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Month: July 2009

Emtpy Handed

Friday 31 July 2009

The first camera I remember owning was one our family bought at Sears just before a trip to California in 1984. I believe it was even a Sears brand; it seemed terribly fancy for a twelve-year-old, though it was just a point and shoot.

The next camera I remember was an SLR manual focus that I borrowed from a friend. I took some pictures of birds, but I don’t think I ever developed those shots.

It wasn’t until I went to Poland in 1996 that I became seriously interested in photography. I took a Canon point and shoot with me, but I quickly discovered its limitations. I headed to the market and bought a Zenit — a Russian made SLR that could drive nails. Literally.

K’s first camera was a Russian view finder that I can’t even recall the name of. She moved to Zenit and Nikon; I replaced my Zenit with a succession of Nikon and Canon manual and auto focus cameras.

Finally, K and I ended up with our current primary: a Nikon D70s, which was fairly cutting edge when we bought it. Since then, we’ve added a couple of lenses to our collection and have a whole bag of glass to carry around.

Friday, we pack our things and head to Charleston for a day of wandering about the city, stopping at cafes for coffee, taking pictures, and simply experiencing one of America’s most historic cities. We arrive and I glance in the back.

“Where’d you put the camera?” I’d been packing our bikes and related materials. I assumed…

“I didn’t get it. I thought you…”

We look at each other for a moment.

What to do?

Simple: enjoy Charleston without a camera. Life without a camera is possible.

In the meantime, Nana and Papa took the Girl to the serpentarium. Nana and Papa remembered their camera…

On the Ground

Friday 31 July 2009

I’m left wondering how much the average German soldier knew about the plans for the inhabitants of the land they were invading. Did they realize that, ultimately, all Poles were to be made slaves or exterminated? That all Jews were considered subhuman, and the “logical” consequences of that?

I’m reading Blitzkrieg in their Own Words: First-Hand Accounts from German Soldiers 1939-1940.

The jacket description explains that the book was written during World War II.

Written in the naive, fresh style of young men new to combat, the texts recounts the ruthless destruction of the Polish and French armies in language that shocks in its brutal enthusiasm.

One writes about the “criminal insanity of the Poles.”

Also striking is the awful irony of some of the descriptions. One soldier writes about being ambushed in a Polish village. “Civilians and soldiers out of uniform are engaging in nasty, criminal warfare.” It doesn’t require perfect hindsight shows us the hypocritical irony of the soldier’s statement: it was true even as he wrote the words.

With the Current

Thursday 30 July 2009

Wednesday afternoon, Nana and Papa arrive for a short stay on their way down to visit friends in Florida. It’s lovely to see them, but just as lovely is the prospect of having sitters for the Girl.

The day begins as it usually does: breakfast and the beach. This time, L makes a friend. They dig in the sand together, build things together, destroy things together.

Then the girl heads to the water. We’re hopeful: maybe L will see her friend playing in the surf and think, “Hey, maybe I’ll give that a try.” Maybe, but not likely.

Still, with L occupied and Nana and Papa there to keep an eye on her, K and I do something we hadn’t done all week: go swimming together. Papa obliges our photo request and does a fine job.

The afternoon brings more babysitting — what to do? It’s not that we’re thrilled to be free of L, but we are. In a sense. Every time we’re without her, the same things happen: a strange sense of freedom from obligation followed very quickly by a quirky little tinge of emptiness.

Before the tinge sets in, we get in kayaks for a quick tour of the marshlands.

It has been over ten years — closer to fifteen — since I’ve been in a kayak, but I still keep my arm straight by my side when the guide asks, “Who has little to no experience in a kayak?” Surely it’s like riding a bike. What’s there to worry about? The greatest danger in a paid tour would be raising my paddle too high, dripping water onto my lap.

We set off, and sure enough, K and I are pros.

Lindsey, our guide, stops frequently to explain the flora and fauna about us.

“How many think that’s mud on the banks?” she asks. Some of us would probably raise our hands if we weren’t so busy paddling. Lindsey explains that it is, in fact, hundreds of years of decayed marsh grass (I can’t recall the name of the grass). It’s also floating about in the water, and this is the primary component of the mussels’ diet.

A couple of times, Lindsey has us back our canoes into the bank while she discusses the environment in detail, and answers questions.

The pressing question: Alligators? Generally, none in the marshes — they stick to fresh water and keep themselves as far away from humans as possible.

