Quintilian in the Public Square

Sunday

2007-10-07T16:05:00.000-05:00

A warm October day demands a walk. Which way though?

Just head to the first intersection and go from there.

Take it in stages if you want.

That's how Autumn does it.

First it starts with the tops.

Then works its way down.

But don't take too long, smelling those flowers.

Soon it will grow dark.

And it will be time for dinner.

Just be sure to ask for your own napkin.

On How President Bush Talks About the First Lady's Trip

2005-05-20T10:10:00.000-05:00

It's pretty common for President Bush to refer to the First Lady in his speeches' introductions. Usually, he uses her as something of a foil, contrasting her grace favorably with his own rough edges or casting her as straight-talker who is able and willing to call him on his mistakes and shortcomings. Having recently embarked on a visit to the Middle East, Laura Bush is being cast by the President as a messenger of freedom, representing the United States and trumpeting democracy.

Granted, my description of the First Lady's trip is pretty lame, but it ends up not really being any better than the President's. Look at how he described her trip at the recent International Republican Institute Dinner:

I regret Laura is not with us tonight. You probably think she's working on some of her one-liners. (Laughter.) She's actually packing her bags because she's off for Jordan and Israel and Egypt, to continue to deliver the freedom message -- and I can't think of a better messenger. (Applause.)

Then, the next day, when Bush spoke in Milwaukee:

But before I get there, I've got some other things I want to say, if you don't mind. (Laughter.) First, I'm sorry Laura is not traveling with me today. She is -- you probably think she's home preparing a few one-liners. (Laughter.) She's not; she's home packing her bags. She is off to Jordan and Egypt and Israel to represent our country. I can't think of a better representative than Laura Bush. (Applause.) She's going to help advance the freedom agenda -- which is really the peace agenda. The more freedom there is in the world, the more this world will be a peaceful world. (Applause.)

And, most recently, at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast:

I am sorry that Laura is not here. You probably think she's preparing a couple of new one-liners. (Laughter.) But, in fact, she's winging her way to Jordan and Egypt and Israel to spread the freedom agenda. (Applause.) But I know if she were here, she would join me in thanking you and millions of others whom we'll never get to say thanks to in person for the countless prayers. It's an amazing experience to be the President of a nation where strangers from all religions pray for me and Laura.

Certainly, there are some who might object to the idea of sending the well-off wife of the President of the United States to deliver the message of freedom, as if she were peace's pigeon. Others might critique the notion that freedom, as a concept and a practice, is so easily packaged and delivered to the world's sandier corners.

I, however, hardly know about such things. Instead, what I object to is the rather flippant way in which the President casts the First Lady's trip. Laura's off after having just packed her bags, rather than after she fastiduously prepared for the trip's more abstract and symbolic needs. Once her bags were packed, Laura Bush then winged it to Jordan. Though the language suggests otherwise, I hope that when she goes and enacts freedom for the Middle East, she does more than just wing it. By Bush's own words, after all, this is a significant trip with a significant message. I just wish he would characterize it in a way that differs from how I would describe a trip to Michigan to visit the folks!

I wonder, too, what a feminist critique of the First Lady and all this packing would be like. Would it point out that despite representing the United States and freedom as a woman--in an area of the world not known for feminism or gender equality--the First Lady is being "contained" by presidential descriptions that place her in the very domestic scene of the suitcase-strewn bedroom?

On A MOMA Site

2005-05-16T06:34:00.000-05:00

The MOMA has a site about Tall Buildings that is very neat. (via, mediabistro: UnBeige)

I especially like number six; it's what I expect a skyscraper to look like with an acknowledgement of history that doesn't seem too wierd.

On A Police Chief's Imagery

2005-05-16T05:00:00.000-05:00

As the case involving Wendy's, chili, and an unknown finger comes closer to its denouement, San Jose's Police Chief has an interesting way of putting things:

"The jig is up. The puzzle pieces are beginning to fall into place, and the truth is being exposed," Police Chief Rob Davis said.

Is it that police cases always involve a conceptualization of pieces coming together, or is it because this case was about a finger piece that the Chief talked about it like this?

On How the National Trust for Historic Preservation Casts a Threat

2005-05-16T04:30:00.000-05:00

James Traub wrote a piece for the Times Magazine that explores the ironic twist inherent in attempts to preserve examples of Modern architecture--the buildings enacting a philosophy that eschews the preservation of older buildings and their former ways of life. In a margin was a list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historical Places, as designated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Dedicated to protecting significant works of architecture from deterioration or destruction, the Trust's approach to framing these 11 projects bears examining. Look at how the Trust talks about one of them, the Historic Cook County Hospital:

Although the building suffers from the effects of deferred maintenance, its overall condition is good. The only true threat to the property is manmade: The administration of the Cook County Board of Commissioners is set to execute its plan to demolish the hospital, despite the fact that its plans have failed to take into account the architectural and historic value of the building, as well as the desires of the public.

Rather than casting the building as a building, the Trust describes the hospital in ecological terms that suggest a certain living quality to the place. Not a building, the "property" can now "suffer" and is cast is opposition to a "manmade" threat.

Strictly speaking, of course, the hospital is as manmade as its threat. But, through those words, the building becomes naturalized and any action "executed" on it through demolition can now be understood as an abhorrent desecration of nature. All the more threatening is the sense that the hospital's "suffering"* comes not from a recognizable man or woman--a natural human enemy--but, rather, a faceless "Board of Commissioners." How much more terrible things become when the perpetrator turns out to be that most un/inhuman of manmade creations: the bureaucracy. The very entity that drains and denies its parts the smallest drops of humanity in favor of mindless and soulless groupthink/speak that claims and acts in the names of Efficiency, Officiously, and Officially; the very entity that lives on when all of its members have been dead and replaced by others equally destined for death; the very entity that acts, naturally, in contravention of the "public's" desire and the building's spirit--two deeply vibrant notions.

*Shouldn't a hospital's suffering occur from within and not from without?

On A Structure

2005-05-16T00:37:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post has a good piece on Phillip Johnson, retired Berkeley law professor and proponent of Intelligent Design Theory. Michael Powell, the piece's reporter, does a fine job at highlighting Johnson's irascible personality, strong objections to Evolutionary Theory, and his place within the scientific sphere. But, more than that, the piece offers an interesting structure: it narrates Johnson's life in evolutionary terms.

