Rivalry

I feel I need to explain something because I have several friends who just do not get it. Part of me thinks they never will understand (and maybe they just are not capable) but I will attempt to clarify why I feel the way I do about this. Parts of this argument may be well reasoned. Other parts will almost certainly be irrational tirades straight from a mind that has been raging for days (if not much longer). I may be in the wrong and it may be something I need to work on, I realize that. If you want to continue, buckle up and let us begin.

It is no secret to most of you that I hate the university of oregon. In fact, on Saturday it took nothing but a glance in the direction of someone wearing green or yellow to begin feeling rage. And I do not use that word casually here, I mean I literally felt rage when I set my eyes upon duck fans. Win or lose, I wanted the day to end quickly just so that their fans would be out of my city again. The fact that the day ended in the worst possible outcome in the history of sports made it even harder to stomach.

I am sure that the duck fans reading this so far are already savoring the memory and are coming up with snide comments to add at the end of this. I guess that is my point. I know you are doing it because you are a duck fan and all of you feel the uncontrollable desire to be completely obnoxious. I know Beaver fans can be annoying too. All fans of all teams throughout the history of sports have had good fans and obnoxious ones. I am not here to get into that argument.

Lest anyone forget, I have seen every Civil War in person since 2005. That's right, three at home and three down at Mordor. Even though Beaver fans tend to hate ducks more than they hate us, I have to say that other place is far more hostile to outside fans than Reser. My freshman year down in Eugene we were literally in physical danger. The girl next to me was drilled by a golf ball thrown by a duck fan out of the crowd. Cowards. I realize that two years ago some duck band members had paint thrown on their uniforms (though I could not help but think at the time that it could only have improved their appearance) but on the one hand it was your mistake for walking in front of our student section during a game that was going badly and on the other that is not as dangerous as the stuff that gets thrown at us at Autzen. I will not say Beaver fans are perfect, but I know from seeing games at both stadiums (in the band and as a civilian, mind you) that the environment is far more hostile and duck fans are far more obnoxious. (See also: OSU is consistently rated most family-friendly football program in the country while oregon was overwhlemingly rated as the worst fans in the Pac-10 last year by an ESPN poll of college sports fans)

On top of the fact that duck fans have this insatiable urge to be total jerks to Beaver fans (even while claiming we should like them because they are "from Oregon," which I will get to later on) they have taken a great deal from me personally. As a member of the OSU Marching Band, it is not "just a game." Not by a longshot. Two years in a row I had a dream taken from me. Maybe my team could have played better. Maybe we should have just taken care of Stanford in the season opener to make the Civil War irrelevant (at least as it applied to the Rose Bowl). Whatever could have or should have been, all I know is that I have never felt more crushed in my entire life than at the end of the day November 29th, 2008.

To this date I cannot think of a time in my entire life where I felt worse. I still want to cry anytime I run across that picture from the newspaper with roses on the ground. And it was all punctuated by stupid duck fans dancing around on my home field right in front of me. Pointing, laughing at the distraught band that could hardly make it through the fight song and the alma mater after the game. They are just as sore winners as they are losers. I would have killed to go the Rose Bowl during my college career as a member of the OSU Marching Band. I had dreamed of it, I could almost taste it. Now, having just finished my last season as a member of the OSUMB, I have seen three straight losses at the hands of them who I hate more than anything else. Honestly, I did not even care about a bowl at the beginning of the season. If we lost every other game I wanted us to beat the ducks. Taking the national championship from them would have almost atoned for the last two years.

Beyond all that personal baggage I have invested in hating the ducks, I will turn now to address what they just cannot seem to get through their thick skulls. To large extent I have begun to think it is just arrogance on their part. Every year I cheer for two teams: the Beavers and whoever is playing against the ducks. The Beavers are obviously a constant, every week my second favorite team changes to accomodate what I last stated. Civil War week I have one favorite team and can focus entirely on being against the ducks. You follow. And every year I get the same line from duck fans who think I should root for them when not rooting for the Beavers because "they are from the same state." Honestly, I find this to be the most ridiculous thing anyone can ever say to me.

