To Blog or Not to Blog...

Last night, the Assembly hosted a program about political blogging. Six debaters attended: Matt Wardman, blogger (http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/); Betsan Powys, political editor and blogger at BBC Wales (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/betsanpowys/); Annabelle Harle, impartial party from the Electoral Reform Society; Victoria Winckler, director of and blogger for the Bevan Foundation(http://bevanfoundation.blogspot.com/); Peter Black, blogging Liberal Democrat Assembly Member (http://peterblack.blogspot.com/); and Eleanor Burnham, Liberal Democrat Assembly Member against blogging.

Daran Hill, the managing director of Positif Politics, chaired the discussion.

The talks focused on already-popular and over-discussed topics: blogging as a new medium, the blogosphere being a self-contained bowl of information, and anonymous blogging creating problems with bullying and unreliable information, for starters.

"Matt Wardman" and Betsan Powys conversing

The best thing to come of the event were some fantastic quotes, which I shall list underneath each speaker's name.

Eleanor Burnham:
-"Fortunately for me, this was done over the influence of drinks."
-"I don't sit on a bloody screen all day long."
-Blogging "encourages lazy journalism" by letting them "sit on their bum and wait for things to fall in their lap."

Annabelle Harle:
-"The medium is not itself the message."

Betsan Powys:
-"I certainly wouldn't mind being stuck in an elevator with (bloggers)."

Matt Wardman (revealed "Matt Wardman" is a pen name):
-"All the interesting stuff that's done on blogs isn't done with blogs" (it's done with people on blogs).

Victoria Winckler:
-"I've the technical skills of a gnat but even I can do it."
-"Am I singing from the hill tops or shouting in the wind?"

A rather "B" week: baths, bumps and Blues Brothers

Let me summarize my week: bubble bath, bum foot and Blues Brothers.

Wednesday evening was one of the most relaxing evenings I've had in a long time. After a frustrating day at work, where a rather annoying pattern emerged of Websites I needed to access being removed, I padded on home. Autumn is beginning to fray the corners of Cardiff scenery; I smelled the full-bodied aroma of smoke and my feet crunched the crisp orange leaves on the ground. It is my favorite time of the year, sending jolts of passion through my senses.
After cooking Cornish pasties surrounded by macaroni and cheese, I opened my £6 bottle of red wine. I hadn't even looked at the label when I bought it, just the price. Imagine my pleasure when the wine turned out to be smoky as fall and full as a Cabernet Savignon.

Wine in hand, I turned on the hot water faucet to the bath tub, poured some cinnamon and lavender bubble bath mix in for a good minute, and waited. While I waited, I found my tattered copy of Neverwhere (a Neil Gaiman book that has followed me through France, Spain, England and Scotland now).

Soon, my aches and pains and worries had dispersed. I got lost in Richard and Door's story, warmed by wine, and padded by scented bubbles.

Thursday morning was as far from wine and bubbles as it could be. The ground was wet and the air was icy and I had to sprint across a street to avoid a brutal death by speeding car. When I got to the sidewalk, my right foot felt lightning bolts sear through it.

I hobbled to work, sat at my desk all day, limped home and discovered a nasty blue-ish orange bruise covering half my foot. Ouch.

Pain had nothing on me, though. Nothing was keeping me from the Blues Brothers show, so I limped to St. David's Hall to hear the songs that reminded me of high school.

Yes, I was a band nerd, in the best possible sense. I played flute and trombone, neither extraordinarily. I worked hard and loved making music, and band was my life.

We played a Blues Brothers show once... (remember "We all know that Michigan sucks"?). That was years ago, across an ocean, and in the very heart of a different country. Hearing the tribute band take on those songs in Cardiff; ah! Music not to me ears, but to my heart.

A little sad, a lot nostalgic, I listened to those songs. They made me think of the paths we take in life. I chose to give up music to focus on writing when I got to college. What if I had pursued music? Several of my more musically-inclined, hard working, talented classmates went into music. What are they doing now? I wonder if they still feel that rush, that high, from creating something so beautiful it can render a person speechless, create a need for dancing or incite weeping.

Music shapes people's lives, not just those of the musicians.

