Travels: Berlin, Germany

Hello again. I apologize I've been so negligent with the blog, but I have just recently returned from an extended travel to a few capitals across mainland Europe. I want to start this off with a thank you to my parents for giving me this incredible opportunity. I would not be able to write this had it not been for their continued support.

I have decided to break up this post by city, since the post about all of my travels would be ridiculously long and take forever to write.  Without further ado, let me try to capture a little bit of Berlin for you all.  

Here I was, thinking I knew a thing or two about travelling in foreign countries when, lo and behold, I actually had a proper challenge rather than in Scotland.  You see, in Scotland, they speak English.  Now, for those of you keeping score back home, I have mentioned how almost impossible it is to talk to a Scottish-Person because of their accents, but after a week or two, I figured out enough.  The big advantage for me, though, was road signs and maps - they were all in English.  This was not the case when I stepped off my flight to Berlin.

I don't know exactly what I was expecting, Germans should not and are not expected to speak English, and quite frankly it's an oversight on my part not to think of this . . . but I honestly have no idea how I got to my hostel.  I bought a ticket, and hopped onto the next train and, with a lot of luck and Google Maps, got off on the right stop.  Had I any time to stop and think, I probably would have been terrified, as is I basically just whirlwind-ed into Berlin but here I am.

And what a city it is.

Berlin, unlike Glasgow, is incredibly modern - most of it having been destroyed in the bombings during World War II.  The unfortunate loss of life and history paved way to a city that's open, clean, and new.  Out of the three full days I spent in Berlin, these are my two favorite memories that I would like to share with you all.

The Berlin Wall:

The second day in Berlin, I had the opportunity to see the Berlin Wall. After the fall of the Nazi army, the superpowers met together and made the executive decision that Germany, after being blamed for World War I and being responsible for World War II, could not be left to govern themselves. Germany itself was divided into two parts, East and West Germany. East Germany was to become part of Russia's sphere of influence and became communist. West Germany was given to the Western powers of France, Britain, and the United States to set about reconstructing the bombed out country. Berlin, located deep in East Germany, was split as well as it is the capital of Germany. As communism and capitalism clashed, the Iron Curtain went up almost overnight, creating the physical representation of the political ideological divide that existed between capitalist and communist countries. The Berlin Wall itself, became the symbol of the Iron Curtain – the cold barrier in which families were split, and the world divided itself into what seemed like the sides for a third world war. In practice, however, the wall was put up merely by communist forces to prevent the mass emigration to the West German portion of the city.

The wall didn't stand forever, though. Due to political unrest within the USSR, tensions within the divided Berlin, and the economic strain of the arms race – the Soviet Union fell and with it the Berlin wall (1989). What I saw was merely a small section monumentalized in a small park to remind passerby's and tourist of the scars that divisions cause.

The small section of the wall that still stood was covered in graffiti, some old some by inspired visitors. There was one section that mentioned a visit by a Jen and Sam in 2017. I walked around for some time, the park occupying the place that the militarized dividing zone, the “death zone,” stood. There were a number of informative plaques around that outlined the history of the wall, the Western Air Force missions that dropped food and supplies into the portion of the city that was an island of capitalist ideology in the communist controlled East Germany. There were a few other tourists milling about, mostly just staring in awe at the remnants of the once imposing Iron Curtain.

At one point, I walked up to the wall, and saw it tower above me. It seems hard to imagine feeling fear at the sight of it, now that the majority of the wall had been dismantled, and the sounds of a quiet city hum surrounded me. There was no gunfire, no shouting, no tension. Rather than seeing the whole beast, I was left with just a part of its skeleton, though it's spirit had undoubtedly moved to other parts of the world. Walls are put up in fear, and there is plenty of fear and uncertainty to go around today. As I left the small slice of the once imposing wall, I couldn't help but think that no matter how tall, how impenetrable, the walls never seem to stand forever. Eventually, we see the division as falsely imposed, a farce, and the walls we build come crashing down with sledgehammers and a spirit of unity. Berlin, today, is of course a unified city. The country, as well, has been unified (1990) and given autonomy (1990) and is again a unified world power. The only visible reminders of the division is the small sections of gray wall that scar the city.

Falkensee Concentration Camp:

My last full day in Berlin concluded with an 8am wake up to go see the concentration camp located a little ways outside the city proper in the suburb of Falkensee. Falkensee Concentration Camp was a subcamp of the Sachenhausen Concentration Camp and, at its height, imprisoned roughly 2,500 people. The people imprisoned were mostly political prisoners from the Soviet Union. Falkensee was meant as overflow from the Sachenhausen Camp, though neither camp were intended to be an extermination camp, but rather slave labor camps.

That being said, Sachenhausen was still outfitted with a gas chamber that got plenty of use, the death toll ranged to around 30,000 due to malnutrition, abuse, exhaustion, dehydration, horrific medical experiments, and chemical extermination. 30,000, murdered directly and indirectly – yet a small drop in the sea of victims the holocaust and WWII claimed. A decidedly dark chapter in human history. Of course, this chapter was followed by other dark chapters, some arguably darker. And, of course, with the Syrian refugee crisis today and the environmental degradation of this day and age I feel it's hardly appropriate to point the finger at past generations for being “evil.” All of us cast a shadow on the ground when we walk, and each generation has it's own unique shadow to contend with: poorly, always too late, and one that spans generations.

With all of this in mind, I was chipper, thrilled to go see the remnants of one of the most evil mechanisms humanity has ever devised. I hopped off the train at my stop, and started my brisk walk to the camp. The sky was clear and it was a beautiful spring day, which seemed odd to me given my destination. My path took me through the middle of a relatively well-to-do suburban neighborhood, complete with a few joggers in dog-walkers. Me, in my khaki pants, flannel shirt, and boots immediately made me jut out compared to the Germans all in dark colors and leather jackets. That, and everyone spoke German – I could manage a danke (thank you), but nothing more. I kept to myself, aware of the eyes of those who actually belonged following me until I moved away from the houses and into a dirt path that was overshadowed by young trees and birdsong greeted me for the first time since I began traveling. I know nothing of German songbirds, but they were quite pleasant to listen to.

I walked through the park lost in the sights and sounds and fresh air that I hadn't realized I missed as much as I did. I was so lost in making a spectacle of the small park that I barely recognized when I came to the edge and was greeted by a busy main street. There was an artificial looking lake to my right, and a few coffee shops and grocery stores to my left. I don't quite know what I was expecting, but I had assumed the entrance to the camp would have something large and imposing like black spires that reached to the sky with a banner connecting them saying, “Beware, You Walk Where Evil Stood.”

There was no such thing. Rather, there was just a simple earthen path, about three people wide, that led to a small monument to the victims of the camp, and the holocaust in general. I stop and took a few pictures at the triangular, modernist monument. It was tiny, a small fist raised in defiance.

I began walking around the ruins of the camp. On the ground, there were about fourteen gray rectangles that I figured out, after a little walking around, were the foundations of the prisoner barracks. One barrack was left standing, monumentalizing the victims complete with white-plaster “ghosts” of the prisoners stuck forever in horrific poses. The barracks were fenced off, and graffiti was everywhere.

I walked around the camp, it couldn't have been more than an acre, and it was mostly flat. The trees that did grow in the camp-turned-park were young, and they probably started to grow right after the holocaust ended. Throughout the entire camp, there must have been around twenty people going for their mid-morning jogs, walking their dogs, or simply strolling through the beautiful day. It seemed wrong. I suppose if we made sacred every piece of land that blood was spilled on, there would be no ground left for us to walk, but still – to see a concentration camp being used so. . . I couldn't figure. It seemed wrong, like a cover up. Buried evil is still evil. Yet, what else could they do?

