You are out there
a child of my own generation
We didn’t listen to music together
But we found it together and pumped our fists
Then goosebumps, heartbeats and headshakes
The Insanity of the 24 Hour News Cycle
For the last 12 hours I’ve been stuck in Chicago O’Hare Airport. I’ve been here since 4am. This unfortunate situation subjects me to some difficult conditions. For one thing, it’s freezing in here. It’s the middle of the summer, but I’ve been cold all day.
Another troubling issue is the contestant stream of CNN reporting pulsing out of the ceiling speakers. The news reports, rather than relaying important fact about notable happenings, in an indifferent fasion, they repeat emotionally incendiary questions, over and over again.
“Should this constitution be changed to prevent children of illegal immigrants from gaining citizenship?”.”XXXX congressman thinks so….”
“why did a beer truck driver go on a rampage and kill his coworkers?” “some say race is a factor”
“should a mosque be built on ground zero?” “some say it disrespects the memory of those killed”
Etc, etc.
I been hearing these questions on repeat for the last 12 hours. CNN isn’t helping me answer the questions. they aren’t helping understand the dynamics of the situation. They just keep arousing emotions with the pictures and the questions. I’ve been forced to tuned it out with sudoku and music.
I imagine the only thing worse than being forced to watch CNN (or any major news network) for more than half an hour would be actually working inside the studio that produces this stream of drama. Imagine being forced to wear a pound of makeup a day. then image repeating those questions at least 20 times in dramatic fashion. And instead of considering the issues personally and formulating questions so you can understand the issue or at least give each issue the proper respect, you reduce every story to, “Is Justin Beiber too young to publish a memior?” “Xxxx doest think so…. Let’s hear him rant and rave about it so that we all get worked up emotionally and do nothing in response”. Repeat for infinity while replacing Justin Beiber with celebrities, criminals, politicians of choice. And replace the question “too young to write a memior?” with any question related to terrorism, sex or race. Terrifying.
Stripped and Savvy: Church Rob Bell Style
Matthew Halbe
Biographical Essay
3/24/09
Stripped and Savvy: Church Rob Bell Style
By American University standards, Rob Bell wouldn’t be considered radical. He dresses in stylish, minimalist clothing and wears black, square framed prescription lenses. He’s a Christian pastor, which is a unique career choice by any standards but in his sermons to the church he founded in Grand Rapids, he spends time talking about global inequity, environmental hazards, micro loan programs and fresh water initiatives. When I attended a service there a couple of weeks ago, he played “Dirt off Your Shoulder” by Jay-Z as a teaching aid for the book of Lamentations in the Bible. That’s not radical by AU student standards. In order to understand his role as a resister you have to step into the world of Evangelical Christianity.
The term “Evangelical” is a catch-all for popular Protestant Christianity in America. Evangelicals tend to be associated with the norm because they are constantly engaged in getting the word out, or evangelizing. They have a highest profile because they produce the most well known TV shows and books. And they draw the largest crowds. The Evangelical Church’s most famous parishioners are Billy Graham, Rick Warren, Max Lucado, Philip Yancey, Charles Colson, James Dobson and George W Bush. These individuals, and the Churches and political causes they represent create the closest thing we have to a norm of protestant Christianity in the United States.
In addition to being a set of political or spiritual beliefs, Evangelicalism is a vast culture of music, books, TV shows, rock concert worship services and celebrity preachers. In the United States, national chain stores exist to distribute and deliverer this material. Often times, media products found at these stores bear strange similarities to secular culture equivalents. For example, instead of buying a Superman costume on Halloween, the Christian parent can buy a “Bible-man” costume, complete with cape and mask. For a teenage girl, they can buy an album of the N’Sync equivalent boy-band Plus One. In creating alternative material of scrubbed vulgarity, sexual immorality and violence, Christians in the US have created an alternate culture full of norms and standards that are not directly tied to one denomination, creed or leader but fall under the vapid, catch-all, “Evangelical.” The norms exist. And they are defined primarily from the loudest voices and most inclusive group inside the church, Evangelicals.
Rob Bell has an odd place in this culture. In one sense he conforms to the norm. He is a celebrity preacher. His video series, Nooma (Greek word for spirit) is distributed nationally and shown at Churches across the country. He has numerous best selling books. And about 10,000 people attend the weekly gatherings at his church. He has credibility with the Protestant, Evangelical leaders and parishioners that buy his books and movies–much in the same way that Rick Warren does. But, contrary to the norm, he has achieved this level of influence in a way that has challenged the existing structures of the American Christian community. He changes the norm that says, a good Christian should only consume media that that is sold at Christian bookstores. He rejects the consumer-based model of Church, which is known for its 10-step programs and its multi-million dollar facilities. And he resists the norm that says a Christian can only associate with social causes that are explicitly Christian-Mission oriented, thus enabling him to endorse secular micro-loan programs and fresh water initiatives in the Third World that focus on material need.
The first and most evident strain of resistance in Rob Bells teaching is his embrace of secular culture. As I mentioned before, he uses Jay-Z as a teaching aid which contains all the vulgarity and sexual immortality that is shunned at the Christian bookstore. He explains in his first book Velvet Elvis, that one of his goals when starting the Church was capture the rawness of some of his favorite bands like the Pixies, Talking Heads, Violent Femmes and Midnight Oil (Bell 98). Drawing inspiration from these secular sources scares some Christians because it challenges the belief that in order to effectively reach the lost, a Christian has to be separated form the corrupting influence of the culture.
I grew up in what might be labeled as “the Evangelical world.” I was taught that I should memorize Bible verses, avoid sin and sin-inspiring music, movies and books. This way, as a Christian, I could present my life as an example to non-believers. The culture was seen as something that should be to be avoided. To live in the culture was to be indistinguishable as a Christian; someone that’s saved but doesn’t act saved. The approved forms of media were drained of their most attractive qualities. They take the nihilism out of punk and the vulgarity out of hip-hop and slap on the Christian title; thus persevering the otherness implicit in the “saved” life. This is just one view that is prevalent in the evangelical community. Bell takes a different approach to the role of media in the functioning “saved” life. He challenges the claim that media, bought, sold and consumed under heading of “Christian” is spiritually uplifting by default. And secular culture is implicitly harmful to the spiritual life—or at least neutral.
In Velvet Elvis he explicitly names a moment when a “non-Christian” source helped him to in his spiritual journey. “I remember the first time I was truly in awe of God. I was caught up for the first time in my life in something so massive and loving and transcendent and… true. Something I was sure could be trusted. I specifically remember thinking the universe was safe, in spite of all the horrible, tragic things in the world. I remember being overwhelmed with the word true. Underneath it all life is somehow…good…and I was sixteen at a U2 concert. The Joshua Tree tour. When they started to play “Where the Streets Have No Name”, I thought I was going to spontaneously combust with joy. This was real. This mattered. Whatever it was, I wanted more.” (Bell 72). He mentions other similar transcendental moments surfing and playing with his kids. Then he says, “These moments can’t be tangent. They can’t be experience that detract form the ‘real faith.’” (Bell 74). Some evangelical churches would call U2 a detraction from the faith. When he admits that he had a spiritual experience at a U2 concert, he’s not pretending to be removed from popular culture. He is in it, experiencing it. Many evangelicals would say this undermines a foundational idea, that in order to evangelize the individual and the church have to be removed from the culture.
