Michael Braun's Blog

Despite other things that I may have said regarding not liking babies, I must say babies sure can be a lot of fun. This weekend, I had a chance to spend a lot of time with my young (year in January) cousin Jessica. You may recall that I mentioned her earlier in the post ‘The Godfather,’ regarding my role in her baptism. Anyway, Thursday and Friday, I got to hold her and carry her around and entertain her with toys and all kinds of stuff. It was great fun.

But I haven’t always felt this way about babies. Since I stopped being around these young, young people when I was around 12 and all my cousins became toddlers (also very fun), my opinion of babies grew less and less. I have more fun chatting with kids, being around kids who can actually think and do things. This made me start to think that babies were boring. Well, how wrong I was.

It was so fun to sit on the floor with Jessica and watch her face light up as I did something like toss a ball up in the air and catch it. She was fascinated. It was great to pick her up and carry her to the window to watch her look outside. She crawls around on the floor, chasing after the cat, trying to stand up on her own. I even got to sit her on the piano bench and play the piano with her. It was fabulous!

Anyway, enough gushing. In other news, I had a great Thanksgiving break. I was in Milwaukee from Thursday morning thru Friday noon, then Mishicot for the rest of Friday. On Saturday, I went up to Algoma and got to see Tony. We walked around Algoma under an overcast sky. Around noon, we went to see Megan and her dad. They seem to be doing well, all things considered. I got to see the tree they planted for her mom. It’s in a good spot. I also got to meet Megan’s boyfriend Rusty. He seems like a very nice guy. Tony and I hung around for 3 hours before driving to Green Bay, having dinner (steaks!), and seeing the new James Bond movie, Casino Royale. It was incredible.

Sunday I hung around Mishicot until 3, then drove back here, car packed with four boxes of books. Now my shelf space is full up, but I’ve got a lot more reading material sitting around. Work today was back to normal, and now I’m sitting here, candles burning, just enjoying a peaceful evening. I hope you are as well.

People try so hard sometimes, and they just don’t get it. Race is maybe the most complicated issue in America. A lot of people who think they get it can still find themselves unsure of how to act in situations where racial prejudice appears to be expressed. How should they react? What has actually happened in the situation? Is it worse to do too little or too much? Is there a risk of further offense by your actions?

Tony sent me a copy of a letter he got from Michael A. Viney, Assistant Chancellor for Student Affairs, at UW-Platteville. Mr. Viney composed this letter (sent as an email) after someone wrote “nigger” in a stairwell in a dorm at Platteville. Here is the letter, as Tony sent it to me.

“TO: Residents of Morrow Hall and All UWP Community Members

RE: An act of hatred in Morrow Hall – Your help is needed

On Thursday evening, November 9, between 8:00 p.m. and 8:15 p.m., in Morrow Hall in the
east stairwell at the 4th floor level, some person or persons wrote a racial epithet on the wall with a marker. The slur that was written on the wall was a vertical spelling of the highly offensive “n-word.”

This flagrant display of racist grafitti is deplorable and has absolutely no place in our UW-Platteville community. The efforts underway at UWP to make this community of students, faculty, staff, employees and citizens open and welcoming to all persons without regard to an individual’s color of skin, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, nationality, marital status, developmental disability, creed, political affiliation, disability, veteran status, or arrest or conviction records is harmed whenever an incident like this happens on our campus and in our community.

An offense as despicable and harmful as this hateful act is an offense against every thinking, sensible, caring and mature person in this community.

It is acknowledged that nearly every one of you would not do or participate in such offensive behavior. This intolerable behavior by one or more individuals, which has no purpose other than to hurt others, is something that can be difficult to hold as a secret. If you noticed anything on the evening mentioned that might help identify the person(s) responsible, or have heard anything about this incident, we encourage you to tell a member of the staff at Morrow Hall, or someone at the Student Housing Office, or someone at the Office of Student Affairs, or an officer of University Police.

More importantly, you can also let other students know, especially students of color, that this incident of racist grafitti offends you too.

Sincerely,
Michael A. Viney, Ph.D.
Assistant Chancellor for Student Affairs”

As Mr. Viney does, I would also encourage anyone who may have information about this crime to come forward. But I also have some criticism for Mr. Viney and his views on race relations.

1) He ends the letter by saying, “More importantly, you can also let other students know, especially students of color, that this incident of racist grafitti offends you too.” This statement actively excludes students of color from participation in the message. The point is for White students to let minority students know that they are not racist. There is no need for students of color to let each other know they are offended. Mr. Viney has brought race into a situation that has nothing to do with race; he has associated being offended by a racial epithet with being a certain color. If anything, White students ought to let other White students know they are offended by this crime, as a way of saying, this isn’t something that anyone should feel passive about, as if they aren’t affected simply by being White.

