BEDA Day 15

Visiting friends this weekend. Not much blogging will probably occur.

have a great weekend!

BEDA Day 14:

So I'm reading Cory Doctorow's Little Brother on the recommendation of Becky. Very interesting and very much captures the zeitgeist of today. For all the craziness the Tea Party represents, civil liberties is one issue that they share with liberals, though the motivation and inspiration behind the preservation of those liberties can be different.

Sadly we are probably one major terrorist attack away from something like The Patriot Act II.

All I have been thinking about throughout the book is the quote of Ben Franklin's...

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety."

BEDA Day 12:

So April 2011 will not be the month where I blog everyday. Sunday I was exhausted from my saxophone/clarinet choirs concert and then got wrapped up in watching The American President and more West Wing and before I knew it, I was asleep. Similar story for last night's entry which I'm not even bothering to try to make up.

I'm very mechanically inclined but I'm not real creative. I wish I had the creativity to invent something. My wife is always looking for a million dollar idea. She loves to cite the woman who came up with the jewel decorations for CROCS in her basement with her daughter and ended up selling the business to CROCS for millions. I have a friend who has a provisional patent for a ingenious device to make it easier for beginning brass players to take care of their instruments. I just don't have any ideas...not just good ideas, but no ideas. I usually operate under the idea that everything has been thought of by someone.For example, we didn't have Snuggies, someone thought we needed them and invented them.

Honestly, I think this points to how self-defeatist I can be. Someone else has invented it, or done it therefore what can I really contribute. This could prove problematic as I work on this idea of a Ph.D. and thesis and whatnot.

If I had an idea, and believe me, most of what I've written above is an attempt to delay in hopes and idea would pop in my head, but the one idea I can think of centers on my dream to want to be a baseball pitcher. Practicing pitching was always a pain. It either took two to do it, or I was beating the crap out of my dad's shed doors. I would come up with some kind of ball return so someone could practice pitching using only a few baseballs and not have to run after the baseball after every pitch.

BEDA 10

oops...

BEDA Day 9

So I feel like I lied last night about last night's post being short.

Tonight's definitely will be.

Kind of a blah day today. Just sat alone with my thoughts and watched The West Wing most of the day. Still watching it right now. I for some reason am having trouble uploading photos to the blog so I don't think tonights tell a story through photos will work for me.

Not a horrible day, but honestly not much to write about.

until tomorrow

BEDA Day 8

I think I'll make this one short. I got a new book today which I'm super excited about.

Presidential Leadership in Political Time: Reprise and Reappraisal by Stephen Skowronek.

In my Modern Presidency class, we read Skowronek's article by the same title and his analytical framework really stood out when I took the class and has continued to stuck with me since the class ended. Simply put, Skowronek's framework shifts the study of the presidency from the typical linear, sequential, chronological pattern into what can be described as a life cycle of a political regime or coalition. For example, Skowronek's original article compared the Jacksonian and New Deal regimes.

Presidents Jackson and Roosevelt are the beginnings of their respective regimes who came to power as a result of the American public rejecting and displacing of a long-standing regime (Jeffersonian for Jackson and the Prosperity/Do-Nothing Republicans of the 1920s for FDR). In the middle, Skowronek compares Presidents Polk and Kennedy as those charged with maintaining extending their regimes. Finally, Presidents Pierce and Carter are compared as the two presidents who saw the their respective regimes come to an end as the coalitions fractured to a point where they could no longer govern and gave way to a new regime (the Jacksonian regime pretty much ended but could have possibly been replaced by a Lincoln regime had his presidency not been cut short and the Reagan regime replaced the New Deal Coalition).

This is a book of six essays that spell out Skrownek's main thesis of presidential leadership in political time. I've only read his initial article that compared the presidents above which as I mentioned, made a huge impression on me. I'm really excited to learn more about how recent presidents are placed in the political time model.

