Iran and Religion

Iran has been on my mind all day. It started this morning when I signed on Facebook and saw various status updates saying that it’s “time to bomb Iran,” and “I’m scared we’re going to get nuked by Iran.”

Iran announced last week that they have a second nuclear facility under construction, which intelligence agencies in America have known about for years. Since it became public, it seems to have sent a wave of panic from the Middle East to the shores of the United States.

Then today, Iran was reported to test fire medium-range missiles early this morning, striking even more fear into the heart of Americans, even though isn’t the first time they’ve tested weapons of this nature and even though the tests were announced days ago.

First off, my fellow citizens, I assure you, you are safe from Iran.

It blows my mind how ignorant people in this country can be. Even years into the foolish and costly Iraq war, the American public is eager to misinterpret information so that they can beat on their war drums. Have we learned nothing?

I have yet to turn on the TV today but I could only imagine what people are saying about how Iran is a grave threat to this country and questioning whether or not we should use force against them.

Please.

But to be fair, if I were in Israel, a close alley of ours, I’d be a bit worrisome.

Apparently Iran has the capability to streak Israel with missiles and from what I understand, they worship different gods, which is usually problematic.

And from what I understand, I think Israel’s god is the same or at least similar and/or has an alliance with our god here in America, which is why the media tells us it’s in our interest as good Americans to be scared of Iran.

Maybe I’m misinterpreting the whole situation, but I don’t get it. I don’t get why people cling to their religious beliefs and why some people believe a piece of land is holy and some land is not. People believe so strongly in their gods that they’re willing to die for it. They are convinced they are righteous and the other side is wrong.

We Americans and Israelis can have weapons of mass destruction because we are “good,” but they can’t because they are “bad.” I’m sure Iran sees the situation differently.

I’m glad I don’t live in the Middle East because of this mess, but I also don’t understand why we in America are involved. Are we a religious nation? Are our political associations based on religious beliefs? I didn’t think our forefathers wanted it that way.

I feel like there’s so much about the situation in the Middle East that I don’t understand. Why is there and why has there been so much hatred towards Jewish people, or any other religion for that matter?

I wish this world would stop arguing over gods and land and learn to live together. If you look at the Universe as we know it, we have but this semi-microscopic planet we call Earth. And as far as we know, this little place in the Universe is the only place where life exists. Life and our world are both precious and I really hope we don’t destroy them over something as silly as religion.

I don’t know, something I feel like I missed the memo.

Another day living near the border

Yesterday, on my way to work checking in on a trial that will soon happen in Downtown Tucson I came across a lively protest outside courthouse. Police had a perimeter set up around the area including a transport van ready at the park in front of Main Library, apparently in case things got out of hang. I got my work done as quickly as possible in the courthouse and went outside to cover the protest. After some investigating, I found out the protest had to do with the trial I'm helping an out of state reporter cover. It was fairly tame, but I did fear for my safety at a few points, especially when a group of Hispanic men became offended, and rightfully so about a man burning a Mexican flag. Fortunately, threats did not escalate into violence. I'm not a working reporter these days so it was a pleasant surprise to come across this story. Lucky, I had a reporters note book and a camera on me allowing me to play backpack journalist for a day. Even though it likely won't get published, it was a good experience for me. It was a reminder of why I should always be ready for news to break. Here's the story:

Tempers flared outside Pima County Superior Court Friday when members of a Chicano activist group, the Brown Berets de Aztlan, displayed their disapproval of the Minutemen, a private border watch group.

The protest was a response to the murders of Raul Flores and his nine-year-old daughter Brisenia Flores, who were gunned down during an alleged home invasion robbery in Arivaca, Ariz. in May 2009.

Shawna Forde, Jason Eugene Bush and Albert Robert Gaxiola are in Pima County Jail awaiting trial for their alleged roll in the murders. Both Forde and Bush were leaders in the Washington state-based Minutemen American Defense group and both have been accused by Minutemen critics of having affiliations with the larger and more well known Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, though that group has denied Forde and Bush were official members.

“We're protesting the Minutemen and the politicians who support them by allowing them to be out there on the border,” said David Rico, a member of the Brown Berets from San Diego, Cali., who came to Tucson as an organizer of the protest.

“They call themselves patriots but harassing Mexican people is not patriotism,” Rico said.

“They're internal terrorists.”

But the small group of demonstrators were overshadowed by a counter protest across the street which included the burning of two Mexican flags by Roy Warden, the most vocal member of the counter protest.

