Matching Tracksuits

society and culture

Amoco “Adventure”

Thursday 14 December 2006

The other day (Tuesday, to be exact), I stopped at one of the few places in town that sells diesel to fill up the Jetta. Most diesel pumps are not equipped with a credit card payment unit, and so you have to pay inside. This particular place has a sign on the pump that reads, “Pay before pumping.” These places are always frustrating because if I’m filling up, I can’t be sure how much I’m actually going to put in. I have a pretty good guess, but still it’s the principle.

I go inside and tell the attendant that I’m going to fill up on pump nine, but I don’t know how much it will take. Usually, the attendants at this particular place are okay with that, but this guy is new, it appears. “Well, you’ve got to give me something,” he says. I sigh in frustration and roll my eyes not the most polite thing, but it’s been a long day. I give him my debit card and go out to fill up the car. The pump doesn’t properly shut off when it’s full and I get a fair amount of smelly diesel fuel on my shoes as a result. I’m in an even worse mood.

I go in, pay, and the guy apologizes for the inconvenience. We make some small talk turns out, lots of people have been stealing gas from this place. With gas prices higher than most Americans are used to, I’m not surprised.

Last night, I’m checking our bank account online when I see this.

Bank Statement
“What’s this extra hundred dollars doing on here?” I think. I replay what happened and instantly I realize this guy, angered by my admitted impolite immaturity, ran my card through and put a hundred on it. Just like that.

Or it could be a mistake. The optimist in me hopes it is, but I just don’t know. It was run earlier than my real, authorized payment.

If it was intentional, what was this idiot thinking? That I wouldn’t check my account? That I couldn’t prove I didn’t authorize this payment?

What a pain…

Condi’s Coffee Pot

Sunday 3 December 2006

When K and I moved to America, one of the things we would have lacked, were it not for the ingenuity of American capitalism and a heads-up play by my mother, would have been a coffee maker. That would have been a disaster. Yet it was a disaster averted, because my mother had signed up for a Gevalia coffee trial offer and had a coffee maker waiting for us.

Since my mother doesn’t drink so much coffee these days and my father is not so picky, we said we’d make the necessary purchases to fulfill the trial agreement. The coffee we got from Gevalia was actually pretty decent.

As time passed and K and I started feeling less fiscally uncertain, we began really living the American dream: we began spending more money. And one thing we started spending more money on was music. In order to get a lot of new music quick, we did old join/drop-Columbia-House- in-one-month thing that my best friend and I did in high school so many time.

I’ve often wondered what that says about the actual cost of a CD when a company can essentially sell you a significant number of them for about $2.30 a piece. I guess the inflated prices of the regularly priced CDs is supposed to make up for that, else they wouldn’t be in business.

Eventually, we were “settled” enough that we decided to buy another car. We went out one Sunday and began looking at what was out there. At the Kia dealer, we were bamboozled into a test drive, even though we said we were only interested in talking about prices, features, warranties and such. Taking a test drive, though, indicated that we were a step closer to buying than we actually were.

Looking back on it, K and I were furious that we’d allowed ourselves to be manipulated as we had, for the whole awful adventure ended with us sitting with a salesman trying to be firm and yet polite in telling him, “No, we are not going to buy a new car today. We just came to look.”

I guess trial memberships and test drives are as American as any cliche about American-ness you can think of. In an age of a million choices, we consumers don’t want to make a fiscal commitment to something unless we can help it. And this has evolved into a country where we can get trial sizes and sample packs of even pharmaceuticals.

And that’s why Donald Rumsfeld’s suggestion that we should “Announce that whatever new approach the U.S. decides on, the U.S. is doing so on a trial basis.” It’s not a commitment, and we can easily change our minds.

This letters shows that such a the Bush administration had a pathological reluctance to change its mind on Iraq policy because it would say to the world that we might have lost. Changing your strategy is the same as admitting, “If we had not changed strategy and tactics, we would have lost this war.”

