The Blog That Started It All

It's true. This is the blog that started it all for me. It got me into this blogging thing and I have yet to stop. Started in 2005, Six Hours On Sunday, was a way for me to write. There was no topic. Everything was game. I wound up posting a lot of political musings on here, a few of which I still love reading to this day, which is extremely rare of me to say. Usually when I read old stuff of mine I want to rewrite the whole thing or scrap the piece altogether.

Because there was never any narrow focus on this blog, it had a hard time targeting a reader. I'm sure I attracted some with image posts, or humor posts, but then I probably lost some readers when I essentially came out as a democrat and started to post a slew of political things during the 2008 presidential campaign season. And then, maybe, as time went on and I was posting fewer political blogs some readers might have come back. And then they would have left again because of the intense graduate school curriculum I faced for two years.

Six Hours On Sunday will always be here as long as I am writing or have a desire to. So this is not its final post, but it could be the last one for a while. For once, I have started a new blog with a narrow focus. It's called At Home With London. It is about my journey as a dad who is raising his first daughter who was born at 26 weeks. So, if you're just getting here for some reason and you want to follow me, I'll be over there writing and attempting to document an adventure unlike any other.

God bless you for reading.

Good News Regarding The News

Via the Dish:

All three cable-news networks are losing younger viewers in droves, with Fox News losing the most. The median viewer age at Fox is 68. 68!!!! 

I think cable-news networks losing the younger viewer is very positive. These viewers are increasingly reading their news on mobile devices. Where they are reading the news still matters. But the fact that fewer people are watching the news is a positive trend.

Best Newspaper Read of the Year

Since Monday, the New York Times has featured a daily article in a series called Invisible Child. The stories, written by Andrea Elliott, chronicle a year in the life of Dasani, one of thousands of homeless children living in New York City. Dasani, along with her six siblings and parents (Chanel and Supreme) occupy a 532 square foot room in one of NYC's worst homeless shelters. Yesterday, in part four, Elliott wrote about Dasani's 12th birthday party. She received no material gifts. However, her mom tried to make the day special for the little girl by presenting Dasani with a beautiful white sheet cake, which Dasani did not know was stolen from a local Pathmark. Later in the evening, a neighborhood teenager, who was flirting with Dasani's uncle, a much older man, gave Dasani a $20. The girl's joy was palpable, even through the written word.

Reading through the articles while vacationing in Orlando, Florida, made Dasani's story especially powerful. Orlando's theme parks, such as Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, and Sea World, are teeming with kids who have no clue that children like Dasani exist. While these kids are concerned about getting in line to meet Belle at Disney's Magic Kingdom or line up to ride the Incredible Hulk roller coaster, Dasani closely follows city politics, calculating how much more money the family would have to spend on soda if Mayor Bloomberg's soda-size limiting proposal becomes law. At present, one super-size soda is shared among the entire family, but if the proposal had passed, Dasani's family would have faced a significant increase in the cost of soda for the family.

Throughout the week, the articles have become a bit of a devotional for me. If there is a better time of year to reflect on Dasani's life and the lives of the homeless throughout the country and world, I don't know of it. We are bombarded during this season to narrowly think of our own wants and "needs." Yes, we get excited to give presents, but how much of that excitement is rooted in the knowledge that we will get some gifts in return? Jesus encourages us to give with no thought of reward. He encourages us to be blind to a person's outward appearance or material possessions. He encourages us this season to think of the neediest, to reflect on our own blessings, and then to make a difference. And it is not important if the world thinks you are making a big difference or a little difference. To the recipient, the difference will always be big and that is all that is important.  

I am writing this blog to spread the story of Dasani and her family. It is dreadfully tragic and reading the articles represents a big commitment of time, but I believe they are rewarding. Even if you can't do something about it this Christmas, this Christmas will still be more meaningful if you come face to face with Dasani's struggle and remember her and others like her as you bask in the blessings of this holiday.

You can find part one of the series at this link.

The Long Peace

I posted several times yesterday over at IR From Afar. The longer post is about the "long peace" we are experiencing at the moment. The long peace refers to the 68 years that have passed since the last hot war between world powers. The post is adapted from a paper I wrote last year. In the paper, we had to answer the question, do you think the so-called long peace will last? Why or why not? 