It’s from Lindsey that we learn about pelicans’ potential for eye damage due to diving for fish.

As with the spider wasp, that lays its eggs in a paralyzed, still active spider so that its young can feast on the still-living spider, it strikes me as a particularly cruel twist.

Tides

Wednesday 29 July 2009

Our first view of the marsh behind our little cabin was at high tide: a sea of greenish water with twigs sticking out. We wait for low tide, wondering just how far down the water will draw.

The next morning, our answer:

I go out into the muck, make a quick discovery, then rush back for the girls. “You’ve got to see this,” I tell L, wondering if she’ll be as fascinated as I hope she’ll be.

In the briny muck left behind, fiddler crabs roam about, the males waving their enormous claw, clamoring for the attention of the females.

“Their name derives from the motions they make when they eat,” our kayaking guide will tell us later. “They raise their small claw up to their mouths very rhythmically, and juxtaposed to their large claw — which is used for nothing other than attracting females — it looks like they’re playing a fiddle.”

L watches, and she’s immediately fascinated. It’s a fascination that will continue through the vacation, especially at Botany Bay. In the meantime, though, it’s beach time, and the Girl is ready for more digging in the sand.

K and I insist on a hat for L, and with her Dora sunglasses, she proclaims, “I’m a movie star!” Judging from our YouTube account, I think I’d have to agree.

After a nap and some lunch, we decide it’s time to explore downtown Edisto Island (inasmuch as there is a downtown) and get some ice cream. When we arrived, we drove about a bit, looking for the marina and shopping district we’d heard about, but all we found were million dollar beach-front homes and tourists like ourselves.

A slower pace should help.

In the end, it takes us almost an hour to find the small marina tucked in the corner of the island. All the while, we’ve heard the same mantra from the bike trailer. “I want ice cream!” and it’s a relief when we find a tackle shop with a small freezer.

“I want blue!” L proclaims. It’s a common combination, food and color. She often pulls out our pots and pans to make soup and proclaims, “I’m making blue zupa!” combining the majority English with a single Polish word — another habit.

We take a quick walk down the short marina, pondering the prices of the boats and the careers of people who can afford $200k boats and $130k slips to moor them. To be able to afford such expensive toys would be a dream and a nightmare, I’m sure. K and I play the age old game of “What would we do if we were rich” as we walk along, and boats and expensive cars never come up. Living off the grid; having the fiscal freedom to live wherever we want; knowing that L’s education is paid for — these are the things we talk about. And maybe one or two toys…

Satisfied with the wealth we do have — health, jobs, a happy family — we head back through the swamps.

Afternoon Bike Rides

Tuesday 28 July 2009

This was the afternoon activity for our first morning on the beach. I didn’t combine the posts because I had yet to transfer the pictures from the small Canon we borrowed from Nana and Papa.

The first few days, we spent our afternoons on bikes, with L in a trailer. The state park at Edisto Island has a few miles of packed-shell bike paths with wooden bridges over the marshes. After negotiating the treacherous sand access road (riding on sand without knobby tires is much like riding in slushy snow that’s layered atop pure ice: there’s as much lateral movement — sometimes the front tire, sometimes the rear, sometimes both simultaneously — at times as there is forward movement), it was really a pleasure.

Who would enjoy riding in an environment like this?

No strenuous climbs, as it was coastal terrain. No merciless sun, as it was all in a forest filled with Live Oaks and Spanish Moss. It was, in every sense, leisurely riding.

Several friends thought we were nuts to go cycling in a South Carolina July. The ocean breeze combined with unseasonably cool weather, though, and it was an absolute joy. Except for the sandy road.

Our first destination: a prehistoric oyster shell bank. No one knows the significance of the location; no one knows why Native Americans chose this particular spot to eat oysters (and lots of them). But we do know that the mound is some ten percent of its size when discovered by Spanish explorers in the seventeenth century.

Perhaps this was inspiration for Lewis Carroll:

‘A loaf of bread,’ the Walrus said,
‘Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed —
Now, if you’re ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed.’

Or perhaps not. All the same, it was a frabjous day, and we chortled in our joy all the way back to the cabin.

Collins and the Mind

Tuesday 28 July 2009

Sam Harris, author of the excellent The End of Faith, has an op-ed in the New York Times about Obama’s selection of Dr. Francis Collins to head the National Institutes of Health.