BEDA Day 7: American Idol

Since this was the first year in several that I have not had to worry about studying for classes, I decided that I would watch American Idol this year. In part because I actually thought the show might fall flat on its face with the departure of Simon Cowell and the addition of Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler. I was impartial about Lopez being on the show, but I felt they were really grasping at air with Tyler. I predicted before the this season started that the relaunch would not be successful and they'd try get Cowell back on the show next year. Like many, I had a hard time imagining an American Idol without Simon.

Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised with how the show has turned out this year. I could tell from the audition shows that the tone was different. The early audition shows this year really focused on what the talent they were seeing at each of the stops and not as much on the crazies that come out the woodwork at the auditions. Steven Tyler was better than I could have ever expected. He brought a new energy to the show and really fun to watch. It took awhile for Lopez to acclimate herself to the show, and she really does know what she's talking about in terms of what it takes to be a music star.

The contestants have been amazing as well. There were 5-6 out of the final 12 I thought had a realistic shot at winning the entire thing. If you're watching the show, a few weeks ago, I predicted that the top five would have consisted of the following contestants: Casey Abrams, James Durbin, Jacob Lusk, Scotty McCreery, and Pia Toscano. Of those five, I thought that James Durbin was the most likely to win it all but at this point, ANY of those five could win.

The one thing I've always been suspicious towards Idol about was the America voting part and there have been some odd voting results this year. That Idol is more of a popularity contest than it is a singing contest should not be a surprise to any one. I'm skeptical of the public voting because I believe by the time Idol reaches the voting stage (or within the first two to three weeks of voting) America has already divided themselves up into voting coalitions. If fans of a certain performer are passionate enough, regardless of how their favorite performs on a given week, they're out in force voting for their favorite making sure they continue. One of the most egregious examples of this possibly happening was Bristol Palin's appearance on Dancing With the Stars where there was some strong, but circumstantial evidence of Sarah Palin's base pushing Bristol through the competition even though she was one of the weaker performers each week.

Now there always seems to be one or two shockingly surprising eliminations during each Idol season. The one I can remember was the elimination of Chris Daughtry, a heavy favorite the year he was on the show but he was among the top 5 or 6 of that season if I remember right. Because of their quality, it has tough, pretty much from the beginning, to predict how this year's crop performers would be whittled down by the voters. A couple of weeks ago, a surprise elimination result got me to thinking about voting behavior. One of this season's stronger performers, Casey Abrams was unexpectedly voted off the third week of audience voting. The judges used their one save of the season to keep Casey on the show and he hasn't been in the bottom in the past two weeks.

The fact that Casey was one of the stronger performers combined with the fact that he had not been the bottom three in the previous two weeks started looking for other explanations for why he was eliminated so early. The only thing I could think of is that the perception that Casey was absolutely safe as a contestant led voters to vote for other candidates.

In other words, nobody voted for Casey that week because everyone thought everyone else would vote for Casey and that resulted in essentially nobody voting for Casey. They saved their votes keeping the contestants who were more likely to be voted off on the show. I'm sure there is a term in political science that describes this type of behavior but I don't know it off the top of my head.

That was two weeks ago. Last week's results were too surprising but if Casey's elimination was a surprise, this week's result was shocking when judge favorite, Pia Toscano, was sent home. Pia was one of my favorites as well and I thought she had a great shot at winning as well if not runner-up behind James. Once again, this result had me wondering if my "well she's safe, so I'll vote for others" theory came into play again.

Either that or the American public are idiots...

I wonder if some political scientist somewhere has looked at the voting patterns of Idol results (or if the raw data of Idol voting results is even available anywhere). Ten years of Idol voting in the United States could produce some interesting data on voter behavior.

BEDA Day 6: Best Live Entertainment

I'm not much of a concert goer. Most concerts I've been at, I've also been in as the performer. The first non-concert band concert I remember going to was a Third Eye Blind show the summer between my freshman and sophomore years at UNI. I got the tickets for free.