As much as I would have liked to answer yes, my gut instinct tells me the peace will eventually broken. Some scholars believe it truly is here to stay, that any conflict between great powers is going to be cold from here on out. I wish I had that much faith in humanity.

My attempt at an answer can be found here.

Writing Here and There

My second article at CollegeSwimming.com is up. It covers what coaches are looking for in a recruit they are thinking about inviting on an official visit. And then, what are their expectations for that visit when it happens?

I have been occasionally posting at my IR From Afar blog. Today, I have written about American intervention in the Syrian Civil War. I have mostly linked to several key articles, which critique arguments for and against a broader American role in the country. Have a look if you're interested. 

Writing on CollegeSwimming

Just a shameless plug for an article I wrote for CollegeSwimming.com. It's a first in a series designed for recruits and their parents. For the recruit, the process of selecting the right college can be extremely intimidating and complicated. For the school, they would not like to gamble on a potential athlete, so they are looking for specific things right from the start. Read about it here.

Pursue Happiness, But Kindness Most of All

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke at my commencement ceremony. It was fun to see such a high profile figure, who is intensely involved in global affairs, give a talk to the many graduates of the international studies program I was in, but I would have much preferred to hear a different address, one from George Saunders. He gave it at Syracuse this year. It is a remarkable take on the typical staid commencement address. Here is an excerpt, but you can read the rest at the link below:

Do all the other things, the ambitious things – travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in wild jungle rivers (after first having it tested for monkey poop) – but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness.  Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.  That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality – your soul, if you will – is as bright and shining as any that has ever been.  Bright as Shakespeare’s, bright as Gandhi’s, bright as Mother Teresa’s.  Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place.  Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly.

The rest of the speech. Hat tip to my mom, who sent this my way today.

A New Blog

No, I am not abandoning Six Hours on Sunday, born in 2005, but I have created a new blog for any writing I do on international relations (IR), politics, government, and current events (at least those with international consequences). I need a place to write where the theme is narrow, at least much narrower than Six Hours on Sunday has been thus far. 

So, I'll post on here when there is something up on my new blog. For now, you can head over to IR From Afar by following this link. Read the welcome post, in which I describe the inspiration behind the name of the blog. 

Thanks, ye few loyal readers. 

Bryce

Post-Grad Post

You know, I started this post with a little background information, but then I just reread this post from March 2011 when I got into grad school:

A writer’s ego is a very fragile thing. Sharing about the rejections over and over again, I felt like I was announcing through a large megaphone from the top of the world, “My writing sucks and no one likes it.” It’s hard to describe how that shattered my motivation and made me dislike—even hate—things completely unrelated to my attempt at getting into grad school.

I decided to stop with the background information after reading that. It is a painful story still and more painful that I occasionally dream about what it would have been like last week to walk across a stage and receive my MFA. But I did not. I received my MA in International Studies and spent the majority of my time at DU studying international security, the Middle East, and political theory. Apparently, I did pretty well at that. Grad school taught me a lot of things. A resounding lesson, for me, is that I can excel at something that is not my first, second, or even third passion. I can excel at something that I never thought I would excel at.

There is not much I have to say here. I loved my time at DU. I don’t want to appear ungrateful, but it just wasn’t an MFA program in writing. I kept telling myself over the last two years that I was at DU for a reason and that things will pan out, that this will all be worth it. That has yet to happen, so I’m still praying that it does. 

Quote of the Day

"When friends speak overmuch of times gone by, often it's because they sense their present time is turning them from friends to strangers. Long before the moment came to say goodbye, I think, we said goodbye in other words and ways and silences. Then when the moment came for it at last, we didn't say it as it should be said by friends. So now at last, dear Mouse, with many, many years between: goodbye."

- From January 31st in Listening to Your Life by Frederick Buechner.

Book: The Myth of Religious Violence

I just heard a great talk on the myth of religious violence by William Cavanaugh. In his talk, Cavanaugh had intriguing and fresh takedowns of Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, both of whom have written extensively on the maddening numbers of people killed in the name of religion and for their own personal disgust at the idea of believing in a God or following a religion. 