2) In the second paragraph of Mr. Viney’s letter, he says that Platteville is open to all persons, and then goes on to state each and every possible way that we might choose to exclude someone. Black? We don’t care. Gay? We don’t care. Jewish? We don’t care. Mentally challanged, redneck, convicted felon with a limp? Don’t care about that either. He writes as if he’s copying straight from the student handbook or a legal guide. It’s a poor way to make a case for tolerance and acceptance. Plus, what does he think, that people are going to start thinking Platteville is full of racists? His coverup sure makes me wonder.

There’s other criticisms to be had, surely. But I’m not going to break down Mr. Viney’s letter anymore. Instead, I am going to encourage Mr. Viney, should he stumble upon this post, to come forward with an explanation for why he wrote such a terrible letter. For why he wants to bring up further reminders of differences and separaters at a time when the Platteville university community ought to draw itself closer together.

There’s a right way and a wrong way to heal racial wounds. Recognizing differences and working to fix them – good. Drawing attention to differences during a situation in which all people can unite – bad. Shame on you, Mr. Viney, for dropping the ball on this one.

Not sure how far this story has spread since I heard about it upon arriving home from work. Last night (I believe), in a comedy club in Hollywood, Richards was heckled by two African American men. He then exploded at them, spewing racial epithets and making comments that alluded to lynching. A clip from TMZ.com is available here (via YouTube).

Richards starts off his rant – “15 years ago we’d have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass. You can talk, you can talk, you can talk! You’re brave now motherfucker. Throw his ass out. He’s a nigger, he’s a nigger. He’s a nigger, a nigger. Look, there’s a nigger. Alright you see? This shocks you, it shocks you to see what’s buried beneath you stupid motherfuckers.”

After feedback from the audience, he says – “They’re going to arrest me for calling a Black man a nigger?” and then “Cracker-ass? You calling me cracker-ass, nigger?” He walks off stage saying – “You see, there’s still those words, those words, those words.”

Richards will apologize tonight on David Letterman, with Jerry Seinfeld as guest. He has already expressed sympathy over what he has said. I have not heard any word on whether he is experiencing troubles with drugs or alcohol, so he can try to blame his racist remarks on that. But frankly, I don’t care. I love ‘Seinfeld’ and Richards’ role as Kramer, but I am sickened by his remarks.

You can see the hate that lurks in his heart simply by the explosive nature of his comments. This isn’t an off-color remark, misinterpreted as horribly racist. This isn’t a vaguery of racist sentiment, easily covered up. This is a full-out racist tirade. This is anger spilling out towards an entire race, not just two men who are heckling. He equates the race of these men with their heckles of him.

I look forward to hearing Richards’ apology tonight. But it will not be enough to make us forget.

I’ve been debating a lot with people lately (mostly my dad) about work environments, co-workers, and mostly just how to be happy while working. For whatever reason, he finds himself frequently unhappy with aspects of his work as a high school guidance counselor, but there are always things that can get him down. He also tends to focus more on the negative sides to things than I do.

Thru these debates, specifically my dad’s expressed desire to find a new line of work where he will like everything about it, has got me thinking a lot about somewhat standard advice given to those leaving school for the real world. The advice goes something like this – find what you love to do, and figure out how you can make that into a career. The advice is purposely very basic and simple and, like everything, easier said than done. But it’s beautiful in its simplicity.

Only thing is, the more I think about it, the less I agree. Everyone gets tired of their job at some point in time. Now, that doesn’t mean that everyone reacts the same way, or that everyone gets sick of it and suffers until they find something different. It merely means that no matter what, there will come a point when you find yourself frustrated with the work you are doing. So let’s say that your passion is painting, and you take that advice from above and start to make your living as a painter. Wigga-bam-boom, good for you! That’s awesome! And it’s awesome for you, until one day you wake up and say, ugg, I have to go paint now, or I won’t be able to pay the rent. All of a sudden your passion has turned into drudgery.

Maybe it’s the problem with basic, pithy advice – it’s never completely accurate. Or maybe it’s just bad advice in general. Whatever the reason, I think there needs to be some new standard advice delivered. Something along the lines of – find out what you can do for long periods of time without getting sick of it, then find something that you aren’t ashamed to do, then find a workplace where you are respected and can respect those around you, and use what you earn to support your passions, so that when you get home from work, you have something to do besides sit and think about work.