The second strain of resistance is the stripped down quality of Bell’s Church. It is intentionally minimalist in an era when elaborate churches mark the landscape. It’s so stripped down that it’s hard to find. During my recent trip to Grand Rapids I drove past the building three or four times until I found it. You’d expect a church of 10,000 people to have billboards on the highway leading the way. There were no giant signs, just a sticker on the door of a remodeled shopping center that looked something like this:
“Mars Hill Bible Church
Sunday Gathering: 9AM 11AM”
The Mega-Church consumer style model tends to stress bigness, convenience and personal preference. Sadly, the same discontentment American’s have with material belongings is mirrored with the discontentment with Church. Stephen Ellingson, in his book Mega Church and the Mainline, describes the mega-church trend in this way, “Evangelicalism and the church growth movement speak in language of business and the shopping mall, of individual choice and experience, and of expedient efficiency and, in so doing, make their version of Protestantism familiar, relevant, and appealing to Americans whose daily lives are organized by the codes of individualism and the marketplace” (180). To create this palatable version of Christianity, Churches hire Evangelical consultants in the same way that business hire advertising consultants. As a response to the mega-church trend of Church growth, Bell says “The thought of the word Church and the word marketing in the same sentence makes me sick” (Bell 99). Maybe this is why his church is so hard to find.
The aforementioned differences in Bell’s church are relatively superficial. The Protestant Church is accustomed to changes in the way it looks and engages with culture. Protestantism was founded by a resistor in Martin Luther. The Church currently undergoes changes in every new Protestant Church which is founded, not just with Bell’s church. The more contentions differences between Bell and popular Christianity surrounds his views of explicitly theological issues, like the role of the Bible in the life of the believer, the nature of salvation and the usefulness of secular social programs. Its within these discussion where the real differences emerge.
Bell’s describes his foundational beliefs by analogy in Velvet Elvis. He compares the life of faith to jumping on a trampoline. He and son love jumping on the trampoline. And apparently, Bell loves living the Christian life. He explains that he’d much rather invite people to enjoy the experience joy of jumping on the trampoline than engage in a conversation about the physics behind springs. In the same way, he’d rather invite people on the experiential journey of Christian spirituality than get weighed down talking about doctrine. Springs are the doctrinal issues of Christianity concerning the Bible, Salvation, and the law which are subject to constant dispute.
His experience oriented idea of faith is appealing because there is a common perception that Christianity requires believing a set of beliefs in order to secure a blissful existence in the afterlife. In this thinking, when the required-beliefs conflict with the individually held beliefs it naturally excludes people from participation and membership into the Church. Bell presents a different picture. He says, essentially that, Christianity is a process of doing as Jesus did: healing the sick, feeding the poor, loving God and loving others. Correct doctrine helps this process along, just like the springs help jumping but they aren’t the point. Bell shifts the focus away from contentious arguments about salvation toward the experiential process of the Christian life.
Some leaders accuse Bell of ignoring clear teachings of the Bible. They see his verbiage as desire to avoid conflict on the exterior, but underneath, it is actually a preference for the popular secular post-modern culture. Scot McKnight of Christianity Today describes the suspicion of post modern Christianity this way:
It is said that emerging Christians confess their faith like mainliners — meaning they say things publicly they don’t really believe. They drink like Southern Baptists — meaning, to adapt some words from Mark Twain, they are teetotalers when it is judicious. They talk like Catholics — meaning they cuss and use naughty words. They evangelize and theologize like the Reformed — meaning they rarely evangelize, yet theologize all the time. They worship like charismatics — meaning with their whole bodies, some parts tattooed. They vote like Episcopalians— meaning they eat, drink, and sleep on their left side. And, they deny the truth — meaning they’ve got a latte-soaked copy of Derrida in their smoke- and beer-stained backpacks.
Many serious Christians are deeply concerned about the perceived negative effects of homosexual marriage amendments and legalized abortion. In political debates that depend on taking a clear stand, Bell refuses to give one. He is not using his popularity and influence to effect the law, rather, he avoids talking about it all together. This makes some Christians resentful and suspicious.
The tension is further magnified by Bell’s association with the controversial leader of the post-modern, “emergent” view of Biblical interpretation, Brian McLaren who is frequently the subject of attack by conservative evangelicals for the supposed weak view of scripture outlined in his many books. The emergent movement is characterized by a move away from modern forms of Biblical interpretation involving systematic theology to a post-modern view of the Bible which asserts that the entirety of Biblical knowledge cannot be known, summarized or embodied by one interpretation.
In an often cited article in Christianity Today title “The Emergent Mystique”, Kristen Bell (Rob’s wife) was quoted as saying that McLaren’s book New Kind of Christian was their “lifeboat” for escaping suffocating Biblical fundamentalism. This disclosure and the attention this article received implicates Bell in the emergent movement even if he doesn’t use it as a personal or communal title. Using the subtle implications of Bell’s association with McLaren, attacks on emergent churches and specifically McLaren are sometimes backdoor ways of criticizing Bell.
Take for example what a well-known conservative evangelical John Macarthur had to say in a sermon dedicated to debunking the emergent church, “The emerging church movement is an amorphous sort of loose knit association of Churches that have decided that there is value…there is even virtue in uncertainty about Scripture. The bottom-line in the movement is they believe that we aren’t even suppose to understand what the Bible means. And to me, that’s a big issue. Its an attack on the clarity of the scripture. And they elevate themselves as if this is some noble reality” (Macarthur).
Now compare that with the frequently repeated line of Bell’s in books and interviews: “Being a Christian is more about celebrating mystery than conquering it.” (Bell 34). In Velvet Elvis, he goes on to talk about the impossibility of the unbiased perspective, “the idea that everybody else approaches the Bible with baggage and agendas and lenses and I don’t is the ultimate in arrogance. To think that I can just read the Bible without reading any of my own culture or background or issues into it and come out with a “pure” or “exact” meaning is not only untrue, but it leads to a very destructive reading of the Bible that robs it of its life and energy.” At the heart of these two quotes–essentially two pastors accusing each other of having arrogant and destructive views regarding the Bible– is the debate about what it means to be a Christian. Its been raging for hundreds of years. Conservatives accuse McLaren and Bell of hiding behind post-modern arguments so that they can ignore clear and binding principles of the Bible, especially related to homosexuality and the salvation of non-Christians. And the loosely titled Emergents accuse the conservatives of toxic fundamentalism that robs faith of joy, vitality and relevance.
Perhaps the most salient line of argument against Bells theology comes from Dallas Willard in his book, The Divine Conspiracy. He doesn’t name Bell specifically. Bell’s church didn’t even exist in 1997 when the book was published. But He describes a period of time in the 1960s when advocating for the rights of African Americans was the social ethic of day. The National Council of Churches (NCC) actively adopted a policy of direct participation. This is similar to the way Bell has endorsed micro-loans and fresh water programs. Willard claims is that engaging in social causes minimized the effectiveness of the gospel for personal transformation and replaced it with the experience process of marching behind charismatic leaders. The problem is not that the causes are not worthy, but rather, the force behind them is not rooted in Christianity. The Christian message gets transformed into something its not. Willard describes this processes, “To be committed to the oppressed, to liberation, or just to “community” became for many the whole of what is essential to Christian commitment. The gospel, or “good news,” on this view, was that God himself stood behind liberation, equality, and community; that Jesus died to promote them, or at least sake of them; and that he lives on in all efforts and tendencies favoring them. For the theological left, simply this became the message of Christ” (Willard 51). This type of social ethic goes against the traditional Christianity because the exclusiveness of the gospel is seen as oppressive force that has to be overcome. Christian spirituality that focuses on the transformational power of the resurrected Christ is trivialized by non religious movements.
