Turn the Page

After a long several days of studying for tests today, I'm ready for a really good weekend. The big (in length and importance) test I finished at 3:30pm today was quite a tuffy. Added to the rest of the week...ok. Anyone who has ever said that music does not help people through life or said that the appropriate music at the appropriate time does not make life seem a bit less arduous, is, in a word, wrong. After the completion (and I use that term loosely) of my last test today, I walked out into the dim, rawness of the Iowa fall, inserted my headphones, and the first phrase I heard, which is from the first song of the first album by The Streets, was "That's it/Turn the page on the day/Walk away." Before the background hum of the strings enters, I already felt better.
On Tuesday night, Alex and his sister came to Ames and we all went to see a wonderful concert at the M-Shop. The opening band called themselves the Starlight Mints. They were a really creative and inventive sound almost all the way around, that which wasn't was the mundane percussion that could not have been less inventive. Either way, if they come to your town, they are a fun, good act. The headliner was the Mates of State. Yes, the happy couple performed a dynamite set. Part of the reason that they struck me so favorably is the fact that they produce such a full, strong sound out of a drum set, a few keyboards, and two voices. I picked up their newest, Bring it Back, on vinyl and it sounds fantastic. Come listen to it sometime.
Now for the positive out of the aforementioned test. The characterless, cliche that existed in most of the reading assigned for the class have no bearing and I had difficulty finding interest in them, but a few really influential works hit me as strong, worthwhile pieces. Yesterday, I dove into an article that I cannot agree with, but nonetheless I cannot dispute the strength of the argument. It is called The Mainsprings of American Foreign Policy by Hans Morgenthau. Morgenthau argued that the only way in which a state should craft foreign policy is in self-interest. There is nothing in the world between states besides the balance of power. It is realism, which is somewhat of a precursor to the principles of neoconservatism, preemption, etc. For example, according to Morgenthau, if the United States is the hegemonic power in the world, which it is currently, and another power, say China, is beginning to emerge as the next hegemon, it is in America's self interest, moreso, it is the United States' elected officials' responsibility to protect the interest of its people by taking out the threat. Realism neglects human rights, alliances, diplomacy (for the most part), and the order of the world in order to ensure that the people of one's own nation gain economic profit. Sounds familiar... Well, out of this thought we also see the idea of nuclear deterrence, which may work, but honestly, what nation would use nuclear weapons against another with the knowledge of the backlash from the international community.

Everybody should have a gun so nobody gets shot.

There's a lot more to add, but that's for another day. Just one more...if anyone wants a really good read, try the (neo)neoconservative, Francis Fukuyama's new book America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy. It's really a great discourse of the way in which neoconservatism started (actually in Trotskyism and Stalinism), what it has done, places that it has gone completely amiss, and where it may go.

Thanks for reading. Have a great day.