For instance, a young couple who got engaged last night were called on to the stage during the show to join in the performance. They will never be able to think of their engagement without thinking of the Blues Brothers.
I will never think of high school, or of growing up, without thinking of the band. So, to Mr. Hoffmann, Ms. P., Mr. Mahan, my Cedarville High School bandmates and my fellow 'boners, thank you for helping me make the music that helped make me. And to all you band nerds out there just starting out, savor every second and every note. The music ends too fast.

A Prayer for George

Yesterday, the weather blossomed into a full-out spectacle of sunshine and warmth. Determined not to take the day for granted, I headed down to the Senedd building and followed the water past the Norwegian Church to the barrage.

It was absolutely gorgeous, the sun setting while people buzzed around the grassy expanse, completely engrossed in their own lives.
As I walked back toward Mermaid Quay, a security guard wearing a bright yellow vest asked me how my walk was. I replied that it was nice and was ready to continue walking, but he kept tossing questions at me. On question four or five ("What's someone from Ohio doing here?"), he pointed to the little picnic table by the water and said, "Let's sit down."

Slightly uncomfortable, I sat and soon became engrossed in studying him. He spearheaded the conversation, not giving me a chance to guide our talk. His apparent appetite for control frightened me, but he did have some interesting thoughts.

"I support America!" he laughed, pulling out an American Express card.

He asked me if I went out a lot; I replied that I am pretty much broke and tend to stay in. He told me he got in to most clubs for free because the employees have known him for years.

Then he asked me out.

Let me give you some background information. This man has whiting gray hair and a face heavily lined with cynicism. He reminds me of my Portuguese Uncle Bill, who has a macho, gruff facade. Only the security guard lacks my uncle's shimmering heart of gold poking out from beneath the shadowed mask.

I turned him down, and he began to spiral into a very dark place.

He kept saying that the world was "hell around every corner"- but I couldn't know that because I am too young. He's 54, and he knows how horrible the world is.

I told him we make the world what we want it to be; we can't control everything that happens to us, but we can control how we respond. We make our own happiness.

He said that was bull shit. It takes money to find happiness. Maybe I need comfort, and that's why I say we control our lives. I couldn't possibly understand about the real world.

He's right- I haven't faced the real world consistently, day in and day out. But I have faced hell, once or twice. I've experienced cruelty that has dug its talons so deep into my soul that those scars still seem like open wounds.

Yet I am still happy and live a fulfilling life.

A couple walked by, the man staggering in front of us, grinning, "Where's the camera? Now, there's love!"

I blushed, and the security guard barked, "My daughter!"

The woman grasped the man and said, "Oh, excuse him, he's been drinking."

"Scum of the earth," the security guard rasped.

I began to leave, saying it was nice to meet him... he told me not to lie, to tell it "as it is", judging me to truly hate him. What he didn't realize is that while I seek beauty and happiness and joy in life, I do not abhor or shy away from its other aspects, such as pain and bitterness. I do not hate experiences because they do not bring me joy; the only experiences I hate are those which leave me disconnected from humankind.

My conversation with the security guard connected me to him; for a brief time, our worlds brushed together, and I tasted that coppery human connection in the raw form of human emotion expressed.

He looked right into my eyes and murmured, "And you didn't even have the decency to ask me my name."

Well, he hadn't asked mine.

"You could have said, 'George, what's your name?'"

"So, your name's George. It was nice to meet you, George."

"You go home and say that in the mirror, look at your lips," he snarled. "Most people, when they say it, their lips purse romantically or aggressively."

"Well, that explains it," I responded, extending my hand to shake his.

"See what you're doing? You're trying to make contact. Why are you doing that? I don't want to make contact, not with how I'm feeling!"

I pulled my hand back and asked, "Well, how would you like to say goodbye, then?"

"Pray for me," he said.

And so, George, I do. I pray you find that calm side of life, where the water meets the sunset and the warmth spills around you and there is only one word for what you experience: happiness.

what springs from mac and cheese

Two days ago, I went to the Bute Street post office to pick up a package from my sister containing popcorn, hot chocolate, macaroni and cheese, snacks, socks and drawings from my niece and nephew.

The first thing I did after work was make macaroni and cheese with carrots and tomatoes, with hot chocolate to wash down my typical artery-clogging American meal. Then I taped up my niece's and nephew's drawings on my closet and sat on my bed, staring at them.