It’s official, my WiscMail account has been deactivated. They’d been warning us since since graduation, but finally went thru with it. I got a couple of days notice, which was nice. But I had already transferred most mail to my .Mac account. But, before I was ready to remove the account from my mail client, I went thru and saved off all messages.

I went back and was looking at some of them. There aren’t a whole lot of really old emails, unfortunately none before Oct. 2003, but it’s still nice to go back and read them. I’ve got around 100 that are 2-3 years old, and a good bunch that are at least a year old. It’s interesting how this simple daily correspondance can serve as a better record of what was going on than a journal can. Although, looking back on blog and journal writings from these times does also give a strikingly different picture of what was happening. I guess emails do a much better job of capturing what you normally wouldn’t read. As informal as a blog is, it’s still reasonably formal.

Some of the messages I remember writing. So that’s doubly interesting. It’s funny to see how I reacted to Anthony in emails to Megan. Mostly, I was annoyed when he would be irresponsible with his school work, or leave the room hugely disorganized. As soon as we moved into our apartment, however, I stopped caring about a lot of that. I still worried that he wasn’t getting his work done like he needed to be, but as long as I had my own space to go into, his occasional disorganization never bothered me.

I just now briefly looked over a couple of emails I had sent to Tony a while back, looking to find some interesting bit of text that seems to somehow both represent the time and the act of looking backwards. Of course, I can’t find anything. So here’s a blurb about Anthony and I going to Hochunk Casino for his 21st birthday, in October 2004.

“We played slots, keeping anything we won in a separate bucket. After spending all our money, we cashed out, and had both won money. We then got some more change, with our winnings, and played again, both of us winning money again. Over all, Anthony won about $20, while I ended up playing my winnings, and came home only a dollar up. But still, we went to a casino, and both left with more money than we had started with. Kind of funny. It was actually a nice place as well, a lot of helpful people, friendly people, drink carts with soda, water, and coffee all for free, and a nice atmosphere too. Not sleazy, as I expected. The next time we go we want to bring a lot more people. We think it is even possible to bring people who are underage. The only time we had to show ID was when we joined the players’ club, and that is optional. We didn’t even have to show ID when getting coins. It was crazy.”

I just finished watching the movie ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,’ a critically aclaimed motion picture co-written by Charlie Kaufman. Had I known that Charlie Kaufman was partly responsible for this screenplay, I would have been much more hesitant to see the movie. That being said, it still took me quite awhile to see it. Charlie Kaufman, for those of you who don’t know, was responsible for the diaster of a film, Adaptation.

Anyway, so it’s an interesting movie, even if it isn’t all that good. There are a couple of themes that seem to run thru the movie – one intentional, and one unintentional (I think). The broadest and most widely recognizable theme is “It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.” As these people get the memory of their past relationship erased, they realize how terrible it is. Indeed, most of the movie is watching Jim Carey run around in memories while they are slowly erased from his mind. At the end of the movie, Jim Carey and Kate Winslett decide to start their romance again, for the first time, knowing that it will probably end poorly again.

So that’s kind of a charming picture of love. It’s good to have both the good and the bad memories because love is wonderful, always to be treasured, don’t be bitter, blah blah blah. And, to a large degree, I believe in that idea. I would not want to erase any of my memories, from any stage of my life, good or bad. But, at the same time, I feel like these two characters are somewhat representative of all humans, wanting to forget the bad and remember the good, often to our own detriment.

I would like to see the movie end a bit differently. Here’s a basic rundown of the ending. (By the way, if you haven’t seen the movie, and are still reading, angry that I have ruined some of the film for you, stop reading). Kate and Jim meet on a beach and hit it off. Only thing is, they have previously met and had a relationship, broken up, and had the memories of the other person erased. Then, they both receive tapes in the mail that they had made before having their memories erased, tapes talking about everything they hated about the other person. They listen to these tapes and realize that their relationship will never work out. Kate decides to leave Jim’s apartment. He stops her in the hall, and they decide to have a relationship anyway. The final scene is them running on a beach, and the clip loops, making it seem like this cycle will repeat forever.

It’s not a bad ending, because it really gets you to thinking. Wouldn’t these people be better off with someone else? They KNOW that their relationship will not work out. They know that the other person is absolutely not the person they will spend the rest of their life with. And yet, with all that knowledge, they decide to go for it anyway. Touching in the short term, I suppose, but thinking about their overall mental health, don’t they dream of something more than unhappy finality to a relationship that they knew would grow rocky from the beginning?