Cavanaugh's argument is that religion means many different things to many different people and Hitchens and Harris choose selectively between what they deem a religious movement and what they label a secular movement. Essentially, their use of the terms boils down to what they truly like and don't like. Both of the authors, and many who have written in the same vein, like to reference the millions of people who have been killed throughout human history in the name of religion. In response to this, Cavanaugh rightly points out that until the modern era there was no separation of religion and politics. The thought of religion separate from politics was as foreign as the idea of religious freedom and free speech to the crowds rioting in the Middle East over the past two weeks. Every war prior to the modern era could be said to be a form or religious violence, because even following your Caesar (who was considered a god) into war was a religious action. Then, even fighting for the atheistic Lenin regime was, in this sense, a religio-political action. 

Cavanaugh shared a number of great quotes, but I wrote one down from St. Augustine on the idea of religion, "We have no right to affirm with confidence that religion (religio) is confined to the worship of God, since it seems that this word has been detached from its normal meaning, in which it refers to an attitude of respect in relations between a man and his neighbor."

Cavanaugh's talk was based on his book of the same name, The Myth of Religious Violence. Check it out at the library or buy it. As a believer in and follower of Christ, it was extremely refreshing to hear an articulate, academic rebuttal of Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris that is appreciative of religion and doesn't speak of it as the underlying motivator for all conflicts from the present day to the beginning of human history. Thank you, Professor Cavanaugh. 

TPM - David Carr Interview

David Carr, journalist at the New York Times, was interviewed by TPM this week. I think Carr's take on journalism is a refreshing voice in the cacophony of talking heads on TV and the bad habit of news organizations to merely link to and summarize articles written by some other news organization. I'm looking at you, HuffPo. 


Good interview. Worth the read. Click it.

For the Readers and Writers...

Ann Patchett on this year's Pulitzer Prize announcement. Op-Ed in the Times. Worth the read if you read or not.

Tomorrow, Hawaii

This picture has been my background for the last week, a little motivator as I wrapped up 60 pages of writing in twelve days. Although the picture was taken in Mexico, it had to do for now because I don't have any pictures of Kauai, but we head there tomorrow morning and I'll soon have hundreds of pictures of the Garden Isle.


There's nothing quite like laying your eyes on a piece of land you've never seen, but one you've heard about all your life. All the colorful descriptions and images dissolve into the reality unfolding before you and they don't matter anymore because you are there. It's definitely one of my favorite things about traveling, especially to a different country, continent, or island.


Tomorrow, Hawaii.

Side Project

Here's a little side project I started with the new year. It's a blog called The Year of the Diner. I thought it would be fun and challenging to write a review (short form) of every meal out I have in 2012. Kate liked the idea too, so she's offered to contribute when she can. So far, it has been fun and challenging as I expected, but also a little boring at times. Like, how many spins can one put on eating at Chipotle? When writing reviews of Chipotle I have tried to say more about that specific location than the food itself because there isn't much variance with the food. And sometimes I fall behind, like I'll be eating somewhere and think, I've already got three blogs to write about other restaurants.

I'm still working on the appearance of the blog. Six Hours on Sunday looks much better than The Year of the Diner. I owe the name of the blog to Kate. I did come up with some, but most of the names were taken and the name I went with flows a little better than other options. 

At the end of this, I think it will be pretty cool to see how many times I had a meal out in 2012. Where I dined the most? What month was a heavy dining-out month? Etc.There is one post (for P.F. Chang's) which takes the place of two meals. So far, I've dined out 15 times in 2012. I feel like that's fairly low compared to some dining out binges I've had and the number is very low for people who dine out every day for lunch, for example. 

Check it out sometime. The Year of the Diner.

the War of Art: Redux

I first blogged about The War of Art on April 1, 2009 after reading it because this man recommended the book. Well, I’ve just been hit by a wave of anti-resistance. The resistance I write about in the older blog. You can read about it there. But I just wanted to share some passages that still rock my world. Thank you, Pressfield.

