apologies and palindromes

first of all, terribly sorry for leaving you with a void of interesting information about my life for the past week! harry potter, serious dorking out, and a trip or two to trader joe's got in the way.

secondly, for your listening pleasure this week, i give you "crossroads" - originally performed by legendary bluesman robert johnson, recorded again as part of eric clapton & cream's blues revival, and presented here from vh1's "hard rock calling" with a host of phenomenal musicians, including john mayer, sheryl crow, clapton himself, and (my personal favorite) robert randolph! enjoy!



let slowhand and friends speak to you.

anyway, there's a lot to talk about this week, from the latest installment of the harry potter series to becoming a palindrome (no soon-to-be-former-alaskan-governor puns intended), as well as another disturbing new trend in text messaging.

first of all: the half-blood prince! clearly, the franchise is still going strong (EIGHT YEARS IN!), as this latest movie hit $158 million in its first five days at the box office. pretty amazing considering it's all about a boy who grew up in a broom closet.

don't worry about spoilers, if you don't know the series/haven't seen it yet, i really just want to talk about how incredible alan rickman is. reprising his role as ambiguously evil potions professor severus snape, he remains as mystifying as always - even knowing his true alignment, i couldn't help but question his motives at any turn. this has always been my favorite book of the series, and while no "potter" movie can beat the artistic/prophetic masterpiece of alfonso cuarón's "prisoner of azkaban," we've been given yet another gem of a summer film to enjoy.

on a side note, i love that this generation will be able to share a great work of art - one that touches on so many important themes - with the future, just as our parents shared their childhoods with us (mine, particularly, in the form of kansas and most of the subject of "across the universe."

my next point - short, not actually important, but fun!

i'm officially a palindrome! hurray! (i needed a way to make turning twenty-two sound interesting and fun). next year, the digits in my age will add up to five, and are also consecutive integers. life just keeps getting better and better.

on to a more serious note (more accurately, actually related to the subject of this blog):

beginning last week, riots began to break out once again in north belfast. for friends of the other YAVs, this is the area where lynnea, stephen, and nate will be working. over 21 officers of the law were injured by gunfire during the riots, and as of last week, two men have been arrested in connection with the violence.

what's exceptionally troubling (not that this event isn't...but this will blow your mind) is that, as stated by the belfast telegraph, "children as young as 10 have been seen taking part in some of the worst violence that northern ireland has seen in a number of years."

not only that, they're texting their friends to come join them. while this is a decidedly republican (aka: proponents of a unified ireland as opposed to norn iron as part of the united kingdom), i'm sure that this isn't an isolated thing. instant connectivity is great, yes (we wouldn't know about such things without it), but it really hits home when young teenagers (who i'm about to meet and work with) are dodging firebombs and sms'ing their friends: "come on up, it's mighty, it's the place to be."

schools teaching tolerance are being burnt to the ground, little-known republican groups are threatening more violence, and folks are passing it off as a "bunch of yahoos who came to ardoyne and left carnage in their wake." bringing it full circle, we learn a lot about folks through their actions and their words, and their contributions to the press - this seems shockingly similar to the events at the beginning of "harry potter and the goblet of fire," where rioting reminiscent of the dark days breaks out at a major public event - in turn reminiscent of years of race riots worldwide. chilling.

please, not the children. as herbert hoover once said, "children are our most valuable natural resource."


now that we've thought a lot about how j.k. rowling might actually be a prophet, go check out ginna's new blog, too, which will soon be following her YAV adventures in lima, peru!