The article begins where much of evolutionary science must begin: with an awareness of the present. Powell neatly starts his piece with a description of the scene he arrives at, when he meets up with Johnson for an interview:

BERKELEY, Calif. "The Washington Post is not one of my biggest fans, you know that."

Hello?

The Washington Post reporter has just walked out of a spray of Pacific-borne rain into the living room of a modest bungalow west of downtown. There's a shag rug, an inspirational painting or two and Phillip Johnson, dressed in tan slacks and a sweater and sitting on a couch.

Third person objective point of view. Very scientific. This blogger can almost imagine the reporter entering this strange scene and examining this even stranger beast, the Intelligent Design Theorist.

Powell continues with a description of how Johnson and Intelligent Design Theory currently intersect with Evolutionary Theory :

Johnson and his followers, microbiologists and geologists and philosophers, debate in the language of science rather than Scripture. They point to the complexity of the human cell, with its natural motors and miles of coding. They document the scant physical evidence for the large-scale mutations needed to make the long journey from primitive prokaryote to modern man.

They've inspired a political movement -- at least 19 states are considering challenges to the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution.

None of which amuses evolutionary biologists, for whom intelligent-design theory inhabits the remotest exurb of polite scientific discourse. Darwin's theory is a durable handiwork. It explains the proliferation of species and the interaction of DNA and RNA, not to mention the evolution of humankind.

Like any young person fresh from her visit to the zoo, we now know what lion and tiger and beast walks among us, but we hardly know where they came from. Looking at the record, Powell begins to piece things together:

Johnson's early life was, by his own accounting, a rationalist lad's progress. He grew up in Aurora, Ill., a cocky kid so razor sharp that after his junior year in high school he packed off to Harvard. "I attended church in high school, but it was just part of the culture, like the Boy Scouts," he says. "We'd drop my father off at the golf course on the way to church."

He finished Harvard and then law school at the University of Chicago, where he graduated first in his class. He dabbled in Christian philosophy, read some C.S. Lewis. "I found it mind-stretching but I remember thinking: It's a real shame it's not true." Johnson became a clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren at the Supreme Court. In 1967, with a wife and two young children, he went west to Berkeley, where he would gain international renown as a teacher of criminal law and legal theory.

Starting from the very beginning, looking at the “progress” Johnson’s life made, allows us to better understand how Johnson got to be where he is today. How much, I wonder, did Harvard, Chicago’s law school, and a wife and family adapt Johnson’s “razor sharp[ness]? Not much, apparently. But changes were occurring within the world and his life, nonetheless:

Johnson possesses a tenured professor's inability to hold his tongue, whether assaying a reporter's dumb question or his own life's arc. In the 1970s, Berkeley was roiling. Johnson opposed the Vietnam War but grew disillusioned and turned right. His wife, an artist, found feminism and wandered another way. Their marriage swept away like flotsam.

"I had been very happy for a long time," he says. "I was shaken to my core."

Examining his life’s arc, that curved path that Johnson walked, the world and its inhabitants seemed shaky and unsure, with tumult all about. The “core” of Johnson’s life seemed to change. Which, in turn, led to another series of changes:

The night his wife decided to leave in 1977, Johnson attended a church supper with Emily, who was 11. The pastor spoke passionately of Christ and the Gospels. The professor doesn't remember a Lord-sundered-the-heavens moment; he wasn't rending his tweed jacket.

There was no bolt of lightening, the hand or image of God. Johnson was no Saul on the road to Damascus. Instead, one might say that Johnson was … evolving.

Powell goes even further in casting Johnson’s life in terms of subtle changes, more fully exploring and explaining Johnson’s conversion:

Johnson drove home that night and pulled out his books of law and philosophy. If this was to be his epiphany, he would experience it with his rationalist lights on.

"I was concerned that I could be just throwing my brain away," he says. "I needed to know if I was adopting a myth to satisfy my personal hunger."

He was nudged along by his interest in "critical legal studies," a left-wing movement that holds that the law is prejudice masquerading as objective truth. Asked to contribute a conservative critique for the Stanford Law Review, Johnson embraced the movement -- sort of.

Through passages like these, Johnson is seen as a person adopting (adapting?) —however willfully—to his life and his environment. And what was the result?

In time, he converted and married his present wife, Kathie -- who also was an adult convert.

Slowly, but certainly, Johnson changed. And from this point on, that change—that adaptation—spurred along another development: Intelligent Design Theory.

All of which laid the groundwork for Johnson's sabbatical in 1987. He traveled to London nagged by the sense that his intellectual gifts had been put to mediocre ends. One day while browsing in a bookstore, Johnson picked up a copy of "The Blind Watchmaker" by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. Dawkins argued that life was governed by blind physics, that free will was illusion, that religion was a virus.

"I was struck by the breadth of Darwin's claims as opposed to how scanty were the observable changes." He peers at you with that unwavering gaze. "I said to my wife that I shouldn't take this up. I will be ridiculed and it will consume my life.

Once again, Johnson is seen in terms of change.

Stephen C. Meyer, then a young graduate student studying the philosophy of science at Cambridge, got word of this "law professor who was getting some odd ideas about evolution." Meyer, who harbored his own doubts, walked to a tavern with Johnson and they talked for hours.

"Phillip understood that the language of science cut off choices: Evolution had to be an undirected process or it wasn't science," says Meyer, who today directs an intelligent-design think tank affiliated with the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. "He knew the rhetorical tricks.

"By the end of that day I knew we could challenge Darwin."

This change, in turn, led to other changes and compelled Meyer to grow in a new theory and establish his own institute. And Johnson only continued:

Johnson composed a sort of prosecutor's brief. Natural selection? It strengthens existing species, but there's "no persuasive reason for believing that natural selection can produce new species and organs." Mutations as a driver of new species? Much too slow to account for grand changes.

By the end of his 1991 book, "Darwin on Trial," Johnson was convinced that he had peppered Darwinian theory with intellectual buckshot. So he posed the question: Why won't science consider that an intelligent hand operates alongside chance and physical law?

