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.