MeyerBros

“Words are too awful an instrument for good and evil to be trifled with: they hold above all other external powers a dominion over thoughts.” –William Wordsworth

This presidential campaign and the coverage of it have focussed heavily on the personalities and integrities of the candidates over-against their stances on specific issues. Recently I have heard more and more complaints about this being a problem. How can we be informed voters if we don’t talk about the issues?

Call me a character-ethicist (it’s probably the accurate thing to do), but I’m not sure I agree.

I am entirely in favor of voting for a candidate that has a similar opinion to mine on various issues - and some of those issues are very important to me. But I’m afraid we may have become blinded by the entire concept of ‘issues’ with ‘positions’ and ’solutions.’ I have said repeatedly in my theatre work that I cast and hire based on personality as much or more than skill, and will continue to do that proudly. I am convinced that the most important features of a candidate for any position are their relational abilities. If you aren’t a good person to relate to, it doesn’t matter what technical skills you have - your work will lack connection and humanity. I will happily vote for the candidate best displaying the qualities I want in a leader - qualities that display intelligence over party loyalty: Listening humbly and articulating passionately.

I’m not talking about wavering compromise or glib ignorance. I’m talking about passionate movement with an actual understanding and care for people as human beings.

Anne Bogart, a contemporary theatre artist, says “One of the most radical things you can do in this culture of the inexact is to finish a sentence… Political agenda has conspired against a citizen’s ability to speak. Words are dangerous and they can be powerful.” Articulation is a key to action. When I think of the most articulate voices I’ve heard in politics and history, they have always been the harbingers of change, and have often been received with fear and hate (MLK being a prime example, among many).

Several candidates have displayed articulation and the ability to relate to people. I look forward to hearing more from them, and care very little about the positions of the others. Count me in as one proud vote for passionate articulation.

i’m in Cambodia on SST with a group from Goshen College. my real family has been asking for some photos of me with my host family here in Cambodia, and I thought this was the easiest place to post them.

the first one is a photo of my house. this is the main (and only non-bedroom) room in the house. my cot is to the right, covered with a red and white sheet.
the next one is my family. clockwise from back left: brother Sam’oun (22), brother Piseth (26), brother Sehung (28), sister Sambok (30) who lives down the road in her shop, and brother Tanheng (36) who lives in Australia with his wife and one child. In the front row are my parents, mother Simen (56) and father Saran (60) Ngin.
the third photo is me with my family eating dinner at the “dinner table”.
the fourth one is 5 of my classmates with me in Khmer language class with Mr. Meng.
the last photo has both of my parents.

remind me never to design lights by myself again. it means i have to work by myself, which sucks. and i don’t know what i’m doing. so i stand around all day trying to figure out where to start, and by the end of the day i haven’t done anything significant. and…i’m overwhelmed by a set with a million sheets of fabric in a million different positions. thanks, artistic set designers.

tomorrow, when i’m not in a fit of frustration, this message will probably be irrelevant.

So I’m taking a break from writing a paper comparing “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Romeo and Juliet.”

Suddenly, I got really really angry at Claudio. I mean come on! First he believes the guy that that he just beat in battle over his commander and friend. Then, he believes the same guy instead of the girl that he “loves.” He says he loves her and then runs away at the first test of that love. He also acts rashly on his stupidity and extreme emotions to publicly humiliate Hero. And then stupid Hero! She loves a guy who doesn’t even know enough to question the guy who just lied to him. How on earth does she keep loving him after he embarrasses her like that? How does she expect their marriage to work with that little trust? Is she stupid, or is love actually that strong?

So then, I started feeling really really sorry for Romeo (sorry about the whole emotional teenage girl thing). Juliet was completely out of reach for him, but he knew he had to try. He didn’t choose to love her, it just happened and he knew he would never recover. A day without her was like toast without butter. If he knew another way to stop the pain of not having her he would have acted on it and avoided the whole play, but the only remedy he knew was to find her and never let her go.

So then I had to either hope that Hero was like Romeo, or give up on her.

In my history class, we were asked to write a short paper telling our thoughts on the 9/11 and how they have changed after five years. I realized that one of my main feelings after hearing the news of the destruction was hope. I thought that maybe the US would wake up and realize that we can’t keep on stomping on everyone else. Its kind of obvious now that my dreams weren’t fulfilled and there are a lot of wars going on. So pretty much, I was totally wrong.

i’ve been listening to an mp3 of Simon Sinek from Re:Focus giving a seminar on marketing. He talks about the ‘golden circle’ - with ‘why’ on the inside, then ‘how’ and ‘what’. the claim is most companies never get to that central why in their mission, research or marketing. the terms seem a bit fuzzy at first, but i think i’m picking up on how he uses them for each aspect.