Let it be said that Johnson's book did not change the world. The scientific reviews weren't so hot and a few law school colleagues looked at him as if he had lost half a brain lobe. But Meyer, director of the Center for Science & Culture, remembers reading it and feeling a sense of relief.

Not convincing everyone, Johnson still developed the Intelligent Design Theory and established a spirit of thought and argument that maintained and maintains the arguments:

The building blocks of the intelligent-design movement slowly took form. A few like-minded souls in academia e-mailed Johnson. He called back, connected one with the other, and often traveled to meet them.

"I found a lot of people ready to challenge the culturally dominant orthodoxy, but they didn't know how," Johnson recalls. "They thought if they just dutifully presented evidence, the Darwinists might listen. I said we have to think more strategically.

"I evolved -- if I may use that word -- as a leader of that group."

There! Look at that. Evolution, evolution, evolution. And what are Powell’s last words?

He [Johnson] smiles and catches himself. "I'm content just to open science up to an intellectual world that's been closed to it for two centuries."

Well, they are Johnson’s words, of course, but they were selected by Powell, and they seem to suggest that, in the end, Johnson is concerned with just making a few changed in scientific debate about Evolution. How very evolutionary!

Perhaps I am overstating the obvious (I’m certainly over-quoting!). Inasmuch as a narrative usually adheres to a chronological arc, and inasmuch as evolution occurs over time, then it makes sense that Johnson’s story would have an evolutionary feel to it. But, there's still some irony there.

On A Blog Entry About Someone Writing About Blogging in the Times

2005-05-15T18:20:00.000-05:00

David Greenberg, a historian at Rutgers, took a stab at blogging, didn't take to it, and wrote about it in the New York Times. He concluded this:

The best bloggers develop hobbyhorses, shticks and catchphrases that they put into wider circulation. Creating your own idiosyncratic set of villains to skewer and theories to promote - while keeping readers interested - requires as much talent as sculpting a magazine feature or a taut op-ed piece.

A while back, I tried to make something of a villain out of Greenberg for making something of a villain out of Nixon. I think that's sort of funny.

On Taxing

2005-05-14T07:20:00.000-05:00

With revenue scarce and financial obligations many, states and cities have begun to look at cell-phone taxes as a way to fill their depleted coffers. As the New York Times article describes them, however, the legislators' attitudes are troubling.

First, it seems vaguely sinister to target something for taxes just because there are budgetary needs to be met.

Last year, the City Council in Baltimore faced a budget shortfall so bad that it considered laying off 186 city police officers, reducing some fire department operations and scaling back trash collection. Then it found an untapped honey pot: cellphones.

"I can't remember the last time we've had such an easy budget year," said Sheila Dixon, the president of the City Council. "The bulk of our taxes come from property tax, but when you can't diversify and the federal and state taxes are drying up, you need other income."

Though I understand that taxes serve multiple functions, one of which is to provide the state with revenue, it still strikes me as rather capricious to select cellphones for taxation simply because they are around and easily taxed. Isn't there a sense that taxes are a response to a cost associated with what is to be taxed? Property taxes, for instance, are used to pay for the services and costs that are created by people living in a particular city or state. Sales taxes help pay for the wear-and-tear commerce places on the roads and environment. Utility taxes pay for the costs associated with ripping up the land to lay electrical and telephone lines. What sort of costs arise from the odd cellphone tower placed here or there (or, are there really that many?)? And why is the cost so large that a city needs to impose a 5% tax on a person's monthly cellular phone bill? And all of this is beside the point if the tax is being levied to make up budget differences that would exist regardless of whether or not cell phone exist.

I am not well versed in the theory of taxation, so I might be hopelessly wrong about all of that. However, I can--with great certainty--rebuke the skulky-attitude some legislators seem to have regarding these kinds of taxes:

Officials are particularly eager to tax cellphones because the amounts individuals pay each month are small enough to go virtually unnoticed, but in aggregate can be substantial. Cellphone subscribers nationwide paid an estimated $17.8 billion in federal, state and local taxes last year.

Virtually unnoticed? Regardless of whether one can virtually unnotice something, why are legislators taking into account the assumption that most folks won't even notice the taxes!? This is not a case where the cellphone companies are adding hidden fees in small print on the back of a bill; these are governments of the people, by the people, and for the people, sneakily slipping people this tax. I think that they shouldn't be acting like slimy snake-oil salespeople.

If this is the type of stuff that goes into their calculations, no wonder governments are (morally) bankrupt.

On Referring to Little People

2005-05-14T03:29:00.000-05:00

The New York Times, doing a piece on an Iraqi television show, uses a term that sounds pretty jarring these days:

Fawzi's friend Ahmad (played by Behjet al-Juburi), a midget who had been pursuing an unlikely romance with a beautiful young woman next door, finds happiness. They marry and have twins.

Is there no better term? It's like referring to people with Downs Syndrome as mongoloids. (Incidentally, Dictionary.com says midget is as offensive as mongoloid.)

And, while the Times is trying to be less offensive, it might try viewing a relationship between a little person and "beautiful young woman," as something other than "unlikely." That sort of observation is pretty condescending and probably more editorial in nature than necessary.

On the Definition of a Library

2005-05-14T02:57:00.000-05:00

The New York Times reports that a small library on the University of Texas-Austin campus is replacing their books with a computer system that holds (it's hard not to employ material words!) digital-copies of the texts in its memory. A student expressed his surprise and offered a definition of what a library is:

"Well, this is a library - it's supposed to have books in it," said Jessica Zaharias, a senior in business management. "You can't really replace books. There's plenty of libraries where they have study rooms. This is a nice place for students to come to. It's central in campus."

I think the first part of her definition is pretty good: a library is a place where books are stored. The second part, however, makes it sound like a library is a destination for socializing and getting together. Certainly, I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, but, given the context, I would emphasize the repository sense of the library. If not, a person might begin to sound like this:

"The library is not so much a space where books are held as where ideas are shared," said Geneva Henry, executive director of the digital library initiative at Rice University in Houston, where anyone can access and augment course materials in a program called Connexions. "It's having a conversation rather than homing in on the book."