America doesn’t change its mind! In its march for freedom, America is the only country seeking the pure good indeed, the philosophical “Good” for all humankind. Our goals are just, and so our methods must also be just and efficient.

Put simply, the Bush administration was so scared of the “L” word having to cross its collective lips that it was barreling ahead on its original plan, not looking left, not looking right, because “to move to another course” is the same as “losing”: “This [labeling our new strategy a “trial’] will give us the ability to readjust and move to another course, if necessary, and therefore not “lose.”

We don’t lose if we don’t say the L word. We’re changing tactics not because we’re losing using these present tactics, but because we want that nice new coffee pot for Condi’s office.

We will leave Iraq on our terms as victors, as liberators! no matter how many linguistic contortions we have to go through to do so.

Justice and the Blind

Thursday 30 November 2006

Apparently, America can’t be about the only country in the world (industrialized or otherwise) with indistinguishable currency, James Robertson ruled Tuesday.

And conservative bloggers are upset. To wit:

Yes, that’s right. The bills our nation has been using for 230 years have been ruled illegal by an idiot judge, U.S. District Judge James Robertson. […]

Stock tip of the day. Buy stock in companies that produce money readers for vending machines. (It’s a Paul World)

Which is odd, because the same argument could have been made against any number of things we now consider the norm: integration, wheelchair accessibility, closed-captioning.

The Treasury Department has, fortunately, a less emotional reason for opposing the suggested changes.

The Treasury Department had argued that making bills identifiable by touch would create an undue financial burden for the government. It had estimated that the most expensive approach � printing different sizes for different denominations � would cost $178 million for new printing presses and as much as $50 million for new plates. (NYT)

Less emotive, but also far less convincing (as if that were possible). Arguing that $228 million is excessive, from a government that is willing to pay Halliburton thousands for a hammer?

I too am shaking my head, though for different reasons than conservative bloggers.

Thoughts after watching “The Boys of Baraka”

Tuesday 28 November 2006

BarakaWatching The Boys of Baraka, I realize: much of middle class America has no clue. They see no difference between their lives and the lives of inner city kids.

“You’ve just got to suck it up and work hard. I did it; you can do it.”

They don’t see that those trapped in the inner-cities of America are living in a war zone. Forget Iraq — we have got devastation right here in our own country. It’s called the inner city. And until we realize that the only real solutions cost money — and lots of it — we’re going to continue living in a country divided.

Skeptics and True Believers: A Review

Wednesday 22 November 2006

There are some books that, after you put them down, your only response is, “Huh?” Chet Raymo’s Skeptics and True Believers: The Exhilarating Connection Between Science and Religion is certainly one such book.

Is it an attempt at soft apologetics by an enlightened scientist? Is it an attempt to convince fundamentalist to stop insisting that the world was created in six days? Is it a cliche celebration of the human spirit? Is it an ode to a great over-soul that has fewer specific characteristics than Emerson’s? Is it a tribute to the wonder of nature? Is it an expose on the inefficacy of astrology and intercessory prayer? Is it a devotional book?

Yes! Yes! A thousand times, yes! A bundle of yeses! Numberless quanta of yeses!

I’ve never read a book more muddled than this. It is, in short, the ramblings of a man who’s given up theism and yet desperately wants to genuflect to something. Anything!

Read this book too quickly and you’ll get mental whiplash.

What is Raymo, a science writer for the Boston Globe, trying to do here? Sell science to believers? Sell belief to skeptics? Sadly, Raymo himself doesn’t even know, for it’s not entirely clear where he stands on the issue himself.

Is he an outright skeptic, completely denying the validity of organized religion? Yes:

It became obvious to me [while taking academic degrees in science] that certain doctrines of the Judeo-Christian tradition, including such central tenets of faith as immortality and a personal God who answers prayers, were based on long-discredited views of the world that placed humans in a central position and ascribed human attributes to other creatures and even to inanimate objects. (8)

Is he a theist at heart, somewhat bewildered by what he finds in the Bible and what science tells him? Yes:

There’s a “God-shaped hole in many people’s lives,” says physicist and Anglican priest John Polkinghorne. He’s right, at least about there being a hole in our lives. To call the hole “God-shaped” begs the question, for the affliction of our times is that we have no satisfactory image of God that rests comfortably with what scientists have learned about creation. (1)

Or maybe. The problem with Skeptics and True Believers is that Raymo alternates between denying the existence of anything vaguely associated with mainstream religion read: Christianity to the point of denying the existence of the soul, of a personal God, of a spirit world, and yet talking of “worship” and “liturgy” as if any of that has meaning if there is no divine being.

