Eating Ribs in a Haunted Hotel

The other day my girlfriend and I went to Lake Tahoe. It was a spontaneous decision, so naturally, we were about as prepared as a cat in pancake batter (don't worry about the metaphor). As we made our ascent up the mountain, we noticed how snow would gradually accumulate on the trees the further up we went, and then the snow would start to be more and more present on the ground higher up, and eventually we reached a point where the snow was all over the trees and the ground, and then it was on absolutely everything, including the roads upon which we were driving, and then it was in our cars within which we were bickering at each other, and then it was within our bodies inside which we were overloaded with caffeine and anxiety. That's when we stopped and put the chains, which I had never used before that had been sitting in the trunk since my acquisition of the vehicle, on the tires.

This was the first time I had put chains on a tire, so my girlfriend, whom had equivalent experience with snow chains, assisted me in this endeavor. It was a struggle, but we managed, the troopers that we were, and secured the chains to the tires. I suppose, in retrospect, that the real trooper here was the car, for having put up with all of the continuous bullshit we had put it through just to take this highly inefficient and recklessly impulsive trip.

Anyhow, although it is very normal for people to make reservations for a hotel room so they have a destination in mind when they are arriving at their vacation spot, very normal was in no way, shape, or form associated with the circumstances of our little journey. Instead, very normal was being substituted today by a figure by the name of Random Happenstance. Random happenstance, or RannyHae as I like to call it, decided that tonight was the night for us to get caught in a hotel that may or may not have been the final resting place of some unfortunate pioneers that had befallen the unlucky plight of being stranded in a frosty, death zone, forcing the remaining survivors to feed on the then recently deceased.

The tale of the Donner Party is not all a story of people that simply resorted to cannibalism because they had nothing better to do with their time while they were waiting out the winter. It's a sad story of a small portion of the group that struggled to survive in an unforgiving wilderness, and when their options came down to death for all or only the few that have not made it thus far, they decided that survival came first. And survive, a few did, but at the cost of traumatization and irremovable emotional scars.

It was with this in mind, after having made numerous calls to find a hotel with vacancy and finally finding one, that we decided we would go out for a walk in the ice cold streets to find something to eat. Being a small town with limited consumer traffic, there were few places open except for, conveniently enough, a grocery store. We somehow consciously decided that eating BBQ Ribs was the perfect meal after a long walk in the snow, and proceeded to purchase them with an assortment of desserts, compliments of RannyHae. We took them back to the pleasantly cheap, but unpleasantly creepy cabin-like lodging we managed to find after a hefty quantity of searching.

To Be Continued...

The Media and The Middle East

The nation of Israel is a place that is constantly under the international media spotlight no matter what else may be going on in the rest of the world at any particular moment. It has been a conflicted territory for centuries, and this century is no exception. If anything, this may very well be the era that the state that is now called Israel gets more international attention than ever before. It’s a place absolutely loaded with substance in terms of culture, religious practices, architecture, and unmatched history. And for these reasons it is also filled with perpetual conflicts and civil war.

            In this day of unparalleled information access and technology everyone has the chance to get a glimpse of what’s going on in this little, particular part of the world, and so it’s no difficult task to find people with an opinion about all the happenings that take place within. The information that is reported in our country, however, is not necessarily always reflective of the circumstances and statistics that play a major role into the events and situations that actually take place in Israel.

            It is no secret at all that the U.S. is an ally to Israel, and we don’t ever hide our willingness to defend them with all the brute force that is the U.S. military, but, in general, do we, at the receiving end of American media, ever question if we are actually doing the right thing by taking such a one-sided stance on such a complex issue as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? What journalists reporting through corporate media will often say is that Israel is a nation that needs to have a high level of security and defense against the ever-present threat that is the rest of the Arab Middle East, and in general they are right. But there are other truths beyond this that are rarely ever publicized through these mediums that are important to consider when answering the above question.

These truths have to do with the fact that Israel is a nation that was founded as a place of refuge for the persecuted Jews of the Holocaust. People without a country are what many Jews throughout the world became during the reign of Hitler in Nazi Germany, and to reconcile this, the UN decided that these forsaken people needed a sovereign nation. And because at some point in history this piece of land next to the Mediterranean Sea was the residence of these very people, the UN decided it would be good if they, as in the Jews, had it back again.

            So it was given to them.  Given to them under the condition that it would be a divided state between Israel and Palestine. It was the British Mandate of Palestine brought forth by the League of Nations that ensured that the Jews would have a home in this place, but it was the pre-emptive strategy of the Israeli military in the 6 Days War that caused the expansion of the Israeli state into areas like the West Bank and the consequent loss of the Palestinian nation altogether. All these events constitute much of the basis of the present conflict, which is the fundamental reason why Israel is a nation constantly under the media magnifying glass.