That said, I'm a huge Gaelic Storm fan. If you aren't familiar with Gaelic Storm, they first came to fame as the band during the dance scene in steerage in the movie Titanic. They've gone on to have a great career in the years since Titanic.

The best concert I have ever attended was a Gaelic Storm concert at Frank O'Dowd's Irish Pub in Galena, IL.

Frank's is an authentic Irish pub that was actually constructed in Ireland, broke down and shipped over to the states and reconstructed by the very men who built it in Ireland. If you're ever in Galena, I'd highly recommend it as a place to eat.

The concert was great. It's a very small and intimate setting and was a great place for a high energy band like Gaelic Storm to perform. We were able to get right up next to the stage, and by right next to the stage means I could have reached across the railing that separated the band from the audience and touched the bagpipe player. I've been to several Gaelic Storm concerts since then and while they're still very entertaining, none of them have come close to the fun I had at that concert in 2006.

BEDA Day 5: Lottery winner

So today's suggested topic is to blog about what would I do if I won the lottery. I assume we're talking about millions so first and foremost, I would pay off all my debt and all of my parent's debt. Wipe it all out, mortgage, credit card, car loan, and particularly student loans. While not the highest priority, I'd probably purchase several vehicles. Get my parents a couple of new vehicles and replace at least one of ours. I'd probably take Anne Marie on a lengthy vacation somewhere though I can't particularly say where for sure. Maybe traipse around Europe for a while, but I wouldn't rule out Australia or New Zealand.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't buy a new house...at least right away. Live a while without having to worry about making any sort of debt payments. I like my house and I don't see the need to upgrade at this point. I'll maybe make some improvements but wouldn't immediately replace it. I'd probably start some college funds for whatever kids I may have. The rest will go into some kind of investment.

It is easy to plan uses for money that only exists in theory...

BEDA Day 4: Future planning

This post ties the total number of posts I wrote the last time I attempted to blog.

Today was a day spent trying to figure out the future, both short and long term with varying degrees of success. Short term, I was trying to figure out what I am going to be doing this summer since I can't substitute teach. I would like to play my saxophone in the summer community band, but if I can't because of schedule, I can't.

Long term, for those who do not know me well, in December, I graduated with a second bachelors degree majoring in social science teaching. It was the end of a three year journey that started with the intention of teaching high school history or government and ended with the desire to teach in higher education. Along the way, the possibility working on a graduate degree went from not even an option to "eventually will happen." While I feel at times that I either wasted the previous three years, returning to school did allow me to re-establish myself academically and open the door to grad school. I was also able to make networking connections that I hope will be beneficial as I continue down the path towards a Ph.D.

Back in December/January, I decided, for all practical purposes on a whim, to apply for grad school at the University of Iowa with the intent to study U.S. history. I had been told that those students who are accepted into the history department's MA/PhD program are offered tuition scholarships, hefty gradate stipends and benefits. Being given money to pursue a graduate degree was really the only way I felt I could pursue such a degree since the second time back to school pretty much doubled my student loan debt. I hadn't really planned on starting grad school until the fall of 2012, but decided what the hell, I'll see if I can get what I'm after for this year.

While I knew at the time I was applying that I was probably facing long odds, I still thought I had a decent shot at getting into the MA/PhD program. Unfortunately, two months later, I received a letter from Iowa's history department which said I was accepted into their terminal MA program with no funding offered through the department. This complicated my decision greatly as I wasn't really anticipating having to decided grad school based on whether I could afford to or not. I was thinking I would either be offered money or just not be accepted.

In light of this offer, I have been seeking advice from practically every source I can think of. Many friends who either are current grad students or recently completed a graduate degree advised against accepting an offer that doesn't come with any funding. A couple of others have advised that earning an MA degree will be the best way to possibly guarantee funding for a Ph.D. through making contacts with professors and finding those who would interested in my research.