Raymo insists that he’s not trying to “turn science into a religion; science is too shallow a vessel to hold ultimate mysteries.” (8) Yet, there’s really no other way to interpret his feeble book as a whole. It’s the confession of a man who wants to reject his theology and write it too.

Raymo begins, though, by setting up a dichotomy of True Believers and Skeptics. At first it seems that “True Believers” is just a polite term for “fundamentalist”

True Believers have low tolerance for changeable knowledge. They prefer stable truths of faith, even if those truths run counter to a preponderance of physical evidence. For example, a 1993 Gallup poll indicates that nearly half of Americans believe in a geologically young Earth, despite the fact that not a shred of reproducible empirical evidence can be adduced in favor of the idea and a mountain of evidence is arrayed against it. (5)

True believers believe surprise religion, which everyone knows is an idiosyncratic belief system. Raymo then quotes what Anthony Storr says about idiosyncratic belief systems:

“Idiosyncratic belief systems which are shared by only a few adherents are likely to be regarded as delusional. Belief systems which may be just as irrational which are shared by millions are called world religions.” (66, 7)

Religion, then, is irrational. Fine. But unlike Gould in Rocks of Ages, he never really defines what religion is. Is it, like Gould suggests, primarily (or at least “primarily” in a proper understanding) an ethical system? Is it something akin to belief in UFOs? Is it somehow a logical result of evolution? Raymo suggests all of these things, and gives priority to none. Perhaps this is because Raymo himself doesn’t want be too specific. Yet, though he is using too broad strokes, he’s just making more work for himself, for he’s both painting and erasing as he goes along.

Primarily Raymo wants to be identified as a Skeptic, because they’re cool. They can live without the emotional fluff of weak religion. They look the cold, hard universe in the eye and say, “Well, I don’t care about you, either!”

The forces that nudge us toward True Belief are pervasive and well-nigh irresistible. Supernatural faith systems provide a degree of emotional security that skepticism cannot provide. Who among us would not prefer to believe that there exists a divine parent who has our best interest at heart? Who among us would notprefer to believe that we will live forever. Skepticism, on the other hand, offers only uncertainty and doubt. What keeps scientific skepticism on track, against the individual’s need for emotional security, is a highly evolved social structure, including professional associations and university departments, peer-reviewed literature, meetings and conferences, and a language that relies heavily on mathematics and specialized nomenclature. The point of this elaborate apparatus is to minimize individual backsliding into the false security of True Belief. (5, 6)

And yet, if we look closely enough, we realize that God (?!) has revealed himself through the marvel of his creation:

The God of my early religious training pulled off tricks that are not beyond the powers of any competent conjurer; Harry Houdini or David Copperfield could turn a stick into a serpent or water into wine without batting an eye. But no Houdini or Copperfield can turn microscopic cells into a flock of birds and then send them flying on their planet-spanning course. No Houdini or Copperfield cause consciousness to flare out and embrace the eons and the galaxies. The dubious miracles of the scriptures and of the saints are an uncertain basis upon which to base a faith; the greater miracle of creation is with us twenty-four hours a day, revealed by science on every side, deepening and consolidating our sense of awe. (133)

The real miracle is creation, not creation. I mean, the real miracle is the functioning of beings created by slow, tedious, testable evolution, not the way God created the world in six days. Wait did I say “miracle”? Of course, I really didn’t mean “miracle” like, you know, miracle. I’m speaking only metaphorically. But in a very real way.

Aggh! This book was infuriating!