“The reason they're out there is because of the millions of Mexicans illegally coming into our country every year,” he said though a megaphone, defending the Minutemen.

“Mexicans have no respect for American rule of law,” he yelled. “The Minutemen stepped-up to show how deep this problem is.”

Although Warden, who is not a member of the Minutemen, got most of the attention from local media and the small but steady downtown crowd, the Berets called the protest a success.

“Their defensiveness shows us that we're doing the right thing.” said Joseph Cremeans, a Beret member, also from San Diego.

“We conveyed our message. We got people

conscious of what's going on with the Minutemen and we're letting them know that people are doing something about it.”

With Forde and Bush's trial set to begin in October, the Berets said they will be back.

“Their group attracts people who do things like this against Mexicans,” said Rico, referring to the murders.

“Protest are going to continue until the community rises up against the Minutemen.”

After the protests, Warden defended burning the flags as purely political and not race related, calling it a “peaceful demonstration,” against the Mexican government for what Warden called “their support and encouragement of illegal immigration into the United States.”

“I'm wasn't here to overshadow them. I wanted a debate,” he said.

“And I'm not out to support Forde,” he added, “I'm simply here to teach.”

However, the flag burning evoked outrage from most of the crowd and the Berets.

“It's disrespectful. What do you get from burning material?” said Francisco Navallez, a graduate student of Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona who came to support the Berets.

Angel Sua, who is from San Diego and has lived in Tucson for 10 years said he saw the counter protesters as insecure.

“If the group they support is not at fault for the mistreatment of Mexicans, they wouldn't need to be out here protesting us,” he said.

“All we're here to do is bring awareness to the murder of an innocent girl. It's a slap in the face to Mexican-Americans.”

A moment when I changed your mind

I always thought smoking wasn’t a big deal. Sure people told me it was bad for me and I believed them, but I never though it was bad enough that I needed to quit.

“Smoking will kill you, Evan,” my friends would say.

I would reply with something like, “I didn’t realize you were going to live for ever,” or “Something’s gotta kill you.”

I smoked for nearly a decade. In that time period I heard about every reason why I should quit:

“It will give you cancer.” “It makes you smell bad.” “It will give you a heart attack.” “It makes your teeth yellow.” “It makes you look uneducated.” I was even told it decreases circulation and thus, makes your penis smaller.

Still, I didn’t listen or care. I felt fine. “I’ll quit later in life,” I’d said.

That changed about a month ago.

My girlfriend began to have lung and breathing problems. She had a terrible cough and became so lightheaded one day she took a nasty spill down half a flight of stairs. She is now doing better with the help of two inhalers and a weekly breathing treatment at campus health.

Now, we’ve only been dating for half a year and I rarely smoked around her, so her health problems weren’t caused by me (though I’m sure my smoking didn’t help), but suddenly my perspective on smoking changed. I saw how someone I loved very much had been negatively affected by smoking. I learned her lungs had been damaged because of her father, who smoked all through her childhood. I decided I didn’t want to be like her father. I became motivated to quit.

It’s likely one day I’ll have children myself. It’s one thing for me to do what I want to my own body, but it’s another to hurt people around me. Suddenly it became very clear and very simple: I needed to quit smoking and I needed to quit smoking now.

So I did.

It was foolish to start smoking in the first place but it took my love of my girlfriend for me to see that.

I’m proud to say I’ve been smoke free for almost a month and I’m proud of myself for being able to change my mind about something very very important for both the health of myself and my loved ones.

My rejected moment/first-essay pt. 2

I missed the phone call because as usual, I was loudly playing the drums. When I took a break to get a glass of water I passed by the answering machine and saw a red light blinking, indicating my family had a message. Usually I didn’t get calls but I pressed the play button anyways and walked over to the sink to fill my glass. As my glass began to fill, a guy’s voice on the machine said the message was for me. I listened on. It was a senior from my high school, the class ahead of me. He said he was getting a band together and heard from one of my fellow marching band geeks that I played the drums. He wanted to get together to jam the next weekend.

My cup overflowed.

I literally jumped so high I almost hit my head on the ceiling fan. I yelled and waved my fists around like a madman. This was it – I was going to be in a band. I would be playing music with real people. I was going to be a rock star.

Of course, it never led to a record contract or a world tour. But it did lead to everything I wanted at the time. I became very good friends with the other members of our band. We would hang out in our practice space that we rented downtown. After words we would head to our singer’s house and listen to music and fantasize together about our future stardom. On weekends we would stay over at each other’s houses, drinking warm 40s we snuck in with our backpacks. As our band got better and we began playing around town, the opposite sex’s interest in me seemed to blossom. We would throw parties and play a set in front of our classmates and peers. We would play shows around town, sometimes in front of a hundred or so people, and always get a good reaction.