It's been a tough decision and regardless of what I decide, I will probably have a bit of buyers remorse either way. I'm leaning towards not accepting for this fall and reapplying to programs to start in 2012. I would expand my school search and hopefully increase the chances of getting an offer that matches what I am looking for, particularly in terms of financing but also in terms of program focus and research opportunities. What a reset for 2012 would allow me to do is to possibly consider a graduate program other than history. While I had set on history, I do have an interest in political science. As a social science teaching major, I had to take classes in history, political science, geography, sociology, psychology and economics. While I have slightly more experience in history, I didn't major in either discipline and would be starting pretty much from scratch in terms of research methods classes regardless of whether I pursue history or political science.

I talked today with Dr. Hoffman who was referenced in my previous crushes post. As I mentioned in that post, she probably my favorite professor I have ever had and over the years she has turned somewhat into a mentor. Our talk today helped to show me that political science might be a realistic option. The field combines politics with history as well as with many of the quantitative statistical research methods I learned about during my first degree in economics. As Dr. Hoffman noted, many political scientists have to dig into history to do their research but not many historians have to follow politics to become experts in their fields. Since I will always follow politics because it is a personal interest, it does makes sense on some level to study it in grad school.

Currently, about 10 day out from when I have to make a final decision about grad school at Iowa, I'm strongly leaning towards not starting in 2011 and applying for entry into political science programs in 2012. While I'm a bit concerned about what I can do to improve my application between now and then, I do think on some level that a multi month break from the rigors of academia wouldn't hurt me either. It's a bit disconcerting to not know where exactly this grad school thing will take me, but hopefully it'll work out in the end.

Until tomorrow...happy blogging!

BEDA Day 3: Crushes

Crushes...where to begin on this one. I do have to say that crushes is a tougher topic to write about than I thought it would be. When I hear the word crush, I think of the middle school relationship type where student A is crushing on student B. If that were the the case, there's a long list of ladies (celebrity or not) who I have crushed on over the years. That said, I am glad that "crushes" is not limited to celebrity-type crushes because I'm not sure I want to blog about why I think Natalie Portman is hot (short answer: I think she is and that's about all the reason I really have).

Since I've stared at this paragraph for ten minutes and still have not been able to narrow it down to a single thing, I think I'll approach it in the Academy Award's way, multiple categories (The Naties?):

Sports: Joe Mauer, Catcher, Minnesota Twins. Dude can flat out play ball and he seems humble to boot. My Midwestern sensibilities can appreciate someone who just goes out and does their job.

Author: J.K. Rowling. While I don't know about her other writing, the Harry Potter series, is in my opinion, one of the greatest series out there. Not only are they incredibly written in their own right, but the universe she created is second only to probably Tolkien's Middle Earth in scope, depth, and detail.

Fictional Character: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars. I'll take the calm, level-headed Obi-Wan over any other Jedi in the Star Wars universe.

Musician: Billie Joe Armstrong. You must be doing something right if your 90's punk band is now an international sensation and still going strong almost 20 years later.

Actor, Female: Natalie Portman...see above

Actor, Male: Denzel Washington. This guy can flat out act.

Intellectual: Dr. D. Hoffman a political science professor who I had for a couple of classes. Her research interests in the presidency and U.S. elections closely match mine and I hope that maybe someday we can collaborate on a future political science/history project.

Political: President Barack Obama. Like many, his 2004 convention speech caught my eye to where I walked into work the following day and said to a die-hard Democrat I worked with that he'll be president some day. After reading Dreams from My Father, I really started admire and respect him and hoped that my prediction would come true.

BEDA Day um...2.5?

Well it sure didn't take long for me to fall off the BEDA horse...

hopefully to make up for it, I'll write a quick post here and do BEDA day three later tonight.

Oats started the day

Errands around town later

Out on the futon

yeah, i'm pretty sure that sums up my saturday. I'm not much of a poet.

My wife just posted the following Nate-Haiku on my facebook wall

Video games rock.
Chilling in my basement lair.
Need a nap now...zzzzzz....

