Some Thoughts

I want to use this page as a kind of repository for things that I've written that might be of interest. I don't know why they might, exactly; but I've certainly got lots of opinions, and it might just happen somebody else would be interested to hear some of them.

Or not.

Anyway, here's a listing of them - more to come in the future, in all likelihood:

Socialism for the People: This is an article I wrote, sort of as a brief manifesto of radical democracy as it applies to the political organization I belong to, the Socialist Party USA. The article was published in the first issue of the resurrected Hammer & Tongs, the Party's internal discussion newsletter. It is a trifle gushing at times, and it focuses more on goals than on ways of achieving them, but it is probably the best comprehensive statement of my political beliefs that I have yet written: a rough draft for nonviolent revolution in our time.

Language Rights in the USA: Why English and Spanish should be the joint official languages of the United States. An appeal for parity between the two languages on historical, cultural, and social grounds. It's kind of poorly written in parts, but the thoughts are definitely good.

Kurt Vonnegut: The intro and conclusion to my sophomore Honors Project, in which I analyzed Vonnegut's novels Cat's Cradle, Galápagos and Hocus Pocus. HoPo, as I affectionately came to call it, was not really in the same league with those other two masterpieces. The book I should have done instead, but didn't read until after I'd already finished my Honors Project, was Slapstick. It's really a very sweet book, and chock full of stuff I could've used to support my thesis. Either that, or Bluebeard (which is definitely worth reading, particularly if you're Armenian!).

(Reincarnation): A poem I wrote that was submitted to my high school's yearly literary publication. (If it wasn't already published, I'd never have put it on the internet!) ;-) To tell you the truth, I'd forgotten about it between the time I submitted it and the time they published it; but, as I re-read it, there's more going on in it than you might think.

French Republican Calendar: A semi-scholarly intro to the French Republican Calendar. I say 'scholarly' because I've thrown in this whole historical/social introduction centering around Babeuf, which really you don't have to pay any attention to. Apart from that, it's a guide for using the French Republican Calendar (in modified form) in a modern, international context.