' Union, not the NFL itself. Focus. Breathe.)

Teams aren't the league, though, even if the league is ultimately responsible for their (the teams and the players) behavior on some level; if the McFood down the street screws up your EggMac, Big Mickey doesn't care; it's the franchise owner who needs to work out the kinks in the production line, or he gets penalized. The same is true of players - they fuck up and we run to the NFL. Why? Why aren't we mad at the team first? The franchise? The owners and the coaches? Skipping the chain of command is illogical and counterproductive - I don't write the President over potholes.

So the league needs to make changes. Real ones, not whitewashing. Abolishing the NFL, or even football, (aside from getting low marks because of its inherent "never gonna happen" status) seems like a cheap and poorly thought-out workaround from what we really should be doing, which is teaching our (society's) men how to behave. You can't complain that we live in a culture where all the rules for not having rape happen are directed at women instead of the DON'T RAPE PEOPLE rule we should teach all men and everyone, and then let players off the hook for being criminal assholes by abolishing the league. Make the league clean up the mess, make players fix themselves and be accountable or they can all face crippling fines. If they go Chapter 11 because they can't clean up their act, good - but it will take a long time for that to happen, and in the meantime, a lot of women's shelters get funded.

Also: there've been 713 arrests in the last fourteen years of NFL players. Most of those are for domestic violence. In a given season, there are about 1700 active players in the NFL, most of whom are not fucking up. (Since we live in America, the fact that they have not been arrested or indicted means you are obligated to assume that most of them are not fucking up.) On the whole, the NFL employs about 15,000 people per season, directly, and that doesn't count the people who have jobs at various venues, or in any of the other industries associated with American football.

Abolishing the league because a great many - but not most - of the people in it are morally bankrupt man-children is like killing the guys on either side of the one who steps out of line. It's extremist. Is that who we are? If you watch The Simpsons, are you tacitly endorsing Rupert Murdoch & by extension, FoxNews? If you buy a General Motors vehicle, are you okaying potentially fatal cover-ups? If you're a Catholic or Muslim, does that mean you're fine with everything people in those groups do? By living in America, are you saying that you're okay with everything your government does? OF COURSE NOT. You're taking the bad with the good because wrecking the whole system, while sometimes the answer, usually isn't. Punk's great until you want to put out an album.

Replacing Roger Goodell is a sound move - he's a tool. He could probably be replaced with an automated "CYA generator" that just runs on a laptop and spits out hype and half-assed "solutions." He's obviously only concerned about PR (and money), and moves only when it benefits him (with money), so he needs to move on, now - I'd like to see the NFL run by a woman. Not a token figurehead - a woman in actual charge of football, making league changes.

Always Words

It remains to be seen whether we, the human race, are capable of labeling without backloading a lot of assumed or misappropriated content.

"Calling a spade a spade" is one of those manly calls for simplicity and honesty which has its origin in the classical Greek (Plutarch) but that we avoid for the most part because of the history of racism that we can choose - or not - to backload into it. Even this exhortation for honest and brief naming of a thing sidesteps a deeper reflex of many people, which is to assume judgment attached to the naming of something. That is, people attach judgment to the very act of saying, because our words carry the baggage of history.

Indeed, simple labeling is actually a form of judgment, taxonomy is a classification, separation, distinguishing this thing from that. It is a mistake, however, to treat the words and phrases we use in everyday discourse, our everyday speech, with this kind of knife's edge precision, because while scientific classification is meant to be bloodless and free from passion, the things we talk about with each other most certainly are filled with emotion and perspective and personal experience. They have to be, or they wouldn't exist in the first place - or at bare minimum, they'd certainly be skull-bendingly boring.

When someone commits suicide, it creates a ripple of havoc that extends out into the world. In the case of Robin Williams, that ripple is huge, due to the impact of his life on this world of people. Part of the wave of havoc is the emotional reaction of the survivors, whose reactions are complicated. It'd be great, by comparison, if people were just "sad." That would be so much easier to deal with. But that's not how people work. Packed into the hole in your guts created by the tragic news of loss is a bunch of anger, confusion, guilt, and a desire to learn from the experience coupled with a sense of futility that as much as you'd like for no one to ever do this thing again, people are going to keep doing it.

So, then - taking a douche newsanchor to task for calling Robin a coward? He's a newsguy and should know better, but is suicide a cowardly act? To say that it isn't - ever - infers that choosing to live isn't braver than not choosing that, and I'd like to think that choosing living takes a hell of a lot more guts than choosing not to. By contrast, then, and in this context, suicide is a cowardly act. Labeling someone a coward over one act does not make sense, but calling the act what it is, again, in this context, is not inappropriate. We're angry with Robin for removing himself from our lives - people say dumb stuff when they're angry - it's just possible that the CNN guy needs to be cut some slack.