Collins is famous for his work leading the Human Genome project as well as his stance that there exists “a consistent and profoundly satisfying harmony” between science and Christianity. While he is not a proponent of Intelligent Design, Dr. Collins believes both Genesis and Darwin. Harris explained it thus:

What follows are a series of slides, presented in order, from a lecture on science and belief that Dr. Collins gave at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2008:
Slide 1: “Almighty God, who is not limited in space or time, created a universe 13.7 billion years ago with its parameters precisely tuned to allow the development of complexity over long periods of time.”
Slide 2: “God’s plan included the mechanism of evolution to create the marvelous diversity of living things on our planet. Most especially, that creative plan included human beings.”
Slide 3: “After evolution had prepared a sufficiently advanced ‘house’ (the human brain), God gifted humanity with the knowledge of good and evil (the moral law), with free will, and with an immortal soul.”
Slide 4: “We humans used our free will to break the moral law, leading to our estrangement from God. For Christians, Jesus is the solution to that estrangement.”
Slide 5: “If the moral law is just a side effect of evolution, then there is no such thing as good or evil. It’s all an illusion. We’ve been hoodwinked. Are any of us, especially the strong atheists, really prepared to live our lives within that worldview?” (Source)

Harris is concerned about this blending of religion and science. He writes that when Collins is

challenged with alternative accounts of these phenomena – or with evidence that suggests that God might be unloving, illogical, inconsistent or, indeed, absent – Dr. Collins will say that God stands outside of Nature, and thus science cannot address the question of his existence at all.
Similarly, Dr. Collins insists that our moral intuitions attest to God’s existence, to his perfectly moral character and to his desire to have fellowship with every member of our species. But when our moral intuitions recoil at the casual destruction of innocents by, say, a tidal wave or earthquake, Dr. Collins assures us that our time-bound notions of good and evil can’t be trusted and that God’s will is a mystery.

In short, Harris is worried about the fact that, when it comes to the moral dimension of the universe, Collins ceases being a scientist and becomes a theologian. Certainly the statement “God’s will is a mystery” is not something that can be tested scientifically, Harris rightly points out.

But Harris is up to more, though. He rightly points out that this view of creation — evolution to one point, divine spark-of-morality injection at another — recreates an age-old problem: the mind-body problem.

Just how is the mind/soul connected to the body? Where does one end and the other begin? Things we’ve traditionally thought of as part of the mind/soul (such as personality) are oddly susceptible to influence through physical media. The most famous example is Phineas Gage, a railway who, through a series of unfortunate events, had a railroad stake placed in his skull. He survived, but was never the same. He changed. Instead of the kind, fun-loving Gage, he became a foul-mouthed, short-tempered jerk. His personality changed through violent manipulation of his brain. It kind of indicates that personality is not an aspect of the soul.

Contemporary examples abound. As a teacher, I see it every day: Ritalin. Over-medicate a child on Ritalin and you’ll get a somber, introverted, sleepy individual; get it just right, and you’ll get a “normal” person; under-medicate and you’ll get someone almost bouncing off the walls. When I was in school, this would have all been chalked up to “personality.”

This is exactly what Harris has in mind when he writes,

Most scientists who study the human mind are convinced that minds are the products of brains, and brains are the products of evolution. Dr. Collins takes a different approach: he insists that at some moment in the development of our species God inserted crucial components – including an immortal soul, free will, the moral law, spiritual hunger, genuine altruism, etc.
As someone who believes that our understanding of human nature can be derived from neuroscience, psychology, cognitive science and behavioral economics, among others, I am troubled by Dr. Collins’s line of thinking. I also believe it would seriously undercut fields like neuroscience and our growing understanding of the human mind. If we must look to religion to explain our moral sense, what should we make of the deficits of moral reasoning associated with conditions like frontal lobe syndrome and psychopathy? Are these disorders best addressed by theology?

Dr. Collins sees morality as an element of the soul; Harris points out that this is untestable and amounts to a re-introduction of the mind/body problem into contemporary science. It’s an insightful point, and Harris builds to this point very effectively.

It’s a tricky issue. Religious beliefs are often bedrock beliefs: they inform and shape other beliefs. Would we want a Christian Scientist in the role, someone who believes that all ailments are spiritual, figments of an unenlightened imagination?

But will Collins’ religious beliefs affect his scientific reasoning? I’m not convinced, like Harris, that it will. It didn’t when he was director of the Human Genome Project. Then again, Sam Harris is a long-tailed atheist in a Christian rocking chair country: he’s more than a little skittish, and often justifiably so.