Given this definition, why, a coffee-shop could be called a library, since folks meet there for conversations. I suppose I don't really care all that much, though. In the end, I bet it would be nice to read a library book at three-in-the-Minnesota-morning without battling the cold.

But, if this is one of those battles against progress, then I think the conservative arguers should stick to the ideal of a library as a place where books are materially stored. If they must, perhaps they can cautiously point-out that the physical presence of texts creates an atmosphere for thoughtful conversation and debate, but not more than that. Otherwise, they might be left with computer tables everywhere. And I know that they would not want anyone to gather in a place flooded by the harsh glow of flourescent-lamp and LCD light.

On An Ivy League Graduate

2005-05-13T18:40:00.000-05:00

Reporting on Connecticut's first execution in 45 years, the New York Times seemed to emphasize the fact that the executed was an Ivy League graduate. No fewer than three times did the article mention and underscore Michael Bruce Ross' Cornell credentials. Once,

A graduate of Cornell University and a former life insurance salesman, Mr. Ross convinced judges he was competent, smirked at psychiatrists who said he was suicidal and often seemed exasperated by his inability to reshape his image.

Then, twice.

While rough edges defined that man, Joseph Taborsky, Mr. Ross was an Ivy League graduate with a sometimes condescending manner and a masterful grasp of the nuances of death penalty law.

He was first arrested on murder charges in 1984, three years after he graduated from Cornell. Six of his victims lived in eastern Connecticut; two lived in New York. He was sentenced to death in 1987 for four of the Connecticut killings.

A serial killer with rough edges!? I can't imagine. It was a good thing for Mr. Ross that he had good academic pedigree; otherwise, people might have thought that he was just a run-of-the-mill murderer. Maybe it was Cornell's legendary stressful atmosphere that pushed him over the edge.

Or, maybe his school had nothing to do with it.

On Uncertainty

2005-05-13T14:34:00.000-05:00

The Dallas Morning News has a column that discusses religion in public life. Jean Power argues against religious reasoning in public debate because there are too many Biblical interpretations to be found:

I do not claim to know all the answers to solve the problems of this nation and its people. And I certainly do not believe myself to be a theological scholar. Religion is an incredibly personal matter open to many interpretations.

It is of great danger to our community if we allow our leaders with obvious agendas to use our faith to achieve their often less-than-Christian goals. There will never be agreement among Christians, much less those of other faiths, on which scriptural teaching should prevail. And it is for this very reason that we must strive to permit our government to work objectively and fairly for all persons regardless of their faith.

It seems to me, however, that lots of evidence is open to multiple interpretations. One of a fact's unsettling features is that it can be pretty malleable. You know, one person's unemployment figures say that the unemployment rate is down. Another person says that unemployment figures don't take into account the people who have stopped looking for a job altogether. In this case, the fact that there are lower unemployment numbers might just mean that more folks have just decided to give up looking for a job--hardly good news as far as unemployment is concerned.

I wonder why the polysemic nature of religious support should disqualify it from public debate when other types of evidence get a pass.

On A Scrabble Score

2005-05-13T14:16:00.000-05:00

A little thing, via The Little Professor.

Pholph's Scrabble Generator

My Scrabble© Score is: 54.
What is your score? Get it here.

On Percentages

2005-05-12T22:46:00.000-05:00

Joni Bolter in the Seattle Times suggests that we should start paying attention to men, in regards to their education. Acknowledging that gains in female matriculation and graduation rates were significant and worthy of praise, Bolter suggests that men are slipping behind and that this might be cause for concern. She points out:

For many years at the University of Washington graduation, the university president, in his welcoming remarks, offered a tally of female graduates in various fields. After the female percentages were announced, Husky Stadium would erupt in a roar of cheers. Many years, similar figures for male students were not offered.

Given that there are only two categories, female and male graduation percentages, isn't the male percentage implied whenever the female percentage is offered?

On Words

2005-05-12T22:38:00.000-05:00

A neat little paragraph in a Washington Post article that talks about words and China/Taiwan relations:

The disputes over wording may appear arcane and trivial to outsiders, but the governments on both sides of the Taiwan Strait regard them with utmost seriousness and sometimes threaten to go to war over them. At stake in these battles over nouns and adjectives is the definition of the Chinese nation itself, with the mainland defending its claim that Taiwan is part of China and the self-governing island territory struggling to present itself as an independent, sovereign country.

A nice example of how words create worlds.

On A Friend's Conception of Citizenship

2005-05-12T10:17:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I talked on the phone with a friend from college for an hour and so and we moved here to there on a variety of topics. He's currently at a crossroads-of-sorts, deciding where his next ten years or so will be. He's interested in both law school and the Marines, and decided to yoke the two together by going to law school and heading off to the Corps after he's through with reading the law.

When I mentioned this to a few of my graduate student friends, I detected something of curiousness in their reaction, as they were surprised that a smart guy like my friend would want to sign-up for the military. Left in their outlook--like many--it probably seemed an incongruous thing for him to do. Coming from a home with a father who served in the Marines, and being more to the right of my graduate-student friends, I didn't experience the same sort of cognitive dissonance, though I recognized it and understood where they were coming from.

In my own feeble way, I attempted to explain to them that my future-Marine friend had a conception of civic obligation that led him to this decision. He explained it much better than me, of course, and said that apart from a small sense of adventure that might come from joining, he thought the military a just and honorable path to take. Now, my friend is not right-leaning; he's a liberal-sort with seemingly libertarian leanings, but, he has a conception of citizenship that finds it an unsettling and bad thing that US culture has developed to a point where the idea that a smart and competent person would willingly choose the military is sufficient to elicit shock and surprise out of many folks. The way he figures, it's not a bad thing for smart and liberal people to join the military and if some folks think that the service is more vice than sir, more diverse perspectives and outlooks in the ranks can help. It doesn't seem to make much sense to him that the left would uniformly abandon the armed forces.