Neither is labeling the act "selfish" a completely wrong thing to do - suicide is, I believe, an inherently selfish act. Loading judgment into that word is the problem. Why do we have a problem calling the act of suicide selfish when it is entirely concerned with the self? Whether a person is capable or not of thinking of others at that moment does not enter into it; it is a self-centered act. Labeling the whole person selfish, or even the baseline connotative assumption that selfishness is always bad - these are what get us into trouble. Taking time for myself is selfish - taking too much time or all of the time would make me a selfish person. The rule of excess is important to remember. There's nothing wrong with sex or cheesecake - it's too much of either that lead to problems.

We invariably cast blame, and it is easy to blame the depressed person who killed themselves without acknowledging (as such knowledge was once thrust upon me) that depression changes brain chemistry and thus perception, and so the person who killed themselves may not have been looking at things in a way that non-depressed person - or perhaps even, any other person - can fully comprehend. You can't get inside someone's head, and you probably wouldn't want to. This is the thrust of the world filling up with "depression is a monster"-type articles. We need reminding.

It's also easy to blame others, but at the end of the day, if someone wants to kill themselves, they will, unless you rob them of their freedom, and even then, people find ways. The blame here is pointless. The best that we can do as the group left behind is engage in the previously mentioned exercise in futility - knowing that it will happen again, always, but trying your best to not have it happen once in a while. Those are called victories, because those individual people keep going, and that is a success.

To end, then: Robin Williams was an important part of my late-Middle and early High School existence. While my first memories of him are as Mork, obviously, he was in and out of my awareness until I got my hands on a VHS copy of A Night at the Met. I was amazed when I got it because Robin went from being goofy to being wise and livewire comedy genius in one hour. I must have played that tape hundreds of times, putting in my VCR and turn my TV's black levels up and falling asleep to just the soundtrack. Like a lot of people, I loved Good Morning, Vietnam, the Fisher King, One Hour Photo, his Genie & Fender the robot, and a bunch of other stuff, but A Night at the Met will always be Robin Williams for me.

Firework Honesty

I think I should be allowed to work with fireworks companies on warning language and names for products:

"Warning: Use of this explosive as finale will lead to laughter from neighbors."

"Your Guess is as good as Ours."

"Appears to be dud; isn't."

"Potential Freddy Krueger Face Within."

"Advisory: Fizzles and Pops Unimpressively."

"Drinking+Fireworks=Fun!"

"Scatters Ash over Neighborhood Indiscriminately."

"Best when combined with corn syrup and fertilizer."

"Firework will smoke like a punk for 5 minutes, then explode when no one is looking."

"Fun Increased by Tying Fuses Together."

"Place face DIRECTLY Over Firework when Lighting."

"Explosives are a great segue."

"Remember to light in populated areas at least two days before appropriate holiday."

"Designed to vanish over neighborhood treeline."

"Irrevocably marks paint, skin, hair, siding, concrete, wallets."

"Roman Candles can be held in mouth."

"Warning: Never Goes Out."

"Good luck, sucker."

NAMES:

Loud Global Imperialism

'Splode.

The Unexpected

Dog Frightener

Wakey-Wakey Baby!

Just Pointless Smoke

Just Annoying Sounds

Whoops

The Second Coming

Human Torch

The Flamer

Ouch, #4

SkyScream

From Last Year

Mrs. O'Leary's Cow

James Brown at the Apollo 11

Rain of Voodoo Hellfire

Flak

Flaming Eagle Vomit

OK Corral

Sudden Blindness

Pyromaniac Disappointment

ThunderFist

Bitch Cassidy

Immediate Traumatic Stress Disorder

The Wolf Blitzer

The Sol Rosenberg

The Katy Perry

Scorched Earth

Autism Trigger

Death from Below

Ignored Safety Warning

WHAT?!?

Retinal Damage

Quintet of Similar Bang Sounds

Diminishing Returns

Driveway Scorcher

Neck Cricker

Oh, Shit.

Random BOOMS!

Seizure Inducer

Pull Up G-12

Enough Purple Fucking Sparks

Prolonged Golden Showers

Explodey Fishies

Nub Maker

Drunken Freedom Happening

Hate not Heritage

Cock Rocket Happy

Cheap Chinese Import

Run, You Moron

Goodtime American Fortune Blaster

Is That What It Does?

Send My Friend to Africa

This is Whitney. And Tanzania. We're trying to get them together.

As I sit here eating mango, my good friend, Whitney Flatt, who has helped with my mental health on more than one occasion, and who is, in all likelihood, one of the most giving people you will ever meet, should you be damned lucky enough to actually meet her, is trying to scratch together enough - well, scratch, to finance a trip to Tanzania, where she will speak Swahili, help those in need, and escape elephants. This is what I have pictured, anyway.

How can you contribute money and not read the rest of this entry? Well, you can click your happy ass on over to her project website at 2Seeds, throw in, and move on. But you'd miss your chance to read her answers to your collective theoretical questions about her journey:

Hey, Whitney - where the heck are you going?

