Boy oh boy and am I ever in a bloggy sort of mood.

So while I am at it, let me put down this thought.

Today Republicans blocked debate on financial reform. This toddler-esque behavior is apparently how they intend to participate in "governance" during the Obama administration. This infantile bullshit is a deliberate act to sabotage the core function of the great deliberative body of government. How thoughtful! How patriotic! How confident they must be in their policy positions if they find it necessary to completely torpedo the very conversation in which they might defend those positions.

It reminds me of the ten rules for debate I would always introduce when facilitating a class section in college.

Sidney Hooks ten rules for debate. Presented here in their entirety.

1. Nothing and no one is immune from criticism.

2. Everyone involved in a controversy has an intellectual responsibility to inform himself of the available facts.

3. Criticism should be directed first to policies, and against persons only when they are responsible for policies, and against their motives or purposes only when there is some independent evidence of their character.

4. Because certain words are legally permissible, they are not therefore morally permissible.

5. Before impugning an opponent’s motives, even when they legitimately may be impugned, answer his arguments.

6. Do not treat an opponent of a policy as if he were therefore a personal enemy of the country or a concealed enemy of democracy.

7. Since a good cause may be defended by bad arguments, after answering the bad arguments for another’s position present positive evidence for your own.

8. Do not hesitate to admit lack of knowledge or to suspend judgment if evidence is not decisive either way.

9. Only in pure logic and mathematics, not in human affairs, can one demonstrate that something is strictly impossible. Because something is logically possible, it is not therefore probable. “It is not impossible” is a preface to an irrelevant statement about human affairs. The question is always one of the balance of probabilities. And the evidence for probabilities must include more than abstract possibilities.

10. The cardinal sin, when we are looking for truth of fact or wisdom of policy, is refusal to discuss, or action which blocks discussion.

I wish these were prominently displayed somewhere in each house of congress.

nicknames

Why do I always think of the best nicknames after the fact?

When I was a freshman at theatre design conservatory one of our assignments was to design a soup can label. I made a label that my design teacher loved. It was very sleek, very modern, and was for gazpacho. I did not think of the Razpacho play until long after I had turned in this project.

Why oh why did I only think of "Razputin" recently?

I should have considered this nickname sometime in the winter of 2007.

Behold, Rasputin.

And now Razputin. This photo was taken February 2007 after 4 months of not shaving.

Uncanny or what?

the axis of ambition and the axis of crazy.

News Brief: I've gotten approval to pursue a project in Moore Town, Portland Parish in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Moore Town is the major cultural/historical center of the Windward Maroons. There are some nifty articles online if you want to read more about the Windward Maroons, or the Jamaican Maroons in general. I will move in early May most likely but housing in the community still must be indentified. I visited Moore Town a few weeks ago and I absolutely loved it. Cannot wait to get out there and get into the swing.

I am working with the current batch of Peace Corps Trainees (they got here on March 18) to get trained in literacy training techniques because I would love to work with the two schools in Moore Town in addition to the environmental projects I want to pursue. This is pretty much the measure of things at the moment.

I really love spending time with trainees, learning their motivations, their histories, their ambitions. I am not sure exactly what rubrics Peace Corps applies to determine who gets invited to serve, but I am pretty sure that in addition to overall awesomeness (PCVs on the whole are a quality bunch) they look carefully to see how applicants fall on two scales or axes. This brings us to the title of this blog post.

So, I am increasingly convinced that to get into Peace Corps and to be happy in Peace Corps and to keep Peace Corps' faith in you, you must fall in some "sweet spot" along two crucial axes: The axis of ambition, and the axis of crazy. Let's discuss.

There is such a thing in Peace Corps as too much ambition. I would be very worried if I were interviewing someone for PC and this someone was convinced that given a plane ticket, a few months of training, and a mosquito net, they could substantially reduce the AIDS rate in Botswana. This person would be way high on the axis. Likewise, I would be pretty nervous about an applicant whose motivation seemed more driven by simple wanderlust than any motivation to serve. It is not unheard of for Vols to get pretty nihilistic and catatonic in Peace Corps. Ultimately on the axis of ambition you need to fall somewhere in the middle.

The axis of crazy is a little harder to think about. Really, you need to be kinda crazy just to fill out the application and get an interview in the first place. The application is long, the essays prompt are vague, and the pre-service medical instructs doctors to stick their fingers in your ass (note: I managed to dodge this bullet for pre-service medical but my number was up when I had to med-check to transfer). So it is already sort of a given that applicants are a little bit nuts, the point is that they cannot be too crazy. You need to be crazy enough to apply for a job without knowing what continent you might get sent to, let alone any real job description. You need to be crazy to willingly subject yourself to isolation, sickness, climatic extremes, and a life without coffee for 2+ years. But you cannot be so crazy that Peace Corps is worried you might turn into some Colonel Kurtz.

Keeping yourself sane and motivated once you get here of course is an entirely different story.

Enough for now.

Current time: 22:30

Current location: Port Royal

Current Temperature: Low 80s, presumably.

Current Music: The Pixies. The riff at the start of "Here Comes Your Man" just kills me every time. "Doolittle" is such an amazing album.

State of the Raz: sleepy, hopeful, excited for next steps.