to sumerize:

first - the organization should be defined from the inside out. the ‘why’ is your belief or philosophy. he suggests that for apple it is ‘iconoclasm’ - breaking the rules and being different. for southwest airlines it is ‘the common person’ etc. that leads to the ‘how’ - for apple it means inovative design (it just looks different) and interfaces. for southwest it means low and simple fares, and casual service (nothing elitist about it). then ‘what’ your company does is the last and least important. apple doesn’t even self define as a computer company - they can do anything and they do. small electronics? music stores? movie previews? it all fits their revolutionary image, so who cares what the product is - they do it.

in terms of marketing you go the same direction - but it’s all about your customer. not “we’re iconoclastic” but “join the music revolution”.
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what? guilty pleasures? no, i feel no guilt for being addicted to the indianapolis colts and american football. ok, i’ll come right out and say it — i’m really pumped for the Hall of Fame Game (Oakland vs. Philadelphia) next weekend, and even more the nationally televised preseason opener (Indianapolis at St. Louis) on august 10.

for those of you who follow american football (mainly carl, i suppose), i think the colts are going to be a big contender again this year. Edge was a great player, but Addai has speed and the ability to make big plays, and i think he’ll be impressive. i suppose it depends somewhat on his intelligence and how quickly he can pick up the crazy audible and offensive game-plan system that the colts use (according to Indianapolis Star columnist Bob Kravitz, it’s “more complicated that the federal tax code”).

in short, i think dominic rhodes and joseph addai can carry the ball, block and receive as well as edge could, at least by the end of the season and into the playoffs, which is (i hope) when it will really matter.

in other (similar) news, wide receiver reggie wayne showed up to training camp wearing former teammate edge’s new arizona cardinals jersey.

and now, changing sports, floyd landis has been (unofficially) accused of doping in his amazing stage 17 win of the tour de france. his first test was positive for having an abnormally high level of testosterone, and we’re still awaiting the backup sample to see if it shows the same thing. landis claims he has naturally high testosterone levels, which is possible but unlikely. hmm, we’ll see what happens…

—your local sports geek

so after downloading 17 widgets off of the dashboard top 50 list (check it out Mac users — there are some cool ones there), david told me about last.fm. it automatically “scrobbles” (records) the music that you listen to on your computer, which…hmm…has some helpful purpose i’m sure. but it’s fun, and you can see what music your friends are listening to and find people who listen to similar music. you can also create custom streaming radio stations. and best of all, you can successfully waste an entire afternoon and not feel guilty about it.

in other news, floyd landis lost the yellow jersey today, but not to a main competitor. i think he’ll be able to get it back this week.

this is an expiriment in reviewing a book in the style of the book itself. don’t trust it. in fact, i wouldn’t bother reading it. it goes bad by the end of the first paragraph, and paragraph three is entirely innapropriate. some of the comments might be interesting though. you could just skip to them.

this isn’t right.

this is right. it’s the only way to do this, get it all over with at once. it’ll be great. self referential and everything, just like A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, except more so because it’s a review written in the style of the book. maybe even from the perspective of the author. no. yes. or as me writing as the author or the other way around. a self aware review mixed with vacation memoire about a memoir book. it’ll be the best thing i’ve ever written. it is the best thing i’ve ever written. you’re going to love it. you do love it. you hate it. i can tell you hate it. you’re never going to talk to me again. i’ll become depressed and and start drinking too much - random sex without condoms - AIDS - and then you’ll feel sorry. why don’t you like me anymore?

i really wasn’t that impressed with several things. AHWOSG, for one, and the eiffel tour for two. also versailles and AHWOSG again. the book just wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. i wasn’t sure it went anywhere. the eiffel tour and versailles certainly did not go anywhere. they were big.

i should probably also mention that i haven’t had much sex in a while (with or without condoms) and even masturbation has been lacking. and while i know i will be judged by all of you for saying that, it doesn’t really matter because i could be lying. i am lying. maybe i’m lying. if i am i apologise, but still think you deserve it.

the point is, the book didn’t do much for me. neither did the french revolution. french cheese on the other hand… and oh the fondue… etc.

orgasmic, you might say.

is this pornography? how will we know? can we define the destinction between art and porn? can dave eggers define it? bobby meyer-lee? who’s definition would we go by?

how about mental illness? who defines that? who has it? what should we do about it?

racism?

this is an apology for this post. i’m very sorry. i’m not sorry. blame dave.

hannah and i made it safely to bulgaria this afternoon, though we were an hour late or so. we were picked up by Susan Hunsberger (Hannah’s aunt on the Graber side) and driven the 30 minutes to their amazing new house on the side of a mountain overlooking the outskirts of the city. we sat around and had some snacks (and tried the local beer), sat in the jacuzzi, and watched England beat Paraguay in the first full day of the World Cup. now getting ready for supper. not bad, not bad at all…

So we saw Jane Eyre tonight at Trafalgar Studios on the West End. Great directing, great acting, great set, great lighting–great show! The company is Shared Experience, and Polly Teale is co-Artistic Director. No wonder they’ve performed After Mrs. Rochester a lot, and now also Jane Eyre and another one she wrote called Bronte. Helen Edmundson, who wrote Mill On the Floss used to be a member of the company as well. But yeah, it was definitely worth the amazing 4th row center 17.50 pound seats (man I love London’s student concessions).