It was about this time too I realized a morbid truth. I hadn't come to pay my respects to the victims of the Holocaust. I came because of the Nazis. Not, of course, to pay respects to them, but when I think of WWII, I don't think of death tolls, but Hitler, I don't think of the fact that I live in the United States because of Hitler's invasion of Poland, but I think of Nazis and the darkest part of human nature. I think of black mirrors and monsters.

I had come to Falkensee not as an honorable pilgrim, but to look at evil. It was the Nazis that drew me, not the victims. And was I disappointed? What had I expected? Black spires, sulfur, demons walking freely, and ghosts floating around yelling “boo!” at every corner? Like all evil, it will be in a pretty package, a sunny day, and come from people just like you and me.

--Stephen Pendergast

Rector Election Results

I just wanted to update everyone about the rector elections I recently ranted on for a very long time, and clarify some points I made earlier.

Also, before I begin, I would like to personally thank Austin Fimmano for editing the mess that was my grammar.  I have been lying this entire time and I apparently don't know how to use commas.  So, Austin, thank you for your help.

Firstly, I am very happy to announce that Milo was not voted as the Glasgow University Rector; rather, it was Aamer Anwar, a human rights lawyer. If anyone would like to read more about him, here's a quick news article about his victory here.

Secondly, I wanted to smooth over my overly passionate points I made about Milo, and the ideas of freedom of speech and science.

Milo, for me, represents just about everything I stand against in the world – I find everything he has advocated for to be gross misrepresentations at best; at worst, downright deplorable.

To advocate for freedom of speech, on the one hand, is a good thing. But when that freedom of speech is used solely to speak incendiary insults - what is the purpose? Milo's brand of freedom of speech has nothing to do with the actual freedom of speech, and everything to do with the purposeful spread of hateful rhetoric. If you all remember, politically correct (PC) culture was popular – and in some ways still is, despite its failings – during the Obama administration. I will admit PC culture lead to, in a great many instances, a form of whitewashing of people of color. For whatever reason, people twisted PC culture from showing respect to everyone to the idea of "I don't see color," which created a plethora of other problems considering that it was, first and foremost, a lie, but also that it ignored the complex web of oppression(s) that was and still is inherent in our society today.

However, the core idea behind PC culture I think was a good one - if we cauterized hate rhetoric from our speech, we would eventually cauterize the concepts from our minds. This came from a linguistic theory in which, quickly, language shapes our understanding of reality and we create concepts in language first, then project those concepts out onto the world.

Therefore, while I can't say anything inherently bad about freedom of speech, to insult a group of people based on race, religion, gender, and to defend the insult under the guise of freedom of speech - it begs the question: how much of the hate rhetoric was used to "defend" freedom of speech rather than posit the speaker into the forefront of the public eye. In essence, if one were to consistently place themselves into the public eye for "shock value" language, what is the freedom we're trying to preserve? And likewise, at what cost does freedom of speech have if one side of a debate is based on objectivity and the other based on populist (or marginal) opinion? There's something fundamentally different with claiming that freedom of speech and freedom of press allow us to criticize the powers that be, rather than someone defending freedom of speech to flare tensions that exist within the public sphere. If that freedom of speech is going to continue, then it must be up to all citizens to call it what it is - unfounded hate rhetoric and absolute crap. And to those who say it, they must be held accountable for the views they spread - and should be called out for who they are.

It is based on this logic that I attacked Trump in my recent post as well. With a pattern of racist, sexist, bigoted, irrational rhetoric, then Trump must be held accountable as a racist, sexist, irrational bigot. I have listened far too long to bad arguments and poor reasoning supporting his claims or deflecting these conversations. If we are constantly in need of someone to "tell it how it is," then so be it. Milo is a terrible person with political views that would grant him a top position in Hitler's Nazi Germany, and that is reprehensible. Trump is in a similar position, though he seems to prefer Putin's Russia, so that too is reprehensible. Of course, Trump is also the leader of the free world, so he poses a far greater threat to women, minorities, and democracy, but one step at a time. . .

One of the problems with Milo and Trump come from an odd quirk in American thinking, that if there are "two sides" to a debate, we must listen to both of them regardless of what the two sides are. This is why there's a "debate" over feminism and why there's a "debate" over science. Regardless of an objective claim - women make on average less thanmen, women are more likely to be discriminated against due simply togender, cat-calling and street harassment is a visible sign of themale-dominant narrative in our society, anthropomorphic climate change exists and can be stopped, clean energy will employ morepeople than coal/natural gases - all of these claims can be supported with peer reviewed scientific evidence. What I have included above is a step below peer reviewed evidence, but all good articles from respected news sources, one college publication, and the IPCC which is at the fore front of climate science. Therefore, those statements that I made are evidence based claims.

However, if we were to "debate" those claims, we would have to find sources from fake news sources or, at best, highly biased sources that actually twist facts to produce a story. However, those sources exist, so there is "debate" in the spectrum of American discourse. It is due to that "debate" that we get the rise of the Milo's and the Trumps. They exploit the darkest aspects of humanity, our fear, our hatred of one another, our deep rooted sexism, and normalize it. Their viewpoint is, then, objectively wrong but they have followers who agree with them because it supports their own objectively incorrect but deeply embedded racism/sexism/bias.

This is why I would like to encourage all of you to do two things - continue learning and call lies out for what they are.

Firstly, education is the only way we can begin to eradicate the root of these problems. At a personal note, as a younger man, I would have agreed much more with the rhetoric of Donald Trump than I would have others. I held views that I am not proud of all through out high school simply because I inherited them from my friends, family, and predominantly white-middle class community. However, it was during my freshman year of Siena that I really started to see the world in a more objective lens and realize the inherent racism and sexism in me. I never believed in the wage gap because I wasn't a woman and it was inconvenient for me to, for example. However, as I went through my freshman year and I was exposed to new ideas that were argued rationally and with evidence, I was eventually forced to choose between my own inherited shortcomings, or begin to change my views. This is when I really started to read and learn and it is through my constant education that I now not only saw the error of my past beliefs, but now have a passion to see those who held my own misguided beliefs see the world in a truer way. To borrow one of Sr. S's favorite quotes from Charlotte Bronte, "prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones." One of life's great jokes is that those who hold these prejudices should be required to fertilize their hearts with education, but it often falls to the shoulders of those who know to share our knowledge with the misguided and uneducated. It is not an easy task, and may be downright impossible in some instances, but if we are ever to live in a true democracy and a fair state, it is what is needed.

Secondly, it is time we call out lies and crap for what they are, lies and crap. This will not be possible every time, and it poses more risks for some to do so than others. But I, for one, am tired of listening to the Milos of the world claim freedom of speech while they insult marginalized groups. Therefore, I call foul play. I call racism on Milo, and I call sexism on Milo. Your views are crap and unfounded. Slink back to the shadows of greater men and women. You deserved to lose to Aamer Anwar a thousand times over - we, the student body, have spoken.

Thank you all for reading another politically charged post. I am going to try to avoid any of this length for a good long while.

Also, I apologize in advance if I become even more flippant with posting. I will be away for about three weeks, and I can't say how much writing I will get done during my travels. Just know I will be taking many pictures and I will be sure to write / upload as soon as I can.

Week 5 - Week 8: Four Adventures

It has been quite a month - and I've tried to capture it as best I can through my blog for you all.

However, I do have to start this post off with an apology.  It has been quite some time since I've been active on here, after my last post I fell ill for a bit, then I went travelling, and when I had finally came back to some form of a "scheduled" existence back here, I was thrown into midterms.  Basically, these past three weeks hit me like a train, and I apologize that the blog suffered for it.