I felt like a rock star alright.

My rejected moment and first essay pt. 1

In my room there was a bed, a desk and a royal blue drum set. The bed and desk were there for as long as I could remember and were just part of life, but the drums were special.

I begged for a drum set for months. Finally one day in December during my freshman year of high school, my father took me to Rainbow Guitars and bought me a drum set. He said it was my Christmas and birthday present.

Over the next couple of years, the drum set grew as did my love and talent for it. I kept adding more cymbals and tom toms. I even added a cowbell. The drums took up so much space in my room it required skill to maneuver around them. One false move and a cymbal would tip over and crash against the wall covered with posters of punk bands and rock stars.

If I wasn’t at school, I was behind those drums. I loved the feel of the bass drum’s deep thud, the sharp crack of the snare, and permeating ring of the cymbals. I loved the control I had behind the set, feeling in touch with my body and mind. I loved the feeling I got when I had a break through – not being able to play a beat at first, and then overcoming the mind-to-body barrier and slowly beginning to let the beat flow from me.

At school I would spend time in class softly playing beats by patting my hands on my lap and taping my feet. I had little interest in math or history – I was a drummer. Between classes, I would walk the halls wearing headphones, listening to my favorite drummers. All of the other instruments were just flare. For me, music revolved around the drums.

As an only child I was usually home alone after school and during the summer, which is perfect for an aspiring drummer. The first thing I did when I got home was hop on the set and bang away for a few hours. I would put a Green Day or Weezer CD into my portable compact disk player, slide the volume to full-blast and then play along to the entire album. I would picture myself in front of hundreds of screaming fans performing at venues around the world. After the show my fans would approach me and tell me how much they loved my music and how much it meant to them. Woman would throw themselves at me, all wanting to sleep with me. My band mates and I would party on our tour bus every night. We would be as close as brothers. I couldn’t picture my life any other way.

Kanye West and Democracy

Goddamn, information travels fast these days. The time of waiting for todays news in the morning paper is long gone.

The other night I was working on my laptop while my girlfriend and her roommates where watching a movie in the same room. I happened to sign on Facebook and saw people updating their statuses about how much Kanye West is a “douche.” I asked one of them why virtually all of my “friends” came to this obvious conclusion at once.

I was then told about his antics during the MTV award show. Keep in mind this is about six or seven minutes after it happened.

So we turned off the movie and switched turned on the Tivo thing and watched what happened.

Ain't technology grand?

Useless information can be shared so fast it's amazing.

So now I was stuck watching the MTV award thing, wondering if the whole Kanye West ordeal was staged by MTV to get viewers to tune in. (This hunch was heightened the next day when I learned Kanye would be on the premier of Leno's new show...)

Anyhow, bored with MTV, I went into the other room and switched on some TV news.

This is when my faith in America went from bad to worse.

News is no longer news. At least not on TV. Each network has a very obvious agenda and they bicker like spoiled children.

Is this where the American people get their news from?

I'm beginning to think this country is too ignorant and dumb for democracy.

But hey, at least we have Kanye.

I think I might understand how Hunter S. Thompson felt, when he said he understood how Thomas Jefferson felt, when Jefferson said “I fear for the fate of my country when I reflect that God is Just.”

Public Relations is for Swine

I hate people in Public Relations. They are the worst of the worst. They are useless maggots squirming in a pile of shit. They are masturbating apes at a zoo.

I was given the run around all day by a public relations officer from U.S. Border Patrol. After our first conversation it became clear I was asking him questions his higher up did not want answered and that he was going to feed me useless piss.

At first he blew me off, treating me like a student of journalism who would coward and hide from his rejection and facade of authority. He would learn otherwise.

At the end of the day however, after going back and forth many times, I still didn't have the answers I wanted. We were at a standoff. He knew I wasn't going away. I knew he wasn't going to give me the information I wanted.

He told me he was very busy this month but he could fit me in for a real interview the end of October. This is a sleazy tactic done created by swine in Public Relations. He's too busy to give me real information but he had plenty of time to dance around questions all day.

He knows damn well I can't wait that long for my information, but I can't rightfully say in my story that he ignored me.

I have no ethical solution at the moment but I do feel better after blogurbating. Maybe blogs do serve a purpose after all.

But maybe not.