            The general American media perspective on the issue is that Israel is a just and noble democratic nation that does a fairly good job of trying to imitate the West. Whether or not this is entirely true, however, is beside the point. The matter that is important to realize is that American media underreports the plight of Israel’s Arab neighbors, and tends to justify this by criminalizing the Arabs in one way or another more than any other race of people discussed in the media.

In mainstream American culture, it is easy to see the stigma that has been placed in the minds of American media consumers in regard to Arabs and the Middle East. A single word like “Muslim” brings about automatic associations with ideas like terrorism, suicide bombings, and filthy rich oil tycoons. It’s hard for a normal, working class American to identify with someone who is willing to kill himself and many others for a religious cause, especially if that American believes that their cause is “evil”. On the other hand, it’s not hard to identify with the people that must defend themselves against such evil by creating an impenetrable security system and powerful defense weapons arsenal. This is generally what is sold in American media, but reality is not that painted picture that Americans have become so accustomed to viewing.

            The reality is that this is a battle between two communities that desperately want peace, but can’t seem to afford it because of the few extremists on either side that propagate the separation, usually through acts of violence. The truth is that both are guilty of committing violence against each other, but are unequally represented in Western media. This disproportionate coverage indirectly proliferates the hostility and violence from one side by shaping the general Western perception of the Middle East, thereby influencing the West’s support and decisions in favor almost entirely for Israel. The fact is that there is no purely good or purely bad side; there are just two sides, both whom want peace and both whom are comprised of people who want to live the kind of relatively normal and carefree lives that we Americans have the privilege of living on a regular basis. If any group should be considered guilty, it is the corporate media – the media that help fuel the tension and hostility between these communities by only addressing issues according to corporate interests and agendas. They are guilty of letting financial political interests come before the need for fair and unbiased news coverage. How can democracy truly work if people are being misinformed? 

Looking for work

Okay, so I just moved to this place called Hayward, and I'm looking for a job. Hayward is actually quite a nice town filled with all the usual small business and crime you could expect, but what makes it extra cool is that it's next to a really nice city by the name of San Francisco. Yes, the Bay Area is a deliciously dense place of culture, business, food, and other fanciful things, but it's also a place filled with people trying to find work. Work to work, work to survive, work to live, work to thrive, a paying job is what people want, but not if it's in a fast food restaurant.

So that's where I'm at. I really want work, but I'm still in college. Is it wrong of me not to want to work at a fast food restaurant or any restaurant, for that matter? I respect the work, and the food service industry is a good thing, but I don't want to work for a creepy looking king who is the result of bad breeding practices, a ridiculous looking clown, or a goddamn overgrown jack in the box. I want a place with professionalism where networking is a real possibility, and growth is a given. Perhaps I am too idealistic, the ambitious college student that I am, to believe that I can find a decent job in this faltering economy when I have no previous experience.

So what do I do? Do I settle for the burger job, or do I continue to persevere and send my resume out to companies with offices in huge, towering sky scrapers, just so I can get a measly mailroom job or something of the like? I don't mind it, as long as I'm getting the chance to talk to the right people. Any job with the right company, could lead to bigger and better things.

I'm looking at internships too. I mean, who wouldn't want an internship with a reputable company, if it means they have something strong to show to their next employer? Well, I guess I wouldn't have a problem with an internship at all if it were paying! But so many internships demand that you have a certain level of experience, a certain major, so many hours available to work for them, and an ability to shut up and do the busy work they demand. And that's all fine, but under the context that it is unpaid, and you will not get a single thing out of this beyond the experience, is a little hard to swallow. I may have enough money to go to college (or at least the financial aid is paying just enough for me to cover the cost of tuition), but do I seriously have the time to work for free? I mean, I'd love to get the experience, to network, to have a role in that world of paper pushing and money moving, but I also love to have money to eat, pay rent, and move from point A to point B, and these people are asking me to work for free!?!? Honestly, I would love too, but I can't.

My parents are supportive, but more in the emotional sort of sense. They are struggling just to stay relatively stable themselves, so what does that say for me? It says "I MUST GET A JOB!" that's what it says, and it also says that I should set aside my ambition, my optimism, and my drive, and settle for a job that can support me through the rest of college. 

Is that really what I have to do? Fine, but I won't like it! 

You know what? Screw it! I'd rather not get paid, than to work for some scary clown.

Please, I'll just take the unpaid internship! PLEASE!

Today

Today is everyday, and today, I'm typing. This is my blog.