It's not that I miss home, per se; I am very happy here. I just miss the people who are at home.

I sat there on my bed, staring at those drawings, imagining I could hug my niece's and nephew's tiny little bodies and kiss their blond heads, smelling that blend of bath and sweat and growing life that emanates from them.

I closed my eyes and reviewed a memory; a snapshot of my family: my sister Tina and her husband Mike, my niece and nephew, my sister Heidi, my grandparents, my dad and my mom.

Then I tried to remember what my mom's voice sounds like; everyone tells me it sounds just like mine, but I know that's not true. Mom's voice has more depth to it than mine; it's like an echo in a forest of warm brown trees, filtered with sunlight and the wisdom of owls. She also has the hint of mint, of magic, of legend.

And Dad's voice? His voice, his non-stern voice, is the voice of reason and memory mixed. When he speaks, people from all points of the globe speak, too, for they have shaped his life. He is a storyteller, a historian, a recorder of lives and memories and experiences. When I think of his voice, I think of him whistling while I danced on his shoes, looking up at his blue eyes.

It's funny how a little blue box filled with noodles and powdered cheese can open up a world an ocean -and years- apart.

I haven't spoken with my family- to whom I am very close and who is facing some difficult times- since I arrived here in Wales, really. Sitting on my couch, eating an entire box of Kraft macaroni and cheese and drinking Swiss Miss hot cocoa, I felt a little closer to everyone. I felt less cut off.

I could just imagine my best friends making a macaroni and cheese lunch at precisely the same time I was eating my dinner. I could see them laughing, a respite from the crease lines of stress on their faces; I could see them realizing what time it was and getting that knot in their stomachs because they knew they'd be late for class.

I felt closer to everyone, but I also felt more depressed.

Curiosity grasps me now from my messy little desk in a sunny room on the second floor of the Assembly at Cardiff Bay: family, friends, where are you and what are you doing?

Behind the scenes with Torchwood

I'm a geek.

A hopeless, truly nerdy geek.

Don't believe me? Read on.

Torchwood is being filmed in the same block I'm working in. Torchwood is one of my top five all-time favorite TV shows (also in the list: Xena, The Office- U.S. style, Family Guy, Army Wives). I have seen every episode of Torchwood, which is not an easy feat for someone living in the U.S.

I have drooled over John Barrowman and nearly fainted over Eve Myles.

I threw popcorn at the TV when Eve's character Gwen had an affair with Owen. I cried when Owen and Toshika died (for Owen, that would be double the tears).

See, nerd.

And for the past few days, I've been creepily hovering around the filming. I snapped pictures of Ms. Myles and Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto), and strained my ears to hear them speak.
Ms. Myles is more gorgeous and entertaining in person than on screen (and, believe me, she is tres gorgeous and entertaining on screen). She laughed as her make-up assistant dusted her "bum", as she said while dancing a teasing little dance for the crowd. At the opening of her scene, when she lay on the ground, she kicked her legs up and down, laughing wildly.

Truly a crowd pleaser.

And I'm part of the crowd!

A wet weekend in the "Smoke"

Forecasters doomed Cardiff to a weekend of rain on Friday, so I decided to escape to London... where the weather was just as bad.

Three Americans hit the ground running at 10:30 a.m., pretending to know what to do and where to go. We struggled trying to get to New Cross, where our £16-a-night hostel was.

The bus system was completely unreliable. At the station, the first bus swung around the corner and passed us without stopping, the second bus- 15 minutes later- did the same thing. For a system promising bus service every 7 to 10 minutes, these snubs were unacceptable. And common.

After depositing our backpacks at our hole-in-the-wall hostel in an immigrant-rich neighborhood, we got on a bus to Trafalgar Square, where my roommate wanted to check out a child poverty awareness event.

On this bus, I noticed a young man wearing a scarf with Wales' red dragon. I asked him if he was from Wales (he was, from Swansea), introduced him to the other Americans, and we talked until we got to the Square and went our separate ways.

By the time we arrived, the event was dispersing, so we went to the National Gallery.
After seeing MNAC in Barcelona and the gallery in Scotland, I wasn't impressed with the brightly-painted rooms stuffed with centuries of art; to begin with, the building was a maze and the paintings seemed ill-fitted for their neighbors' company. I felt as if I were looking at a collage gone horribly wrong.

