another quickie on freedom

okay. i'm here on campus trying to lock down for a full night of studies, before as is typical, i will allow myself any plausible distraction. in this case: blogging.

freedom of speech. now, to set the record straight. yes, i supported bush's war in iraq. yes, i still do support the war. but, yes, my support for the war is waning. in this particular state of mind, i find witty political signs painted on corny cardboard with chessy colors extra amusing.

protest sign outside columbia street protest: give iraq our constitution, we're not using it anymore.

now, agree or disagree with the ideology. you gotta give him high points for goodness of thought. god bless america and its obessions. long live the constitution. freedom of whatever you want these days...

heroes

this last weekend i got to go to boston. thanksgiving in new england, how quaint, how fitting. it was a lot of fun. i tagged along with my sister jill and her husband steven to his brother's home in massachusetts. we literally went, i swear, over the river and through the woods to get there. it was a sweet little home (by that i mean a big old home) tucked up next to the woods in the back yard. every vantage point was a postcard in embryo. thanksgiving. food. good food. family. big and small. and of course giving thanks in thanksgiving fashion. it was a good holiday break i.e. break from the busy-ness of my ordinary life.

so while we were in boston, we saw some sights of course. and i re-had a previous epiphany. heroes are heroes. for those of you that have seen the japanese supo-moderno thematic rendition of hero-ing in "ping-pong" you know what i'm talking about. if you haven't check this link. peco my hero. anyway. we got heroes now too. and yes they are sometimes the men and women of the past. that's totally cool. i mean the likes of paul revere, thomas jefferson, john and herbie hancock. what i don't get, is why people wanna tell the dirt story. just to sell some print? what a waste of research. i don't care that the midnight ride of paul revere is not that accurate, or that thomas jefferson may or may not have had shady relations in his home. at the end of the day, these particular men were involved in the establishment of america and the subsequent revolutionization the entire political environment internal and external to the u.s. since their time. can we modernist even conceptualize our lifestlyes sans the documents produced by this elite group of heroes? who else has had that kind of lasting effect on humankind? so let's celebrate our heroes. stopping wasting documentary film on the backbiting and fighting behind the scenes of the beach boys or the beatles. our heroes were good enough to earn our respect. isn't it enough to allow them theirs without all the silly hillary clinton-esque re-writing of history?


to peco and smile, to jefferson and franklin, to george and samuel. we celebrate your deeds. flawed, of course. but who isn't? heroes are heroes yo.

quickie for now

okay. so religious freedom. freedom to act according to the dictates of one's own conscience. these are the ideals that bought us each here in some fashion or another. and we get to celebrate this everyday in america. but. particulary, right now over thanksgiving. thus while, i have intentions to post again later in the weekend with real thanksgving activies, (signing on/off, not really sure which, from boston, a city full of good old american history) in the meantime, check this out. blogging. the demise of deprivation/oppression/and general overall stifling on expression. you gotta love the chinese. there are billions of 'em so you know it had to happen sometime. anyway, check out this piece in the times and celebrate what america really started so many generations ago. work it china. you know you wanna. come join us in the celebration...

perspective.

so this week marks the offical beginning of the holiday season. happy holiday. and happy holidays. happy thanksgving. do you think the pilgrims had any idea how happy the market economy would be about the sales profit associated with the holiday they began. i bet they're thankful that they could be of service. hear's to you old-school pilgrims. good job.

so thanksgiving's always a good time. hopefully some time with your family somewhere along the way. time off from school and work. and for those in school its the mark of the beginning of the end. the time between thanksgving break and winter break (christmas break for you traditionalists...) always flies by. why? because every drop of information you have absorbed over the last 3-4 months has to be drained, strained, flitered, and spit out all over your professors. and that testing experience is about that pleasant. before before the mayhem begins. i'm off to boston. i've only been to boston once before, so i'm looking forward to the adventures in boston. i think we might even be visiting plymouth rock. how thanksgiving of us? i know. good americans.

it's been fun this week cause jill and steven brought the triplets to stay with me at my apartment in the heights. and yes they all fit. three cribs one room. i'm just glad it wasn't my room. wait, no it was. all of us crammed in, minus me. i got the couch. jill, steven and me on my double bed was too much family bonding. we got to spend a couple days cruisin around nyc. steven's first time in the city. jane first time on a boat. kate's first time on the subway. zach's first time clomping around on hardwood echo-y floors. peter's first tri-cry diaper changing experience. jill. what can i say? she's already done it all. maybe the first time she's had spinning toilet-paper on her head with strobe lights... but's that's only a guess. you'll have to ask her for the details.

so happy thanksgiving y'all. happy firsts to this holiday season.

looking for some gospel?