Source: Gary Stern, at Blogging Religiously.

Morning on the Beach

Tuesday 28 July 2009

“They’re a bit rustic,” K’s colleague said about the cabins at Edisto Beach State Park. “They’re okay if you like ‘roughing it,'” he concluded.

“If this is ‘roughing it’,” K said as we walked in, “then I’d hate to see what his idea of luxury is.” We quickly determined that in between the two visits there must have been some extensive renovations.

Surely no one could call this “roughing it.”

Hardwood floors and an interior done completely in unfinished pine — it is a welcoming space from the beginning. The living room has a Murphy Bed and an ample sitting area.

At the other end, a small television (hidden in the cabinet on the wall) and a leather couch.

There’s a small bedroom in one corner of the cabin — it’s L’s bedroom.

The kitchen is well light (in the day, anyway) and perfectly adequate for vacation.

The real treasure, though, is in the back.

A restful night is a simple matter there, with the wind blowing through the palms and the crickets all around.

We wake the next morning to visitors: a family of four deer that almost managed to scamper away completely before I stumble back into the cabin for the camera.

Still, we didn’t come to Edisto for the wildlife. We came for the beaches, eager to give L her first beach experience.

With the initial fear from the previous afternoon a distant memory, L is able to get down to some serious sand castle building. She carefully makes a ring of towers with an eventual moat. K, of course, only watches. Having grown up in southern Poland, she’s had enough beach time in her life!

The pelicans off the coast have breakfast while the architectural wonders rise from the sand. They hit the water with shocking impact. We later find out that the repeated impact can so damage their eyes that they can eventually go blind.

The Girls, somewhat oblivious to the masochistic fishing exercise going on just behind them, continue to build.

Eventually, I try to convince L to approach the water and let the waves lightly wash over her toes. She’s not receptive, and when I press the issue, assuring her that I’ll hold her the entire time, that she has nothing to fear, that I’ll never let anything hurt her (A lie? No: some things are out of my control, but those things that I can control I will control. Or will I? There is learning in pain…), that it will be great fun — all for naught.

The more I reassure her, the more she panics. At last, I calm her down and assure her that I won’t make her go to the water.

It’s like with many foods: I know she’ll love it as soon as she overcomes her distrust.

She should be glad that she’s not a pelican, I decide. Then again, instinct is frightfully powerful, as is conditioning.

Age

Monday 27 July 2009

A gentleman doesn’t discuss a lady’s age — that’s what tradition says, and I suppose when you’re between 400-1400 years old, you’d rather keep that to yourself.

The first stop after our day at the zoo is Angel Oak, an enormous Live Oak tree on John’s Island, just outside of Charleston, SC. It is, in a word, simply enormous. It is huge in the way that the Grand Canyon is immense: one hears about it, sees pictures, etc., but it’s only the actual physical encounter that makes the impression.

Branches on the tree are larger than most of the trees we have in our backyard. They’re so large that a network of cables and metal supports seem to be the only things keeping them up.

It’s difficult to imagine anything surviving long enough to grow to this size, but I’m not quite sure how old that is. Web information indicates an age of 1,400-1,600 years. Still, it’s difficult to imagine a tree surviving that long. That would make it an acorn when the first ecumenical councils were formulating orthodox Christianity.

The brochure distributed at the oak, however, puts the age at 300-400 years. That’s much more modest, but it’s difficult to believe a tree growing that large that quickly. Our Tulip Poplar in the backyard is certainly 200 years old, and it’s not even close to this size.

Still, age matters less than tenacity, and for a tree to grow to this size in such a relatively harsh, salty climate is remarkable.

Signs posted around the tree warn of dire consequences if anyone attempts to climb it, and that’s certainly understandable. The tree would not last many more years if it invited a free-for-all of climbing, swinging, and the like. Still, it’s difficult to resist walking up one of the great branches and taking a seat.

After a lunch break, we get back on the road, arriving at Edisto Beach mid-afternoon.

It’s been three years since we’ve been on a beach: K and I head straight for the water, shoes off. L is much less enthusiastic. In fact, she is initially terrified of the water.

The sound, the motion, the size — they’re all too much for L and she spends most of our first walk in someone’s arms.

Eventually, she calms down enough to play with her new basket of beach toys.

“We’ll get her in the water by the end of the week,” I assure K.

