Duane Gran’s log of thoughts

Before sharing my thoughts in more detail, let me get it out of the way up front that fashion per se is not about what Hollywood types wear or what parades at shows in Milan. Fashion is about what a person wears. While I may say that someone (like VP Dick Cheney) is not fashionable, in truth it is impossible to express “afashion” in the way we might call someone amoral.

I’m an admitted clothes hound and take this stuff more seriously than most people, but at its heart, fashion is about projecting an outward view of yourself. It isn’t a substitute for substance of character and productivity, but it is part of the whole package. When a person arrives at work or attends an event in less than endearing clothing, the person says something about himself.

The casual clothing movement is predicated on a belief that one should prize intellect and productivity. The cult of self-esteem among many young people (at 31 I like to think I’m still within arm-reach of that demographic) regards any judgment based on clothing to be facile and irrelevant. This attitude; however, is not consistent with their behavior in social settings, such as the dating/bar/club scene. Many of the very people who argue that they shouldn’t be judged on appearances at work are often among the most fastidious when it comes to dressing for a night on the town. So, appearances shouldn’t matter, except when they should. Interesting.

My point is simply that fashion does matter to people, but for some reason it doesn’t matter in the workplace, where many people spend 1/3 of the day. My point is to challenge readers who may think that they are rebelling against fashion when they wear chinos, jeans or all manner of other dress down clothing at work. You have made a fashion choice in some manner. Why not make a good one?

A thought provoking Commonwealth Commonsense article explores the vocabulary issues of the culture war between progressives and conservatives. While I have personal respect for Dr. Dobson, I believe there is a proper path toward tolerance. His habit of equating tolerance with other issues is diluting the meaning of the word.

What we face here is a battle over words that has a profound impact on the way we engage politically. I’ll offer up “war on terror” as a prime example used by the Bush administration. It ranks right up there with the war on drugs as an asinine campaign of never ending war without decisive conclusion. In truth, we are engaged in a war against terrorists.

Think about that for a moment. Let it sink in. There are probably a few thousand determined terrorists in the world who have the means and will to do harm to the United States. They are surrounded by a much larger cadre of sympathizers who may throw a stone, but won’t blow up buildings or smuggle weapons. It is the few, not the many, with whom we do battle.

This isn’t to belittle the seriousness of terrorism, but rather to put the issue in perspective. When someone says that we are at war with terror it has a way of disengaging the imagination, because terror is quite simply a very large concept. When someone says that we are at war with terrorists one begins to think about the name and face of the enemy and before long, how to finish the conflict.

When we, as progressives, parrot the talk of a war on terror, we do harm to our cause. We are at war with terrorists, and the way we phrase it makes a world of difference to the multitude of innocent people who get caught in the crossfire of this war.

The Vice-President made more than a fashion blunder when he dressed poorly for the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Read more about it in a Washington Post article. I quote:

Cheney stood out in a sea of black-coated world leaders because he was wearing an olive drab parka with a fur-trimmed hood. It is embroidered with his name. It reminded one of the way in which children’s clothes are inscribed with their names before they are sent away to camp. And indeed, the vice president looked like an awkward boy amid the well-dressed adults.

Like other attendees, the vice president was wearing a hat. But it was not a fedora or a Stetson or a fur hat or any kind of hat that one might wear to a memorial service as the representative of one’s country. Instead, it was a knit ski cap, embroidered with the words “Staff 2001.” It was the kind of hat a conventioneer might find in a goodie bag.

Is anyone handling The Vice-President? This goes beyond tacky into the realm of embarrassing the nation. If you are interested in the particular fashion issues, see a related posting I made to a fashion forum that I frequent. Yes, I may be a tad elitist about clothing, but I think it is common courtesy to dress properly for an event of mourning. I expect as much from heads of state.

Update: I also entered a Road Bike Review discussion about this as well. In spite of the name, there is an active political forum on the site where I enjoy sparring with others.

There is a fantastic Washington Post article by Vivian Watts concerning transportation in Virginia. There are real political barriers to doing something constructive, but I hope Virginians take the advice to heart. I personally will discourage my delegate to touch the transportation fund, as it is badly needed.

I have found a wonderful web site that covers all manner of issues related to fashion. Mind you, this isn’t about runway fashion or the forward stuff that famous people often wear, but rather a forum of people who appreciate classic fashion. Often I think I am born about 80 years too late. Aside from that whole depression thing, the 30s and 40s (20th century) were the peak of men’s fashion.