A year ago, when I was interning for a large newspaper, I had a very different reaction from PR swine, even the same swine from Border Patrol. When I wrote for a paper they had much more time for me and took me much more seriously. That's because I had power. I had power because I was with a newspaper. I had power in numbers and I had legal backup. If I didn't get the public information I requested they knew I could do something about it.

But what am I now. A blogger?

I hope to god all the reporters in this country aren't replaced by bloggers. If they are, we're all screwed.

Anyways, I'm sick and I need rest. I have a busy day tomorrow with my own job in Public Relations. What can I say, it pays pretty well...

September 11, 2009.

I began the day snooping through records at Pima County Supreme Court in Downtown Tucson.

I was on assignment.

Two weeks ago a reporter from Washington State called me asking for my assistance covering the trial of “Minutemen” member Shawna Forde, accused of involvement in a double murder. One of the victims was a 9-year-old girl and Forde faces death.

The cold-blooded murder has been in the public interest across the country since it happened earlier this summer and today, I felt like Capote.

I got the necessary documents and began to study them.

Using the motions and notices provided by the court clerk, I began to paint a picture of the case.

It was heavy, no doubt about that.

Members of the “Minutemen” militia have been in the public eye since their origins. Some consider them patriots, others, racist swine.

But that’s not for me to decide. I’m just a journalist.

Forde, a white card-carrying militia member, is accused of murdering a Hispanic family, with a father who happened to be suspected drug dealers.

It was clear to me this trial will long and gritty - Perfect for a journalist.

Still in its infancy, the case’s docket was six pages long.

I made some copies at a rate of 50 cents per sheet and left the clerk’s office.

I stepped out of the courthouse and into the heat. Downtown Tucson is September is no place for the timid.

I called my boss in Washington and told him about what I found.

But my work was not done. I headed a few blocks south to the United States district courthouse for an assignment of my own – a story about the prosecution of illegal immigrants through an operation imposed during the Bush era.

I arrived at the courthouse and passed through security. I headed up to the second floor to the “special courtroom.”

It’s huge. Oringionally the room was used for events - to honor someone or for citizenship ceramonies. Not anymore.

I stared at their faces as they we convicted, all 66 of them, in about 45 minutes.

Their crime was illegal entry and all but one pleaded guilty.

There was so many of them they had them sitting on jury chairs during the trial.

Some got 90 days. Some 120. Some 60. Others would be shipped back to Mexico that afternoon.

It happens every business day.

I left the courtroom wondering how I would put it into words? Asking myself, per usual, “What’s the story here?”

On the Road

Rather than tailgate with the majority of our peers Saturday, my girlfriend and I decided to leave town.

We didn’t really have a plan, but we had a car and a desire to get out of town and that’s all that mattered.

After gassing up our bellies and tank at a Waffle House and a Chevron, we were on our way.

Usually on road trips we headed west on Interstate 10, to destinations in Phoenix or California but that day, we decided to head east.

As a child I remembered picking apples and pumpkins at an orchid in Wilcox so I thought that would be a good start.

We arrived in Wilcox and began to follow the signs to Apple Annie’s.

We drove down Fort Grant Road, one of the “major” roads in Wilcox, lined with farms, houses and the occasional business.

A few miles before the dirt road to Apple Annie’s we passed a sign stating “Wine Tasting Today.”

Ashley and I looked at each other, smiled, and I took a U-Turn.

After a few sips of white wine and a conversation with a vintner about her vision of Southern Arizona’s wine industry, we were back on merry way, with a bottle of tasty Chardonnay for our day’s final destination, wherever that would be.

We spent the next few hours picking apples, shooing flies and eating apple pie covered with homemade ice cream.

We got back in the car and continued heading east only a few miles when we came across a sign for another vineyard.

We now had two bottles for our finial destination, which was still an unknown.

About 20 miles past Wilcox we started heading north on the 191.

The ride was beautiful. The road was lined with scenic hills and boulders and the further we dove, the greener the landscape became.

The city of Safford came too soon.

We found a Mexican restaurant and sat down to eat chimichangas and consider our options.

We were unimpressed with Safford and we heard rumors of a high concentration of Mormons in the area so we decided to keep driving.

The road was beckoning.

As the sun set, we headed northeast on the 70 toward Globe. Halfway there we realized we needed a way to uncork our wine for later that night.

30 miles from Globe we found a grocery store off the freeway and pulled in. A few minutes after walking through the automatic doors, a mild culture shock kicked in.

We were on a reservation. Above English signs that directed people to produce or meat departments were words written in a strange and bazaar language.