If all this were not bad enough, Raymo actually suggests the following:

If the prodigious energy of the new scientific story of creation is to flow into religion, the story will need to be translated from the language of scientific discovery into the language of celebration. This is the work of theologians, philosophers, homilists, liturgists, poets, artists, and, yes, science writers. Only when we are emotionally at home in the universe of the galaxies and the DNA will the new story invigorate our spiritual lives and be cause for authentic celebration. Knowing and believing will come together again at last. Cautious and skeptical as knowers, we can then give ourselves unreservedly to spiritual union with creation and communal celebration of the mysteries. (234)

What does he want? “Take this, all of you, and eat: this is my DNA, encoded for you for the creation of a communal ceremony to produce warm and cozy feelings”?

Just eleven pages later, he writes,

The Copernican and Darwinian revolutions [“] have brushed away the last cobwebs of animism, anthropomorphism, anthropocentrism. The human gods are swept from their thrones. Angels, devils, spirits, and shades are sent packing. We are contingent, ephemeral animated stardust caught up on a random shore, a brief incandescence. (245)

What is this man trying to do?! And the madness doesn’t stop there, for the very next page includes this:

If we can surrender the ancient dream of immortality, then we can begin building a new theology, ecumenical, ecological, non-idolatrous. It will emphasis our relatedness and our interrelatedness, our stewardship rather than our dominion. It will define our value by our participation in a cosmic unfolding; we are flickers of a universal flame galaxies, stars, planets, life, mind a seething cauldron of creation. Natural and supernatural, immanent and transcendent, body and spirit will fuse in one God, revealed in his creation. We have discovered the story on our own. On this speck of cosmic dust, planet Earth, the universe has become conscious of itself. The creation acknowledges the Creator. Our lives are sacramental. We experience the creation in its most fully known dimension. We celebrate. We worship. (246)

There is no God, but we worship!? Pardon the crudeness of this, but what the hell are we supposed to be worshiping?

Answer: the uber-soul:

Deep and inviting, beautiful and mysterious, the starry night draws us into communion with a soul and a life force greater than ourselves that animates the spiraling galaxies and untangles the knots of DNA. (43)

Such religious imagery. Communion and sacrament and worship and celebration and life force and soul! Just never mind that he says earlier that science proves souls don’t exist. They do. Metaphorically. Except in the case of the uber-soul. I think.

Double arrggh!

What an awful waste of time. I only continued because I wanted to see how bad it could get.

Perhaps I should conclude in a manner befitting the book itself and declare it to be the

confessions of a wise religious humanist who also loves, practices, understands, and lives by the ideals and findings of science show us how to heal the false and unnecessary rifts in our intellectual cultures, and to bridge the gap between knowledge and morality.

But too late Stephen Jay Gould already did, on the back cover. And that’s the ultimate irony, for Skeptics is a prime example of what Gould said in Rocks of Ages was an absolutely dreadfully inappropriate use of science: to bolster religious faith.

Marriage Rights

Tuesday 21 November 2006

In the Washington Post today I read that many polygamists are fighting for the legalization of bigamy:

Valerie and others among the estimated 40,000 men, women and children in polygamous communities are part of a new movement to decriminalize bigamy. Consciously taking tactics from the gay-rights movement, polygamists have reframed their struggle, choosing in interviews to de-emphasize their religious beliefs and focus on their desire to live “in freedom,” according to Anne Wilde, director of community relations for Principle Voices, a pro-polygamy group based in Salt Lake. (Post)

What an interesting move. Align yourselves strategically with a group you consider immoral sinners in order to further your “redefinition” of marriage while refusing your strategical mentors the same rights you’re fighting for.

The reaction of the famed Religious Right to such a move would be equally interesting. As I recall, nowhere in the New Testament is declared immoral, and we all know that the Old Testament is peppered with bigamists: the first bigamist mentioned is “Lamech” (Genesis 4.19). Don’t know who that is, but some of the heavy hitters of Judeo-Christian tradition were polygamists: Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon all had multiple wives.