Anyway, it gets you to thinking. In other news, on Saturday I went with Mike, his girlfriend Jen, and Bill to a UW volleyball game. It was a lot of fun. Lots of yelling at the other team, school spirit, and so on. I never had much school spirit when I was actually in school, but now that I’m out, it’s different somehow. I think it helps that I’m not surrounded by 40,000 other fans all the time. We then returned to Mike’s apartment to play some Guitar Hero II. It was lots of fun, though I think I like the songs on Guitar Hero I more. I’ll have to play some more to really know for sure.

It’s back to work tomorrow. I hope everyone had a great weekend.

0607 – It’s true! The Democrats have indeed taken control of the House. That means it’s a new day for America. The Senate is STILL up in the air, coming down to two key races in Virginia and Montana. I won’t make any predictions myself, though it would seem unusual if Democrats could win both those seats (though vote counts right now do have Democrats ahead). We will see. I don’t expect that a recount can be done quickly. We may be waiting like we did in 2000.

So now it’s time for the Democrats to get in and actually do something. It’s time for some hearings, for some Ethics legislation that Pelosi has promised. It’s time for some real policy pushed thru to help America. We can stop blanket tax cuts and move forward with flexible tax policy. We can move towards a strategy in Iraq, something that will help us get unbogged. That doesn’t mean immediate withdrawal, but it does mean something more than “stay the course.”

Is it a vote for change? I don’t know. Pundits are debating that now on CNN. But I do think that it’s the American people saying that what we’re doing now isn’t working, isn’t American. It’s the final backlash for years of being mislead. The American people don’t always have to make the decision ourselves, but we like to believe that we are in control; we feel better with our might behind our back. With Bush in office, he’s gone too far. He’s taken too much power from the people. And now it’s time to take it back!

2217 – CNN is predicting that the Democrats will take control of the House of Representatives. I can hardly believe this news. 20 minutes ago they were saying that we only needed to win 5 more seats. I am absolutely floored by this news. I just called Anthony and he said that he believes it will happen. This has made me even more optomistic.

Nancy Pelosi as the first woman Speaker of the House!

This will be the test for Bush. How much can he bend? He’s burnt out of his political capitol from 2004. He’s burned thru his high popularity ratings. He’s burned through his “stay the course” mantra, and now is suffering the consequences. This is what happens when you won’t bend to the will of the American people. We take our will and kick your ass out of office!

Sure, it may take the American people a while to wake up and smell the coffee, but that time is now. Our government was designed to be slow acting, so it’s no surprise that our people are too. I’m willing to wait, and I hope other Americans are too. Things may get bad, but it’s a cycle. And slowly, slowly we move to a more liberal direction. This is just another step in the right direction.

2141 – We keep moving closer and closer to our goal of retaking the house or senate or both. I think that it is still too early (and I’ve been burned too many times) to start thinking about a takeover. But let me tell you, it’s been 12 long years. 12 years we’ve had to live under the iron fist of brutality and corruption that republicans have brought down upon our amazing country.

We need to capture three more seats in the senate to take control of it. We need 11 more seats for House control. These are not lofty goals, but they will still be difficult to obtain. It’s tough to do what the republicans did 12 years ago. It takes intense organization, passion, and money. In the end, I believe that people are concerned about Iraq, et cetera, but that may not be enough to drive the ruling party out, especially as the Dems are spread on the issue. Should we withdraw now or later? Should we set timetables? I don’t know if it is necessary to define this information right now, but I do believe we need a balance of power so we can have a true discussion and debate about these very important issues.

It’s quarter to ten right now, and I plan to keep watching, hopefully posting one more update before heading to bed. I feel hopeful now, hopeful at least that we can start to make headways in republican power, and start to make a difference for America.

2103 – Doyle is predicted to win the WI governor’s race! I am cautiously optomistic. With Dan’s mom working in the Doyle Administration, it is even more personal to me. Green is not right for WI. He’s a Bush man thru and thru, despite what my father may say about interacting with him on a personal level. I see Green as a man who, when Bush was not in office, went along with a moderate strand of republicans. When Bush arrived in office, he went hardcore right, and I think that is proof that Green is not the kind of leader who can help move WI forward.

Unfortunately at the same time Doyle is predicted to win, so too is the Marriage Ammendment predicted to pass. That means we will change our state constitution to ban same-sex marriage and civil unions. It’s absolutely sickening to think that we couldn’t defeat this terrible ammendment. I can only hope that the tides will soon change (though 20 years is no where soon) and we will realize our terrible errors.

As some of you regular readers may have noticed, my blog has been down for a couple of days.