On the one hand, why should I care that they are from the same state? To be perfectly honest, I do not have a huge amount of state pride. I am from the southern part of the state. I would rather we joined with northern California and formed the State of Jefferson. I guess I would cheer for SOU or WOU or even Portland State. But you know what? We do not usually compete directly with any of them and none of them are our rival. That is one of the biggest things duck fans cannot understand anymore. I know back in the day there were literally riots over the Civil War. This was the 114th meeting but the series goes back 116 years. It was canceled twice due to the fact that it was not going to be safe. Some years it had to be held at a neutral site because it would have gotten too violent between fans in either Corvallis or Eugene. We have not forgotten. The ducks have and they are confused. And what good does it do the Beavers that the state looks good? The state in fact does not look good, all the attention goes to them and we get screwed even in the years where we finish better.

Across the country schools hate their rivals unconditionally. Texas - Texas A&M, Kansas - Mizzou, USC - UCLA, Ohio State - Michigan, you name any of them and they will tell you the do not ever want to see their rival do well. Heck, in the Big 12 their fight songs are devoted to their opponent in that they are all about saying farewell to their opponents and how bad they are going to beat them. You think Texas cheers for A&M because they are both from Texas? Do you really think that Cal, Stanford and UCLA jumped for joy that USC owned the Pac-10 for the last decade because they were "a team from California and it made the state look good?" Do I even need to point out how ludicrous that sounds? Well, that is exactly what our rivalry is like. The duck fans are just too arrogant to understand. They think we should be proud of them for their success. You are our rival, we do not want you to have success. We want to beat up on you and see you beaten up on. I have much more respect for the duck fans that hate the Beavers than the ones who cheer for both "except when they play each other." You are not supposed to like your rival, that is why you call them your RIVAL. There is a reason our rivalry is called the Civil War. Figure it out.

I think that is all I have to say for now. I do not necessarily mean to offend anyone, this is just how I feel. You can comment back if you want, but I reserve the right to delete. I do not really want to get into an argument, you are not going to change my mind. I hope that sheds some light on why I feel the way I do. To be honest, I am not looking forward to even going home at the end of this month because I know southern Oregon will be crawling with those in the green and yellow. Almost all the clothes I own have something OSU on them and I will undoubtedly be derided. Even when we win I get people going out of there way to send a "go *ucks" in my direction when they see my OSU stuff. Losing in this way and what they get to do now will only make it worse. I never respond to them, by the way. You know why? Because I am a Beaver fan and I do not have that insatiable desire to be a jackass to my rival. Is it true that I will be cheering for Auburn in the coming month? Yes it is. Will I go out of my way to let any duck fan know? No, I will not. Am I frustrated and does that frustration get the best of me sometimes? Yes it does. But I hope that after this extraordinarily long and disorganized rant you will have some semblance of the why.

The Obama Fad

As the painfully long primaries finally wind down, the Democrats are finally coalescing around Barack Obama to be their nominee for president of the United States. My own state of Oregon has backed Obama and he is huge on campus here at Oregon State. There are a couple of big thoughts that have passed through my mind repeatedly as I watch all of this unfold. The first is an honest bewilderment at why Obama is so popular in the first place, a question I think I have answered but am looking for alternative points of view on. The other is a fear; the fear of someone that is little known, inexperienced, and highly radical. I will deal with these two questions in order.

 

As a political scientist, I look at first glance at Barack Obama and wonder how in the world he became so popular so quickly. He was a little known first term senator from Illinois just over a year ago but now he is a household name throughout the developed world. Europeans are coming out in numbers in their own countries to follow the new phenom in American politics. He is popular among African Americans (no surprise since he is one also), upper-class whites, and students. There are various reasons that could be delved into as to how he rose to prominence so quickly, but I am not going there in this discussion. I want to focus on students.

 

Obama is pretty popular with students nationwide. Based on his policies alone it is difficult to know why he is so wildly popular with students compared with Hilary Clinton. Their overall stated objectives and platforms are very similar. They hold the same common beliefs. Personally, I think people like Obama because it is trendy to do so. He is young, his background relatively unknown, and his policies flowery and hopeful, yet so vague. He is a master orator, I mean no disrespect to him. He definitely knows how to give a speech and rally his base. He talks about "changing Washington" and making "new politics rather than politics as usual". But he says nothing substantive, which brings me to my next thought.

 

When taken over time, the Senator's words seem so vague and empty. He talks about hope, crossing party lines, bringing real change that will last instead of short-term DC political change. He talks about what he will do and it all sounds great. But what are his plans to actually do any of that? How is he going to change things? Even if he wins and has a democratic majority beneath him, that sweeping of change is highly unlikely. And what is this change anyway? You watch any single show on TV and you will see multiple ads by all kinds of politicians and you might wonder if there isn't some federal law stating that all political ads must mention the word "change" at least once in the course of their message. Obama's slogan is "Change We Can Believe In" but what exactly is the change he proposes?