I will live in a small village in the Usambara Mountains just outside the city of Korogwe, Tanzania. I will be a part of what is called The Bungu Project, a project that works in most host village and adjacent villages to diversify crop output and improve market access.

Who are you working for? Who's putting this thing together?

The 2Seeds Network, and despite the number "2" in their actual name, the artist currently known as Prince is not affiliated with their work. Wish he was, though - that guy's got deep pockets.

Okay, so what are you up to over there?

My official title is “Project Coordinator,” and for the last five years, Project Coordinators from 2Seeds have been partnering with 8 different villages around Korogwe. Our goal is to undertake agricultural and market initiatives that will foster human capital development. All that fancy lingo aside, our goal is to help people live the best lives they can possibly live, ascending from the confines of poverty.

As a Project Coordinator, I will not only plant and harvest crops with these partners, but I will also provide micro-loans for projects as well as help teach basic management skills, helping my partners run their own profit and loss sheets for agricultural/market initiatives. A lot of times in development work, the old adage of “teach a man to fish” versus “giving a man a fish” has been tossed around to describe how development should work. But 2Seeds doesn’t believe that our partners are inept or that they are incapable of knowing how to properly farm their own land. They simply don’t have the capital to invest in their land and/or take risks. So my role isn’t to teach a man how to fish; my role is to be there when he desires to buy the line, the hook, and the bait and to help him consume/market his catch in such a way that helps him move from subsistence farmer to one that makes a profit and removes himself from the cycle of poverty.

So, what; there's no actual fish involved?

No.

Okay, how much dough do you need?

$8,000. This includes everything from my living expenses to agricultural initiatives we’ll undertake in my village. Any amount that anyone can throw into the hat would be great, though - even if I get a whole crowd of people at just a few dollars each, there's some matching funds to be had, so in this case, every little bit does really, truly help.

How long are you going to be gone? 12 months, August 11, 2014 to approximately July 15, 2015.

Do you really have to learn Swahili before you go?

Yes.

Really?

Yes. There’s minimal English spoken in my rural village.

Last but not least, why should anyone give you money?

You get to become a partner in something amazing and help people live up to their fullest economic potential. Plus, people always complain that they never know how their money is being used when they give to charitable organizations. But when you donate to my project, you literally become a partner in my village. I am accountable to each of my partners and will give you updates every 6 months on how your funds are being utilized.

Convinced yet? It's so easy to donate to this project at this link, that you could have done it while you were thinking about doing it. Here again, too - ANY amount. Chuck a buck in the bucket, and if she racks up a bunch of folks, it's a good thing. And you know, if you've got more than a buck, she'd like to see that, too. Ask for more details. Ask for emails in Swahili. Tell your friends, family, foodie acquaintances, and your rich uncle. She's a little less than a quarter of the way to eight grand, and I think we should show her what anonymous strangers who claim to care about other groups of anonymous strangers can do while sitting on their asses at computers.

Don't you?

Abby is Eight

On the 24th, my daughter Abby turned eight.

To celebrate, she requested a "luau." Her internal definition of this was quite loose and involved fish, leis, pineapple, grass skirts, torches and music. The genesis of this was the end of the school year LAST year, when the class had a luau of sorts to send off the year. Apparently, she needed to make it her own badly enough that she hung onto it for a year.

I hung netting and bought pineapple, made mix disks and invited a bunch of girls over to bash the hell out of a Tiki head pinata in my front yard, infuriating the ill-behaved nextdoor neighbor girl who was pointedly not invited. There was playing in water, dancing, numerous ad hoc congaesque line dance-marching, making torches out of construction and tissue paper, and many Abby-chosen party foods like black olives, wasabi peas, beef jerky and multi-colored Goldfish. The girls crashed in the living room after midnight after watching (and singing along with) Frozen, which, I grant you, is perhaps an odd choice for a luau-themed event.

The following day, her actual birthday, she never made it out of PJs. They had a Wake 'n' cake 'n' bacon breakfast, followed by present opening and playing around until folks went home. She requested Chinese take out late in the day and spent relaxing time playing with her new My Little Pony and Lego toys, among others.

At eight, she is mercurial. She wakes up in a good mood and goes to bed grumpy. She loves and is fiercely loyal to her family and friends and quick to stick up for an underdog or smaller person. She likes to race my car to the stop sign in the mornings after I drop her with her walking partners, and thinks it's stupid that she has to ride in the back while still kind of wanting to keep her car seat. She hates when you won't listen. She is easily flustered by choice situations, especially when they are arbitrary. The other day she openly wept at the ZZ Ward song "Last Love Song," which is admittedly sad. She's excited about learning to REALLY ride her bike and her backstroke back this Summer. According to data collected by her mom this morning, she's on track to be about 6'1" when she's finished growing into her feet and legs. She generally has fewer bruises than she used to, but that's because she's getting better at stuff. She still needs to be tucked in every night, and listens to the same mix CD she's had for about a year.

Happy Eighth, Abby.