Bell has always resisted the claim that he ignores the authority of the scriptures. Or that he trivializes the role of resurrected Christ. In his mind, he is a bible teacher and Christ follower. Scripture is central to the life of a believer. And he is actively trying to live as Christ would want. He interprets this to mean focusing more on the Biblical imperatives related to serving the poor than legal restrictions against homosexuality and abortion. To him, following Christ means working with secular organizations to elevating global poverty, the eradication of environmentally harmful consumer practices. His feels entitled to take liberties in regard to music, books and movies. And he avoids talking about abortion and homosexuality altogether. He explicitly rejects the prevalent mega-church model in the United States. Weather or not this version of Christianity lines up with the essence of Christ’s teaching in our contemporary culture, is a discussion rages on and its certainly not going to get adjudicated by me.
Works Cited
Bell, Rob. Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005.
Ellingson, Stephen. The MegaChruch and the Mainline. Chicago IL, University of Chicago Press: 2007.
Macarthur, John. “The Emerging Chruch Movement Faculty Lecture Series.” Podcast. Masters Seminary. 24 January 2006. 06 March 2009. < http://audio.tms.edu/ downloads/01_24_2006_John_MacArthur_Emerging_Church_Movement.mp3 >.
Crouch, Andy. “The Emergent Mystique” Christianity Today. 01 November 2004. 06 March 2009 <http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/ 2004/november/12.36.html>.
Willard, Dallas. The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God. San Fransicso CA: Harper, 1997
McKnight, Scot. “Five Streams of the Emerging Church” Christianity Today. February 2007: 35-37.
LSD! (Important Info for All You Hippies Out There)
I was organizing all the documents on my computer and I came across a paper I wrote last year about LSD. I enjoyed reading it again. I figured I’d post it on here for the world to enjoy. I got most of my information from a book called Licit and Illicit Drugs By Edward Brecher. If you ever want to learn about the science, history or psychology of popular drugs, be it caffeine or heroin, it’s a good book to consult. Its very accessible, not daunting at all. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
But without further ado….Here’s my LSD paper.
Matthew Halbe
College Writing
29 November 2008
LSD Tripping
Illicit drugs have a powerful appeal. They are a quick and powerful release from the mundane, painful and frustrating realities of life. According to type, they might offer extreme levels of pleasure, an excited state of being, an altered perception of reality or, in some cases, a combination of effects. Its no wonder, humans beings seek out drugs. To quote an expert, it’s “that innate propensity of mankind to supply some grateful means of promoting the flow of agreeable thoughts, of emboldening the spirit to perform deeds of daring, or of steeping in forgetfulness the sense of daily sorrow” (Stille). As much as drugs might quickly serve these ends, they are not without negative consequences. It’s important to understand the consequences lest one fall into addiction or a debilitating mental or physical condition. The purpose of this paper is to educate the laymen as the effects and consequences of LSD. I will describe the effects, give a brief history and end by offer my own advice. The conclusion might surprise you.
LSD (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide) AKA “acid” is a substance derived from argot, a fungus that grows on cereal grains. The effective human dose is a miniscule one-thousandth of a gram. It can come in the form of a saturated bit of paper with a graphic, a saturated sugar cube, a pin-head sized pill or a thin gelatin square (placed under the eyelid).
LSD is considered a pseudo-hallucinogen. It affects serotonin receptors in the brain to cause “intense auditory and visual distortions and hallucinations” (Iverson 94). Unlike a true hallucination, the LSD user doesn’t see things that don’t exist, like three headed monsters or psychedelic butterflies. He merely sees, hears and experiences things in a “distorted, wavering, or kaleidoscopic” way. (Brecher 348). He may see patterns, geometrical figures or panoramas that aren’t there, but the visions are perceived by the user as drug induced, rather than a genuine perception of the concrete world.
LSD is a recent invention but can be grouped into a family of similarly effecting drugs that include pyote, psilocybin and mescaline. LSD was discovered by a Swiss chemist named Dr. Albert Hofmann while experimenting with argot. He was unintentionally exposed to the new compound during his research and was startled by the powerful effect it had on him. He described the experience in his journal as “fantastic visions of extraordinary realness with an intense kaleidoscopic play of colors.” After the trip subsided, he tried the drug a second time to corroborate the effects in a more controlled way. He didn’t have an agreeable response. The side effects he listed were vertigo, visual disturbance, grotesque perception of faces, “motoric unrest” and an “intermittent feeling in the head, limbs and the entire body, as if they were filled with lead” (Breecher 346-7).
As the news of LSD’s effects spread through the scientific world various uses for the drugs were considered. The Untied States Army tested its usefulness for brainwashing in interrogation. For a time it was later stockpiled as a weapon for it’s disabling effects but was abandoned as a weapon in favor of more effective biological agents. The most substantial claim was as an aid to psychotherapy (Breacher 349).
In Edward Breacher’s famous consumer report “Licit and Illicit Drugs”, he compiles numerous studies that measured the effects of LSD is psychotherapy. Certain studies recorded positive results for the treatment of alcoholism and depression, enough that psychiatrists took notice. They claimed that in the proper setting LSD can lower a patience’s defenses and encourage a sense of closeness with the therapist. Negative findings usually involve the unmanageability of mind-altering effects by the patient. This lack of control can cause paranoia, delusions and unpleasant feelings. Patients panic or behave wildly. The logic of the psychiatric use is that, if the environment and the expectation of the patient can be effectively controlled, these negative effects could be mitigated and the beneficial aids to therapy maximized (Brecher 350).
It should be mentioned that positive experiences with LSD are taken by some to have intense spiritual or educational potential. A famous and controversial LSD advocate during the 1960s counter culture movement, Timothy Leary, has described LSD in an explicitly religious way: “LSD, marijuana, piody and similar chemicals which expand consciousness are sacraments. A sacrament is a visible object, which is a key to the inner divinity; something which helps you find God. For those of us in this country who use these sacraments in our worship they play the same part in our religion as the aids to worship in other religions.” Leary wasn’t the first to see hallucinogens as a religious tool. Their use in religious practice has a history that goes back to the Aztec Indians who ingested Peyote, a spineless cactus, as a mystical means of obtaining a deeper understanding of the world.
Just like LSD, peyote powerfully effects visual and auditory sensations. Users sometimes report a synthesis of senses as in “seeing” music or “hearing” a painting. For the Aztecs and other Indian tribes in Mexico, this experience was God’s gift to man and a means of gaining wisdom. One of the chief propagators of the spread of peyote to American Indians, Quanah Parker (a Comanche), claimed that the “Great Spirit” spoke to him in a vision and told him that the flesh of the Great Spirit was planted in peyote. And he should lay down his arms against the white man and unite all the tribes with the drug. Indeed, the use of peyote in religious Indian religious practices helped create a sense of solidarity and brotherhood among tribes, which helped against a shared sense of subjection under settlers. By 1954 it was estimated that one half of all American Indians had tried pyote (Brecher 338). Users formed the Native American Church of North American claiming to represent 250,000 American Indians using pyote. At times, they successfully blocked Congressional action against the drug by appealing to religious freedoms guaranteed under the constitution (Brecher 339).
