What makes a man, Mr. Lebowski?

Dude...

But seriously, it's time to roll with another topic. The old saying goes that, "The clothes make the man." Is this true? Because after watching a film on teen marketing in my Media Critical Theory class, I seem to think that music actually makes the man. Why does music, rather than film or various other forms of entertainment and culture, bring with it an entire dress code? Why is music so tightly knit with cultural dressing styles? People who listen to Hip Hop often wear baggy clothing and flat billed ball caps. People who listen to Indy music often wear clothing purchased from Goodwill or the Salvation Army. With Emo music comes thick black framed glasses and tight jeans. Metal and other Hard Rock brings about black clothing with metal spikes and chains. Why?

I am not asking this question because I think that this relationship is silly or because I actually expect us to come up with a perfect answer. I am simply putting forth this idea so it can be discussed and debated. Why do music and fashion often go hand in hand? It obviously has something to do with identifying oneself, but dig a bit deeper. Why music? I love pizza but I don't wear shoes made of pepperoni. I love comics and superheroes but I don't wear a cape (Though I really wish that I did). What is it about music that inspires people to dress a certain way?

Reusing & Recycling

I just had a great week with Derrick, Shawn, and Berg in Chicago, but sadly they are all gone now. Derrick mentioned that I should link to where I've been writing columns for my school newspaper for the past couple of months, so here it is: www.dailynorthwestern.com - you can go to the 'archives' tab on the left and click on any Wednesday since the beginning of April, and then go to the Forum page within that. In addition, to save you and me time and energy, I am just going to post an entire column I wrote here about what I think of Obama's trade policy:

Profiles in Political Expediency

Many American progressives, stumped by the similarity between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have suggested a tiebreaker: Hero-worship of dead presidents. Just as Republican candidates deify Ronald Reagan, Ted Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, and other auspiciously-surnamed individuals have endorsed Obama because he reminds them of that zenith of Democratic presidents. (I'll give you a hint: It's not Jimmy Carter.)

The assertion that the best candidate will remind us of Reagan or John F. Kennedy is seriously flawed. Kennedy's legacy was cemented when he was shot. But if we believe that what happened during a presidency is more important than the manner of its end, we can more effectively evaluate Kennedy's term in office. While his minor failings (like installing a Baathist regime in a little country called Iraq) are well-known, Kennedy-ites shrug these off, saying that Kennedy's handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis easily excuses his blunders. But was the Crisis really Kennedy's finest hour, or did he take the world to the brink of nuclear war?

Kennedy, a brilliant Harvard grad, author and senator (remind you of anyone?), was the ultimate Cold Warrior, continually criticizing President Eisenhower for the "missile gap" caused by supposed legions of Soviet missiles hidden throughout Siberia. While campaigning in July 1960, Kennedy was briefed by CIA director Allen Dulles on the realities of the situation: it was estimated that the US actually had more missiles than the Soviets. By 1961, satellite imagery fully disproved the "missile gap."

But rather than make a profile in courage, Kennedy still stuck to his Cold Warrior rhetoric once he had won the White House. He stayed true to his virulently anti-Soviet image by installing ballistic Jupiter missiles in Turkey within range of Moscow. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev responded reasonably by installing similar missiles in Cuba. Kennedy was only able to avoid armed conflict by removing the Jupiter missiles that had catalyzed the situation. But the escalation leading to the Crisis should be blamed on Kennedy's hubris, not Soviet aggression.

The comparison to Kennedy only rang true once Obama's campaign reached Ohio, where he stepped away from his usual vague policy assertions to attack the North American Free Trade Agreement. Despite Obama's obvious intellect, he decided to defy centuries of economic thought going back to David Ricardo, who showed that free trade brings long-term benefits to all participants. If American manufacturing jobs leave, it is only because we ought to be producing something better. Repealing NAFTA would hurt everyone - most notably by drastically increasing gas prices as tariffs increase on oil imports from Canada.