Later

BEDA Day 1: About Me

Name: Nate

Age: 30

Where I live: Dubuque, IA

Where I call "home": Well, I grew up on a farm outside a small town in southwest Iowa called Shenandoah ("affectionately" called "The Doah" by more than a few members of my generation who grew up there). If I lived a few miles further south or further east away from Shen, I'm pretty sure I would have been attending South Page High School, a tiny school where any given class is smaller than any one of my American history periods from student teaching (according to NCES, total enrollment for SPHS is 135 students in 2008-2009). To actually answer the question, the house my parents have lived in for about 25 years will always be home for me.

Why I blog: As mentioned in my previous and first post on here, I haven't really blogged before. That said, I have microblogged for several years on the Tumblr platform a nice little bookmark tool which allows me to easily post items I come across on the Internet's tubes. I would like to blog to keep myself thinking and writing while I am between degrees whether that is a few months or a few years.

What part of BEDA I'm most excited about: Having new blogs to read as well as some kind of goal to work towards at least for a month

Why I'm doing BEDA: I'm starting to feel like maybe I should have read through these questions a bit before hand as I feel like my answers are same...at least the BEDA questions. Anyway, the biggest reason I decided to try BEDA is to give myself some reason to write again. While I am no master writer by any means, I discovered by returning to school, that I am a better writer than I had previously given myself credit for. In the past week or two, I had started to think about starting a real blog where I could keep my writing skills sharp. I'm hoping to start graduate school sometime in the near future and I don't want my writing skills to deteriorate between now and then.

How I first discovered Maureen Johnson/BEDA: Well, I don't know who Maureen Johnson is but I was recruited to the 2011 edition of BEDA by Becky who blogs at Life in Denim at Flip Flops. My wife works with Becky at UD.

Something other BEDA people might not know about me: This should be an easy one since I know maybe 1 other outside of Becky. Let's see...much of my artistic passion lies in the music component of the arts. I am a saxophone player and I was a stand out musician in high school succeeding in most things I attempted (All-State, honor bands, solo/ensemble contests, etc.) Coming out of high school I was convinced that I was going to be a high school band director and went to UNI as a music education major. The stark differences between participating in music ensembles and events in high school and being a full-fledged music student my freshman year brought those ambitions to a screeching halt and while I still participated in marching and pep bands at UNI, I spent most of my remaining four years in college trying to distance myself from anything that reminded me of that "failure." That said, I still have a soft spot for the arts, particularly music and I've recently picked up my saxophone again playing my alto saxophone in a community band last summer and my tenor in a saxophone choir this past school year.

Another blog I follow: Most of the blogs I follow are political in nature. My favorite blog among these is Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish which is currently hosted through The Atlantic (he will be moving The Dish to The Daily Beast in May April). While Sullivan is a self-described "conservative," even writing a book titled The Conservative Soul. In the 3-4 years I've been reading The Dish, Sullivan has never struck me as a conservative. To me, he is a moderate at worst who leans left on social issues but right on many fiscal issues. Sullivan's personal life probably contributes to the un-conservative-ness I sense in his writing as he is, gay, married, British, and Catholic. Gay and Catholic, as many know, don't officially get along so he already at odds with the religion he practices. Sullivan's British background means that his conservative ideology is not of the same flavor as American Conservatism which is more focused on social issues, is more evangelical and more fundamentalist Christian in nature.

Most who know me now would probably not think of me as a conservative so it might be strange to see a self-described conservative listed as my favorite blog. In the past 3-4 years, my political views have shifted leftward quite a bit. In the past, I always described myself as a "moderate" or an "independent," which I now believe was more the result of a combination of ignorance about politics as well as a a desire not to piss anyone off. I grew up in a household that disdained politics and voting for president was always described to me as "picking best of two liars." Once I started paying attention to politics, I gravitated towards sources that, at first glance, appeared to be non-partisan or more moderate in nature. The conservative elements of Sullivan's blog was one of those that appealed to the more conservative elements of my thinking at time but it was his blog that helped to shift and reevaluate my thinking on many issues, particularly on gay and lesbian issues.