Home Again

Sunday 26 July 2009

And feeling fine. The vacation (or as L likes to pronounce it, “foe-kay-shin”) was a restful success. In many ways, the best part was being completely unplugged.

Over the next week, I’ll be posting a week-delayed account, writing in present tense, imagining how much more dreadfully busy the whole week would have been if internet access had been an option…

Antichrist Beast Obama

Thursday 23 July 2009

The site’s welcoming text reads,

Any fair study of the scriptures coupled with the study of the signs of the times will convince almost anybody with a modicum of intelligence that the end of the world is drawing nigh. […] Barack Obama is the Antichrist, and is leading doomed america [sic] to her final destruction and the destruction of the world! We’re not talking some vague, nebulus [sic] postulation, we’re talking plain, straight BIble [sic] talk backed up by an overwhelming amount of real evidence – on the ground! Watch this fascinating, three-part documentary and check out the rest of the site for Bible perspective on the rise of Antichrist in the last hours of these last, dark days.

Anyone who is not familiar with Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church would do well to watch this BBC documentary.

One might wonder what someone is hoping to accomplish by insulting its readers by suggesting that those who disagree (or who are not yet convinced) don’t even have a “modicum of intelligence.” Yet once it’s clear that this is one of Westboro Baptist Church’s many web sites, all is clear.

What’s interesting about this is the time line Phelps is setting up for himself here. By calling Obama the Antichrist, Phelps is painting himself into a corner; it is a definitive claim about prophecy.

When Obama leaves office and not a single thing has happened, what will happen? Will Phelps admit he was wrong and at last quiet his irrationally bigoted voice?

Doubtful — false prophets always have a way of reinventing themselves.

Site: http://www.beastobama.com/

Columbia Zoo

Sunday 19 July 2009

Being at a zoo can teach one many things.

It can show you how close we are to the great apes. This great gorilla sat watching us as much as we watched him. His eyes darted from face to face, and occasionally he would furrow his brow. Proof of thought? Certainly not. It was humbling to look at him, though, thinking how closely related we are. Granted, we’re more closely related to chimps, genetically speaking, but I looked at the gorilla and saw shadows of us.

It was not so clear who was watching whom.

The elephants have better things to do. They’re more concerned with covering themselves with dust and looking old and wise.

The alligators were looking sly, as if they knew how long they’d survived. “We walked with the dinosaurs,” they seem to say. “We’ll wait you out.”

The goats, of course, were hungry. There’s not much to learn from goats, except how to deal with trolls under bridges.

Trains come without tracks — the definition of “train” has become very flexible in the twenty-first century, but a ride on one is just as fun.

“Helmets are for bicycles,” declares the Girl.

“And for pony rides,” K explains patiently.

And pony rides are for those who are big enough to venture out on their own, sort of.

In many ways, giraffe rides are more fun: they last longer, anyway. And they do a more thorough job of getting one dizzy.

Some birds, growing so accustomed to regular feeding from visitors, take matters into their own claws.

And it’s only with deliberate effort that visitors keep the greedy beasts from ripping the feeding cup out of one’s hand.

Feeding birds is a great way to make friends and giggle constantly.

Birds will hang upside down to get food.

Zookeepers can take the grizzly out of the wild but, well, you know the rest of the cliche.

A quick swim when we got back to the hotel and everyone was ready for bed.

Tomorrow: a trip to Angel Oak, the oldest living thing this side of the Rockies (reportedly a 1,600 year old tree), then the final destination: Edisto Island.

From here on out, internet access is a big question mark. And that’s a good thing — we’re on vacation!

Tower II

Saturday 18 July 2009

The tower at Furman.

Furman Bluegrass

Friday 17 July 2009

Last night we returned to Furman University to watch another free, outdoor (and mosquito-free) concert. Bluegrass this time, with a band from Athens, Georgia. True, a bluegrass band from Georgia sounds about like a funk band from the Lower East Side, but they did a commendable job.

I wanted to get a shot of the band, but it was dark and they were performers. By this, I mean they didn’t come out and simply play their songs. They performed: facial communication with the audience and each other; exaggerated motions while playing; dancing; whooping and hollering — sort of like one could imagine Madonna doing if she ever sang bluegrass. She wouldn’t stand at the mike and simply sing: she’d have to turn the show into a show about the music and the performer. I guess that’s what performing means. It always struck me as false: appearing to look like the musician is more into the music than he or she really is. And so each and every shot I took of the band was blurry: I was far away and they were wiggling and goofing too much.