Outside, the wind had picked up and gray clouds spittled.

We saw Big Ben, the Parliament building, Piccadilly Circus (with the same protesters I noticed five years ago) and Westminster Cathedral.

We crossed bridges and traipsed through parks. We passed the MI5 and MI6 buildings.

It rained, cold and hard, leaking into our spirits.

We struggled to find cheap food, which is almost impossible in London, it seems, then decided to catch a bus home.

Who should be on the bus but the Wales-scarf guy from before! We asked him out for drinks, which turned out to be very smart, because the bus 'terminated' its route long before we arrived at New Cross.

Good ol' scarf guy walked us to New Cross and introduced us to Hobgoblins, a pub with a wide gamut of people, from scenesters to goths to glamorous gals to jeans-'n''-T-shirt types. We talked to scarf guy about movies and TV shows, accents and style and humor: a delightful end to a drizzly day.
Rain greeted us Sunday morning, and it took a delicious cheap breakfast at a more personal, Denny's-like restaurant called Jenny's to cheer us up.

We spent the day sight-seeing: the London Bridge, Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, Roman wall and the Imperial War Museum before heading home.

In the subway, I heard a frustrated young woman bark, "Oh, I feel like we're in a rabbit warren!"

All of London felt a bit like that, tunnels and turns and secrets, a surprise around every corner.

And from The Echo...

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/letters-to-the-editor/south-wales-echo-letters/2008/10/02/truth-behind-us-bail-out-91466-21950631/


Truth behind US bail-out

Oct 2 2008 by Our Correspondent, South Wales Echo

AS an American student living in Cardiff, I have a lot to say about recent UK articles criticising the US House of Representatives for not passing the $700bn bail-out.

In its current form the bail-out would slam high taxes on working class, elderly, and deprived Americans – people facing the same problems as you.

The people who lost their jobs because of the crisis and the people who depend on government support to survive will be in for a shock.

One of the bail-out’s absurdities is that the American government expects taxpayers to pay for the government’s economic mistakes.

If the government didn’t encourage banks to engage in high-risk lending and other volatile behaviour to begin with, we wouldn’t be in this situation.

Bailing out these banks will encourage them to continue gambling on taxpayers’ livelihoods, while the comfortably rich will barely feel its sting.

We’re all scared. We all want a solution – and we want it yesterday.

We all, regardless of location, have to face this time of economic crisis. We are already in the crisis, every one of us. It will get worse, no matter what.

But can a plan scraped together in a week fix a problem brewing for years?

Dianne Selden (American student journalist from Ohio), Corvette Court, Atlantic Wharf, Cardiff Bay

Letters to the editor

Being in Cardiff during this time of U.S. economic crisis is fascinating. U.K. articles (on the House failing the proposed bailout) wag fingers at the U.S. government for not saving the rest of the world from recession. After reading numerous articles on CNN, Fox, and other news Websites and after heatedly talking with interns and Welsh coworkers (who had varying opinions), I concluded that the bailout in its present form would have been a very bad idea.

Responding to several articles in Welsh newspapers criticising the bailout's failure, I sent letters to the editor (called Viewpoints, here) of both the Daily Post (North Wales) and the South Wales Echo.

The Echo won't come out until 2 p.m. here.

The Daily Post (which had a shorter limit than the the Echo) published my letter:


Why US bailout is wrong answer
THE US must do something about this economic crisis, but the $700 billion bailout won’t work.

In its current form, the bailout will slam high taxes on working class, elderly, and deprived Americans - people facing the same problems as you: mortgage problems and job losses included.

But if the government didn’t encourage banks to engage in high-risk lending and other volatile behaviour, we wouldn’t be in this situation.

Bailing out these banks will encourage them to continue gambling on taxpayers’ livelihoods, while the banks’ heads, the comfortably rich, and the politicians trying to pass it won’t be affected.

Can a plan scraped together in one week fix a problem brewing for years?

Citizens of the world have to face this fearful time of economic crisis.

Do we weather it out humanely, supporting each other, or do we frantically clamber to make it out on top, forgetting those we crush?

Dianne Selden, an American student living in Cardiff Bay

(Daily Post, 02-10-08, p. 14, your letters)