Obama has shown that, like Kennedy, he can inspire with lofty words and ideals. Also like Kennedy, he can steadfastly stick to popular platforms even when they are wrong. He has not, however, proved why on earth these are good reasons to vote for him. Kennedy inspired his way into an ideologically flawed presidency, and Obama is following in his footsteps yet again.

Trying it out

Let me first make it clear how much of a fan I am of this endeavor - I enjoyed the last blog a lot, and I was sad when it fell into disuse. That being said, I don't really like this color scheme - green text over a black background makes my eyes twitch.

I don't have any time for a lengthy tirade right now, since I'm still in the midst of school, unlike most of you out it cyberspace. In addition, I've already used some of my most controversial opinions for my school's newspaper this quarter. Perhaps I will convert some of those into blog posts to save time.

At any rate, it's good to be back, and I hope people stick around this time.

Throw In The Towel

I don't care if she won West Virginia by a huge margin. I don't care if she thinks that she's still in this race. I don't care if she thinks that she can somehow convince the superdelegates to go back to supporting her. Hillary Clinton needs to accept that it is over for her. She campaigned hard and made this a really close race for a long, long time. Too long in fact, and part of me respects her for that. But the math just isn't there for her. There is no honest, respectful way for her to pull out a win at this point. Unless they somehow link Obama to 9/11, those superdelegates are going to stay right where they are.

I know I'm an Obama supporter and that this makes me very much biased, but this is my opinion and I'm sticking to it. All she's doing is hurting the party now. Obama isn't perfect by any means, and everything she does from here on out just helps to point out his flaws. She needs to accept that she isn't going to win and do whats best for the party. I'm not going to claim to be a political expert either. I've never cared about politics or elections before now, so this is all very new to me. But it is rather obvious to me that Hillary Clinton is being selfish and delusional. Throw in the towel. I'll like you a little bit more if you do. Besides, there is a good chance you are going to get the nod as Vice President.

I'm Bringing Blogging Back

Where shall we begin? It has been a couple of years since I last decided to do anything with a blog. I've done little blog posts on my myspace page, but I don't feel like that really counts. And then a couple of months ago I started tossing around the idea of starting up another blog for all of our friends to converse on. People really seemed to enjoy the last one, so perhaps the sequel will have just as much success, if not more.

But I have the feeling that we are very different people than we were a few years ago. So this blog will likely have a completely different feel to it. And thats okay. I would just like to see a bunch of our friends talking on here regularly again. Facebook and Myspace can never really replace the kind of interactions that we had on the last blog. Conversations are very one-way, and group discussion is nearly impossible on Facebook and Myspace. So lets give this thing another shot, shall we?

The thing that pushed me over the edge and inspired me to start up another blog was a conversation I had with Garrett earlier tonight. We started talking about how much we've changed as people. High School Derrick would never believe his eyes if he saw who I am now. Sure there are a lot of qualities we have now that we had a few years ago, but we've also changed quite a bit too. We've all been out on our own paths exploring new territory, and so it should be expected that our experiences will shape us into new people.

But at the end of the day, all of us are essentially cut from the same cloth. We came from a small town and a lot of us share similar interests. Not all of us, but some. The important thing to understand in realizing how great our friend group really is, is how vast the network is. There are certain people in friend group that you are closer to than others. But thats okay. We all seem to get along with each other fairly well. If you are reading this and don't understand what "Friend Group" means, I'm not quite sure how to explain it to you. We have a lot of people that we hang out with and interact with. Where else could Bradley Bergstrand and Gavin Halpin be buddies? There is a pretty big age difference, yet they are still friends. Simply put, we have a very huge network of friends.

I feel bad sometimes because I'm unable to keep in contact with all of my friends. That doesn't mean that you are less important, it just means that I'm a busy guy. We are spread out now, and keeping in touch isn't as easy as it once was. I'm sure all of us are pretty busy from time to time. We are moving towards our careers or futures, and it can be easy to forget to call someone you haven't spoken to in a long while. But I'm hoping that this blog will be a good way to sort of connect us again. We need to have some discussions again, so lets get to it!