I thought this was all very reasonable and asked him more about his conception of citizenship, since he seemed a person who reflected on his role as a member of society. Plus, I'm sort of interested in how folks think about themselves before and after they engage in the public. Here is what he said, in a paraphrased kind of way:

When you look at individual people, by and large, you get a sense that folks are insular and self-absorbed—not worth too much commitment and sacrifice. But, when you conceptualize community and society as a whole, it becomes easier to pledge your allegiance to people once you remember the more active-types who take time to develop, debate, and vote on the issues, who do good works for society, and seem all-in-all dedicated to others. These model-citizens, in a way, redeem society, and make it easier to establish and maintain commitment to the citizenry.

In order to become and stay committed to society, my friend relies on a fairly active visualization of good citizenship and good citizens. It seemed like something out of Habits of the Heart and went a long in way in explaining his decision to go into the law and the military.

On the Christian Carnival

2005-05-11T11:50:00.000-05:00

This week's Christian Carnival is up. If you visit you can read my post about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King again and many other interesting ones!

On Happy Travels

2005-05-10T20:26:00.000-05:00

Later tonight, Temporary Egg goes to the other side of the world. She's decided not to dig her way there, preferring to fly instead.

Happy Travels!

On An Episode of The King of Queens

2005-05-10T20:11:00.000-05:00

Watching a rerun of King of Queens, I was shocked to see this plot:

Doug, Carrie, Deacon and Kelly all head upstate to a cute B&B for a relaxing weekend. But, Doug and Carrie become anything but relaxed after they realize that the R&B song coming from Deacon and Kelly's room means the couple is having sex. It wouldn't be so bad, but when the song begins to play all the time, Doug and Carrie realize how inadequate their sex life is in comparison.

If you’re unfamiliar with the series, you should know that Deacon and Kelly are African-American characters. This means, of course, that the short, stocky, white character, Doug, is intimidated by his tall, fit, African-American friend’s voracious sexual appetite. Ughhh.

On A Nice Bus Driver

2005-05-10T20:10:00.000-05:00

To get to the grocery, I can choose between a three-minute bus drive or a thirty minute walk. Depending on the time of day, weather, and amount of groceries I need to puchase, the difference can be significant. When I choose the bus, though, I have to be careful, since the buses come by infrequently--a one minute-delay on my part means an hour-wait for the next bus.

Today, I walked to the store, planning to shop and catch a bus on the way back. I goofed, though, and got through with my shopping too early. Knowing that if I waited at the stop I would be there for thirty minutes, I decided to walk. Just before starting, however, a bus on its way to the garage stopped and its driver offered me a lift, even though he wasn't on the clock. Pleasantly surprised, I accepted his invitation and made small talk for three minutes. He dropped me off where I needed to go and I left feeling good about knowing someone was willing to pull to the side of the road, pick up some stranger, and not kill him in the end.

On A Governor's Advice and Body

2005-05-10T16:08:00.000-05:00

Arkansas' governor, Mike Huckabee, is teaming up with Bill Clinton to get Americans thinner. Governor Huckabee has even written a book, Quit Digging Your Grave with A Knife and Fork. From what I understand, it utilizes a "12 Stop" method that tells folks what not to do, if they want to get thinner. The article linked above appears to list these 12 "Stops,", and I thought that the last one was worth mentioning:

12: Stop "Neglecting your spiritual health."

Is there something problematic about a sitting (no, exercising!) governor of Arkansas imploring people not to neglect their spiritual health? Probably not. For one, "spiritual health," is probably a sufficiently bland enough statement in regards to faith as to be inoffensive. Second, it's a book published, distributed, and sold nationally; Gov. Huckabee isn't mailing these to every Arkansas home. And third, it's fairly personal advice that seems to work well with a public figure making his private figure even more public.

What needs to be examined, more, I think, is what is involved in a public campaign that draws attention so specifically to these politicians' actual bodies. It's as if their political identity is providing the warrant for the significance of their physical identities. Usually, I suspect, we go the other way: we imagine our physical bodies and needs, use our bodies as evidence, and then establish our political identities. This seems to be different. I bet there is a dissertation in here, and probably a whole body of literature to cite, too!

On An Overseas Reception

2005-05-10T14:11:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post has an article that explores off-shoring jobs to Pakistan. One company even off-shores its receptionist!

As receptionist for the Resource Group, Musa greets employees and visitors via a flat screen hanging on the lobby's wall. Although they are nine hours behind and nearly 7,500 miles away, her U.S.-based bosses rely on her to keep order during the traffic of calls and meetings.

But, can a receptionist all the way around the world get a person a cup of coffee? Perhaps I overestimate the role that face-to-face communication plays in the office, but I think that a receptionist needs to be available to offer the small things to folks waiting for whatever it is they are waiting for.

On a Patch

2005-05-10T14:08:00.000-05:00

I saw a commercial for the new Ortho Evra birth control patch. Throughout the ad, a doctor explains the patch, answering our questions in a clinical--yet empathetic--voice. She addresses one question at the end that I didn't think was much of a selling point:

Patient:
I had a few questions myself, like, “Will it stay on?”

Doctor:
Swimming. Showering. The Patch stays where you put it. It won’t come off.

Yikes, that sounds frightening! Wouldn't it be easier to sell the product if it didn't seem like the hormone-sapping applique was forever welded to the swell of her back?

On a Comparison Between the Words of Rev. King and a British Reporter

2005-05-09T15:04:00.000-05:00

The BBC sent a reporter down to Mississippi to look at how the locals enacted religion in this most-religious state in this most-religious country. It ended on a fairly positive note, pointing out that though Republicans might be "overplaying" their religion-hand with their recent spate of seemingly religious motivated actions, religion still offers some impressive and touching effects at the grassroots level.

Early on, however, the reporter has a little passage that reminded me of an even more significant passage. The reporter said this, while describing the South's scenery:

Pristine Catholic cathedrals with long, pointy towers, cool and confident looking with wide lawns and copious car parks.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. described the South like this, forty years earlier in his Letter:

I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious-education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God?

Naturally, King put it better, but how striking it is that people are still visiting Mississippi, seeing the same kind of things, and asking the same kinds of questions, forty years later.

On the Times Assuming Too Much

2005-05-09T14:44:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's New York Times had a piece about a former Letterman writer retiring early and writing a book about his experience. Here's a paragraph that struck me as plain inaccurate:

Few people younger than 35 undertake any activity these days without first contemplating its potential value as intellectual property, and that is especially the case for a comedy writer with an agent, a manager and a host of contacts in the TV world.