this weekend will open a new era in harlem gospel. so for all of you in the city looking for something to do to liven up your weekend come check it out. the information is listed in the picture above. but the church has built a new beautiful building in harlem and the open house is this weekend. this building a spacious 5-story building designed by the temple committee, will house the two new congregations in the area.

the church has grown tremendously in manhattan in recent years with landmark moments like the opening of the manhattan temple on 66 and columbus, this new harlem building, the continuing construction of another new building on the upper east side, that will become the new stake center, and more housing for byu and university of utah students and church office buildings in the union square area. so there is a lot going on here in the city resultant of tons of growth. nonetheless, the open house this weekend should be something special, with a variety of unique events and activities like the gopsel music presentations. so come check it out if you're around.

what's more american than a little pig skin?

football. just like jazz music and getting fat, football is one of those things that only americans can really excel at. in harmony with the upcoming holiday season, some of us columbia dental studednts had a little turkey-bowl classic before all of us take off for thanksgiving break. we had jews, mormons, the fighting irish, asians, whiteys, indians, (but no pilgrims) in classic american fashion. the only fair way to break up the teams was along territorial boundaries, mainly cause we had to show the east-siders the true west coast offense. i.e. you can never lose if you can throw td's every possession. inspired by the greats like steve young, ty detmer, and legendary jim mcmahon, the west side was truly the best side. all-in-all it was good fun. and for those that weren't there, you'll just have to take my word for it: there's a reason we are all in dental school and not signing contracts in the league.



one word: posers














west side vs. east side. biggie vs. tupac. who do you really think is more hard core?













columbia sdos: home to true athletes















what does this "W" stand for??

cliche, i know

so i know its totally cliche to blog about politics, but here's my 5 cents anyway. it seems lately the president bush has taken a lot of heat lately in the press about this mistake and that. and of course bush has made some mistakes. he's not the greatest administrator. however, even though i don't support bush like most of the frandsen men i know, i still think all this finger pointing is ridiculous. if we're gonna point fingers, let's point them at the one man whose fault it all is. nixon. that's right, i blame nixon for all of president bush's blunders. give me a moment and let me explain this. so living here in new york, there's an activist on every corner calling for the impeachment of bush. the other day i was walking to school and i noticed a sign calling for a memorial for the 2000th soldier that had died as a result of the war. now, don't take my tone of disdain to resemble any disrespect for the armed forces. recently, i finished the book "the chosen" by chaim potok. he describes the attitudes that existed during the final stages of wwii. he mentioned that the death tolls would roll in in magnitudes of 1000's a day. he also detailed the anguish felt collectively as their president died. whatever happened to the patriotism of days past? my generation does not feel an once of emotional attachment for any politcal figure, namely the president. and i blame nixon. since watergate, political scandal has become acceptable. (obviously, not acceptable, but we, as modern citizens, do not get all wired up when yet another political leader receives yet another indictment) look what nixon has done to america. look what we allow in modern america. good job nixon. good job.

new york doll

no i'm not talking about myself or my cute cousin stephen. although we are cute little new york dolls. no this is apparently one the pioneers of rock during the 70's with influence on some of the greats, such as the cure, the strokes, the sex pistols and others. so some guy walks into his new ward in la and the greeter points out a few of the members of the ward. not to mention aurthur "killer" kane, bassist for the new york dolls. from there began the grand task of documenting this man's life from rock star to lds family history librarian. to say the least, this film "new york doll" is definately worth the ridiculously high $10 a ticket here in the city and whatever you bums pay in regular cities. a few of us saw this film last night on the corner of houston and mercer in soho in a quaint little theatre, with no more than 50 seats. it was hard for me to grasp what i was seeing on screen as reality, but indeed it was. highly entertaining. the filming and editing really created a sweet vibe with the rest of the film. for all y'all in ny, la, slc, phx, and seattle, go see it. it'll be worth your time.

postal service

so i'm not talking about the absolute best band of the last five years. i'm talking about the u.s. postal service. so yesterday i getting my daily dose of the colbert report (comedycentral.com), and some pbs guy was bragging about the documentary he was making about the civil war and all the letters he read as his source of information. which made me think, when was the last time you mailed a letter you wrote to "correspond" with an aquaintance? take for example, my uncle tracy. he sends me a letter each week detailing the events of his family. a special letter from canyon view medical center, addressed to peter u. frandsen, (i haven't had the heart to correct him over the last 4 1/2 years, that my middle name is shigeki, not ushio). but it's become such a treasured ritual. i make some food, sit down, open the letter and laugh to myself as i hear his distinct, semi-poetic, narrative voice come off the page. seriously, excluding email, im-ing, text, commenting on blogs, how many times have i really written to someone in my life? (that weren't in some way related to missionaries) but what would we do without all our technology. freak, you wouldn't even be reading this not-so-new lament of the things of yester-year. oh the lamentations...