A post that I wrote about depression contained speculation that may have caused pain to others, when I intended to cause no pain. Because of this information, and because I mentioned my work in this post, it was requested that I remove the post. I immediately complied. I then took the blog down to stop anyone who might click on the link from a search from seeing my page at all. I am still working on removing it from search engines.

To anyone to whom this post bothered, I am truly sorry. It was my intention to make some comments on depression and to write briefly about my interpretation of the events that prompted me to write this information. I am sorry that what I wrote may have caused pain to others.

As I have often said, any time something on the blog offends or bothers you, I would ask you to please contact me. And, just to make this promise doubly clear, some contact information.

WHO I AM:
Name: Michael Thomas Braun
DOB: 09/23/1983
Address: 1825 Ludden Drive #304
City: Cross Plains
State: WI
Zip: 53528
Cell Phone: 608.317.7763
Email: michael.braun@mac.com
Website: http://www.thebriz.org

Please be assured that I do know what I put out on the web. As I often said, “If you don’t want it public, don’t put it on the internet.” That being said, I believe I have acted in error in the past in disclosing some information about other people onto my website. While I do not believe that this information has lead to negative consequences, it is my intention to work to correct these errors in the future.

Often times, in the course of human events, when one person is attempting to use superficial questions to get to know someone deeply, the question of a favorite season comes up. This question can seem to be very telling about a person. For example, a person who says summer must like warm weather and being outside. But it also seems to say that the person is carefree, and probably not a hardworker. There are other ridiculous inferences one can make from various answers.

If I had to give my answer, however, I would say that I most love the changing of seasons. And the changing of summer to fall has got to be my favorite. I’ve grown to respect all seasons, but as the weather starts to get colder, as the leaves change and fall, that’s my favorite time of year. I crave the first day when you can step outside and say that it’s brisk. I like having to wear long pants and heavier coats. I like having to duck my head to avoid a biting gust of wind, filled with swirling leaves.

But I’ve missed most of that season change due to something completely unique in my life. With the advent of my new job, I no longer have to walk somewhere outside everyday. The most time that I spend outside everyday is walking from my apartment to my car in the morning and back again at the end of the day. And since my work has underground parking, I don’t even get to enjoy those few extra moments walking from car to work and back. No longer do I get to walk to class and home again, something I have done since I was in first grade.

What is especially interesting about missing this is I also seem to correlate this kind of walk with studying hard and a sense of duty. I think the fondest memories I have of college involve going to a library and staying there for hours, studying. Indeed, it’s hard for me to think of a Sunday morning where I have felt better than those I got up early, packed my books, got some coffee and sat in a library until afternoon. That kind of hardwork and productivity makes you feel good to come home. It’s all about the feeling of needing to get something done based on your own definitions and working to meet that goal.

Now, that’s not to say that I don’t love coming home from work now. There is something amazingly freeing about arriving home knowing that the entire evening is mine, that there is no work that I can do because I am away from work, without access to my work computer. On weekends as well, I feel that freedom.

But freedom can restrict as well, and often I am bored at home, not because there is nothing that I could do, but because doing those things has no opposite. Walking TV not longer feels like a relaxing reward for a hard study session; it feels like a way to kill time in between getting home and going to sleep. Hanging out with old school friends feels more like a committment to maintaining relationships than a natural part of my daily life.

But I guess that’s what moving forward into adult life is about – finding productive and rewarding ways to spend your time. I think I need to look into some new hobbies. With all this time on my hands, maybe it’s not right to complain about not getting outside, since finally, I have time free to explore, rather than just taking a break from work I should be doing.

Pleasure from pain. I have worked, in the last two days, over 26 hours. That is, naturally, significantly more than usual. But there’s been work to be done, and I have also accepted hard work when it needs to be done, rather than trying to say no. Perhaps a mistake, but nevertheless, I’ve had the work to do.

So the question is now, why do I accept all this responsibility? I think there might be something wrong with me. When someone comes up to me with a project that seems difficult, lengthy, complicated, et cetera, even if I am busy with other things, I can’t say NO! Now, this hasn’t resulted in me being unable to get things done, but it does contribute to me working long hours.

At the same time as I’m working really hard, it also has earned me credit from other people. I am currently assigned to two different customers and have been working very hard for both of them. And today, as I was busy getting things done, two separate people complimented me on my hard work and on my future abilities performing well in my role. So as I was walking out of work, I couldn’t help but think: wow it sure will be great to go back and work hard tomorrow.

Hopefully, tomorrow I can leave work at a normal time (before 6). I think that that will happen with out much difficulty. And that will mean that this week, I will have worked 54-55 hours this week. WOWZA!