One apologetics site explains that

First, there has always been more women in the world than men. […] Second, warfare in ancient times was especially brutal, with an incredibly high rate of fatality. This would have resulted in an even greater percentage of women to men. Third, due to the patriarchal societies, it was nearly impossible for a woman to provide for herself. Women were often uneducated and untrained. Women relied on their fathers, brothers, and husbands for provision and protection. Unmarried women were often subjected to prostitution and slavery. Fourth, the significant difference between the number of women and men would have left many, many women in an undesirable situation (to say the least). (Source)

So because humanity is brutal, God allowed polygamy. Of course, the underlying social evils that, according to this argument, made polygamy necessary are not addressed. Women continued to be oppressed, and wars and genocide continued. But polygamy was a temporary fix.

What about now?

How does God view polygamy today? The Bible says that God’s original intention was for one man to be married to only one woman, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife (not wives); and they shall become one flesh (not multiple fleshes)”� (Genesis 2:24). We see in Deuteronomy 17:14-20, that the kings were not supposed to multiply wives. This most definitely puts Solomon in direct disobedience against the Lord.

Okay, so that’s what God originally intended. But where did he say, “No — on second thought, I think this polygamy thing is not working out”?

In the New Testament, 1 Timothy 3:2, 12 and Titus 1:6 give “the husband of one wife”� in a list of qualifications for spiritual leadership. While these qualifications are only specifically for positions of spiritual leadership, they apply equally to all Christians. Should not all Christians be “above reproach…temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money”� (1 Timothy 3:2-4)?

It’s by implication. The New Testament always uses “wife” in the singular, setting an example.

Whether or not the New Testament forbids bigamy is not my point. What I’m curious about is how, if this movement grows, will the Evangelical Christian community react? Will they go as crazy about this as they have about gay marriage? Will there be moves to go back and revise all the referenda to say specifically that marriage is between “one man and one woman”?

No Grunting

Saturday 18 November 2006

Choose your fitness club carefully:

At Planet Fitness gyms, grunters and other rule-breakers are treated to an ear-rattling siren with flashing blue lights and a public scolding. The “lunk alarm,” as the club calls it, is so jarring it can bring the entire floor to a standstill. (A lunk is defined, on a poster, as “one who grunts, drops weights, or judges.”)
New York Times

A “lunk” is someone who judges, yet some are getting harassed at Planet Fitness because their “physiques are too chiseled” and they “take their workouts too seriously.” The gym chain tries to cater to “amateurs” – those inexperienced in the gym.

I don’t get it. Is this a place where the inexperienced come until they can bench press their body weight, and then they’re expected to find a new gym?

US pastor ‘bought drugs’ but didn’t inhale

Saturday 4 November 2006

“I bought it for myself but never used it. I was tempted but I never used it,” Mr Haggard said. He said he threw it away.(BBC)

Does anyone actually believe that after Clinton’s pathetic “didn’t inhale” loophole?

Funny how everything Republicans and their supports hate and fear about sin-mongering, terrorist-supporting, drug-taking Democrats turns up in their own backyard. Odd thing, being human…

Veils and Teaching

Monday 23 October 2006

The case of Aishah Azmi, the teaching aid in Britain fired for refusing to remove her veil, got me to thinking about what it would be like to try to perform the basic functions of her job while veiled.

What was her job, exactly?

Headfield Church of England Junior School, where Azmi taught 11-year-olds learning English as a second language, suspended her in November 2005 after she refused to remove her veil at work. School officials said students found it hard to understand her during lessons and that face-to-face communication was essential for her job. Officials said the decision to suspend her was made only after school officials spent time assessing the impact of wearing the veil on teaching and learning. British Panel Reprimands School in Veil Dispute

I have a little bit of experience in teaching English, and I can’t imagine trying to do it without making my mouth visible. I spent much time sitting with students individually and showing them what my mouth was doing to make certain sounds, particularly “th”. It would be extremely difficult to do so with my mouth hidden.