Few people!? Rest assured, all my younger-than-thirty-five readers who have endeavored to breathe, eat, or sleep without thinking about these activities' potential intellectual property, that I haven't done so either and suspect that hardly anyone actually does.

I think that in the rush to come up with a smooth transition in article about someone who actually did, this reporter has slipped into one of those sloppy assumptions that must be easy to make for impressive and smart people who work with other impressive and smart people on stories about impressive and smart people. If this reporter was being more reflective, however, I am sure that he would have conceded that there are more than a "few" people who don't think about writing a book before undertaking any activity.

On the President Accepting Three Stars

2005-05-07T15:34:00.001-05:00

During his visit to Latvia yesterday, President Bush was presented with the Order of Three Stars. He accepted. Unfortunately, he wasn’t especially eloquent when he did:

PRESIDENT BUSH: Madam President, I gratefully accept. I am so honored and so thrilled to be here in your beautiful country.

I was telling the President that it's such a joy to come to a country that loves and values freedom, and to be in the presence of a President who speaks so clearly about the need for people to be free, and her recognition that a free world will yield peace.

And so Madam President, thank you for your hospitality, and thank you so much for this great honor. Appreciate it.

In general, I think that the President of the United States has much ceremonial responsibility. Even though we are a government of, by, and for the People, we still elect someone to be a little bit different from the rest of us and I think it behooves this person to speak with a sense of that difference—especially when he is in another country representing us.

So, Mr. President, no "so"s; you should just be honored and thrilled—your position as President is sufficient-enough a qualifier for your sentiments. And, while we’re on the subject of your feelings, I’m not thrilled by the fact you’re "thrilled"; that feeling seems more appropriate for a roller-coaster ride than a visit to a fledgling democratic state--regardless of the ups-and-downs analogies one can make about growing a democracy. Also, I’m sure that Latvia would have appreciated it if you appreciated them enough to actually include yourself in that last sentence; “Appreciate it.” seemed a little too clipped and made me wonder if you were issuing an order to them or expressing your sense of appreciation.

Latvia may have given the president Three Stars, but I am only giving him one.

On A Terrible Word

2005-05-05T07:53:00.000-05:00

There are some words you hate. The New York Times uses one of them in an article about the proposed Texas law that would prevent cheerleaders from dancing too provacatively:

But the Texas House of Representatives, concerned that high school cheerleading is becoming too raunchy, has approved a bill that would allow state education officials to prohibit "overtly sexually suggestive" cheering and drill team routines.

Its only redeeming quality is that it sounds just like what it is denoting.

On A Smart Person's Response

2005-05-04T22:30:00.000-05:00

In discussing the National Academy of Sciences' election of 17 women, Stanford Chemistry Professor, Dr. John I. Brauman, responds to the reporter's connection between the significant number of women elected and the controversy surrounding Harvard President Summer's remarks about "innate talent":

Dr. Brauman replied that the complicated process of winnowing candidates was well under way before Dr. Summers spoke.

He added that it would be dangerous to draw large conclusions.

"You have to be careful about the statistics of small numbers," he said. For example, 22 of this year's new members are from institutions in California. "I would not know how to put a value judgment on this," Dr. Brauman said.

Smart people always have something to teach us!

On Senator Dayton's Church and State Position

2005-05-04T20:38:00.000-05:00

Recently, Minnesota's senior senator, Mark Dayton, discussed his attitude towards the relationship between Church and State. I think he started out very shabbily:

Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist recently appeared on a national television program which accused his Democratic colleagues of acting “against people of faith.” During the same broadcast, self-proclaimed evangelist, James Dobson, called the United States Supreme Court “the despotism of an oligarchy” for its supposed “campaign to limit religious liberty.”

Even though I think it is within the limits of decorum to criticize other public figures, I think that this criticism should be tempered with good will. It seems salient to point out that, even in jail, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King referred to his opponents with respect and restraint:

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statements in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

Though very few people would succeed, I don't think it would be wholly damaging to public discourse if we all aspired to Rev. King's language and eloquence. Given this, I think it would be appropriate for and courteous of Senator Dayton to acknowledge that James Dobson is not just a self-proclaimed evangelist, since other people probably think he's an evangelist too.

I think Senator Dayton commits an even greater error when he makes an analogy that we all need to be better about avoiding:

Unfortunately, religion can be misused by charlatans to serve their own ambitions. Guess what aspiring politician, in the midst of a national election, stated, “I am convinced that nothing will happen to me, for I know the greatness of the task for which Providence has chosen me.” It was Adolf Hitler, in 1932. While no one in our nation’s politics today compares with Adolph Hitler, his statement shows that there is no limit to the misuse of “Providence.”

There is something weak about having to quickly follow-up an analogy with the statement that the comparison really isn't accurate.

Now, on to Senator Dayton's position regarding the relationship between Church and State:

I know many people of religious faith and serving in public office, including myself, who sincerely pray for God’s wisdom in our personal and professional lives. However, praying for Divine guidance is very different from publicly proclaiming always to have it.

This opinion, I think, is a very powerful one, in as much as it rests on a very redeeming admission of human frailty. Political discussion and decision-making, after all, occurs because we live in an imperfect world inhabited by imperfect people who are forced to compromise and negotiate on complex matters in the legislative halls of our governments. And, to a certain degree, adamant (dare I say, zealous?) comittment to a position rooted in religious faith and belief does not leave much room for compromise. As Richard Neuhaus elegantly puts it in The Naked Public Square:

Compromise and forgiveness arise from the acknowledgment that we are imperfect creatures in an imperfect world. Democracy is the product not of a vision of perfection but of knowledge of imperfection. In this view, compromise is not an immoral act, nor is it an amoral act. That is, the one who compromises does not step out of her role as a moral actor. To the contrary, the person who makes a compromise is making a moral judgment about what is to be done when moral judgments are in conflict. (1991, p. 114)

But, the willingness to compromise on an issue does not necessarily mean that one must water down her conviction that a belief is valid and true.