That being said, quite a bit has happened since I've last written.  I recently made two trips to Ireland, one to Dublin and one to the outskirts of the Ring of Kerry.  Likewise, I also had three sets of visitors come up to Scotland, my roommate and one of my best friends from back home, Jake, my family, and another duo of two of my best friends from my pre-highschool days, Dan and Matt.  On top of all that has been happening here, I also find myself turning with more and more disgust back to what is happening politically back in the states.  Almost every conversation I've had with cab drivers, bar tenders, hotel workers, the likes of any Scottish citizen all turns round to American politics and the mess we find ourselves in.  Likewise, my eyes are also drawn to the political unrest sparking here, as Scotland debates seriously about breaking away from the United Kingdom as they complete the beginning stages of Brexit and England as a nation continuously proves that they will ignore time and time again the Scottish voice in their government.  The world itself seems to be teetering towards increased unrest as policies are coming about that increasingly and disproportionately target those who cannot defend themselves - and all while under the thinly veiled guise of "nationalism."  We are at a crossroads in more ways than one.

I'll admit, as well, writing in 2017 has been increasingly challenging as I consistently find myself drawn away from creative writing or blogging pursuits in favor of a more politically charged platform.  It's difficult to write a post about how wonderful the world is while you see it, day in and out, burning.  And knowing full well that because of my economic status, race, gender, and sexual orientation that I will most likely come away with little to no damage if the world continues on the path it is heading down - all due not to my own merits, but to the privileges I was born with.  The future is continuously uncertain, and moreso for others than myself - all we can hope for is that everyone, especially those reading this blog, find some form of empowerment and start getting angry at the corruption, racism, sexism, and bigotry that is currently running rampant in American has thus been embolden throughout the world.

All that being said, I do still have a few stories to share, and some pictures to go along with them as well.  Please do enjoy:

Hiking in the Highlands:

"and that I, so long / A worshiper of Nature, hither came, / Unwearied in that service" -- William Wordsworth

The Scottish Highlands are perhaps the single most beautiful thing I have seen in recent memory.  They are located in the north of Scotland and, like Loch Lomond, were carved due to the glacial retreat about 15,000 years ago.  Similar to Loch Lomond, the highlands are steep mountains of about 5,000 feet that are young and rocky.  So, given the chance to hike potentially life-threatening slopes with my family in the bitter cold and wind of Scotland, I said absolutely and found myself sleep-deprived sitting in the front seat of a cramped rental car with my dad driving struggling with the GPS at about noon.

With only a quick stop for drippy egg sandwiches, we had driven the four or so hours to a place called Glen Nevis - the deep valley carved out by the retreating glaciers I mentioned above.  All around us, the mountains of the Nevis range rose above us, the tallest in their ranks boasting snow-capped mountains, and the lesser harsh black tops.  It was a surprisingly warm day in Scotland, and the sky was clear (another rarity).  With gravel crunching underfoot, myself, my sister, my mom, and my dad all hiked to the trail head, and down into the Glen.  Before we crossed into the Glen, we were greeted with a warning sign: Danger of Death - Proceed at Your Own Risk.

The borders between the woods and the parks are some of my favorite places in the world.  As soon as I cross the threshold, I can feel the difference.  The air is cleaner (not really, but emotional truth and all that), the sounds of civilization slowly fade, and I find one of the many benefits of being in the wilderness is sanctuary.  This is a place in which you are met at best with apathy, at worst with animosity - a very different feel than to the soul of say, Albany, in which every aspect of it was designed for humans.  In Albany, humanity is a god, in the woods, humanity is just aspect in a living and breathing organism that has been alive since the first microbes on the planet.  It's quite a lesson in perspective.  We can die here, and the earth wouldn't stop its rotation, the wind would carry away are screams, and if we weren't found then we would deteriorate and provide nourishment for future grasses and trees.  The modern human is called to the woods is undoubtedly the same as why the druids created circles in the forest and tried to appease the spirits of the woods - all a matter of perspective.  Something that's easy to forget if one spends to much time surrounded by other people.

We pushed through.  The path was easy, and took us up spiraling through the bases of lesser mountains.  The path was well traversed, and with the warmth and sun we had a pleasant walk.  After about an hour of walking, marveling, and staring, we reached a waterfall.  The falls are called Steall Falls - a thunderous cascade whose waters are fed by glacial melt coming from one of the greater peaks in the Glen.

The waterfall fed into a blue stream that wound its way deeper into the heart of Scotland, and, as you can see, provided some stunning views.  If I could pick any place in the world to live, it would look something like this.

In Ireland, I was able to visit St. Patrick's Cathedral and in Glasgow I visited the Glasgow Cathedral twice.  In both cases, I was awed, of course, by the sweeping architecture designed to draw the eye upward (and hypothetically towards God), but I never felt anything in those man-made stone buildings.  Churches are always poor representations to true majesty, and the gods they claim to worship never seem present within their walls.  The world would be a much better place if we treated nature as sacred ground, too.

Inverlochy Castle:

"Even castles made of sand fall into the sea, eventually" -- Jimi Hendrix

After the highlands walk, my family and I went to visit the ruins of the old Inverlochy Castle.  The new one is now a five star hotel somewhere close by.  The castle was more of an old fort, really, designed mostly for military purposes, whoever owned the castle owned the River Lochy - a valuable trade route that leads deeper into Scotland and connects to the ocean.

The majority of the Castle fell into disrepair, the various battles and the unforgiving Scottish weather had eaten away large chunks from the castle walls.

The castle is, as castles are, a monument to a darker side of humanity, notably war.  Castles, while romanticized in much of literature and films, are designed as military technology and nothing more.  The walls were designed to be tanks, protecting its inhabitants from arrows, swords, and enemy fighters all while giving the defenders the lines of sight to rain down arrows, swords, and fighters onto enemy troops.  This particular castle was the site of two major wars: The First Battle of Inverlochy (1431) and The Second Battle of Inverlochy (1645), though historical evidence suggests that there has been some sort of fort structure on this spot since 700CE, considering its natural vantage point over the River Lochy, there were probably outposts here for much earlier.  The ruins as of now were abandoned for a better outpost some ways down the river in what is now modern day Fort Williams.

I can't say I know much about the castles history other than the basic pieces I've outlined above.  The plaques and other various tourist "guides" around the grounds did little to help.  Walking around the ruins, though, made one thing ever so apparent.  Even the most permanent of human structures must be kept in repair, or else the forces of chaos will have their way and break them down.  All of life goes towards entropy, and nothing is permanent.

Doune:

"A five ounce bird, cannot carry a one pound coconut . . . listen, in order to maintain air speed velocity, a swallow must beat its wings forty-three times per second . . . My point is it couldn't be a European swallow is all" -- Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail.

Doune Castle was much more preserved than Old Inverlochy - it is now a tourist destination where you can take a tour narrated by the director of Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail, Doune is where most of that movie was filmed as well as the television series Outlander and Doune is also the home of Winterfell in Game of Thrones.  It is quite an impressive castle.

My family and I walked into Doune during a light, cold, Scottish rain.  We stopped by the help desk and were each handed a pair of headphones and a black box that looked a little like an old-fashioned walkman.  We were greeted by the signature 100 foot tower, that stood defiantly against time well preserved and ancient.  The castle proper was built in the 14th Century by the Duke of Albany, but, similar to Old Inverlochy, a military fort of some kind had stood where it now stands since the early iron age.  Most likely, Doune got its name from the old Celtic word for fort (Doune) - so this land was no stranger to armed fortresses.