Additionally, I know what it’s like from the learner’s point of view as well. My experience living abroad showed me how critical to comprehension it is to see someone’s mouth. When I was first learning Polish, a conversation that would have been simple enough in person was a nightmare over the telephone. If those who were trying to help me learn Polish had done so with their mouths completely hidden, I think I would have learned far less, far less quickly.

Veiling is not the same issue as observant Jews leaving work early on Fridays to get home before shabbat begins. Leaving early does not affect the quality of an individual’s work while at work; wearing a veil, in this case, seems to do just that.

The question is whether or not personal religious convictions trump job requirements. When they come into conflict, what gives?

Political Schizophrenia

Saturday 21 October 2006

In local elections in Jabłonka — K’s home village in southern Poland — there’s a man running for mayor as a candidate of the Prawo i Spawiedliwość (“Law and Justice”) party, a fairly right-wing party that, like many Republicans, tries to build a base out of religious conservatives. However, he’s running for a position on the county council as a candidate of the Platforma Obywatelska (“Civic Platform”) party, a centrist, left-leaning party, something slightly right of a Clintonian Democrat.

Really, I just don’t know what I could add…

Curriculum Concerns

Sunday 8 October 2006

In planning my lessons and the general shape of my course, there are a few things I have to take into consideration.

  1. The state curriculum
    Since most of the students are in eighth grade, I generally follow the eighth grade curriculum.
  2. The standards the program director wants implemented
    Hands-on is what he suggests, and I try to make as much of my teaching “hands on” as possible.
  3. The materials and facilities at my disposal
    Our program is relatively new, and while there are plenty of teaching materials available to me, the facilities are somewhat lacking. To everyone’s relief, this is due to change within the year.
  4. The worldview and experiences students bring into the classroom
    Most of the young people in the program don’t necessarily see the importance of education. Further, because they’ve been thrown out of school, they do not have a lot of trust in the educational establishment, which I obviously represent to them.

For these first six weeks, I taught basic chemistry. It’s part of the state curriculum; it’s very hands-on; at the level I’m teaching it, the course doesn’t require a lot of materials.

Beginning tomorrow, I’ll be switching to social studies. If I follow the state guidelines, I’ll be teaching North Carolina history.

In both cases, I wonder I am (or will be) teaching anything useful to these kids. Who cares if they can tell how many protons a given element’s going to have in its nucleus? Who cares if they have a vague understanding of North Carolina history? How’s that going to help them in a future that likely doesn’t include college and might not even include a high school diploma?

Even more troubling is the thought that I’m not their permanent teacher. I — like the rest of the staff — want them all out of the program as fast as possible. That being said, shouldn’t I be teaching them things that will help them succeed better once they do return to “regular” school?

The frustration mounts when I consider the academic level of many of our “consumers” (as the kids have to be referred to in Medicaid reports). Sadly, not one is on grade level; tragically, several are two, three, even four years behind. And I could add perhaps “predictably” to those sentences: if they’re having problems coping with anger and frustration, problems with showing respect toward others, they’re certainly not learning very much.

Of course, the first obvious answer is to throw out the state curriculum, to some degree. Going strictly by the book is not going to reach these kids — the fact that they’re in our program to begin with is ample evidence of that.

Second, meet the kids where they are in their academic achievement and — most critical — interests. At the moment, I have groups of four students when everyone is present and accounted for. Sometimes, I have two students. That means I taylor something specifically designed for each student and monitor them all as they work.

There’s not much I can do about changing their worldview except by giving them an example of a different one. And so I try to be enthusiastic even when — indeed, especially when — they’re dead in their chairs.

Sometimes I feel that being an example is about all I can do — and that’s not meant as a comment about their inability, but mine.

Third Rail

Thursday 28 September 2006

Democrat

There is no middle ground in United States politics because there is no viable third party. America’s black-and-white thinking is reflected in our political system. “You are either with us, or you are against us.”

The void created by having a two-party system has hurt both the Democrats and the Republicans — not to mention the general population. Joe Lieberman is a good example of a politician who could use a viable third part; I’m a private citizen who could use a viable third party.