The only white people in the store, we foolishly walked around looking for the liquor aisle, thinking we could find a corkscrew. But it was to no avail.

Then I remembered alcohol wasn’t allowed on reservations, except for casinos.

My girlfriend and I began discussing the natives and I began to feel guilty for being of European decent.

I began to drive again, thinking about the faces I saw in the store. In them I saw reminisce of a lost and displaced culture, forced to change their way of life. I saw foreigners in their own land.

We passed a missive and illuminated sign for the Apache Gold Casino and pulled in.

The air was filled with thick smoke. Drunken white men stumbled around with beers in hand and cigarettes in mouth. Natives sat silently in front of slots, pushing buttons with a wishful glaze across their eyes.

After using the restrooms I pulled out four singles from my wallet. We settled in on some quarter slots and began to play.

We each put in a dollar. After four spins I was done. My girlfriend however had managed to turn hers into a few dollars in change.

I watched her play a bit, not wanting to do any real gambling. She lost some and won some and repeated the process a few times. I got bored and decided to put another dollar in my machine.

Next thing I new I was forty-six dollars richer.

“Lets go,” I said, avoiding the cold gaze of the natives sited around us, who appeared as if they had been there for hours with no luck at all.

We were back on the road toward Globe, stinking like an ashtray four days after I quite smoking. It was a reminder of one of the reasons why I stopped.

After stops at two grocery stores in Globe we finally had our corkscrew. With that settled we began looking for a room.

Much to the reserved dismay of my girlfriend, I pulled into a Motel 6.

After paying for a room in cash with my winnings we pulled around to our room and moved in our bags.

Because of a broken TV, a hair in the bed and a few broken bathroom tiles, 20 minutes later we had the price of our room refunded, and we were settling into a slightly more expensive hotel across the street.

Ashley was pleased.

We spent the rest of our evening watching the news and a replay of the Arizona football game while eating apples and sipping wine from Styrofoam hotel coffee cups.

I awoke to a maid trying to bust into our room 25 minutes before checkout.

“Whoa!” I yelled, scrambling to cover my naked body.

“Sorry, sorry!” she yelled back, with a foreign accent.

20 minutes later we were back on the road with a few scraps from a nearly missed complementary continental breakfast.

We spent Sunday driving, up into the White Mountain through Show Low and then over to Payson before finally heading back south.

The skies were filled with dramatic clouds and the landscape was dense with towering green pine trees.

I chewed jerky and Ashley sipped raspberry ice tea as we chatted about life, school, our relationship and the future.

Before we knew it we were passing through the concrete and stucco walls of Mesa and Tempe and were back on the I-10 toward Tucson.

The sky was darkening and in the distance we could see a vast lighting storm that lit up the sky every few moments.

Nature was providing us with the perfect finale to our weekend.

Taking Steps

I quit smoking on Monday and I’ve lost the ability to think, write and speak…

Otherwise, I feel pretty great about it.

Prior to Monday, I took frequent cigarette breaks when I wrote. Cigarettes helped me relax. I always got “unstuck” in my writing during a smoking break.

Today, four days after I’ve quit, I feel like there’s a big void in the writing process. I feel handicapped.

But despite my discomfort, I’m proud of myself. I’ve smoked a pack of cigarettes every day for the past 10 years and quitting is one of the toughest but most important things I have ever done.

Granted, I was dumb to start smoking in the first place, but I’m feeling good about my self for taking this step. And I’m using this newfound sense of empowerment to take another life step - to learn to write about myself.

When I first learned I needed to blog throughout the semester, I freaked. What the hell was I going to write about?

I’ve been a lot like Zinsser’s journalist friend. I’ve spent my adult life writing about other people, places and things. I’ve written about hundreds if not thousands of subjects outside of my self.

But ironically, I read books about other people’s lives more than any other genre. I love memoirs. I love reading about other people’s struggles and how they overcame them. I like observing how they grew as individuals. I love hearing the authors dirty little secrets and intimate details.

Most of all, I love feeling connected. When I read a good memoir I realize that I have a lot in common with others.

I’m grateful others have shared their stories and their stories have helped me.

I’m seeing that we help each other by sharing our stories and that every writer has something to offer from within, even a journalist.

So through this revelation, I’m going to try and share some of my own life through this blog. For some reason, it scares me and makes me feel more uncomfortable than quitting smoking.

Why that is, I’m not sure.

Maybe I don’t want others to have an intimate look into my life. Or maybe, I don’t want to take a close look into my own life. Either way, writing about the self isn’t easy for me but I know in the long run, if I get through it, it’s going to be good for me.