 

I wish that my fellow students were better educated voters. I truly think that he is the next cool thing out there and so people are riding the trend like they do with just about any other fad. I feel this is dangerous because they know little of what his policies actually are (because he keeps everything so vague anyway) and no one knows his background. Every year a non-partisan group ranks all senators and congresspeople on how liberal or conservative they are. The rankings are based solely on quantitative data: how that person votes in their respective house of Congress. Low and behold the rankings this year have Barack Obama as number 1 liberal. That's right, Obama is the most liberal man in congress. If many people see Hilary Clinton and John Kerry as radicals, watch out, here comes Obama.

 

This ranking I believe goes back to his votes even in the Illinois state legislature. His entire political career has been spent working to push the agenda of the most radically liberal people in this country. I think that is a dangerous person to have leading the United States. I think many people who support him now do not realize how far off center he is politically. I would take Hilary Clinton as president long before I would take Obama. And besides the fact that he is extremely liberal, I do not think he is strong enough to lead this country. When he wasn't voting his liberal agenda, on other issues he simply does not take a side. There are few other Senators who simply vote "present" instead of yay or nay as Obama. He shows up, but won't take a side.

 

Working  with Republicans and Democrats? Reshaping politics as usual in Washington? Are you kidding me? If Obama is elected president, you will see polarization of the parties taken to new heights. You cannot take a far-left leader and expect that even moderate conservatives are going to want to work together on everything. Someone more moderate is needed. It will be a sad day for the United States if Barack Obama is ever sworn in as its president.

The New Bad Words

Lately I have been watching the political ads on TV and I have been making some observations. A lot of the things said in these ads play on the emotions or internal feelings of people and, I might add, the ignorance of many. Using the media and strong words, campaigns are distorting the true meanings of words and making them into bad words to make things sound negative. Or they make negative things sound positive in a sort of Orwellian double-speak effort.

 

The first one that has really gotten me lately in the media is a couple of Democratic candidates (it is irrelevant where they are from or what they are running for) who have been running ads about lobbyists. They are talking about how bad lobbyists are and how we need to stop listening to the special interests of the lobbyists. After studying this fairly extensively, I have something to say about it.

 

Lobbyist groups I would dare to say are the reason we as regular citizens still have some direct influence over our politicians. Lobbyist groups do have lots of money, yes. Lobbyist groups are powerful groups that have the ear of the lawmakers. But did you know that you, yes you yourself personally, are represented by at least one lobbyist group all the time? It pretty much does not matter how old or young, rich or poor, or what your occupation, there is a lobbyist group representing your interests and fighting for YOU in Washington, in the state capital, wherever.

 

Even students are represented by lobbyists groups. OSU has a couple taskforces: one for federal and one for state affairs. There are many others too, but the point is these are lobbyists. Maybe they are not as powerful as some, so I will give you a more well known one: the American Association of Retired People. That's right, AARP is a special interest group, a lobbyist group that was meant to fight for the rights and interests of elderly people in the United States. The organization AAA is the same thing. These are lobbyists, these are special interests, and yet they have done many good things. No one would dispute this. Lobbyist groups keep democracy in full swing and keep the government accountable. In a system dominated by only two parties (unlike almost any other democracy in the world) interests groups make sure the minorities do not get shoved out of the system.

 

There is another ad out there that just galls me personally and I believe it is based on another gross misunderstanding of past events. The ad starts out: "Some votes weren't counted, and we got a mess" and the images on screen refer to the 2000 presidential elections. Apparently people still will not let go of a decision made almost 8 years ago. The Supreme Court decision in the case of Bush v. Gore still seems to just eat at some liberal naysayers. Does anyone really remember anymore why that case even started? Sure we know the outcome; recounting of votes in Florida stopped and Bush was declared the winner of the election.

 

People are still up in arms over what they feel was George W. Bush's political wrangling and that he used the Supreme Court to further his own political goals. But does anyone know why it became a court case in the first place? Al Gore got it put before the Supreme Court, not George Bush. And the decision was about as close to unanimous as a controversial decision can get: 7-2. The court was far less conservative than it is now and still a strong majority sided that the recount should stop. Why is this even an issue anymore? The problem was not that votes were not counted, the controversy was over a RE-count of votes that had already been recorded. Liberals, get over it. It is 8 years in the past, time to move on. You talk about change and moving on from the past, practice what you preach.