And, just as much as I think that Dayton has become hyperbolic with his assertion that the Right thinks it's always right, I think he hasn't left a enough room for those who do become engaged in public life on public issues because of their religious conviction(s). Certainly, politicians must compromise, that's a particular cross the faithful politician must bear. But, I still expect politicians and public figures to act on their convictions as if they were right, however much they expect things to get watered-down in the end.

On Saying All That in the Same Breath

2005-05-04T15:58:00.000-05:00

Senate Minority Leader, Harry Reid, has a lot to say about social security, but I am more interested in what he has to say about what Republicans have to say and how he says it:

“President Bush has a lot of new Social Security rhetoric, but the facts remain the same. His risky privatization scheme is an assault on middle-class seniors and would mean deep benefit cuts even for those who choose not to risk their money in private accounts.

I doubt that I want to argue that rhetoric is a neutral thing, a tool of sorts to be used for good or bad, well or poorly, but I am willing to claim that Harry Reid has used rhetoric himself--not only on other occassions, but on this one too.

For one, it's not as if President Bush is walking around and spouting-off made-up things; he too is using facts, just different ones. How rhetorical of you, Mr. Reid, to imply that the facts were only on your side.

And of course, what could be more rhetorical than renaming something? How scheming of you, Mr. Reid, to refer to President Bush's plan as a scheme.

Surely, this is nothing new and I have heard it before. But, I have never heard one so smoothly go from talking down about rhetoric to then employing it so quickly in the next sentence.

On A Pleasant Little Passage

2005-05-02T16:40:00.000-05:00

Ordinarily, I don't take note of the good phrases and passages that I read in newspapers; it's easier to tear down than build up, I guess. But, this Atlanta Journal-Constitution article about two developer's Marietta gentrification project has a real gem in it:

It's a dream of reclamation, of homeowners and longtime neighbors rather than transients, of what the partners believe will be rather than is.

What a great sentence! I like how the solid and concrete characters of homeowners and longtime nieghbors anchor the lofty dreams and uncertain future found on the sentence's edges. Plus, it sounds more poetic than most of the writing you find in newspapers, which is nice, if a little favorable to the developers. But, I suppose business writers have some leeway, since they are presumably writing for business readers from a business perspective.

On Taking a Joke Too Far

2005-05-02T15:15:00.000-05:00

All right, I think that the "look at how funny Laura Bush was" routine is now getting a little old. All the major papers have some little piece about her performance at the correspondents' dinner, blogs have analyzed it, and now the President is even referring to it in a Rose Garden speech, today, that honors American Preservation.

Look at how Laura Bush cheekily introduces the president, after briefly talking about the connection between preservation and history, and look at how President Bush responds:

MRS. BUSH: The projects we honor instill love of our great American traditions. They educate Americans about our past and about our natural world. And they demonstrate how communities can increase local pride and improve local economies when they restore and showcase their history.

This month is National Preservation Month. It's a great month for Americans to visit Preserve America sites. They're wonderful destinations for school field trips, for family adventures, or even for a romantic getaway. (Laughter and applause.)

It's now my honor to introduce America's history-buff-in-chief, George W. Bush. (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: A couple of funny lines one evening and she gets carried away. (Laughter and applause.) Laura Leno Bush. (Laughter.)

Yes, it's a cute little routine, but, remember, this is the President and the First Lady of the United States of America. Besides, there's something a little jarring and uncomfortable about hearing the president imply that the first lady is getting a little too big for her britches.

A little later in the speech, Laura Bush seems to interrupt the president to correct him on something he forgot to say:

THE PRESIDENT: Our third award recipient has restored a site almost as old as America, itself. In St. Genevieve, Missouri, Bolduc Historic Properties has fixed up some of the state's first French Colonial homes, right on the banks of the Mississippi River. The restoration of the 18th Bolduc House has attracted visitors from around the country and has drawn rave reviews. Historical restoration is a job for --

MRS. BUSH: Eighteenth century. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: You've become a comedian and an editor. (Laughter.) We're glad you're here. (Applause.)

Given the president's propensity for minor verbal gaffes, I think it's bad precedent to start correcting these things when they happen. But, even more importantly, this type of thing is just a plain old interruption; all it does is draw attention away from the speech's subject and emphasize the speech's speaker. Sure, it's a minor speech about a minor thing in a pleasant little garden, but I still think everything deserves its full due. If we want to see people using humor to make others laugh and attract attention to them, though, we can just turn on late-night TV--Conan is better anyway, I think. No, I hope and suspect that folks go to a Rose Garden speech to hear something other than cheesy jokes and banter.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't object to humor in presidential speeches. After all, Presidents have frequently done that sort of thing with a good-nature and necessary self-deprecation; I think this sort of thing enacts a good type of democratic egalitarianism that is important for our system. And I also realize that, to a certain extent, a funny or witty line always refers back to the person delivering it. My objection is to how this type of joking just comes across as being too self-aware and self-referential. I think it's something of a truism to say that that a joke is not funny if you have to always point it out to people.

On Peering Into the Future

2005-05-02T14:07:00.000-05:00

Magazines insist that they will still be relevant in the future, and created mock covers of future issues to begin a three-year $40 million campaign to convince advertisers that magazines will be around for a while:

Here's a Newsweek cover from 100 years into the future: an aerial view of the United States with California split off from the mainland and floating in the Pacific. The headline: "California Island: More popular than ever 62 years after the Big Quake."

But how can you convince folks about your future relevance by displaying a news story that seems as irrelevant and un-newsworthy in 100 years as it would be today? Would anyone want to read a cover-story, now, about Hawaii?

On the New York Times

2005-05-02T13:51:00.000-05:00

From the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (via Romenesko):

[Conservative FOX commentator, Bill] O'Reilly, he noted, denounced the Times at least 60 times on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" last year.

"I think if Bill O'Reilly didn't have the New York Times he might be selling Ginsu Knives on late-night TV," he joked.

Looking at the number of my critical posts, I suspect that without the New York Times, I would be working on my thesis!

