Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

Or, Why Did the American Political System Fail?

Let me state for the record that I believe in global warming. I can't remember a time when I didn't believe that we have been destroying our environment. I believe in doing things about this: I feel better using public transportation everyday, only owning one car, riding my bike, recycling, minimizing energy use, etc. What is interesting about An Inconvenient Truth is not the message it presents (almost all the information was old news to me), but Rebecca's and my response to the rhetoric: it was cringe-worthy.  read more »

"Cyclical time is already dominant among the nomadic peoples because they find the same conditions repeated at each stage of their journey. As Hegel notes, “the wandering of nomads is only nominal because it is limited to uniform spaces.” When a society settles in a particular location and gives space a content by developing distinctive areas within it, it finds itself confined within that locality. The periodic return to similar places now becomes the pure return of time in the same place, the repetition of a sequence of activities.  read more »

"Trinkets such as key chains which come as free bonuses with the purchase of some luxury product, but which end up being traded back and forth as valued collectibles in their own right, reflect a mystical self-abandonment to commodity transcendence. Those who collect the trinkets that have been manufactured for the sole purpose of being collected are accumulating commodity indulgences — glorious tokens of the commodity’s real presence among the faithful. Reified people proudly display the proofs of their intimacy with the commodity.  read more »

I have been listening to a podcast from the MoMA THINK series on Brice Marden, following his retrospective at the museum. Brice Marden has quickly become a hot item in the past 30 years (is that quickly), but people are collecting and talking about him in the "art scene." The podcast is of a panel including Francesco Clemente and Christopher Wool (others as well) discussing Marden's work and forms.  read more »

I have been reading Steven Best and Douglas Kellner's Postmodern Theory over the past week. I believe I will be able to retain this information if I put some of my thoughts down into writing.  read more »

We rented this documentary last night. I've got such a jumble of thoughts after watching this film that I think i need to write them down to sort them out.  read more »

Last night, I wanted to do something special for Rebecca, for when she returned home from girl's camp. She's spent the past four days up in the mountains. I cleaned the house, got everything ready and even went to buy the cat litter mat that we always talked about purchasing but never did. Everything was ready for this morning.

Then I woke up to find that our cat, Star, had eaten through the rubber mat.  read more »

at least, for right now. I've become obsessed with this song because I think it's one of the most uplifting and inspirational songs I've heard in a long, long time. And I for the past two years, I've wanted to share it with my friend Jon, but I've never been able to get it to him. But I think that he'd really appreciate it. And so should everyone else. Anyways, I listen to it all the time in my car now. I think Mac would have loved this song.

So here ya go Jon!  read more »

This semester is slower than usual. That's a bonus. I get to spend more time with Rebecca; I like that too. We woke up late this morning, and by late I mean that we rolled out of bed at 8:30 and took our time getting ready for school/work. The day has been warm and sunny; short sleeves weather. I didn't have to dress up for work today; I usually have to wear button white shirt and tie, but today, I'm wearing normal clothes. Not only that, but we got donuts. And then, after we did nothing for the morning, some people came around with a huge tray of cookies and milk.  read more »

We almost got towed today. Not just almost, but we turned the corner to walk to our car and saw the tow truck pulling up to our car and had to run to stop them. Thank goodness my class got out when it did. Thankfully Rebecca was ready to walk to the car when she was. Thankfully everything worked out just right so we didn't miss our car being hauled off to the impound.  read more »