As a former self-proclaimed "moderate" or "independent" I've noticed a several things about this large voting bloc in the several years I've focused on American Politics. First, I've observed that is that regardless of self-identity, a large percentage of self-proclaimed moderates tend to hold more conservative positions on many issues, particularly on issues of economic, fiscal, foreign, or military nature. As a result, while they may "kick the tires" on all candidates, they're more easily persuaded by the argument and rhetoric of conservative candidates.

Second, when you ask an independent or a moderate what they hate about politics, what I assume you will get is commentary, not the policy positions of the two parties, but on the process of legislating and governing. What moderates hate more than anything is the perception no one in Washington or Des Moines or "pick a state capitol" is interested in working together in mutual harmony to solve the country's/state's problems. To many of them, politics is akin to a junior high full of nothing but mudslinging, backstabbing, lying, hormones... Ok maybe not that last one, but long story short, moderates/independents believe so strongly in the ideal that we should be able to come together and solve all our problems by just agreeing with one another, that they see nothing but fighting in what is our political process. I know this is what I disliked about "politics" as a moderate.

Third, I observe that declaring yourself as an independent/moderate is an easy way to give the finger to the concept of group think. They don't want to be told what to believe or what to think by one party or the other which is a complete misunderstanding of the function and purpose of political parties in the United States. I believe that it is not that moderates don't agree with the majority of a party's platform (see above), after all, if we created parties based on everyone agreeing with the platform 100%, we'd have some 300 million political parties. No, I believe moderate's problem with political parties is that they don't want to be burdened with the baggage that comes with being labeled a "Democrat" or a "Republican."

Finally, I've observed that most moderates don't pay a lick of attention to politics on any level until they have to make a voting decision.

A writer (of any kind) who inspires me: For years I used to consider myself a science fiction fan. I don't know if I consider myself one anymore as I don't really read all that much any more. That said, when I was younger, I was a huge Michael Crichton fan with Jurassic Park being one of the first grown-up books I ever read. I loved the book and subsequent movie so much that I was inspired as a 7th grader to begin my own sequel to Jurassic Park which revolved around rebuilding the park. I remember writing some 20-30 looseleaf pages but after a while I got stuck on where the plot was going. A friend of mine was doing some concept art for the story as well. I often wonder where I put that "manuscript"

A YouTube channel I love: I tend to only watch YouTube videos as I come across them and don't closely follow any specific channel.

A favorite quote: There's a lot but I've always loved the quote that is the title of this blog. "Genius is the fire that lights itself" which I've always attributed to drummer Neil Peart who was speaking about legendary drummer Buddy Rich from the liner notes from the Buddy Rich tribute album Burning for Buddy. This is the quote I submitted for the senior quote page in my senior yearbook, but don't particularly know why it resonates with me.

Blog Every Day

So I was convinced to participate in the 3rd annual Blog Every Day in April. I had been toying with the idea of starting a real blog now that I'm out of school just to keep me writing.

I do have a tumblr blog but that blog functions more as an Internet scrapbook and is a random collection of things I find interesting on the Internet. A lot of the items I post to Tumblr I used to share on Facebook but I eventually decided that Facebook isn't the best vehicle for political commentary. That said, on Tumblr I typically let the links I post speak for themselves and don't provide a lot of commentary. On this blog, I hope to be less erratic about the things I post and will try to take the time and write about things that I find interesting in the world. Frequent topics will probably venture into the world of politics, sports and pop culture.

Last time I attempted to "blog" I was not very successful writing a grand total of five posts. Before that was during the Xanga/LiveJournal craze (does ANYONE use either of those sites anymore?) and even there posting was sporadic at best.

Hopefully BEDA will, at least for the next month, force me to regularly blog. Who knows, maybe by the end of the month I will find enough of a routine to continue it.

While this is my first post, it's not April yet so this technically doesn't count.

I'm thinking I'll start BEDA with a post about myself using an old 1990s Internet favorite...the email survey.