The majority of the tour we took in silence, each of us walking through the in equal parts awe and reverence as the narrator recapped what individual rooms would be: "Here's the bedroom, while now barren, it used to have a large wooden frame. . ."  The castle was cold, drafty, and intimidating.  The doorway (pictured above as the black, gaping mouth of the castle), was designed as a complete death trap and we each listened as an all too cheery voice recapped how attackers would be subjected to a plethora of arrows, boiling water, and an uphill bloodbath if they so decided to attack the castle.  Castles are like immobile tanks that also act as houses.  They only became outdated as new technologies allowed for larger and stronger projectiles to be launched at the walls as pictured above.  Catapults gave way to trebuchets, which, in turn, gave way to cannons.  Fortunately, Doune was able to avoid the inevitable march of technologies and avoided falling into complete ruin.  The Duke of Albany (the castles original lord and the mastermind behind the castle) fell due to internal Scottish politics, ironically never needing his castle to act as a means of defense.  Rather, the Duke of Albany failed to secure ransom of the true Heir to the Scottish Throne, and instead left his cousin in the hands of the English indefinitely - securing the power of the king into his own position, Duke of Albany.  After a lifetime of avoiding his responsibility to the true crown, the rest of the noblemen "revolted" in a peaceful, politically charged rally.  They took the castle from the Duke's family, and slaughtered them all on a hill overlooking the castle - all without an army, just to reinstate the now returned prisoner-king from England.

If history teaches us anything, it's that humanity has been dark and twisted since our misguided evolution.

Rector Elections

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" -- Martin Luther King Jr.

The last thing that I would like to talk about with this post is something that really shook me to my core, and I won't even know what happens until tomorrow, in which I will probably have to make a new post just to go over it.  Simply, Glasgow University has a position known as the Rector.  Rector comes from the Latin word for ruler, and is a largely ceremonial position that hypothetically states the Rector is charged with taking concerns of the larger student body to the various student government positions on campus.  Also, the rector is statutory chair of the Court, the governing body of Glasgow University.

Now, obviously, the Rector has no "absolute" power, as the position is not a "king/queen" like position, nor is Glasgow University a true kingdom, as all of us swear allegiance to various governments and states that far supersede our allegiances to the university government.  However, it is largely a ceremonial position, and it is an important one.  Especially considering the global political spectrum and the fact that Milo Yiannopoulos is running.

Milo Yiannopoulos is an interesting figure, to say the least.  Firstly, he is the definition of a walking contradiction.  He is a Nazi who claims Jewish heritage, a racist, sexist, bigot, and a homosexual catholic who aligns himself politically with the Nazi parties (alt-right) throughout the world.  He was a former editor at the propaganda machine known as Breibart "news," and only recently resigned due to an interview he had recently in which he condoned pedophilia stating how it "could be consensual" and that, in fact he as a "14 year - old" was the predator, and not the older men who he had relations with.  I have decided not to include a link to the video as, upon rewatching the interview, there was consistent explicit language and adult content being casually discussed within it.

Now, I hate Milo for a number of reasons, but my primary reasons are due to his absolutely absurd notions as to his loudly outspoken political views.  He claims that he is a defender of "free speech" and desires only to see freedom of speech spread throughout the world.  The idea that no idea can be to politically incorrect to discuss, nor should anyone be silenced for any reason.  Under this "moral" guise, he has defended sexism and racism, saying that it is under the idea of "freedom of speech" that he can say and do whatever he likes.

NOTE: I encourage you to read of this for yourselves, especially if you find my analysis unreasonable or question my sources.  Primarily, for this article, I got my information from the Independent, link here.  A simple Google search of Milo Yiannopoulos would be sufficient to bring up plenty of his hateful rhetoric - though I would warn being sure that your source is good.  If you find Breibart's analysis of him, you'll hear quite a different tale than if you find a true news source, like the Guardian, the Independent, BBC, The Economist, or the Wall Street Journal.  That being said, though, no matter how some sources spin his tale of hateful rhetoric, it always tends to shine through.

Milo's campaign for the University of Glasgow Rector is as follows.  Firstly, he campaigned to remove the Muslim Student Association from the university in order to "defend the LBGTQ" community within the university.  He gave no reasons as to why the Muslim Student Association was causing harm to the LBGTQ community, despite the fact that LBGTQ Muslims exist and that the Muslim Student Association's primary goal was to help foster a community between Muslim students and their events often have to do with helping students meet other students from similar backgrounds and faiths.  Secondly, his campaign focused on the promise of an "International Men's Day" on campus to personally protest the feminist societies located in the university.  Milo has also promised to fund some university parties and promised to be present during them as well.

If there's one constant in humanity, it is that we are truly a reprehensible species.  If it were up to me, I think dogs should be the rulers of the world - they love everyone and are easily the greatest creatures on this God-forsaken third rock from the sun.

Back to Milo, however, again he made these claims under the guise of freedom of speech and likewise suggested that any university unwilling to hear his ideas out are to constricting in their ideology and are not champions of freedom of speech.

It is to Milo, then, that I'd like to pose the following hypothetical: why does freedom of speech have to encapsulate lies?  Or, simply, should we defend liars?  Racism and sexism aside, to claim that the protection of the LGBTQ by removing the Muslim Student Association from campus is just a lie, there's no evidence to support that the Muslim Student Association and the LGBTQ communities have any animosity towards one another, so it must be that Milo would like to get rid of the Muslim Student Association because he claimed that "Islam is a cancer to the world."  Why, then, would I want to protect your lies under the guise of freedom of speech?  No, I say ---- you, Milo - and hey, freedom of speech so I can say that.

Also, the idea of an international men's day is absurd as well, considering the motives for saying that come from a blatant hatred of women.  Since Milo can't produce an iota of evidence saying that feminism is harming men, he has to rely on incendiary statements that are unsupported and are designed to offend and shock.  That, and he gets to rely on the deeply embedded sexism that exists in the world as "support" for his claim.  To quote an excellent opinion article from the Huffington Post (not something I say often), "when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-boeskool/when-youre-accustomed-to-privilege_b_9460662.html).

Basically, Milo's arguments are based on hatred, and he backs up his claims not with evidence, but with a hatred/fear of Muslims/women and cannot support his views, as they aren't true in what I would refer to as "objective reality."  Since he can't support his claims nor can he be bothered to be a decent person, he falls back on the elusive idea of freedom of speech and gains support through the embedded sexism and racism in predominantly white societies and exploits that to keep himself in the "relevant" social sphere - all while maintaining his alleged position as a champion of freedom of speech.

And this man is a contender for the Rector position at Glasgow University.

I have a problem with Milo using his defense of freedom of speech as he is.  This is a problem that has been deep rooted in all democratic societies since Ancient Greece, and was excellently outlined in Charles Pierce's book Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free.  The problem is that in a democracy, we have this idea that if there's two sides to an argument, we must give voice to both sides and both sides equally.  Therefore, when we have a racist, sexist like Milo saying something like we need to preserve freedom of speech at all costs so I can continue being a racist sexist, then we are hardwired into thinking that yes, we need to hear you out because of democratic debate.  However, this is quite damaging to democracy because it gives voice to a point of view that, despite not being based on any objective sources - such as studies in the social sciences or in psychology - it is based only on the darkest aspects of humanity.  Therefore, we elevate a seemingly indefensible position on par with a well researched, more objective position simply due to our inherit belief in "debate."

In my opinion, this is clearest in the climate change "debate."  On the one hand, you have scientists who have done a plethora of experiments, studies, and tests - who are experts in climatology, saying that humanity is ruining the climate due to our burning of fossil fuels (see IPCC, Bill McKibben, and NASA for further reading).  On the other hand, you have oil companies saying "no, we aren't."  That's it.  You have evidence on one side, and a lie on the other.  We elevated the lie to be equitable with science because of our desire to "hear out both sides" of a debate, and we have allowed lies to permeate our understanding of the world so effectively, that we now have an administration based upon them.  We lost any and all sense of objectivity because we have allowed people to pick their own criterion for arguments, and those criterion are more commonly hate and fear rather than science and studies.