Tomorrow morning we’re up early to catch a 5:30 am cab to Heathrow airport, and then on to Bulgaria!

(As a newbie, I don’t know when to “write post” and when to “reply.” This started out as a reply in a thread where Carl commented on talking with “value voters” and Eric tried to figure out how Jeb Bush could like X-Men 3 . . . So does some wise person file these things where they belong?)

Sitting by a Christian Zionist on my last flight from Tel Aviv to Newark brought me to the conclusion that all of these conversations with Christians need to start with (or include early on) an honest look at how all Christians who have any use for scripture use scripture, i.e. (1) that we all choose which passages/themes are authoritative for our lives, relativising other passages/themes, (2) that we all use some hermeneutical principle for doing this, and (3) naming that principle is part of knowing ourselves and communicating with others. I think it is worth a LOT to get this on the table, because otherwise politically conservative Christians claim to respect the authority of scripture and discount social progressives as “not believing the Bible.”

So state the themes that seem most important to you. (If, for purposes of this exercise, which involves communicating with self-described Christians, you can find a verse to represent that theme, then you may call it a “Biblical theme.”) Then name the hermeneutic that prioritizes these themes. (For extra fun, name some BIBILICAL themes that you reject, and why: “Paul having a bad patriarchy day” or “who knew we could overpopulate the planet?” or “Oops, there’s that ethnocentric nationalism again!”)
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on our last day in newcastle, we took a boat ride out to the farne islands and saw a bunch of birds. it was windy (and became very foggy), but the cuteness of the puffins made up for the weather.

then we went and saw yet another castle: bamburgh, which is still being lived in.

on the way back to Newcastle we stopped by alnwick castle and gardens, which as i mentioned earlier is being lived in by the percy family (the current duke and duchess of northumberland). this is where the quidditch matches from harry potter were filmed, among other things. it was definitely a tourist trap, but still rather interesting.

yesterday morning we visited belsay hall, garden and castle, and we got to watch some very serious croquet players warming up.

yesterday afternoon we traveled by train to London and arrived at London Mennonite Centre just in time for a nice supper with Tim and Charletta and then a game of San Juan with the above-mentioned and their friend Joel. good times–and they baked me a birthday cake, which certainly made for even better times. thanks, tim.

LMC is such a beautiful place; I could stay here for a long time just relaxing. instead, i’ll leave really early tomorrow morning for the airport and eventually bulgaria. tonight we’re going to try to see “Jane Eyre” at Trafalgar Studios on the West End. It’s written by Charlotte Bronte, and adapted and directed by Polly Teale (who wrote “After Mrs. Rochester”). if we can’t get tickets for that, we’ll try to see “Sunday In the Park with George,” which aparently is a pretty amazing production. we’ll see.

we’re spending a lot of time trying to decide what we’re going to do with our last week here in europe, after the 15-day family par-tay. we’ve narrowed it down to 4 options: hike across england on hadrian’s wall, come back to LMC to relax and see shows, go somewhere random (Italy? Spain? Corsica?), or find a cozy B&B or Hostel in southern France or Eastern Switzerland. anyone have any suggestions? we like: hiking, good food, affordable lodging ($20-40/person/night), and beaches, if possible. we could do without beaches if we have nice weather for hiking instead. so let us know where we should go…

to be honest, i didn’t expect newcastle to be near as beautiful or exciting as it has been. well actually, i’ve seen very little of the city of newcastle, but the surrounding area is great. my mind has spent most of the trip so far in 100-300 a.d. (don’t ask me what that means). today we hiked a beautiful section of hadrian’s wall. apparently, roman emperor hadrian thought it’d be a cool idea to build a wall across northern england to keep the scots out of the roman land. this was built some time in the 2nd century, and much of it is still standing today. (we’re standing on top of the wall, and you can see it extending over the ridge in the background. it’s stone, with grass growing on top).

there’s a castle/fort every 5-8 miles, and then a tower every mile in between. we began in the ruins of housesteads fort and hiked east for 2 hours, some on the wall but mostly on the trail beside it. the ruins of housesteads fort itself are pretty darn cool, and include a very “advanced” latrine.

they sat on wooden benches around the edge of the room and water flowed in one side and out the other, so they basically had flush toilets. simply the fact that these stones (even the water troughs) remain 2000 years later boggles my mind… there was also a room (for the commander) where the floor was missing and we could see the gap under the floor for heated air that travelled up vents in the walls. man, this fort was more advanced than my house!

luckily, that’s a lie. but anyway, it was impressive.

tomorrow we see some puffins on an island, and a castle that’s still in use. it’s where the current duke and duchess (the percy family, who also owned warkworth castle) live. it’s the place where the quidditch matches were filmed for the harry potter movies, and the stadium is on the castle grounds. you should be jealous by now…

oh, by the way, i added photos to my last post too, so check that out again.

