manifest destiny the second

Let me start by stating I am under no illusion that the United States ever ceased being Imperialist. Perhaps at one point it became less of an overt military Imperialism sparked by some proclaimed right bestowed by God and became a more covert corporate Imperialism sparked by a proclaimed right to the hard earned wages of the world's workers. It generally wasn't so much focused on some godly pursuit but rather plain and simple greed.

What really has me concerned lately is this devolution in our government that has us blindly falling back into the mindset of manifest destiny and with it an overt military Imperialism. The original concept of manifest destiny (which I refuse to dignify with capitalisation) was that God deemed white, Anglo-Saxon Americans as the chosen people of this Earth because we believed in him and thus we deserved to spread ourselves from shore to shore on this continent in every direction and then beyond. This time we are spreading because we are God's chosen people to spread "freedom and democracy" beyond our borders, even if we have to do so by stripping the freedoms of the country in question to "liberate" them and "enlighten" them with "freedom and democracy."

This is absurd. Good morning, America. Welcome to the 21st century. Manifest destiny is so 18th century. Evolve.

A First

So I attended a workshop for the channel today at one of the community media organizations of which we're an institutional member. It also happened to be the Annual Meeting (since it's a non-profit). Much to my surprise I was nominated and elected to the Board of Directors. Wow! That's pretty amazing. So for the first time in my life I'm a member of a non-profit's Board of Directors. I hope I can serve them well.

Some New Tunes For Y'All

Thanks to futuresuperhero for pointing this out to us all over at declare_indies.

If you like: vibraphones, jazz, hip-hop, retro-synth, trance, mildly weird music and/or Italian porn music (don't ask, it was something we found at the college radio station at PSU a few years ago), check out V. Velella. I'm really enjoying their sound right now. It's just the right fusion of jazz, hip-hop, synth and groove.

Check it out. Really. You'll be glad you did. They have a ton of mp3s (full-length, even) for you to download. They're calling your name...


You know you wanna.