 

The last one I am going to touch on is a personal issue that bothers me more than any other political issue. This one is something that, again, is in a couple of democratic candidates' ads. This one has to do with "protecting a woman's right to choose". When you put it in those terms, it does not sound bad at all does it? But what exactly is being protected? What is being protected is a woman's "right" to choose to kill an unborn child. They are "protecting a woman's right to choose" by taking away an unborn child's right to life. It all sounds different though, does it not, when they sanitize it in the media and in political ads?

Devotion

In all likelihood I will watch the Oregon State University men's basketball team make history on Saturday. Unfortunately, it will not be the good kind of history. They will go down in history as the only Pac-10 team to lose every conference game in a season. They have currently lost 19 straight with an overall record of 6-23. I have not seen them win a home game. The games they won were either during marching band season and I didn't have to be there or they happened over Christmas Break.

It seems like going into every game I know that they are going to lose, but I cannot help feeling depressed every time it actually happens. I still get sad no matter how bad I know they are. I show up and I give my all to cheering them on. I yell at the refs and scream at the opposing team's coach like my life depends on it. When something goes good, I lose my voice yelling so hard. I bark at the opposing team's fans to sit down when they start pouring it on. Maybe the reason it hurts so much is that I invest too much emotion in each game. I just cannot help it; it is my team and I hate to see them triumphed over by anyone. Especially because of being in band, it is my duty to protect the honor of my school.

That is real devotion though. I could cheer for some other team because there is no point in cheering for mine. I could just not give any emotion to the game at all. There are many things I could do because the team is really bad. But what kind of fan would I be? I do not just love my team when things are going great; I devote my energy to them even when things have gone terribly bad. That is devotion: to stick by something or someone no matter how bad the circumstances become. To stay by their side in the roughest times.

What I am trying to say here is bigger than just my love for OSU though. I think that my devotion to cheering for Oregon State in every sport, through thick and thin, is sort of a good picture or example that can be applied to many other things. My generation has been referred to by some as the silent generation. I would add to that lazy. Don't get me wrong, this is my generation too, but I definitely see us as a silent, lazy generation.

My generation is no longer committed to anything. We have an attitude of "if it doesn't make me feel good, I don't want to do it." If life is hard, give up. I saw a commercial the other day, I believe it was a car commercial, that illustrates my point. Basically the narrator was saying that today if you do not like your house, get a new one. If you do not like something about your body, get a new one. If you do not like your wife, well, get a new one. He then goes on to ask, "What ever happened to commitment?" I guess that is what I wonder.

To prove my point about us being lazy, I will give yet another example from the press. I read an article about two weeks ago in the Daily Barometer, OSU's student newspaper. The article was about the type of "relationship" known as "friends with benefits." Basically the article talked about why these relationships are popular nationwide with high school and college age students. The reason is that it is easy: you get to have sex and whatever without having to commit to any kind of relationship. Why work at a relationship (because it definitely does take work) when you can just go "hook up" anytime you want without a relationship?

The sex professor here at OSU (who I already had almost no respect for) was almost praising these relationships in the article. It kind of made me sick. My generation likes to cheat on tests, find the easiest way to get rich, go out and have sex with all kinds of people without any commitment, and do all sorts of other things. Everyone knows that in America today we have the fattest population ever. We are so lazy.

Maybe people already know why we are called the silent generation, but I will go over it real quick anyway. Part of the reason is exactly what I am doing right here. Besides being lazy, my generation does not voice their opinions anywhere except in their blogs. When people in my generation get mad about some societal ill, they go and blog about it to release their anger. They do not go out and get anything done, they just blog about it and forget. Everything is OK after that because they made themselves feel good by writing that blog.

This election is somewhat unusual because there is a higher percentage of young voters turning out. But the fact of the matter is that most of those are 4-year college and university students who are more or less being pushed to get out and vote by their peers and professors. Not that that in itself is bad; as a political science major I would suggest doing it myself. But what I guess I am getting at is most people my age are not at a university. Most of the people in my age group are still not involved. Even the Darfur awareness among college students is not the biggest thing. It is almost more the trendy thing to help with than anything else. If it makes me look or feel better, than I will do it. That is my generation.

I guess I just wonder what this generation will look like in ten or twenty years. We are so lazy that we are not willing to work at anything. We do not work to make the country better. We do not work to make our states or cities better. We do nothing to help those who are really in need on the streets. We do nothing to keep our relationships strong. Are we just going to sit by when the government makes bad decisions in the future? Are we going to let our marriages fall apart at the first sign of trouble because it is easier to let it fall apart? Where is there room for devotion in the midst of our laziness and silence?