We sat on blankets and I tried to explain the difference between country and bluegrass to some Polish friends. I was tempted to say, “Well, bluegrass takes talent; contemporary country doesn’t,” but that might be a little too judgmental of a genre that was quite fine in Hank Williams day but seems somehow to have lost its way. I made an attempt: Bluegrass is always acoustic. There’s an emphasis on the virtuosity of the players. The tempo of most songs is very quick. There’s almost always at least two-part harmony, with a high tenor harmony that can be, at times, quite dissonant. There is almost always a folk element, which is more pronounced in traditional bluegrass but still evident in its progressive forms. Some of the songs can be traced back to old fiddle songs; many old fiddle songs are showcased outright.

I grew up with bluegrass in the background. It was never a strong part of my life, but it was there, around the edges. After all, I grew up in Bristol, Virginia, which is where the Stanley Brothers made it big on the “Farm and Fun Time” show, after having been a hit in Norton, Virginia, in the heart of Southwest Virginia’s coal company. They played on WCYB radio, which is now WZAP; I grew up watcing WCYB television, channel five. That is to say, Bristol is a significant historical marker for bluegrass, and so it was always sort of around, if not literally then culturally.

My literal exposure was due mainly to my friend (I’ll call him Joseph) and his grandfather (I’ll call him Edward). Edward never really taught me; he never really advised me; he just played, with his wife occasionally wandering into the living room and adding harmony as he sang. I could watch his fingers and follow along with relative ease: bluegrass is one of those “three-chords and the truth” genres, and those three chords are often G-C-D. It was deceptive, making me unappreciative of the beauty of the music. Listening to Pink Floyd and old Genesis, I was convinced “good” music was long and complex.

He passed away just a few years ago. I was in Poland, making it impossible for me to come back for the funeral. I would have liked to have been there, for Joseph at the very least.

The last time I saw Joseph was the summer of 1998. I’d finished my requisite two years in the Peace Corps and was back in the States for the summer before returning for my extension year. He was in jail, convicted of break and entering. I happened to be in town on a Sunday, which was one of the visiting days. I picked up a couple of packs of Marlboros for him and headed to the county detention center.

No one announced my name when they told Joseph he had a visitor. “Well, shit!” he exclaimed when he saw me. “You were the last one I expected to see here.” He seemed a little embarrassed. There was a heaviness to the visit as the question that hung in the air but which I never asked: “What the hell are you doing in here?” Saturday nights of staying up to ridiculous hours playing “Super Mario Brothers” and some fight game with Mike Tyson on Nintendo, drinking Mountain Dew and listening to everything from INXS to Kentucky Head Hunters seemed to dissolve into the mesh of metal that separated us.

We stayed in touch for a couple of years after that. I finished up my first adventure in Poland and headed to Boston for grad school, exchanging monthly letters with Joseph the whole time. He’s a year older than I, but writing to him, I felt like the big brother.

I would have certainly seen him at Edward’s funeral if I’d gone. My parents said he seemed devastated.

Had I seen Joseph at the funeral, I would have asked him what the family planned to do with Edward’s guitar, an anniversary-edition Martin that seemed to play itself. “Keep it in tune,” I would have said. “Play it for your children. Teach them how to play and pass the guitar and music on.”

That’s the only way bluegrass has survived. It’s a niche market, and because of the virtuosity it requires, not everyone can simply decide in his or her mid-twenties, “I want to be a bluegrass star,” if there really be such a thing these days. No, most bluegrass players have been playing since first or second grade.

It’s true: there are university music departments now trying to preserve and teach the music, but it’s not the same. It’s admirable, and it’s what we need, but bluegrass has never been academic. It’s never been about book learning. (Edward couldn’t read music; he read — and wrote — shape notes.) It’s been about grandfathers, daughters, and grandsons singing together around a wood stove in the winter.

Lions, Poles, and Japs! Oh My!

Thursday 16 July 2009

Several of my Polish friends spoke of having to re-learn some elements of history after the fall of Communism in the late 1980s. History (as well as art, music, the social sciences, and even the physical sciences) was dominated by ideology. Because Communism represented the pinnacle of human achievement, something “the masses” for centuries had been working for, it could not be wrong. It had become a religion, in that sense. And so the mistakes and crimes of the Soviet government were recast as wise planning that had been necessary; the achievements of capitalist countries (read: America and Western Europe) were due solely to capitalists’ deviousness, usually stealing the ideas from the honorable Socialists.