Experts, likewise, have been shunned from public opinion due to the deep rooted fear of educated people within society.  I'm not sure where this came from, nor do I have any idea why it still exists, but for some reason the educated people within America especially are feared and ignored because of some twisted virtue within American ideology.  The idea, with climate change especially, states that Joe the mechanic has an equal say in the debate as does Dr. James Hanson, one of the first leaders of the IPCC and someone who has researched climate change since the early 80s.  Not to mention, he has a PhD in physics, as well as a M.S. in astronomy, and a B.S. in mathematics and physics.  Unfortunately for Dr. Hanson, he knew what he was talking about so public opinion didn't like him.

It's the same problem that we now face with people like Milo.  They tap into the racist, sexist under (sometimes explicitly over) tones in society and exploit them, rise to a position of prominence, and continue to spread their hate.  Racism and sexism are hereditary, they are taught, they are fostered, they are grown.  We are not born racist, we become racist.  We are not born sexist, we are raised sexist.  It takes a village to raise a child, and when that village is subjected to a history of racism and sexism, when that village is itself just a cog in an ancient machine that itself built up around a system of oppression, then the products of that village will be racist and sexist.  As much as Americans like to think of ourselves as rugged individuals, we are much more so the products of the systems that allowed us to grow up through them, rather than we are self-made peoples.

If what I outlined above isn't worse enough, I have heard a number of defenses for Milo Yiannopoulos.  Most of them boiled down to a simple idea: "it's funny."

I have such a personal problem with that defense and I apologize if I jump in logic, but when I heard that I was furious.  I still am.

Let me see if I can do this logically - If Milo says that we should disband the Muslim Student Association in order to protect the LGBTQ community, and the initial response is laughter, what does that really say?  Well, firstly, Milo's claim is Muslim's aren't as human as LGBTQ people are, so the basis of his claim is dehumanizing and racist.  Secondly, to treat that with humor reveals two thing:  1) it reveals the racism inherent within the person who laughed, as the "punch-line" is the dehumanization of a group of people, so it's only funny if the group of people being dehumanized is a group of people the person who laughed also views as less than people.  2) it also reveals one to be in a privileged position in which they can afford to laugh at the plight of another group of people.  Let me explain, Milo Yiannopoulos also claimed that "asexual people simply cannot find anyone to find them attractive."  This is only funny if you find asexual people to be less than human and also are in a position in which at least someone else finds you attractive in some way - laughing at this is another way of saying "I think asexual people are a joke."

While I have no idea if Milo will win the election tomorrow, I truly hope he does not.  If he does, then we, as a Glasgow University, have taken a stand and said Muslim students and women are not full members of the university.

It is the same way in which supporting Donald Trump makes the claim that women, immigrants, and minorities are not Americans - the rhetoric of his campaign has made it clear that he has no respect for those groups and his continuous attack on those groups only support that.  Therefore, to support Trump is to support racism and sexism - despite the intentions otherwise.  It is the same with Milo, to support Milo is to support racism and sexism.  I am tired of bad arguments and "on the fence" rhetoric.  If we are silent in the face of oppression, racism, and sexism, then we are in support of it.  There can be no middle ground when it comes to the rights of all human beings.

If you made it down here, then thank you for listening to my long rant.  I'm sure, as the political state of America continues to deteriorate, there will be further rants.

Until next time,

Stephen Pendergast

Week 4: Art, Whisky, and the City of the Dead

"Life imitates art far more than art imitates life" - Oscar Wilde.

One of the greatest things about living in a city like Glasgow is the museums.  I'm aware that my inner-nerd is showing, but the range of museums here is incredible.  Every day, when I walk to class, I pass by Kelvingrove Art Gallery.  The Hunterian is an art gallery and a museum located on Glasgow's campus itself.  Another fifteen minute walk in the opposite direction is the Riverside Museum.  Another fifteen minute walk is Gallery of Modern Art.  I can go on, there are more.  But basically, this city is loaded with art, and it's wonderful.

As of today, I have visited both Kelvingrove Art Gallery and the Hunterian (Gallery and Museum).

I won't belabor my museum adventures, as I find art to be more of subjective enjoyment rather than an objective reality.  But that's from someone who doesn't have an art history degree, nor wants to study art history so I guess I can't speak intelligibly on the matter.  Regardless, I was able to see Christ of Saint John of the Cross - and that is a work that I have gone back again and again to see.  Salvador Dali is a master at one of my personal favorite schools of art, Surrealism.

The picture itself is inspired, according to Dali, by the center of an atom.  As both an avid physicist and an artist, he believed he saw Jesus himself in the perfection of an atom.  Most of his early sketches of his infamous work show the same three point focal idea - focusing on trinity shape of the atom.

Source for Image: http://en.most-famous-paintings.com/Art.nsf/O/5ZKFBV/$File/Salvador-Dali-Study-for-_Christ-of-St.-John-of-the-Cross_-1951-S.JPG - Accessed on 9 February 2017

Dali believed it was his duty to capture not the pain of Christ in his crucifixion, but his serene grace and the unifying power of God, as reflected in the basest particles of the universe.  Regardless of one's religious affiliation, it is a truly remarkable work.

Another museum I was lucky enough to visit was the St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art.  Now, there are multiple things I like about Glasgow, but one of them is St. Mungo, and another is their interesting take on religion.  Now, Scotland is primarily Christian (about 50%), and that 50% who identify as Christian, are further broken up to about a 50/50 split between Catholicism and Protestantism.  In essence, half of Scotland was furious with the crown's decision in 1534 to turn to Protestantism so Henry the VIII could divorce his wife (who he later killed, so it's a bit of dark irony he even went about pissing off half of the U.K. population, but I'm no king).  Anyway, there's always been religious tension between Christians in Scotland.  However, Scotland, Glasgow specifically, has become a major city in immigration routes.  Therefore, there is a constant influx of people into Scotland and Glasgow from all over the world.  Scotland, then, decided to attempt to push aside religious intolerance and created the St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art as one of their projects to unify the people of Scotland under religious tolerance.  And, let me just say especially after drooling over Dali's religious art, the Christian art is terrible there.  However, there was one piece that stuck out to me, and I think you all will like.

One of the primary differences between Christian (especially Catholic and Protestant art), is that Christians are constantly creating images of God.  From what I understand, Islamic peoples are not allowed to represent Allah nor Muhammad in any artwork as it is disrespectful to try to represent perfection (Allah) or his prophet by imperfect peoples and in an inferior form (as in, say, a painting) then in his perfect actuality.  Therefore, Muslim art turned towards geometric perfection and symmetry to show the unity and perfection of Allah symbolically rather than "literally."  Likewise, Muslim art is known for decorating their pieces with passages from the Qur'an.  Pictured above is such an art piece.  The repeating geometrical pattern fits into a larger symmetrical pattern to reveal Allah's unity, perfection, and completeness on every level.  I, unfortunately, cannot read Arabic, so I have no idea what is written on the painting, but I assume it mirrors the concepts of Allah's perfection and unity.  Also, this is a fun piece to remind us all that it was the Muslim people who invented algebra and were on the forefront of scientific, mathematical, and literary development during what most Western people refer to as the Dark Ages.  Take that however you'd like.

"We die.  That may be the meaning of life.  But we do language.  That may be the measure of our lives" -- Toni Morrison.

Right next to the St. Mungo Religious Art museum was the Glasgow Cathedral and Necropolis.  I went there, one Sunday afternoon that, surprisingly to Scottish weather, was quite bright and happy.  In hindsight, it seems odd to spend one of my few bright and sunny days with the dead, but there I was, walking among the gravestones of those who died long before I had even been a thought to the world.