As for me, I want to have the same devotion, the same emotion invested in everything else in my life that I do in cheering on my team. I want to passionately pursue the goals and interests, and develop the talents that God has given me. I want to be passionately devoted to one woman for the rest of my life, no compromise. I want to be utterly devoted to my God. I want to do all of this no matter how hard it gets. That is true devotion. Of course there will be very hard times, but true character shines through the darkest circumstances.

The Short Time in Life

I went over to Newport today because all week I have wanted to just get out of Corvallis and be somewhere less hectic. I wanted to just get up and go to some place that was relatively quieter and away from all the stuff at school. I think it is a good thing to go do something far away from the things that represent stress in life. I went by myself, which may seem rather lonely, but it was actually kind of nice. I got to wander about, not having to stay with anyone, being able to do whatever I felt like. I guess it was while I walked around out on the sand that I thought about things, as I often do.

As my mind wandered, which also happens often, I thought about my friends and I thought about this girl. That always happens as a single guy right, you start thinking about the girl you like? I have felt lonely quite a bit here at school, missing friends and such, and I was feeling it a little more as I walked about on the beach. But as I kept thinking about this stuff, I came to a novel realization. For those of us people who are single, I realized it's fine to be single and not to lose heart. Not to be downtrodden by the loneliness. This is probably the shortest period of life we will face.

I think that from the time we first start "noticing" the opposite gender, we want to be with them. This is natural, of course. Chemicals start mixing and sensors start going off all over the brain. We get into middle school, high school, and college and find ourselves sick with the desire for companionship from the opposite sex. This is all very good, and I look forward to the day when I finally know that it is time to begin a relationship, but I have an interesting idea to introduce here.

When I said "this is probably the shortest period life we will face" I meant it, and here is why. If I was to say get married at age 25, and then only live to be 60, I would still have lived more than half of my life married, in a relationship. I would have spent 35 years in a relationship compared to the 25 I was not in one. Since the life expectancy for even a male in America is far higher than 60, it looks like I have a good chance of this happening. My point here is that it is OK to not be with someone right now if you are not. For those of you who have found someone, great! I hope it works out. I am talking to those of you who are sad and lonely because you do not have a man or a woman in your life. Do not be dismayed by all of this.

I guess the first thing that got me wanting to write this and started me down this line of thinking was a status update I read on Valentine's Day from a girl I went to high school with. It was lamenting the fact that she was not with someone. I know it is a hard thing to be single, I have done it for almost 19 years now, but this strange new thought came to me after I read it. Today at the beach only reaffirmed it I suppose. Think about the good things of being single.

The very fact that I was able to escape to the coast on my own was only possible because I am single. Think about it, if I had a girlfriend or wife and went to the coast by myself either without telling her or telling her that she could not come, I would be in major trouble. On the one hand she would be angry I did not tell her where I was going. On the other hand, she would be mad I did not want her to come along. There are other things about being single that are good things. If I wanted to do something with like "the guys" it is incredibly easy now. It's like this: you call up your buddy and say "hey, I'm gonna go climb a mountain, wanna come?" and he's like, "sure, when are we going?" "I was thinking about an hour." "Cool, let's go!" It's that easy.

If I want to travel, there is nothing holding me back besides money. I have all the time in the world because I do not have to devote it to anyone else. Now don't get me wrong here, it's awesome to be in a relationship and spend time with another person. It is great to meet someone else's needs. But this season in life, this relatively short time of being single (though it does not feel short now) is going to be over before you know it.

For those of you who are single, I challenge you to live life to the fullest now without another person for just a little while longer. Do not just rush into a relationship because you "need" to be with someone. I challenge you to go do some of the things you have always wanted to do. I myself would love to go study in Europe, and I think I am going to go do it next year. I am probably going to spend two months this summer in Canada working with a church plant. I know I could not achieve many of my dreams that I have if I were already committed to someone else. That is just the harsh reality of life.

Being in a relationship or being married is awesome, but do not forget to enjoy being single as well. This is a short time in life, and once it is over, it will not come back. There is life after being single, but there is also life during it. Live it to the fullest, realize your potential. Do the things you want to do while you still can. Remember to have as much fun single as you will in a relationship. If you take nothing more away from this, just remember that this is the short time in life; have fun living it.