Republican

I think we call could.

Bush stayed in power with a combination of support from hard-line Republicans and individuals who might not agree with Bush’s stance on everything, but voted for him because of the perceived continued threat of terrorism. A viable third party would have helped.

Ross Perot was a one-man third party, until he stuck his gilded foot in his mouth at the NAACP.

Out of the Closet

Monday 18 September 2006

So I recently admitted to reading the Washington Times.

Sure, it’s a rough-and-tumble mouthpiece of the right wing, but it’s so much fun. Just look at this stuff from the op-eds:

  • The French irritation with America grows out of wounded pride, a sense that France is not as important in the world as it once was, but a President Sarkozy might restore some of that lost pride and with it an appreciation for stronger links with America. (Suzanne Fields)
  • The following are the chamber remarks of the fictional Lord Harold Reid (whose fictional grandson, in the 21st century would become leader of the fictional Democratic Party in the U.S. Senate).I regret to have to stand up tonight, on the day of defeat at the hands of the Germans of our French ally’s armies at Sedan and on the Meuse River to observe that on this solemn occasion Prime Minister Winston Churchill has chosen to politicize and cheapen the moment. (Tony Blankley)
  • Just as the mainstream media is fond of Bush bashing and calling all Republicans right-wingers — even when there is no conspiracy — the local press view politicians through biased eyes. They demonize pro-life politicians as anti-abortion rights; they view advocates of school choice as opposing public schools; they write profusely about a Jewish Democratic candidate Ben Cardin beating Kweisi Mfume, who has a African name, in Maryland with only 44 percent of the Democratic vote, and practically ignore the fact that Michael Steele, a black Catholic Republican, bested his primary run with 87 percent of the vote — nearly twice that of Mr. Cardin. (Deborah Simmons)
  • Yet the ephemerality of the sense of solidarity, to me, seems more an indication of its artificiality than of squandered sustainability. The United States, in the post-September 11 world, would be going places where few would be able to follow even if they were inclined to do so, starting with Afghanistan. Because Afghanistan was a quick success in terms of ousting the Taliban government and scattering al Qaeda to the four winds, people tend to forget the “graveyard of empires” analysis that swirled around the notion of dispatching the U.S. military to undertake “regime change” there. People also tend to forget the early reports of a bogged-down operation. (Tod Lindberg)

Good stuff…

Seriously, though, I find it difficult to understand folks who say, for example, “Oh, I never read the New York Times — too much liberal bias.” How would one know, then?

“I don’t watch CNN because it’s owned by Ted Turner.” “I don’t read the Washington Times because it’s owned by Sung Yung Moon.” I don’t see much difference.

Occasionally I’ll even find myself somewhat agreeing with the WT — but that’s for another day.

Blind Irony

Sunday 17 September 2006

I’m certainly not the first to comment on this, but it’s been rattling around in my head for a couple of days.

Action and reaction:

  • The pope makes comments that, when taken out of context, can be interpreted as implying that Islam is a violent religion.
  • Some Muslims react by shooting a nun and others by fire bombing a church.

I really feel like a wing-nut for saying this, but…

  • Why are we not hearing equal outrage in the Muslim world at these violent reactions?
  • Why, when Madonna used crucifixion imagery in her latest tour (BBC), did we not get riots and violent protests at the Vatican?
  • Why, when Jews are insulted, do we not see violent protests in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem?
  • Why can various Muslims (including the leader of Iran) call for the destruction of Israel while we non-Muslims are expected to tip-toe around troubling ideas found in the Muslim world?

Update: Just after posting this, I read in the newest The Week of a Dutch priest who, angered at Madonna’s depiction of the crucifixion, phoned “in a fake bomb threat to a Modonna concert. […] He was tracked down easily because he called from his home phone.” Google turns up a few stories about it.

Pants

Saturday 9 September 2006

If tends continue, it will soon be the “in” thing to wear one’s pants down around one’s ankles…

Cherokee uber Alles

Monday 4 September 2006

Though I grew up less than two hours from this area, I never visited Cherokee, North Carolina. That’s a shame, really, for a trip there promises to be thought provoking and educational.