The Necropolis was formed, originally, as a symbol of wealth and power for the Victorian elites of the day.  There is not a single tombstone that is smaller than about four feet, and most are massive marble structures that tower over visitors.  I've never been intimidated by the dead, but it's hard not to when you actually have to look up to the remnants of them.  The entirety of the Necropolis is on a hill, with the poorer of the richest Victorians buried near the foot of it, and the richest towards the top.  I spent most of my time on the top of the hill where the gravestones looked more like miniature Greek temples and monuments that would normally stand for entire armies that died or for wars back home.  Here, they stood for maybe a family, mostly just an individual or two.

At the very top of the hill was a massive stone statue on a pedestal.  The statue was of John Knox, a leader in the protestant reformation period.  The statue was 12 feet tall, and would tower over people regardless, but for good measure it was placed upon a Doric spike and base that's 58 feet tall.  John Knox watched over the people of Edinburgh as their Minister in life, and in his death he is able to survey all of Glasgow and beyond.  As is common in the church, the pious are turned to stone.

I walked around the Necropolis for about an hour or so, reading the names scratched onto the gravestones under the watchful eye of John Knox.  There was no one I knew, nor anyone who outlived me in the Necropolis, so I decided to see the Cathedral.  The Cathedral was also built in the Victorian era, and stood as a stone pinnacle to the Christian faith in Scotland.  They also hold services at 4, so I decided to stop in and see if my flesh would burn off or something like that.

I walked into the stone building, and was greeted by stiff ushers with suits that seemed to constrict breathing a bit.  They showed me to an aisle, and I took my seat on a rickety chair.  There was to be no sermon today, and instead we were greeted with a Chorale service.  The singers were incredibly talented, and sang in an operatic and solemn voice that echoed off the cold, gray stone walls of the church.  I have never heard "Lord, let your joy flow through us" in more somber and serious tones.  I have heard plenty of stories about those finding God's love in churches and finding joy in their songs, but I can't say I've ever felt more than a damp chill in the air or a booming acoustic promising joy everlasting.  Regardless, there I was for forty minutes listening to Psalms sung in operatic tones and I can't say I didn't enjoy myself.

"Love makes the world go round?  Not at all.  Whisky makes it go round twice as fast" -- Compton Mackenzie.

Now, I apologize, for this is quite a long blog post.  But a lot has happened (if you can't tell from above), but also I've been under a lot of pressure from outside sources.  Also, I've been hesitating with this last section of the blog, the section below.  But I feel as if I would do a disservice if I don't talk about the national drink of Scotland: Whisky.

*Disclaimer: I do not condone underage drinking.  Please do not drink underage, and rest assured that I am both legal to drink back in the States and here in Scotland.  Sorry, Mom.

Whisky, for starters, is spelled specifically without the "e" because a true "whisky" is Scottish by nature.  Whisky is so culturally important here that the name itself, whisky, is owned and regulated by the Scottish government.  Whisky is to be distilled using only three ingredients - malted barely, water, and yeast.  Likewise, it has to be aged in an oaken cask.  If it's made differently, then it is no longer "whisky" but something else (a drink that perhaps resembles more of a bourbon, sherry, or whiskey).  Scottish whisky is so world renowned that, outside of Scotland, it is known as scotch.  Here in Scotland, though, it's just called whisky and everything else is called a mistake.

I learned all of this when me and my flatmates went to a distillery outside the city called Glengoyne.  Glengoyne is a smaller distillery that makes a single malt whisky, and a very good one at that.  Whisky in Scotland is divided into 5 different regions, and each region has its own specific standard.  For example, lowland whisky tends to be lighter in flavor and to reflect the "mellow countryside."  While Islay whiskys tend to be much peaty-er and have a much saltier flavor as they're affected by Atlantic storms.  I won't try to encapsulate all the different whiskys because not only would we very rapidly reach the bounds of my knowledge, but also there are so many specifications and various flavors, that one would actually have to research extensively to understand it all.  I have tried to understand it, but I'm certainly no expert.

Regardless, back in Glengoyne, I found myself in an old wooden barn-like building that smelled sickly-sweet due to the malted barley.  The tour guide was explaining to us that barely was allowed to sprout first, before it was killed and ground up to turn into a high energy malt-water mash.  This mash is heated, then transferred to oaken casks where yeast is introduced to the mixture.  The yeast gorges itself on the mash, while the temperature is slowly heated.  After the proper amount of time goes by, the yeast is killed by the heat, and the now alcoholic mash is churned and drained.  The water-alcohol-malt mixture is sent into large copper structures that boil the alcohol water and send the steam up and back down a smaller tube where the steam interacts with copper-water pipes and condenses and drips down into something similar to a whisky.  The alcohol actually goes through a series of chemical reactions with the copper, giving whisky its flavor.  The distillers will not know what flavors they have in their whisky until the master-distiller tells them because the copper and alcohol will react in different ways.  More often than not, the alcohol is flavored with a toffee flavor, and also fruity flavors such as banana, coconut, and apple.  No fruits are used during the actual distillation of the whisky, only copper and science.

From there, the whisky is placed into oaken barrels.  The barrels selected also work to flavor and color the whisky.  Since nothing else is used aside from the three ingredients I mentioned above, the barrels chosen are usually charred oaken casks that have had a previous occupant in them.  For example, Glengoyne uses oaken casks that housed either Jim Bean Bourbon or Jack Daniels in them.  The previous occupant had already soaked into the cask and the whisky will then start to interact with the other liquors in the cask itself, and the whisky will take its color from the cask and some of its flavor from the cask too.  The standard whisky is aged in the cask for a minimum of 10 years, though most distilleries age for 12, and the longer the age, the better the whisky (generally).  Glengoyne has a 10, 12, 15, 18, 21, and a 25 year old whisky.  The longer the whisky ages, the darker it generally gets and the smoother.

This is generally what whiksy looks like.  It could be darker or lighter, based upon the dram (shot of whisky) chosen.  Whisky is drunk from a whisky glass (as pictured above).  The glass itself is shaped as thus to let the whisky breath a bit (thus the wider midsection), and then the top is narrowed so that all the scent of the whisky is preserved.  The proper way to take a dram is to swill it so that the whisky has a chance to breath, then to smell it and appreciate the distilling process, then to sip it.  At minimum, two sips are necessary because the first sip attacks the taste-buds with the burn of alcohol.  By the second sip, the tongue is (theoretically) prepared for the burn of alcohol and the drinker can enjoy the rich flavors of the dram.  A true Scots-person would drink their whisky either straight or with a little water.  An American would do the same, but we also really prefer our whisky (as we call scotch) on ice and in a scotch glass.  From what I understand, this is a tad bit insulting to a Scottish-person, but what can you do?

Until next time,


Stephen Pendergast

Briefly, in America . . .

I didn't want to do this, and I hoped it wouldn't be necessary.  But, given the political turmoil that the United States has found itself in recently, I just wanted to make a quick comment - especially to Sr. S and her class:

To the refugees, I welcome you.  To the marginalized, you belong.  And to scientists, both current and aspiring, I trust you not those who attempt to invalidate your research with falsehoods and business agendas.  You are not alone, and you are not forgotten.

Week 3: Islands in the Sky

"Nor less, I trust, / To them I may have owed another gift, / Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, / In which the burthen of the mystery, / In which the heavy and the weary weight / Of all this unintelligible world / Is lightened:- that serene and blessed mood, / In which the affections gently lead us on, / Until, the breath of this corporeal frame, / And even the motion of our human blood / Almost suspended, we are laid asleep and become a living soul: / While with an eye made quiet by the power / Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, / We see into the life of things." -- William Wordsworth, "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"

Hey everyone!  I apologize it's been so long since my last post.  Life has gotten incredibly busy this past week / week and a half.  So, without further ado, here goes week 3 and a little extra.