“Late at night have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being you were meant to be?”

“Resistance will bury you.”

“If you take Resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.”

“The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.”

“The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don’t just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed.” Pressfield brings it with this one.

“Anything that draws attention to ourselves through pain-free or artificial means is a manifestation of Resistance.”

“Instead of applying self-knowledge, self-discipline, delayed gratification, and hard work, we simply consume a product.”

“What makes it tricky is that we live in a consumer culture that’s acutely aware of this unhappiness and has massed all its profit-seeking artillery to exploit it.”

Man, I hope one of these quotes just came up into your life and tossed things about like a little tornado in your soul, especially that last one. Read this book. And go do what everyone is telling you, you can’t do.

Movies: Page One

I just finished watching Page One: Inside the New York Times. If you have any interest at all in the Gray Lady, or the challenges journalism faces in the digital age, this is an excellent documentary. And I’ve suddenly become a much bigger fan of David Carr. He is featured throughout the movie and is right on about the importance of a mainstream media establishment like the Times, a total badass.

Currently

Currently reading Although of Course you end up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace, by David Lipsky. I was about to write it’s Wallace unfiltered, but if you’ve read that much Wallace, you know there isn’t much of a filter. It’s pure Wallace, just like his nonfiction is, except just in conversation with a journalist who is clearly becoming a friend over the five days they spend together.

Here’s a brief passage, where Wallace and Lipsky just landed in the Twin Cities. Still on airplane. Over the PA system comes a voice:

PA: (Engines cycling down, that big, deep, vacuum-cleaner sound) Just a reminder: The airport here in the Twin Cities is a smoke-free environment. Smoking only is permitted outdoors.

(Corrects her) [Wallace] “Permitted only outdoors.” It’s not the only thing that’s permitted outdoors.

[[Lipsky]] [Irritated as a grammarian and as a smoker]

Currently obsessed with: The Suburbs, by Arcade Fire. This album has been out for a while now. Arcade Fire already won a Grammy for it, but I just picked it up two weeks ago and it is getting heavy rotation. It reminds me of discovering Neon Bible when I was working at a magazine in Denver and doing the drive from Longmont and just rocking out to “No Cars Go.”

The Shrinking Avenue to Readership

I suppose, like some of you, I have made a special trip to Borders this week to see if there are any good deals in their clearance sale. That’s right, ironically, if you don’t read, you may not have heard. Borders is going out of business. I have always enjoyed going into large bookstores. Outside of Portland, that leaves you with Borders and Barnes and Noble for the most part. When I was younger I flocked to Borders. I even worked there for five days, but that’s a different story. As I have aged (a little bit), I prefer Barnes and Noble. It seems more astute, more bookish. Maybe it’s the interior. I think it’s a little darker with higher bookshelves and I feel more likely to run into someone reading or writing some great tome in the corners of a big Barnes and Noble than in Borders.

I digress. I am getting way off point here. I go to Borders at least once a week since there is one in the building I work in. However, I did pay a special visit on Saturday to see what kind of deals could be had. There wasn’t much to be found, at least not yet. Those might come a little later with just days to go before Borders shuts down forever. But I did notice the people. They were everywhere. The place was packed. The last time Borders saw this much traffic was when the last Harry Potter book came out. My first thought at seeing the crowds was how much better the world would be if bookstores were always this crowded. And, how sad it is that it takes a closing of a bookstore to bring out the throngs. There were clearly a lot of readers there, snatching up armfuls of books that must have been on the “to buy” list, but had never made it to the “bought” list for some reason or another. Perhaps, in this economy, they were just too expensive.

What stores are left after Borders? How long will Barnes and Noble last? I don’t know, but I pondered those questions as I strolled through the aisles while making mental notes of the things people were grabbing at. A lot of DVD boxed sets, 2012 calendars, and board games. I stopped at an oft-ignored display of Moleskine journals, found one my size, and joined others in line. A $5.99 copy of Kindergarten Cop tempted me right before checking out. I could take it home and watch it and perfect some new Arnold lines. Not enough work. I settled with the Moleskine and it’s pliable leather cover and blank pages.