Another advocate of hallucinogens, the well-known writer of Brave New World, Adolous Huxley gives an account of his experience with mescaline (the hallucination-inducing component of peyote) in an essay called “The Doors of Perception.” In it, he describes how the drug changed his perception of the flowers in his office: “At breakfast that morning I had been struck by the lively dissonance of [the flowers] colors. But that was no longer the point. I was not looking now at an unusual flower arrangement. I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation-the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence.” Huxley expounds upon the mind-expanding qualities of the drug while frequently inciting religious terminology. “I continued to look at the flowers, and in their living light I seemed to detect the qualitative equivalent of breathing -but of a breathing without returns to a starting point, with no recurrent ebbs but only a repeated flow from beauty to heightened beauty, from deeper to ever deeper meaning. Words like “grace” and “transfiguration” came to my mind, and this, of course, was what, among other things, they stood for.”
The most famous hallucinogen users of all, the Beatles, describe the LSD trip in their song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”
“Picture yourself in a boat on a river,
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies.
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.”
At this point you may ask, whats so bad about LSD, if American Indians, pop icons, famous authors and psychologists can recognize the good in it, what the harm of trying it? What consequences, if any, exist?
An interesting aspect of LSD which has been studied vigorously, is the influence of expectation and environment. The expectations the user has, weather positive or negative, going into the event, largely determine the outcome. Paranoid, fearful, and lonely thoughts generally lead to a bad trip. And conversely, positive and socially minded thinking make for a good trip. Psychologists recognize the harm LSD can cause in people with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is defined as broadly as a “severe mental disorder characterized by some, but not necessarily all, of the following features: emotional blunting, intellectual deterioration, social isolation, disorganized speech and behavior, delusions, and hallucinations.” A person with these symptoms doesn’t need any more detachment from reality. The mental instability is only heightened with LSD.
Unfortunately, the appeal of drugs is especially potent for people that are lonely and detached from society. Their pre existing condition and effects of LSD makes for some devastating consequences. Most of us have herd stories of people committing suicide while on LSD and while no studies I have read conclusively link the two, according to the logic above, LSD will have a negative effect on someone with suicidal thoughts.
The most extensive study of the long-term effect of LSD comes from Drs. William H. McGlothlin and David O. Arnold. In the study the benefits listed were fairly consisting with the experience of the American Indians and popular figures I refered to. The studies respondents reported, “more understanding of self; more tolerance of others; less egocentricity; a less materialistic and aggressive orientation; and more appreciation of music, art and nature” But, the negative evidence against LSD comes from its unreliability to consistently provide those effects. Only 22 of the 247 respondents admitted to using LSD more than ten times after their initial experimentation. Only 3 formed a habit, in this case, once a week. What Mcglothlin and Arnold found is that users didn’t develop long-term patterns of use. The drug couldn’t consistently deliver the sought after effects because it is dependant on mood. Also the power of LSD is in its novelty. When the altered perceptions provided by LSD cease to be novel, they lose their ability to provide relief from the day-to-day ailments of life. The escape is no longer an escape.
The most damning caution against LSD, surprisingly, is not directly to its effects, which can be controlled but to its distribution which cannot. Because LSD is only available on the black market, those controlling supply have no pharmaceutical standards to comply with. The supplies could be easily contamination or might include other substances from Argot that were mistakenly included during processes of the black market chemist. LSD also requires a bulking agent to administer the miniscule quantity of LSD. Illicit Drug makers sometimes use amphetamines to bulk the drug and provide a more instantaneous kick before the effects of the LSD start. The bottom line is, you never know what you’re getting when you purchase a drug on the black market. It might be laced with harmful drugs. Or it might contain an unmanageable or toxic amount. There are no standards to ensure safe delivery (Breacher 375-380).
My personal aversion to LSD comes from a combination of factors. Obviously it’s against the law and subject to punishment in the form of fines, a criminal record or jail time. And as I’ve said, the black market is not a safe or reliable place to obtain the drug. But even if neither of these were true, I still wouldn’t use LSD. I’d rather develop a natural appreciation for art, music and nature as opposed to a chemically induced one. Second, I don’t trust that I could control the effects. And third, when I listen spokespeople for LSD like Timothy Leary, I don’t hear a wise man. I hear a crackpot. If LSD causes me to think like him, I’ll abstain. The same idea applies to the Beatles, although I’ll still listen to their music.
Works Cited
1. Breacher, Edward M. and Editors of Consumer Reports. Licit and Illict Drugs. Boston: Little, Brown & Co, 1972
2. Huxley, Aldous. The Doors of Perception and Heaven & Hell. New York: HarperCollins, 2004
3. Inverson, Leslie. Drugs: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford, 2001
4. Leary, Timothy “TIMOTHY LEARY DRUGS & LSD.” 6 Mar 2007. YouTube 10 Dec 2008.
5. Stille, Alfred, M.D. Therapeutics and Materia Medica. Philadelphia: Henry C. Lea, 1868
Err on the Side of the Abused
Its clear that the Iranian government is willing to commit violence against their people to prevent voices from being herd. In the absence of evidence in the previous election I think its safe to err on the side of those on the underside of power– the unjustly abused and the improperly detained. The behavior of the Iranian government is evidence in itself. And so, I feel compelled to make this caveat after my last post that more or less tried to view the two sides objectively.
Conflicitng Testimonies of the Truth
In news reports coming out of Iran two competing versions of reality are being presented. One is propagated exclusively by state media in Iran. And the other is broadcast in the international media. The individual observer doesn’t have enough information to conclusively determine which version is true. Either Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won or Mir Hossein Mousavi won, both can’t be true. But no one knows for sure. In the absence of the clear evidence, I would like to present the competing claims and discuss the implications of each.
1. The Iranian Government is wrong.
The US media has generally adopted this conclusion. It means that the leading national politicians and the Supreme Religious leader are either misinformed themselves or they are intentionally participating in an act of deception. Deception of this magnitude, displayed through a worldwide broadcast of a forgery, would show that that government officials and leaders of Iran are maliciously protecting their own interests at the expense of the truth. They have very little respect for the people’s right to know the truth.
Such a blatant lie could only be justified with the belief, common among dictators, that a human beings are no higher than an animals and they must be ruled over in the same way that a Shepard herds his sheep. Sheep don’t need to know the truth because what is in the best interest is making sure their physical needs are met–food and shelter (economic wellbeing and national security). If people of Iran are nothing more than sheep then all they need to know is what their benevolent Islamic shepards tell them.
2. The Iran Government is right.
This would mean that the western media has failed. And if they failed, we have failed. It would mean that our western perception world events is deeply flawed. It means that somewhere along the line we have either chosen to ignore the facts or we have been too weak to discern them. All the frenzy that we have stired in minds and hearts of the people is based on a lie, made worse by our appetite for sensational news. A misreading of this magnitute would strike a nasty blow to the hope of seeing eye to eye with the Iranian government. In the event that we are wrong, it will take us a long time to realize our mistake. We will go on talking the cruelty and injustice the Islamic Republic of Iran for the next 10 years regardless.
Conclusion:
The truth can be discovered through a simple process of aritmatic. The paper ballots exist, human beings are capable of counting them. One guy recieved more votes then the other. Its a black and white matter, that sadly, might never be exposed to the light. The tragedy is the darkness that has been created. No one can be sure who to trust or what to think. We are forced to either vilify the regime in Iran or vilify the international media.
Many have already formed judgments. Some reading this will think I’m doing a disservice for not falling in step behind the popular beliefs communicated in the International media. I do lean heavily to the side of those that accuse vote rigging. I find it difficult to see it any other way. However, its sad when people are driven to such extremely divergent views, regardless of who is right.