I had, along with school, two big trips that I went on.  The first one, Loch Lomond, was incredible.  Easily, Loch Lomond was my favorite thing I have done so far.  Loch Lomond is a national park here in Scotland, comparable to Yellowstone or the Adirondacks.  The park itself protects a collection of "Lochs" (lakes) that were formed when the glaciers retreated north from continental England.  The glaciers, upon making their slow crawl back up North, gouged the land creating deep lakes, and steep hills.  While the park itself is technically in the Lowlands of Scotland, the park does cross the boundary into the Scottish Highlands, though it is certainly not considered as such.  Regardless, the average height of the mountains (hills, if you've ever been out west), are around 3,000 feet.  3,000 feet of steep, steep climbing.  Unlike the Adirondacks, which have been theorized to have been around (in one form or another) since the dawn of time, constantly going through cycles of growth and decay due to tectonic plate movement (our current Adirondacks are about 1,000 million years old and slowly shrinking back into the ocean) - the Lomonds are around 13,000 years old.  They are steep and prominent as opposed to the old slopes we're used to in the North Eastern United States.

And it was these young, steep mountains I decided to climb on a foggy Friday morning.  I and my two flatmates, Tim and Ryan, woke up around 7am to catch a train and arrived at the town of Arrochar, a sleepy little tourist town with about one main street and a population of around 50 (I'm guessing).  The entire town was nestled between arches of green and grey mountain.  As I said, it was foggy out, and the fog covered the tops of the mountains giving the impression that someone had put a fluffy gray lid over the sky, and the lid was being held up by the mounds of earth all around.  Again, its is no mystery to me why such fantasy epics like The Lord of the Rings were born in land like this.  It is seeped with magic.

We passed through the town on its one main street, taking a large half-circle around a clear and reflective Loch.  There was a dilapidated dock in the center of it, and served as a rotting reminder that, at one point, this had been a bustling town with a port and all.

The climb was steady and steep.  And it was rocky.  When glaciers retreat, they don't do so gently.  They churn the earth, dragging with them rocks and dumping them off wherever they see fit.  And so, the landscape of the mountain we were climbing, Ben Arthur, bore the scars in the form of boulders everywhere.  Some (as pictured above) were mild in size and could be easily jumped up on.  However, others were about as large as a camper.  We weaved in and out of a field of boulders for about an hour and a half, consistently climbing up.

For those who don't know, hiking, being in the woods, is probably my favorite thing in the world to do.  Not only are the views spectacular, but the stillness and the peace that surrounds you and becomes part of you just amazes me.  Humanity, despite popular belief, actually relies on the natural world.  Sure, we get our food and water from the earth.  But there's a deeper connection there.  Humanity (as in Homo Sapiens) is about 1.8 million years old.  As I said, the Adirondacks are about 1,000 million years old, and before that the Lomonds were under sheets and sheets of ice, but still there.  We are young, and hiking in the mountains, seeing rocks that have weathered more winters already than I ever will, and will continue to weather more after I am gone, is a humbling experience.  Along with the healthy does of humility, however, comes something else.  I don't know how many of you hike, or go adventuring or such, but nature, according to Richard Louv, the author of The Last Child in the Woods, nature actually decreases stress, increases creative thinking, and the air is good for physical well-being.  Nature, notably mountains, have always stood over us, watching us, for as long as our DNA has been coded as it has.  I am a firm believer that, in nature, we can slowly reforge the largely broken evolutionary line that connects us right back into the natural world.

Back on the ground, the hiking was hard.  The rocks were smaller, more exposed to extreme weather the higher we got.  The grasses were tough, and visibility was nil as the fog billowed around us.  It was so thick that, if one were to concentrate at a certain area, then they could actually see the physical droplets of water dance in the wind.  Despite being robbed of the undoubtedly breathtaking views of the sleepy town we left behind, the fog gave the landscape an other-worldly feel.  And it dimmed the noise of cars from the freeway.  We felt as a lone trio, surrounded only by wilderness, and I was happy.  We took our lunch about 2000 feet up the face of the mountain.  We couldn't see more than 25 feet in front of us, so the only marker for increased elevation was the cold.  The wind was beginning to grow ice-teeth and the breeze that had playfully tousled hair suddenly began to dive down the back of our necks and chill our spines.  Coats zipped up quickly and we pushed on.

I'm not sure when it happened, but after a while I noticed a change in the gray of the fog.  When you're in the thick of it, fog is a monotonous color and depth, like swimming to the bottom of a lake and looking, there's only so much you can see before darkness envelopes everything.  However, and ever so slightly, I began to notice the gray receding to a whitish color, and visibility began to increase by inches, then feet, then yards.

As suddenly as we stepped into the fog, we stepped out.  And the change was dramatic.  One second I was looking into a film of white, then next I looked out behind me and saw a distinct border between cloud and sky.  I yelled back down to Tim and Ryan something along the lines of "the fog broke!" and sprinted up the rest of the mountain.  I was not disappointed.

Fortunately for us, the fog was low hanging enough to give the illusion that each peak was an island jutting out of a flowing gray sea.  This picture is why Wordsworth was the quote of choice to begin this blog post.  To grace the peak of a mountain is to see the world in a different perspective.  It is hard, and that's why not everyone does it.  It is dangerous, as hikers are killed yearly in every country for various reasons.  This land is not owned by or pandered towards human comfort, and that's the joy if it all.  To walk in a place that has no sidewalks, where there's no McDonald's around the corner, were you are not walled in by people, is one of the greatest joys in life.  I have never felt more clarity, nor more purpose, than in the wild.  Maybe it has something to do with the archaic mountains.  Maybe it has something to do with me being a bit more Neanderthal than I'd like to believe.  Who can say.  I've found no better balm for the soul or psyche, though.

After an hour or so, we left the peak, thus ending our day's adventure.  And my goodness, was it ever needed.  Mountains, for me, always put me back into place, and give me a healthy measure of perspective.  In a world this beautiful, it can't be all bad.

Week 2: Capital Tours and the City of Music

“Half a capital and half a country town, the whole city leads a double existence; it has long trances of the one and flashes of the other; like the king of the Black Isles, it is half alive and half a monumental marble.”  -- Robert Louis Stevenson

Scotland is a unique country to say the least.  For starters, they have this spunk about them - a give no, take no attitude that's somewhat undermined by their own sarcastic and mildly self-deprecating humor.  Glasgow, especially.  Though, nothing summed up Scotland so far, to me anyway, then touring the capital city and hearing the story of their national animal.  The national animal of Scotland is the unicorn, a mythical creature that, unlike those found in My Little Pony or some other such show, would skewer people to their deaths with their long horn.  They were incredibly violent and proud beasts - Scotland.  I learned about all of this standing on the incredibly cold and incredibly clear morning tour of Edinburgh (pronounced "Edin-burough").  The tour of about 25 students, mostly from the United States, stood surrounding a tall brick pillar with a bronze unicorn on top.  The tour guide, Gary, explained to us a bit of the history of the national animal.  Vikings used to hack the horns of Narwhals, he explained, and sell them to the royal house of Scotland claiming to have killed unicorns.  Thus, the royal house would pay good money for the horns believing that not only they came from the dangerous and hated unicorns, but also because they were believed to have magical properties and shaving bits of the horns into a drink would make them function as a powerful aphrodisiac.  Upon realizing that they were tricked, the royal house made the Unicorn the national animal of Scotland.  Fast-forwarding a few hundred years, the royal house decided that, well, perhaps having a mythical animal as their national animal is a bit embarrassing.  To solve this, the government set out a poll saying something along the lines of "what should the new national animal of Scotland be?"  The winner?  None other than the Loch Ness Monster, of course so the government decided to keep the national animal as the unicorn to save the embarrassment of having to change it and have it still be a mythical creature.