The best place to visit is undoubtedly Oconaluftee Indian Village, an outdoor museum that recreates the eighteenth century Cherokee reality.

The village itself is deceptively small. It seems like it wouldn’t take more than a few moments to wander through it all, but you wouldn’t learn much then.

Instead, there’s a guide who seems to know just about everything about just about everything.

Our guide also had the mandatory sense of humor that transforms a “guided” tour into something much more personable.

It was at the council chamber that the obvious was finally mentioned: the potential for a less-than-easy relationship between the Cherokee and the white tourists.

“I’m often asked, ‘Do you hate white people?’ when I’m giving these talks,” the guide said. There’s a lot of reasons to feel resentful.

  • White Europeans were the original illegal immigrants.
  • A British officer (his name escapes me now) deliberately spread smallpox among Indians by distributing contaminated blankets.
  • The Trail of Tears.

Yet the guide pointed out the obvious: it was not races who did this, but individuals.

It seems in Germany we’re finally seeing the realization of this as well. National guilt about the Holocaust made most Germans unwilling even to cheer their national teams. National pride was not even a goose step away from nationalism, that most feared -ism of contemporary Germany.

It was only at this last World Cup — held in Germany, which certainly had something to do with it — that commentators began speaking of German pride. German children cheered the home team, and German flags waved in the stands.

And that concludes the diversion…For lunch, K and I went to a small park and ate open-face sandwiches with one hand while swatting gnats and flies with the other. In the park was a small grove of reed.

I’m not quite sure what variety of reed it was, yet it could have left me feeling awfully clausterphobic had the path through the grove not been so spacious.

More photos at Flickr.

Prank

Monday 28 August 2006

PenJust before my senior year in college, I invested in a beautiful fountain pen: a Cross Townsend. I later learned that somehow I got the pen for almost half the actual price thought a pricing mistake or something. Now a new one costs roughly four times what I paid.

That pen accompanied me through Europe and was instrumental in recording thoughts about Strasbourg, Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, and a number of other cities.

For twelve years, I’d never even misplaced it.

Today, at work, it was stolen. Or was it?

I had inadvertently left it by my computer, tucked in a notebook I’d been using for notes during a training session we’d had on Friday. After four of the lads had been using the computer, it was missing.

“Stealing is not beneath some of them,” I’d been told. Still, is that something one really wants to communicate to one’s students? “Alright, you jerks — I don’t trust any of you. Who stole my pen?!” Not the best way to build relationships with young men in need of help.

Instead, I gathered the lads together, told them that my pen was missing, and asked them if any of them saw it, to put it on my desk and then let me know it’s there.

A few minutes later, a boy came to ask me if I’d checked in all the desk drawers. “Maybe someone put it there — you know, like a joke.”

Sure enough, in the second drawer was the pen.

A prank? A bit of mercy? Misunderstanding or malice?

So much of our lives is inexplicable like that. Indefinable. Was this a reconsidered theft? Was it a joke? All I know is the pen was missing and then it wasn’t. Almost like I lost it…

Still, for safe measure, I unplugged my SanDisk memory stick and put it in my pocket.

I want to trust these boys, to give them the benefit of the doubt. But at what point does trust become naivety?

Taking the Bait

Thursday 3 August 2006

I really don’t get it. It’s conceivable that eventually religious leaders would realize that everything Madonna does in her performances is calculated provocation. That when she is on stage, she is performing and part of her performance persona is to be provocative.

Religious leaders in Rome have united against the mock-crucifixion featured in US pop star Madonna’s latest show.

In the sequence, Madonna appears on a giant cross wearing a crown of thorns.

Father Manfredo Leone of Rome’s Santa Maria Liberatrice church told Reuters news agency it was “disrespectful, in bad taste and provocative”. BBC

“Provocative.” Yes, Father, that’s the whole point.

What is wrong with simply ignoring her? Would that rile her more than “censuring” her?