Someone is doing massive harm by lying. The Iran people suffer. And the prospects for improved relations between the US and Iran are seriously diminished. I hope that someday someone will write a book on the facts of what transpired in the election of 1388 in Iran. Until then, the unrest will continue…
Mason Jennings: Blood of Man
One of my favorite artists, Mason Jennings, is coming out with a new album at the end of the summer called Blood of Man. I can’t find much news of it on the internet other than a few youtube clips. I can’t find an official list of songs but it should contain: “The Field”, “The Tourist”, “Black” and “So Many Ways to Die”
The Field and The Tourist will definitely be on it. “Black” and “So Many Ways to Die” are just speculation.
I’m anxious for some more news. Posted below are clips of Mason Jennings performing two of the new songs in an office somewhere. Some might say that it spoils the songs to raw acustic versions, as the first listen. If you’re not already a fan, I’d agree. But if you ARE a fan, and you’re impatient like me…. then you’ll probably like these, if only to get you excited for the studio versions.
Genesis 1-35
For the past 18 days I’ve been reading Genesis as a part of a 40 day project to read a chapter of the Bible per day. I’m starting with Genesis because…. well, thats where the Bible starts…. “In the Begining….”etc etc.
I would like to share with you, the blog reading public (mostly Miguel, Sandy, Nick, Bepa and various other family and friends), my thoughts as I’ve tackled these age-old stories. So here we go…
1. Did you know that Jesus’ linage can be traced back to Adam? Everyone knows that it can be traced to Abraham that much is obvious from the first book of the New Testament because its written. But Abraham can be traced directly to Noah (Genesis 10 and Genesis 11: 10-26). And Noah can be traced directly to Adam (Genesis 5). So there you go. You can find father, son, father, father son, all the way from Adam to Jesus. So if Jesus was around the time of year 0 on our calender, tack on a few thousand years after that and then you have the age of the human race, according to the Bible. I didn’t actually know this until I read Genesis myself. I figured there were large gaps in genealogies between Adam and Noah and Noah and Abraham. Not so.
2. Its sad to me that Lot was saved from Sodom only to have his wife turned into salt and his daugters con him into sleeping with them. He might have been better off had he just gotten burned up in Sodom. The ironic part is that God’s opinion on this matter isn’t clearly stated. In fact, God’s judgement is mostly left up to the reader to decide because after he sleeps with his daughters we don’t hear very much from Lot after that. We don’t know what becomes of him. I think the account of Lot’s life in the Quran paints a much rosier picture. At least thats the impression I get from the sundry Islamic sources I’ve herd on TV, Movies, Documentaries etc.
3. Obvious question, how did Noah fit all the animals (two each) in the Ark. The boat wasn’t big enough according to the specs given. How large would a boat have to be to fit all the different types of animals in the world? I actually had a dream about this after I read the story. I dreamt that God shrank all the animals in order to fit them on the ark. He is God, so he is all powerful, this wouldn’t be beyond the scope of his powers. What other explanation is there?
4. Its deeply troubling to me that God lamented ever having created the human race Genesis 6:5-8. The impression I get from this verse is that if it hadn’t been for Noah, he would have completely destroyed his creation. And before this point we don’t receive qualifications for righteousness. Noah was different. He behaved righteously, but before this point the differentiation between righteous and unrighteous the abstention of Rape and Murder. The evil people mentioned are mostly murders and rapists. How could a All-Powerful creator of the universe not foresee such occurrences? Was he surprised that human beings acted the way they did? How do you surprise omniscient, all powerful, all knowledgable, God?
Imagine for a second that you have a science project with ants. You place a bunch of ants in a fish tank and they wind up eating each other. And then you say to yourself, it would have been better for the ants if I had never put them in this tank to begin with. Whose fault would it have been for the ants for eating each other? You for for creating the conditions inside the tank? Or the ants for succumbing to their hunger?
Also, would God be showing the world mercy by killing the human race? Or would he be exercising wrath?
5. Why did he chose Abraham? What did Abraham do to deserve favor from God? And another thing, who would want God’s favor when he asks you to do things like murder your son? And live hundreds of years with a wife that can’t give birth (apparently these Ancient Jews really cared about having kids, it was super important). Abraham was favored, but he didn’t receive any of the benefits of that favor in his lifetime. He didn’t receive the inheritance of billions of children and the promised land. I guess he’ll have to watch his children obtain it from heaven.
6. All the men seem to have multiple wives, yet such behavior would be condemned by Jews and Christians today. Men considered to be in good standing before God had children with as many as 4 (if not more) women (see Jacob, Genesis 35:22-26)
Thats all for now.
Here is YouTube clip produced by Jonathan Goldstein entitled “BibleTap.” I got a laugh out of it. Enjoy.
Heres another… “Bible In a Minute” by Barats and Bereta
God as Perfect (random thoughts I’m thinking currently)
It always bothers me when people go on and on about how perfect God is morally. I don’t think I am in a position to judge God. I’m just a speak of his creation. What does it matter what I think, he created the brain that I think it with. That said, if you want to know my opinion about the moral perfection of the God as described in the old testament, I have some question.
Speaking about the Old Testament account, it reminds me of a line in a song by the Hold Steady called The Cattle and the Creeping things… It goes like this….”I guess I herd about original sin. I herd the dude blames the chick. And the chick blames the snake. And I herd they were naked when they got busted. And I herd things ain’t been the same since.”
So, doesn’t God bear some responsibility for putting the snake in the garden with Adam and Eve. Also, isn’t it funny how quickly we go from peace, love and harmony in Eden…. to totally debaucery of Sodom…. just a few chapters.
God creates the universe and it goes to crap after a few hundred years. How is that my fault?
Anyway, I’m not mad at God so long as he doesn’t banish the majority of his creation to eternal suffering. How fair would it be if he created a situation where there is a propensity to sin and then immediately follows with the radically severe punishment? I would say he made us faultily and then punishes us for faulting.
But supposing he offers help…. or provides a way out…. or just kills us off so as to prevent us from screwing everything up. Is eternal suffering the proper punishment for a crime we have no help but comitting?
Hopefully, those in Sodom aren’t in hell, maybe God ended their lives so that they evil would stop but there is still a way out if they accept it. Like a parent telling a kid they can’t watch TV anymore because its rotting their brain. Now they are gonna spend 40 Million years paying off their debts to the people they murdered and raped…. and then God will have some kinda plan from that point on… but eternal punishment…. come’on does that sound morally perfect to you?
Bumper Sticker
Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism and atheism exist. They coexist. That is a given. Its not a goal to be achieved. It already is. So, done, we have reached the promised land of diversity.
Is the status quo a goal? Is to simply not assimilate one group into another what we must achieve? To, in effect, do nothing. Because we already coexist. Don’t kill each other, don’t assimilate, don’t say one is better than the other….don’t do, or say anything…. and walla, we coexist. Isn’t COEXISTENCE a weak goal. Why not have a bumper sticker that says LOVE ALL RELIGIONS (and of course surround it with a bunch of religious symbols). Existence is passive. Love is active. You don’t see a bumper sticker like that because its too hard to love different beliefs. Some religious beliefs are repugnant. Its much easier to passively allow their existence in some far off corner of the world than to actively love what they believe. The more I think about it, loving something you disagree with is impossible!
I have no problem with coexistence because it is a natural fact of life. You believe one thing, I believe another and we both occupy the same space. You believe on thing about Christianity I believe another and we coexist. There is no unity inside each religion much less outside. So even if we all lived under the banner of one religion there would be the coexistence of diverse beliefs. Even if a supposed Christian nation killed off all the supposed Islamic nations there would still never ever be full unity of belief in the world. Because the Christian nation wouldn’t be full of only Christians.