With the fall of the Soviet empire, it seemed that such nonsense would never happen again. Yes, well, it has. As Putin seeks to rebuild Russian strength, he’s turning to nationalism, stoking a pride in the achievements of Soviet Russia. This means recasting a few, unpleasant episodes in Soviet history. No worries, though: “We’ve done it before,” Russian media services must be thinking. “We can do it again.” And so youngsters in Russia will be learning “history” that’s a little different from, well, reality.

A few highlights:

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was not an agreement with Nazi Germany to split Poland between the two of them. It was a defensive move, for Poland and Japan were planning a two-pronged attack on the Soviet Union. (Source)
World War II began when Germany attacked Russia in June 1941. The rape of Poland that began almost two years earlier was a defensive move, remember? (Source)
Stalin’s purges and mass murders were entirely rational and logical — for the good of the country. (Source)

The bottom line: Stalin is a hero who was defending the country from malicious outside influence and outright Polish/German aggression.

The temptation is to mutter something about this never happening in America, but of course it does. The whole premise behind Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States (Amazon) is just that. It’s a play on the maxim, “history is written by the winners,” which means the losers are misrepresented and underrepresented.

A few highlights:

America was founded as a Christian nation.
The rise of American power has always been a benign influence on the world.
American foreign policy has always been a beacon of reason and justice; America respects democracy worldwide.

Not all of these myths are taught or were taught in school, but they are spread evenly enough in our collective conscious (and conscience, possibly) that they might as well have been. And, to be fair to America, the notion that America was founded as a Christian nation is not all that morally repulsive (it only becomes so when one sees that believe in action); the notion that Stalin’s purges were ethically justifiable is completely morally repulsive.

But there is a level playing field now: thank God for the Internet, that beacon of tried and true information. It will surely save Russians and Americans alike from the national myths.

Source: the beatroot

Times Three

Wednesday 15 July 2009

Self-adjusting clocks are a clockmaker’s dream. Nowadays, we have clocks set by the Internet and via satellite. We have three such clocks: two of them stand-alone clocks; one of them our computer.

Photos of those clocks taken within a minute or two of each other:

Three clocks, “automatically” set; three times.

I checked the time zone setting on the computer and had it update the time. No change.

Any ideas?

No Child Left Behind: The Football Version

Tuesday 14 July 2009

Many educators are not fond of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, which Obama doesn’t seem intent on scraping. I suppose education is never the priority politicians claim it is, though to be fair, neither candidate made much of education in 2008.

Some outside of education are confused as to why a teacher would oppose NCLB. They see it as an unwillingness to be held accountable for what happens in the classroom. Or even a fear of accountability. This is deeply inaccurate, at least in my case.Â I (and many others) oppose NCLB because of how it (claims) to hold teachers accountable.

One effective way of illustrating some of the absurdities of NCLB is to apply it to sports. I’d seen this online a time or two, but a professor posted this for us in class the other day and it made me realize anew how skewed some people’s perception of NCLB actually is. So here’s the scenario: football is run according to guidelines similar to NCLB:

The regulations:
All teams must make the state playoffs, and all will win the championship.
If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.
All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time and in the same conditions. No exceptions will be made for interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities.
All kids will play football at a proficient level.
Talented players will be asked to work out on their own without instruction.
Coaches will use all their instructional time with the athletes who aren’t interested in football, have limited athletic ability or whose parents don’t like football.
All coaches will be proficient in all aspects of football, or they will be released.
Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th and 11th games.
This will create a New Age of sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimal goals.

The fact is, children in the same grade start at different places intellectually, emotionally, and socially.

What’s worse, NCLB is a moving target. Every school must achieve “Adequate Yearly Progress.” If you fail to make that progress, you have to make up all that ground and then some for the next year. Another sports analogy (this time, my own) might make it clearer:

Let’s say to make the football team, you have to run the 40 yard dash in 5.5 seconds. You fail to make it by one tenth of a second. You work out. Finally, you reach 5.5 seconds and come back to try again. The coach now tells you that now you have to run the 40 yard dash in 5.4 seconds. You can’t do it, so you go back and work out some more. When you can sprint it in 5.4 seconds, you go back to the coach, who informs you that now the bar has been moved to 5.25 seconds.

