matching tracksuits

Growing up in a conservative church, I wore a tie every single weekend. (Every Saturday, in fact, not Sunday, but that’s an entirely different story.) And in my teens, in the late 80′s, it was critical that they not be just any ties. They had to be fashionable, which means today, they’re dated.

When we moved to Asheville years ago, I found all my ties among the clothes I’d packed away ages before. What a flood of memories those silly ties brought back.

They were narrow, that was the most important thing. I would look through Dad’s ties, admitting that some of them had appealing designs, but they were wide enough to rival aircraft carriers.

While they had to be narrow, though, the pattern had to be fresh.

And “fresh” is almost never “timeless.”

My pièce de résistance, though, was my white leather tie. Probably not even two fingers wide, it was a classy statement all in itself.

After we found them and I took some pictures, we dumped them off at Goodwill. If there’s any justice in the fashion world (and there isn’t — only trends), they’re still sitting there.

Here in South Carolina, the Department of Transportation began issuing religious-themed license plates. They have stained glass, a cross, and the words “I believe.”

One guess as to what happened:

A federal judge says South Carolina must stop marketing and making license plates that feature the image of a cross and the words “I Believe.”

A federal judge issued a temporary injunction during a court hearing Thursday after opponents said the plates violate the separation of church and state.

U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie said the case needs to be heard in court. In the meantime, the judge said the Department of Motor Vehicles cannot take any more orders for the plates.

Department spokeswoman Beth Parks said the agency stopped taking orders more than a month ago, after it collected the 400 needed to cover the cost of making the plates. She said they are in production, and none has shipped. (AP)

I’m sure there are many in the state who are appalled by this. Just another example of those damn goddless bastards trying to destroy religion in America. That’s what the Andre Bauer, the Lt. Governor, says:

For those who say this violates the Constitution by giving preference to Christianity, I think this lawsuit clearly discriminates against persons of faith,” Bauer said in a statement. “I expect the state attorney general to vigorously defend this, and it is time that people stand up for their beliefs. Enough is enough.” (Harold Online, cached at Google)

Yet how could anyone argue that it doesn’t give preference Christianity? There are no other freaking choices! I’d have gone for a FSM plate myself, but I don’t think my wife would have appreciated it.

Nate, at Shots from the Battery, really hits on the important issue, though:

I really wish we could sue the fundegelical state lawmakers who are forcing us taxpayers to bear the burden of the litigation they knew they were inviting. It’s a waste of $$ that the state taxpayers cannot afford. (SFTB)

Every morning going to work, it seems like I hear about the state making more and more budget cuts because of the falling tax revenue. South Carolina is predicted to have a stunning 14% unemployment rate by the spring, and these nitwits are out trying to make a mindless religious point.

We’re getting ready to go to the zoo — just L and I, a newly forming bi-Sunday tradition. L is excited: she’s chattering on and on in her own way: 10% Polish, 20% English, 70% L-ese. (One of the problems with raising a bilingual baby is that you never know whether she’s trying a new Polish word, a new English word, or just making up something in her own language.)

In the midst of the babbling, L suddenly says, “Mamma, afant.”

“Afant? I don’t know what that is,” K responds, as always, in Polish.

“Afant!” declares L.

“Honey, I don’t know…” K begins, then L switches languages.

“Slonik!” translates L.

“Oh! ‘Elephant!’”

A client at the day treatment program I used to work at asked me an odd question one day.

“Is it true that people are going to have computer chips implanted in them at some time?” the boy asked, “Because my foster mom said that that was going to happen.”

“Ah,” I thought, “you just told me an awful lot about your foster mom.”

What I actually said was somewhat more toned down: “Nah, John, that’s not necessarily going to happen, and even if it does, it probably won’t mean what your foster mom seems to think it will mean.”

And immediately I thought that perhaps I’d said more than I should have, for it seems to be a theological/religious statement I made. I did qualify it: “not necessarily” and “probably.” Still, I’m sensitive about discussing anything having to do with religion with students.

When student teaching, I had an interesting exchange with a student about this. He was concerned that I had crossed some line by explaining the Christianization of Britain. I differentiated teaching and proselytizing. “If we’d been discussing the Turkish empire, I would have discussed Islam. If we’d been talking about the partition of India, I would have discussed Hinduism and Islam.”

After all, who am I to make judgments about whether or not the Beast is rising? Who am I to say that chip implants will not necessarily be a sign that the Beast?

I wonder if I didn’t overstep some boundary with that…

In a study entitled “Vanishing Shakespeare,” the American Council of Trustees and Alumni found that 55 out of 70 “English departments at the U.S. News & World Report�s top 25 national universities and top liberal arts colleges, as well as the Big Ten schools and select public universities in New York and California” don’t require English majors to take a course in Shakespeare. Instead, we’re replacing the Bard with Madonna:

Increasingly, colleges and universities envision a major in �English� not as a body of important writers, genres, and works that all should know, but as a hodgepodge of courses reflecting diverse interests and approaches. See Appendix B.) After redesigning the English major at the University of Pennsylvania, for example, the department�s undergraduate hairman told The Daily Pennsylvanian student newspaper that �We might not agree on what we think English is, but we could all agree that our curriculum should reflect the makeup of our faculty.� Such a philosophy results in course offerings being driven not by the intellectual needs of students, but often by the varied interests and agendas of the faculty. As a consequence, it is possible for students to graduate with a degree in English without thoughtful or extended study of central works and figures who have shaped our literary and cultural heritage.

It’s difficult for me to imagine not studying Shakespeare as an English major. Shortly after I graduated, the professor who taught the Shakespeare course at my small liberal arts college introduced a second Shakespeare course in which students spent a whole semester studying a single play, with the ultimate aim of performing it. It was offered every other year, with a more traditional, 12-play Shakespeare course offered on off years. I wish I’d had the opportunity to take both.

But not to study his work at all? “A degree in English without Shakespeare is like an M.D. without a course in anatomy. It is tantamount to fraud.”

“Vanishing Shakespeare“