Fine, let’s coexist. But we can’t say its all the same–that essentially there is no difference. Because if we do, we lose equilibrium. We lose all basis for conversation. The conversation stops because we have decided that blue is green that 4 is 5 and I am you—and that is mental oblivion. If we say that a car is the same as a boat we can no longer talk about water or land travel with any credibility. If we say that hatred is the same as love then we don’t know the right way to treat each other.
I’m more comfortable saying that ALL RELIGIONS fail to capture the entirety of the TRUTH Christianity included, than I am saying ALL RELIGIONS are TRUE.
Avett Brothers
I have a couple of things to say about this video… first, look at size of those beards! Second, I have a capo exactly like the one shown on the guitar.
Enjoy (if you can get past the beards)
Google Monster Sighting
The American public should be aware that there is a monster roaming the streets of middle America. Its called the Google monster and he is taking pictures of your neighborhood. I have been lucky enough to capture a picture of him which you can see below. He is a greedy monster who lives off all source media. His ravenous appetite will not be satisfied till all the pictures, videos and word the world over can be captured and made available via the Internet.
I haven’t seen him in real life so I’m not sure weather I should be scared or not…
Speicher, The Man Behind the Name
Military bases in Iraq generally have one of four types of names: a name honoring a fallen soldier, a name glorifying the fighting spirit (Warrior, Warhorse, Danger), a name expounding American values (Liberty, Freedom) or the name of the city in which its in (Taji, Ramadi). One base I was on, FOB Brassfield-Mora is a combination of two names, Spc Artimus D. Brassfield and Jose L. Mora (5 different Moras have died in Iraq) who both died in during mortar attacks in October 2003. Its happens to be only name which I can associate with an eye witness’ account. My old sergeant major was the eye witness. He told our entire Brigade what happened that day to get us mentally prepared for our second tour. Hearing him speak humanized the names. I might have known that it represent fallen soldiers but a memorial doesn’t embed the story into your head like a real life survivor’s tale. Now, every time I hear the name “Brassfield-Mora” I recall my sergeant major’s story. Before, I just thought of an Army-run chow hall and giant mounds of rotting corn. People who’ve been there know what I’m talking about.
During the same tour of duty that I lived on Forward Operating Base (FOB) Brassfield-Mora, I also lived on FOB Speicher. But I never knew the story behind the name. It sounded more like something involving a Spike than someone’s name. No one every explained it to me. And I never encountered a memorial.
A week and a half ago, I learned about the man behind the name. The informant was the Foreign Policy Magazine blog post. Turns out, Michael “Scott” Speicher was the first official casualty of the gulf war. He was a F/A-18 Hornet pilot who was shot down over Iraqi airspace. The FP post explains, along with accompanying news articles (here, here) that Speicher was declared killed in action by the DoD but the decision was recently reversed by a Naval Review board. The articles mention Dick Cheney, then Secretary of Defense, as the decider of for the classification.
The story bothers me because I was indoctrinated as a soldier to believe that you “never leave a fallen comrade.” Its embedded into the Soldiers Creed. I don’t understand why the DOD didn’t spent more time looking for the downed aircraft. I don’t believe that our United States Air Force and Navy would have failed to find it, if it were given the proper priority in the immediate aftermath. And if the real reason is due to lack of any type of search as the articles suggest then the story of Michael “Scott” Speicher represents a regretful failure of our military leaders. Read the story, tell me what you think.
Its spooky to think about the possibility of Michael Speicher, the man to which the base owes its name, surviving this long in a hostile Iraq. Its enough to keep Naval Commanders up at night.
Email Alert: PE Obama Needs Your $Help$!
I keep getting these emails from barackobama.com asking me for money. They arrive in my inbox claiming to be from Barack and Joe himself but I have my doubts. They want me to join the inaugural sweepstakes to further the cause of change. The minimum donation in order to be eligible for this sweepstakes is 100 dollars. They send emails like this regularly, about twice a week.
I can understand trying to raise money during the campaign, but we already elected these guys to office. We have given them power. I thought that was the exclusive intent of political campaign contributions. These emails seem like as way of taxing supporters. Its a voluntary tax, in their words, to help “change” politics. Its a change alright, taxing supporters to do work in Washington. I thought the office itself was the power that was needed.
Where is the money going? According to the last email I received from Joe Biden, its going to pay off Hillary Clintons debt. So, Barack Obama supporters being asked to paying down debts that were accrued by purchasing crappy TV commercials?
100 dollars is alot of money when your struggling to pay your mortgage. Or when you are unemployed. The Obama campaign likes to tout the fact that they draw their support from your average citizen but is contributing 100 dollars to the Obama inaugural festivities (or Hillary’s debt) in the interest of Mr. Average Joe and his family?
I think the answer is clear.
I’m disappointed by the emails because I see them as a way of exploiting emotional supporters. Does Obama need the money more than his supporters do? I don’t think so. Why tap them of their resources? Just because they are willing to give doesn’t mean they should be taken advantage of.
At this stage in the game will the contributions of average citizens to Barack Obama produce dividens in public policy? You might say yes because indirectly you are supporting the Democratic party, which supporters might feel provides to the most in the way of helping them and their community. But that sort of thinking has no end. Because they Democratic party won’t stop until they control every seat in congress on the federal level and on the state level, and on the local level for that matter. Their is no way of satisfying the wants of the democratic party. And the average citizen should not be asked to do so on such a macro level.
I see it this way: I contributed money to the Barack Obama campaign because I wanted to see him become president. Its okay for the campaign to ask me for money for that purpose. But once they are elected to office, why should he need more of my money? Isn’t that just a backward way of taxing? The emails are phrased with slogans. Support Change. Continue the work to bring change to Washington. Shit like that.
They aren’t being fair about where this money is going. Is it going to pay for Obama’s train ticket to Washington? I think he has enough in the bank to cover that. Or is it going to fund the interests of the Democratic party in future elections?
Fundraising for the Democratic party is legitimate but I would appreciate more clarity in the Obama emails, especially when it involves the cash flow of regular households
God-Knows-Somewhere-America
I know that the town is in Williams county. And Williams county is somewhere in Ohio. The town has a building that says “Veteran’s Memorial” on the side. It looks like a rec center more than a memorial. Maybe its a museum. The backdrop is farmland. I don’t know for sure it if was farmland because it was dark and there was snow on the ground. The snow helped the feeling of darkness.
I had told myself that I would drive to the lights of the town, no further. I didn’t want to travel too far from the highway-side-Ramada. I was right to do so because this town in Williams county Ohio temporarily healed the loneliness of solitary highway driving that hits me especially hard at night.
“Welcome to America, Matthew,” the town said.
“Towns like you are dead,” I said, “you’re just a shell.”
The town didn’t respond.
I needed food–real food. The combos and red bulls were sitting in my throat instead of my stomach. A meal was my way of apologizing to my stomach.
“We don’t have cuisine like third world countries” I told the town. “there, they respect food and eat in community. All you give me is convent store crap, bottles of soda, bags of chips”
Again, it didn’t respond.
I continued driving through the town. On a side street I spotted my target: “Tano’s Pizza” –”OPEN”(neon). I parked and walked in. There was a lady at the counter.
“do you have an order?”
“no”
She pulled out a tablet. I read over the menu. I’m a slow reader. I didn’t want to upset her so I tried to read fast.
“I’ll have an Italian sub, garlic toast and…uhh… a drink”
She pointed to the soda cooler.
“And two pepsis”
She wrote “POP” on her tablet, “It’ll be 15 minutes”
“Okay” I sat down.