No other story, so far, has summed up Scotland for me.  Scottish people are quite funny, friendly, and very very sarcastic.  They will turn a joke so fast, it'll make your head spin.

Back to Edinburgh, though, on this bitterly cold walking tour, our tour guide continued to describe the city.  Edinburgh, and Scotland as a whole, has a dark history - as do most places given a little digging.  Gary took us to a street corner that walled us in with an impressive wall on our left and to our right the "new city" of Edinburgh.  The wall, he explained, was designed to prevent invasion from the British people (who never did invade), but was used for more sinister purposes.  The street we were standing in used to be underwater in an impressive moat that surrounded the old city.  Instead of working as its designed purpose, the moat was used as a test for "witches."

Just like the Salem Witch Trials in the Americas, every country in the Western World seem to be under the presupposition that being a women is a heinous crime punishable by death.  King James at the time, was terrified of witches so whenever a women in passing was accused of witchcraft he would ensure that she was tried to the fairest extent of the law, meaning not at all.

Witchcraft, unlike in the Harry Potter series, was not people accused of casting magical spells or transforming into animals (although that was undoubtedly a part of it), but had more to do with keeping women submissive.  Women could be charged with witchcraft under the most absurd accounts, such as sneezing when a man talked or burning dinner.  Since magic is a difficult thing to prove, the court (King James) found a foolproof way to test for witchcraft, he would through the supposed witch into the moat, and if she drowned then she was a non-witch, and if she survived then she was a witch.  Upon making it back to the wall (had she not drowned) she would be hung for witchcraft.

If, perhaps, she had a loyal husband who decided to jump in and rescue her, then both people would be hung for witchcraft.  The die were loaded from the beginning against these hypothetical "witches," which makes the various women's marches around the United States all the more important.

All of these murders-by-drowning or murders-by-hanging means one thing, this city is incredibly haunted.  Scotland as a whole tends to be an incredibly haunted area, it's the old world Celtic tradition creeping up behind the modern glass-and-steel buildings reminding us that the past is and will always have a grip on our present and future.

The scariest ghost by far is that of a little girl, she lives down in the necropolis below the city, and wears an old fashioned dress of black and a sack-cloth hood.  She haunts a small circle of the necropolis, and tradition states to bring her a doll when visiting her haunting site and she will leave the travelers alone.  I, fortunately, did not encounter any spectral beings on my walking tour, but many members of the various "ghost tours" swear that they have seen her, felt her behind them, and felt hands on their shoulders during them.

The tour ended with a hike up a mountain of sorts that overlooked the entire city.  It is a vast sprawl and a beautiful city to say the least.  On the ground, the old architecture is stunning and above the city was a perfect way to see the entirety of the place that we just spent our day walking.

Back to Glasgow, Scotland - the city that I actually study in, I also had the chance to see The Lafontaines, a Scottish band that formed in Motherwell, North Lanarkshire.  They're a blend of rock, pop, and hip hop so if you're interested I would highly recommend giving them a listen.  Glasgow, as a whole, is also known as the "city of music" and there is at least one live performance every single night.  The music influences range from everything from rap to rock, country to traditional folk music, American and U.K. influences.

Music is such an important part of the fabric of life here in Glasgow, so unlike Albany, NY or my hometown of Southbury.  Glasgow pulls musicians of all calibers, from underground alternative bands and no-name cover bands to musicians such as The Weekend and Drake.  While Saratoga and Long Island's Jones Beach can pull acts of similar calibers, the entirety of Glasgow seems to center itself on music.  Even just in the city center, there is usually a bagpiper playing traditional Scottish music.

Music is so prevalent in Glasgow that the city was even named a UNESCO Creative City for music.  It is the musical capital of Scotland.

That's all I got for now, so until next time.  Cheers!


Stephen Pendergast

Week 1: An American Abroad

"To have faith is to trust yourself to the water.  When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown.  Instead you relax, and float" -- Alan Watts

It is currently 12pm on an uncommonly sunny Thursday here in Glasgow.  It took a lot, but I've made it and have been struggling to normalize some for of existence for about a week.  I apologize for my tardiness with this post, but I'm still working on scheduling everything I have to do.  I've basically been moving in, teaching myself how to cook, and frantically emailing the administration of the University of Glasgow and Siena to try to straighten out how my life will function for the next four months.

But Scotland though.  Oh, my goodness Glasgow, Scotland is easily the most beautiful city I have ever been in.  It is much less crowded than New York City, much more friendly than Albany, and older than anything I have ever seen.  To place this in some perspective, the University of Glasgow (pictured below) was founded in 1451.  Christopher Columbus sailed across the ocean blue in 1492.  Glasgow was in its mid twenties by the time America was born in the minds of Europe.  Speeding through history a few hundred years, American Scholar was not presented until August 31, 1837.  Therefore, true "Americanness" is only about 200 years old.  Glasgow University stood through all of that - and has remained fundamentally unchanged.

The question of Americanness was very much so on my mind here, as I can't help but look for subtle signs to see if, in fact, we are different.  Every time I jog to class, my eyes, when not focusing on the brown stone buildings that house everything from Student Accommodations to cafes and pubs of all kinds, focus back towards the people.  On a typical walk, I pass hundreds of people, joggers through the green Kelvin Park, fellow students who turtle under jackets and under the weight of book-laden packs and worry-laden minds.  In classes I have spoken to people from Sweden and Ireland.  The Irish girl, let's call her Sam, spoke with me about the differences between The United States and Scotland.  She was intrigued with New York City.

"How's New York compared to Glasgow?  My dad went last year, and he really liked it.  He said it was quite modern."  She had a light Irish accent that I cannot even begin to replicate in type.

"Well, yes it is quite modern.  I mean, its all so new.  Everything in New York feels like its made of steel or glass - all modern and tall and imposing.  It's grided too, it wasn't born and allowed to grow, but it was designed all to maximize land."

Glasgow grew though.  There are streets that lead to nowhere and randomly swerve and join up with other streets that appear to be in a grid, but aren't quite.  These lines follow something more of a natural pattern of growth rather than a forced pattern.

We spoke, too, briefly about the cultures surrounding our homes.  Glasgow is very connected to Northern Ireland and the Scottish heritage of the Picts and the Celts both pre-Roman civilizations.  The people were eventually Christianized, Westernized, and they became the modern day Scots and Irish.  Sam couldn't necessarily trace her lineage back to her Celtic roots, but she was aware of the presence in the city.  There's even an upcoming cultural festival called Celtic Connections celebrating the ties back to the Celtic Roots.

"That just fascinates me," I said to her.  "We just don't have that back home."

I can say for myself, that I'm French, Irish, Polish, Scandinavian, and a handful of other nationalities.  But I have no real tie to any of those countries other than the vague notion that my Great-Great Grandparents came over to American from those places.  For all intents and purposes, I am American - but that raises another more complicated question of what actually is an American.

When I met Sam, she was able to confidently say "I am Irish" with a subtle knowledge of what it means to be an Irish Woman.  I can say "I am American" with the confidence that it is true, but with no real idea of what that sentence actually means.  Is it enough that I grew up in the Suburbs of Connecticut?  Did I have to ride my bike down dirt roads and fall and scrape knees on American soil so that I shed a bit of me onto the ground, and rubbed some American dirt on the cut to heal it - is that American?  Or is it enough that I have a picture from a government I don't really trust and a number in a complicated system that I know nothing about that makes me American?  Does my Americanness hold up to scrutiny if I suddenly move to Midwestern United States?  I have no idea.