Or, as someone else put it:

The annual measurement bar is a moving target and once missed it is like chasing after a train pulling out of the depot year after year. Of course then it becomes the fault of the instructors, and not the curriculum , or the administration, or heaven forbid the students themselves. (Source)

Accountability is good; poorly-thought-out accountability can only be harmful.

Love Hate

Monday 13 July 2009

L and Bida, our cat, have an uneasy relationship. Or maybe it’s a love-hate relationship: L loves, Bida hates.

That might be taking it a bit too far. When Bida is in the mood, a scratch under the neck will bring a quiet purr no matter who’s doing the scratching. Yet sensing that mood is difficult for adults; it’s all but impossible for L. And so, in the name of love, L simply tortures the cat most of the time.

“I’m helping Bida. She’s sick.”

The trouble is, her “love” often is not affectionate; her “help” doesn’t assist in any way whatsoever. L’s simply trying out language and ideas she hears and sees all around her without fully understanding what it means (in the case of “help”) or how to show it (in the case of “love”). The result: a frustrated cat and a scratched little Girl.

At the same time, it’s incredible the patience Bida can sometimes show our budding veterinarian. She has figured out, I think, that if she waits just a moment, K or I will come and rescue her. And if push comes to shove (and L, in her rambunctiousness, can push and shove sometimes), Bida knows how to use her claws. And one would think that two or three painful, deep scratches would teach L to keep her distance, but to date, it hasn’t.

So K and I try to save the two smallest members of our household from each other on a regular basis.

Notes on a Chipmunk

Sunday 12 July 2009

I’m not sure why cats feel they must lovingly share their kill with their owners, but I should focus on the “lovingly share” part and appreciate the generosity. When that sharing involves bringing the kill through the cat door, it’s a little more difficult to focus on the “lovingly share” part. But when that “kill” is not yet dead and scampers away as soon as it’s limp, dangling paws hit the floor, the apprecation is only a vague, theoretical possibility.

We had chipmunks in the basement on a regular basis for a couple of weeks. The big question: where do they live while they’re stuck down there?

During the workshop-redesign-and-rebuild-preparatory cleanup yesterday, the answer was made manifest: in the carpet padding we’d stored under the work bench.

Jazz at Furman

Friday 10 July 2009

Furman University, a private college just north of Greenville and home of the quasi-famous bell tower by the lake, has a summer concert series we’ve just discovered. It’s not Boston Pops on the Esplanade, but for a college of less than 3,000 undergrads, it’s an impressive schedule.

Last night, we went for the jazz program.

We’ve become increasingly fascinated with jazz over the last few years, so L hears quite a fair amount of it at home and in the car. It’s never among her requests — she’s particularly fascinated with Counting Crows’ music — but she does listen and bob her head about occasionally.

Last night, she simply danced. A little. Generally, she was having more fun throwing Baby down the little embankment where we’d spread our blanket, running to get it, and repeating.

She did calm down for the ballads.

Igor Stravinsky said, “My music is best understood by children and animals.” L seems to understand music on some very primal level: it makes her want either to jump about or to sit calmly. It’s rarely merely “there.” It almost always provokes some kind of reaction.

In an informal atmosphere such as this, that’s just about perfect. Space to dance, an informal mood that doesn’t require silence, well-performed music — what could could a two-and-a-half year old want?

Dry

Wednesday 8 July 2009

Six mornings in a row the Girl has had a completely dry diaper. We attribute this to four nights of waking up around midnight, hearing L crying out for the potty.

The new ritual is well established now. I stumble to the guest bathroom for the potty chair as quickly as I can while half asleep: I don’t want L to wake up any more than she has to. The real adventure begins in her room, for she’s often still partially or completely asleep. And she can fall back asleep at several points in the process. She has dozed off while

I take her out of the crib;
I lean her against me to take off her diaper;
she sits on the potty;
I put her diaper back on; and,
I put her back in the crib.

One night last week, she drifted off during four out of those five times.

“It’s time to start planning the final step of potty training,” I say to K over breakfast. There are the obvious things: a switch to training pants; a re-make of the crib; several nights of helping L get out of the bed and trundle off to the potty. There is an enormous potential pitfall, too, and a very literal one at that: our guest bathroom is just at the top of a short flight of stairs down to the kitchen.

Now that all the gates and barriers in the house are long gone, it’s time to start thinking about putting up new ones, which is sort of what parenting is all about: creating boundaries that (ideally) keep little hands safe but not restricted. Those gates will soon be much less literal, though.

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