The back of the neon sign said “made in America” The place was clean. There were at least 5 female employees. One was the matriarch. I was sure—Proud-to-be-an-American-Matriarch-owner. I sat there and wondered if the delivery man was a guy. Later, a guy showed up at the door with a lite cigarette. He was wearing a Carhart jacket like mine. He stuffed out his cigarette and walked in. His floppy pizza bag came into view.
He was a guy.
I waited for 10 minutes. The girl at the counter handed me a paper bag and two cans of pepsi,”Have a good night”
“you too”
I got in my car and opened up the bag— a sandwich and toast. They were both warm. The “toast” was more like cheesy bread. It exceeded my expectations and made me very happy. It made up for the sore feeling that was created by failing (in my haste) to get the “delux” or the “supreme” sub. And I forgot to ask for pickles.
An appetizing smell filled my car on the way back to the hotel.
Two resturants were advertized by signs in the hotel parking lot. I had somehow failed to see them on the way out. One was a ‘family’ resturant located on the inside of the hotel. The second was a pizza place. If I had seen the family resturant I would have chosen it.
I think God wanted me to eat at Tano’s but I can’t be sure.
The italian sandwich and garlic cheese bread was much better than third-world rice, raisin and lamb. My stomach didn’t forgive me.
WRITTEN in its entirety on a hotel notepad in a highway side Ramada while simultaneously eating a warm and delicious sub—by a veteran of the Armed Forces of the United States of America.
Thanks 7-11! You Rock!
This post is a tribute to 7-11, the great worldwide convience store franchise that brought you the slurpie and what my dad and I liked to call “barf burgers”. They weren’t actually barf inducing. I liked ‘em, especially the boneless bbq rib.
Ive become quite fond of the 7-11 in my apartment complex. It’s a classy operation. The serve-yourself coffee section is always clean and well stocked with lids, stirring straws and creamer. Read my ATM card statement in any given month, and you’ll see that 7-11 is an almost daily fixture in my life. Its where I go to get important supplies for sustenance, like coffee, red bull, hostess donuts, a half-gallons of milk or snickers bars. Im not a big slurpee fan.
The people that work at my 7-11 are great. I don’t know their names. I’ve only exchanged a few syllables with them at a given time. But I know if they were to be replaced, I’d miss them. They are familiar to me. I like seeing them everyday. Lets hope they continue working at 7-11 forever!
Apple Valley CA – quite possibly the first 7-11 I ever steped foot into. Likely where I had my first slurpee, although I can’t recall the memory.
Not much to look at.
Silver Spring, MD
You can find me here 9am and 11pm daily.
According to my independent and unverified research, this store is the closest to the location of the first 7-11 which was a makeshift storefront in the dock of an Ice factory in Dallas in 1927. I bet the people who go here have no idea the historical significance! the Shame!
The franchisee 7-11 is owned by a Japanese company, did you know that?
Modern Day Heretic
I just listened to the latest episode of This American Life on npr. It was pretty compelling, so I thought I’d share it with all of you who might not be regular listeners to npr or This American Life. This weeks episode is about Carlton Pearson, a evangelical pastor who was essentially thrown out of the church for preaching against the doctrine of eternal damnation. You can listen to the story here. As you might remember I tackled the idea of eternal damnation on this blog back in Dec 07.
What’s interesting about Carton Pearsons teachings are his claims that it represents what is truly Christianity. In other words, he doesn’t say that he has rejected Christianity but that he is embracing the true doctrine of the gospels. It’s a bold claim that obviously razzles a lot of Christians. Listen to the story and let me know what you think! I might post more thoughts and ideas about this story later on.
Peace.
More Than Chili
I should have responded by ordering the book on Amazon.com and then plan out a time to visit the restaurant. But I procrastinated. I thought to myself, “The book and the place will be there when I get around to starting.” Such a passive approach to schoolwork rarely proves beneficial. In this case however, it worked out. Two weeks after I came across the blog post, I attended a Mason Jennings concert at the 9:30 Club on V Street in DC. V is one letter up from U, but I didn’t care to note the significance at the time. When my friends and I got off the metro to go to the concert, we happened to walk down U Street. And there, beaming its neon “open” sign down on us was Ben’s Chili Bowl, looking just the same as it did in the retro cover photo of the “Images of America” book. Unknowingly, I was graced with the opportunity to turn my irresponsible Wednesday night concert going into primary research time for my paper. I told my friends, “We’re gonna get some chili tonight”. I wasn’t open to counterproposals.
The concert let out around midnight and, true to my plans, we headed back down U street to get some chili. Luckily for us, Ben’s is open till 2AM on weekdays (4AM on weekends). When we arrived, we were greeted by a homeless man who was opening the door for patrons in hopes of weaseling money. He supplemented the act of opening the door with excessive phrases of servitude. Being that my two friends, Ali and Sep, are smiley, carefree and generous girls, the homeless man rudely seized the on the impression they made and asked Sep for a hug. This action occurred right after his soliloquy about humility and right before he opened door. Embarrassed and suspicious, Sep said “No”. The homeless man realized that he went too far and started backpedaling, “It’s just the way I show my love… my preacher always asks me, why you always so happy? Why you the only one in church always smiling and always singing? I tell him… God moves in me.” He thumped his fist to his chest and continued. “I wake up in the morning and I’m happy cause I’m living.” He spoke in this way for a couple of minutes, and his words left a remarkable impression of genuineness. Sep was near tears. For a second I thought, was I totally wrong to feel distain for this guy? Is this an angel of God or something? Or is he just a crafty beggar who knows how to sound convincing in his remorse? Either way, his words had a positive effect. His speech changed our approach of sharp caution to playful engagement (at arms length). We weren’t going to hug him, but we talked and thanked him for opening the door.
When we stepped inside, I noticed a poster on the wall advertising the book: “For Sale, Ask Cashier.” “How perfect?” I thought, “Kill two birds with one stone: visit my DC landmark and collect my primary source.” To top it off, Ben’s Chili Bowl turned out to be a trendy after-party spot. The line at the counter was full of young, concert-going, bar-hopping hipsters, who, like us, thought chili after midnight sounded like a brilliant idea.
“Summer Breeze” by Seals and Crofts was blaring over the jukebox while we waited in line. I started singing along and was immediately chided by the friendly homeless man, “Whatchu know about ‘Summer Breeze’?” He abandoned his door opening business to show me some dance moves and a belt out a more genuine rendition of the song. When we finally made it to the cashier, I ordered a bowl of chili and a vanilla shake with the book on the side. My friend Ali had chili fries and a chocolate shake. Sep had a chili veggie burger and a chocolate shake. We sat down on the bar stools in front of the traditional open grill, the likes of which can been seen in any Waffle House, and I started flipping through my new book. I was disappointed to discover that it was mostly pictures, hence the name “Images of America”. The pictures were of black celebrities, actors, activists, politicians, athletes and prominent community members eating at the restaurant. There were several pictures of Bill Cosby, who I learned from the book, took his future wife on a date to Ben’s back in the day and has been a faithful patron ever since. He is a celebrity of particular adulation at Ben’s, as a sign behind the counter gives notice: “People who eat free: Bill Cosby, and no one else” (Author’s note: the sign was recently amended to read, “Bill Cosby, the Obama family”)
What is made clear in the book is that Ben’s Chili Bowl is an important place in Washington DC. To its credit, it was inducted into the DC Hall of Fame in the business category in 2001. It won the Gallo of Sonoma Award, “American Classic” in 2004. And beyond any award it might receive, it is widely recognized in the black community all across America as a culturally significant spot. What is not clear in the book is, why? Is it simply the famous chili dogs AKA “half-smokes” or something more? The food is an important part. Bill Cosby attests, “All I need is six half-smokes and a good woman and my life will be complete.” But as I see it, that “something more” that makes Ben’s Chili Bowl so revered is derived from four factors that are subtlety apparent the story of its creation and survival: location, an enterprising spirit, diligence and family values.