Did I just hear this right? I think I just heard (on NPR) our President, GWBush, say:

“In our free society, people have the right to choose how they live their lives.”

Yes he did. I just looked it up.

And yes, he then followed that with the logical conclusion about free society:

“…decisions about such a fundamental social institution as marriage should be made by the people.”

Therefore, the logic follows, we need to have a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. This will put the power back in the hands of The People. So they can be free to live the way they want to. So The People can decide what marriage is.

None of the people, of course, are gay. None of the people would support gay marriage. These aren’t the people. The people are the ones who are free to live as they choose and define social institutions freely. Freely = no gay-ness. Anyone who is gay or supports gay rights must be… an animal! One of those beastly, uncivilized ones, like a warthog or a toad. Therefore, we need to have an amendment to protect The People from The Toads. Those same-sex loving toads must not marry. We need to keep the people free.

Amazing how easy it is to string these thoughts together.

well, i suppose the castles weren’t sleepy, but i was. and i figured maybe i really wasn’t but they were, and that’s why i thought i was in the first place.

i also spent a while today trying to figure out why some words in english act as their own plural. it seems that the entire deer family does that: gazelle, antelope, elk, moose, deer. for a while i had a theory that any word ending in “p” was its own plural: pop and poop came to mind. then cousin benjamin said “heaps” and “caps,” and i was ruined. any thoughts?

i’m in newcastle, england. today we saw two castles:

warkworth

and dunstanburgh.

they were pretty darn cool. i’ll upload some photos tomorrow night perhaps. warkwarth was owned by the percy family until 1987 (when they were still using it for picnics, etc), and that’s the same family that still owns much of northern england. a scene from shakespeare’s “henry iv” is set in warkworth castle, and the character “harry hotspur” is a member of the family. interesting…

yesterday was my birthday, and it was spent napping in the sunshine in howth village outside dublin.
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a co-worker just said “sometimes it’s just better to ignore things that you can’t change.” sounds good on the surface, but let’s dissect that a bit more. basically, in every case at every point in time we have to determine exactly what we can or cannot change. beyond the obvious self-beurocratic hang-ups, there’s a lot of considerations to be dealt with. there would have to be some guidelines. let me try to lay them out:

1. attention vs. action: is this an issue of ‘ignoring vs. observing’ or ‘ignoring vs. acting’? for the purpose of this exercise, let’s say that both are forms of action and we’re really dealing with action vs. inaction.
2. certainty of change: are we sure that our chosen action will result in the desired change?
3. change earned: define “can’t change”. what if i can change a minor part of the problem, but not enough to make it worth while? we need to define exactly how much change is considered reasonable.
4. effort spent: we seem to be dealing with some sort of effort to change ratio here. what is that ratio?
5. last resort: action would have to be the last resort - or we might end up acting on things all the time.
6. proper authority: obviously we are all going to have different ideas about what ratio is considered appropriate, but who has the authority to make the decision in the moment?

you can see where i’m going with this. it’s starting to look suspiciously like Just War Theory ANLJWT.
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i hear i might be disillusioned (i know i’ve been disilutioned) - but i’m not sure the alternative sounds that much more positive. illusionment? hmmm…

i spent the weekend at reba place visiting Jesse B Miller - now a novice member of the community there. he seems to be doing very well, and must be enjoying it if he’s thinking of joining. cheers to him. the interns there are running a sweet bike rehab shop (the recyclery). anyway, they figured i must be disillusioned because i’m a GC grad and I guess that’s the trend. they asked about my relationship to Jesus. it became an interesting conversation in which i claimed ‘militant agnosticism’ and then ‘apathyism’ and then some faith-variant. i like jesus and scripture and all, i just don’t really care about any son-of-god language because i don’t know anything about that. what does that mean? how does that affect me? i like Tink Tinker’s moratorium on Jesus, but I think it’s a good idea for all of us, not just Native Americans. I think we get ourselves caught in 2000 year old religious rhetoric and jargon that we don’t even understand. salvation? anyone? anyone?
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idealists drive… BMW?

well, whatever. it’s a good ad. i like the idea, i like the copy, i like it. i think it’s the angle we’ll have to play as meyerbros design - we build it right from the bottom up. that’s why i added ‘cynthia says’ validation to our site. i’m going to buy a honda though. if i can find one. do you have a honda you want to sell me?