While it is never polite to disparage a gift or charity effort, there is some truth to the criticism of the Arab world’s monetary response the the awful Tsunami in Asia which has killed over 150,000 people. An Austrailian News article strongly criticizes Arab nations and makes an argument that aid from the West may turn the tide on terrorism. To quote:

But one day the smarter lads in the Osama T-shirts will begin to wonder what they’re getting in return for their glorification of a multimillionaire whose followers these days spend most of their time killing Muslims – in Iraq, in Turkey, in Saudi Arabia, even in Indonesia. With friends like that, who needs tsunamis?

What the article fails to conclude, however, is that we accomplish far more good will in aid efforts than through war. The US has pledged about half a billion of public money (and untold amounts of private donations) yet has spent over 200 billion on the war effort in Afghanistan and Iraq, the latter being the seminole money pit. There is so much good that we can accomplish in this world, yet we squander it in military efforts. I marvel at how much more progress we could have made through public works and foreign aid than with bombs and tanks.

But then, I get called a panty waste liberal for thinking that we should help people instead of killing them. Go figure.

I read very little spam, but today I received some eye catching spam. Check it out:

You have to give the sender credit. I can’t read Japanese, but they went to great lengths to get my attention. Don’t visit the URL. It is not, shall we say, safe for work. I think I’m spending too much time having academic discussions about the meaning of text and graphical nature of text.

An article from The New Republic details the erosion of the right to organize in the workplace. Of particular interest, is the special mention of Smithfield Foods, the maker of a popular ham in Virginia. Similar tactics have been used by walmart to discourage unions.

While I’m not a big fan of unions per se, I don’t believe that employers should break them up. What am I doing about it? Well, for one, I’m not eating Smithfield ham until I see some indication that they will respect the law and their employees.

The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience is a compelling article from Christianity Today that reveals that Christians are not much different from the American culture at-large. This should give pause to believers who have implicitly believed that faith changes lives. Clearly, we have much work to do reforming within before Christians engage further in the culture war*.

* By this, I refer to the mixing of religion and politics that has been so common in the last decade

A court case is underway at Vanderbilt University over the word “confederate” on a public building, according to a CNN article. The issue at hand centers around an agreement made between the Daughters of the Confederacy and the University to construct the building. The University wishes to remove the word and a good number of southerners and right-minded folks disagree with this direction.

As you might notice, I’m in the disagreement camp. Is it not bad enough that the north ravaged the south with the most barbaric war ever waged on this hemisphere? Is it so criminal to remember and honor the fallen on both sides?

I wonder how people in the north might react if a vocal group objected to symbols of the union, circa the civil war, as icons of aggression? I suspect they would feel attacked and insulted that the memory of the dead should be politicized. The part that upsets me the most is the moral superiority with which northerners act about this issue. The north profited as much from slavery as the south, through running the auction blocks and ports of entry.

These issues go deep, but I would like to think that we can all agree that suppressing the memory and honor of the dead does nothing to ease race relations today. It just irks me to see a chapter of our heritage eroded like this.

Oliver Stone is blaming moral fundamentalism in the United States for his poor sales on the film “Alexander”, according to a Guardian article. He goes further to claim that it was too complex for the conventional minds in America.

I didn’t see the movie, but my friends who saw it (who I think have unconventional minds) thought poorly of it. I heard it compared to the “Pearl Harbor” movie, which takes a dramatic situation and shoe-horns a love story into the mix. Americans of all moral persuasion may simply not be interested in gossip about Alexander’s love life.

Death and Taxes is a pictorial view of the US budget for 2004. The new budget isn’t much different, but it highlights several things about the priorities in America. Namely, half of the budget goes toward defense. Although no one likes to have a military base shut down in their home town, we need to scale back the military. There is no reason for the US to devote so much of its budget toward defense (or offense, in recent years).

We would be wise to remember the words of Eisenhower in his farewell address when he reminded us that every battleship and device of war signals a lost opportunity to build a school or hospital that may help people. Let’s keep that in mind as congress decides the next budget.

Everyone simply must read a NY Books review of Inside the Leviathan to get an idea of working conditions at walmart. I quote:

The harshness of the working conditions at Wal-Mart helps to account for the exceptionally high employee turnover at the company. Some 50 percent of Wal-Mart workers employed at the beginning of 2003 had left the company by the end of the year.

So much information is percolating about the inhumane treatment of workers at walmart. It astonishes me that anyone could shop there in good conscience who has the means to do otherwise. Such patrons of walmart are as morally bankrupt as pre-civil war slave owners who bemoaned the injustice of slavery while promoting the institution. What are you doing about it?