Part of what makes Ben’s Chili Bowl so special is its location in the nation’s capital. Washington DC is obviously a tourist destination because of its monuments and impressive government buildings. But it is also famous for the role it has played in African American history. After the Civil War, the number of African Americans living in DC rose dramatically due to it being one of the southern most pro-union cities. By 1900 it had the highest percentage of African Americans of any city in the United States (McQuirter 4). Naturally, such a high centralization of the African American community lead DC to be an important place for art-sharing, black enterprise and education. The Shaw neighborhood which contains the section of U street where Ben’s is located, particularly experienced this growth. Howard University, referred to as the “capstone of Negro education”, is 8 blocks east of Ben’s. And U Street spawned many theatres and jazz clubs that showcased black talent. In its heyday, the area was known as “Black Broadway.” Athough Ben’s Chili Bowl didn’t arrive on the scene until 1958, it still embodies the time when Duke Ellington (a Shaw native), Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole were regular performers on in the DC circuit. It’s a standing representation of that era.
Another remarkable quality is it’s family roots. At the center of that family are the two founders, Ben and Virgina. Ben’s real name is Mahabood Ben Ali. He is an immigrant from Trinidad who arrived in DC in the 1950s to study dentistry. An accident forced him to give up his studies but an enterprising sprit lead him to invest $5000 dollars into converting an old silent theatre at 1312 U Street called the “Minnehaha” into a hot dog stand (Bennett 9, 10). He did banking at the Industrial Bank on 11th and U, one of the oldest and largest black owned banks in the country, which still stands to this day. This is where he met a young African American bank teller named Virginia Rollins. The two married on October 10, 1958 and the core of Ben’s Chili Bowl formed. From its first years to the present day, Ben’s has been a family owned and operated business. And it’s success can be attributed to the hard work and dedication that Ben and Virgina embody and have passed down to their three sons, Haidar, Kamal and Nizam (Bennett and Ali 12-13).
The course of their 50 year history has not been without dramatic trials which tested the family’s diligence. Just ten years after it’s founding, a national event caused a chain reaction that degraded life severely in the Shaw neighborhood. On April 4, 1968 Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee. And riots broke out in DC. It started at the intersection of 14th and U (two blocks from Ben’s) when a local black leader named Stokely Carmichael went around to local business demanding that they close in remembrance of Dr. King. Frustration turned to anger. Anger turned to hatred. And hatred turned to chaos and lawlessness. Stokely Carmichael was not directly indicted in the riots but he is recognized as initiating some of hostilities the first night. When it was over the damage was estimated at 24 million. 7,600 people were arrested. 12 were killed. 900 business were damaged by rioters. (Gilbert 13, 32, 178) In a popular book about the riots called Ten Blocks from the White House, Ben Gilbert mentions the intersection of U Street and 14th as the “unofficial nerve center of active black leadership groups –the place to go with a grievance.” Dr. Kings Southern Christian Leadership conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored people all had offices nearby. It was the heart of the black community but it was also the hardest hit by the riots. The majority of the arsons, deaths and damages occurred in this 14ths street corridor and the 7th Street corridor between U to F street. (Gilbert 44) 14th Street is a couple blocks west of Ben’s Chili Bowl and 7th street is a few blocks east. Ben’s somehow avoided serious damages but other business in the area weren’t as fortunate.
Shaw, one of the hardest hit neighborhoods, was the slowest to recover (Diner 81) The era following Kings death was marked by an increase of drug traffickers, addicts and thugs on U street. More so than the riots themselves, this period present the gravest threat to their business. Rather than having to deal with benign preachy homeless men bothering the customers, it was faced with a more legitimate threat of violent assaults and the overall problem of community degradation. At the time, it didn’t have the luxury of being a tourist destination. It was just a hot dog stand in a rough part of town. Ben’s company survived the hard time and his example of hard work and longsuffering are qualities local government still want to encourage today. Urban blight continues to be a problem in many of DC’s neighbor hoods even if it has been reduced in immediate vicinity of Ben’s Chili Bowl. In 2004, DC ranked 9th among the 50 most populated cities in the US in the violent crime rate per capita (US Census Bureau 193).
But crime hasn’t been the only hazard of owning a business in DC. Metro stop construction project, which has been an impetus for gentrification, nearly put Ben’s out of business. The 4-year of construction turned U Street into a 60-foot crater. While construction workers lowered a huge steel support sections for the metro’s underground structures, the front doors of the restaurant were nearly inaccessible to customers. No monetary compensation was offered by the City to make up for lost revenue. The restaurant staff shrank to as few as two employees and only grossed between $100 and 200 dollars per day, mainly off the business of construction workers (Bennett and Ali 79,80). Just like the post riot period, Ben’s weathered the storm and gained wide admiration for doing so. Their resilience caused the city to name the ally way behind the restaurant Ben Ali Way because it served as the only artery to the restaurant customers during construction.
Today, Ben’s chili bowl is in a good location and is poised for continued growth. Its reputation has even allowed for a second stand to be built inside the new Washington Nationals stadium. The metro stop, which was the reason for my first encounter with the restaurant, makes it an easily accessible stop for DC sightseers. And now the baseball stadium expansion has made it a convenient place for baseball fans. But its important to note that neither the metro stop nor National Stadium were a factor in Ben’s original business plan as they have been for the speculators and developers in recent years. Ben’s place in DC is noteworthy because it is not something that spawned overnight. It reflects the history of DC; especially the Shaw neighborhood.
I went back to Ben’s Chili Bowl recently on a more deliberate research venture after having educated myself. I was much more sensitive to my surroundings. I noticed the man in a suit sitting in one of the booths and wondered if he was a government official. I noticed a well-dressed black couple sitting next to me at the bar and wondered if they were visiting from out of town. I watched the workers dance to the R&B music that was playing loudly overhead and wondered at the future role Ben’s would play for the 21st century U street community. I watched Ben’s son Kamel take inventory of straws, sugar packets and remind employees of individual meetings in his office. I considered the business values that Ben passed down to his sons, which were the only defense against an economically hazardous city. I knew that these values were not only important in handling unforeseen citywide problems but also necessary for dealing with the day-to-day troubles of door guarding hobos and lazy employees. These were the thoughts in my head as I filled my stomach with my first half smoke. When I was done, I was inclined to agree with Bill Cosby on the recipe for a happy life: 6 half smokes and a good woman.
Bennett, Tracy Gold and Nizam B. Ali. Images of America: Ben’s Chili Bowl. Chicago: Arcadia P, 2008.
Diner, Steven J. A History of the District of Columbia. Washington, DC: Associates for the Renewal of Education, Inc., 1979.
Gilber, Ben W. and The Staff of The Washington Post. Ten Blocks from the White House. New York: Praeger P, 1968.
McQcquirter, Marya Annette. African American Heritage Trail, Washington, DC. Washington, DC: Cultural Tourism DC, 2003.
Sommer, Mathis. “New Book Celebrates Ben’s Chili Bowl’s 50th Anniversary.” 2008. DCist. Sep 2008. <http://dcist.com/2008/08/11/new_book_ celebrates_bens_chili_bowl.php>
U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2007 (126th edition). Washington DC, 2008