On Becoming a Member of a Clan

2005-05-02T01:19:00.000-05:00

Last Christmas, while visiting with my family, my aunt approached me with the suggestion that I become active in the family clan, the MacIntyres. For those of you that don't know much about Scottish clans, well, count me in your company. As far as I can tell, there are many Scottish names and clans that have documented histories and contemporary associations dedicated to keeping the names and their heritages alive. My aunt, a daughter of a Macintyre, is quite active in the MacIntyre Clan and mentioned that the clan is having a hard time recruiting younger members—particularly ones for leadership roles. Though never out rightly saying so, she intimated that if I expressed an interest, I would more or less be assured a spot on the clan's leadership council. (In this case, how could it not be nepotism?)

At the time, I demurely deferred decision-making. Recently, however, I received a packet in the mail filled with information about the clan and was reminded of my earlier promise to think it over. There are at least two different aspects that I have to consider.

One: the costs. Becoming an active member in the leadership requires an annual commitment of time and money. There are two annual events that must be attended: the annual family get-together and an annual meeting of the clan's governing body. Both are held at different times of the year, usually six months apart, and both would require airfare and hotel costs. The costs are not prohibitive, but I am not exactly a rich person.

Two: the decision to self-affiliate with a clan. At first blush, the notion of joining a clan seems odd. For good or for bad, I am not consciously or actively aware of my ancestral roots. Like most white men in this country, I come from a fair mix of European ancestry far enough in my past to have eliminated all but the faintest connection to the "homeland." Instead, my history is America's and my culture is what we, as a people, are trying to figure out and enact as we go along. Despite this, however, I can apparently pinpoint some connection to not just a country, but to a clan and its name. How weird it would be, though, to proclaim allegiance to just a name--no matter how old and fabled! I can fathom dedication to an ideal, country, or family; I can’t do that as easily for a family name. So, despite--to some degree--the fact that I share some familial blood with these other folks, I don't expect to have a connection that might invite the same sort of love, sacrifice, and unity that I would expect from my parents or siblings. A person only has so much loyalty to offer, can I give up some of it to a mere name?

Regardless, by the MacIntyre's standards, I can call myself a MacIntyre. And people in this country have been doing so for many years through annual gatherings and festivals--not bad things to do. But, according to my aunt's telling, not as many are choosing to do so these days. It seems that this old family name needs some new blood--just they type I could offer. So, even though I have never given such things too much thought, I think there is something poignant about a bunch of older folks struggling to keep the sap running through an ageing trunk connected to fewer and fewer flowering branches. In the end, joining wouldn't be a painful thing to do and it might even be neat to see kilts at different scenic places throughout the country.

Any thoughts?

On Complimenting A Friend and Myself at the Same Time

2005-05-01T23:11:00.000-05:00

It's always a pleasure to tell others about someone cool you know; it's even more pleasurable when you can let everyone else know how cool you are at the same time. It is with this truism in mind that I point out my friend's clever and well-written blog: Secondhand Rants. You should read this post from a couple years ago--I only say so because the character is loosely based on me.

On New Suburban Developments

2005-05-01T21:41:00.000-05:00

The summer before I left for college, my parents moved the family to a new house in Loudoun County, one of the faster growing counties in the country. Overnight, it seemed, a new place developed--schools, shopping centers, roads, and housing development, after housing development, after housing development. Whenever I returned home on break, I would notice yet another completed cul-de-sac and think about how very new everything looked. I knew that in twenty years everything would look pretty old and lame, but didn't really mind since I wisely waxed that this was the nature of new things.

Every now and then, while driving to Jerry's Subs and Pizza, I would pass an older looking house set off by itself. Its wooden exterior, the rusted swing-set in its side yard, and a very tall, thick, and old tree in its backyard all spoke to the house's other-ness. When I drove by the house, as a part of a long line of minivans, SUVS, and increasingly upscale sedans, I thought of how frustrated its owners must be with all the development in the area; all of these cars, after all, were driving right passed the house's driveway. I imagined how easy it must have been for them, just a few years earlier, to leave their house and their driveway without waiting for a break in the traffic.

I never though, however, that they were probably frustrated for other reasons too. The Washington Post has a nice piece on the alienation some older-house owners are feeling as more and more folks move into housing developments in the area.

Scattered across such rapidly suburbanizing counties as Loudoun and Prince William in Northern Virginia and Charles and Frederick in Maryland are scraps of communities left behind. They are remnants of places where people live the old-fashioned way: in a house, on a road open to other roads, forming a place that anyone might pass through on the way to somewhere else.

Increasingly, these places have become balkanized by self-contained communities, now the dominant form of home building in suburban America. In Prince William and Loudoun, for instance, virtually all new homes in recent years have been built that way.

As more and more folks move into more and more housing developments and subdivisions, there is an increasingly stark line being drawn between the newer houses and the fewer older ones:

While life inside such places as Brambleton often is vibrant with block parties, poker nights, book clubs and a sense of identity, life on the outside feels quite different these days, altered in ways large and small.

"I don't know what community means anymore," said Nancy Siler, who is retired. "Do they mean subdivision? Or can it be a group of houses spread out?"

Though the piece is too somber and mournful for my tastes--it probably romanticizes a few cases here and there a little too much--it does raise some interesing questions about place, class and identity.

Though it may have been implied, the article doesn't discuss one of the more striking differences between the new housing divisions and the older houses left in various pockets throughout the area: the new houses are filled with increasingly wealthy people. I think some of the uncomfortableness the older-home owners are feeling stems from the realization that all of a sudden an area formerly occupied by a few agriculture and blue-collar homes is being populated by whole lot of households annually earning six-figures. These new divisions and their houses are like wagons circled up at night, and the older homes must feel like coyotes.

How much, I wonder, can this new type of development and displacement sustain parallels between the older narrative of western development: settlers moving in who ignore the native people at first, only to eventually get rid of them? There is, it seems, given all of the developing homes, businesses, and infrastructure, a spirit of progress--even Manifest Destiny that seems inevitable, regardless of all "smart growth" talke--a phrase, it should be noted, that never denies the growth. And, at the same time, there is strong sentiment regarding the land and its beauty echoed throughout the discourse by those people left standing outside of the new developments:

In eastern Prince William, Anthony Mullins, who lives in a neighborhood built in the 1960s on a small hill in Woodbridge, is struggling with the effects of the changing geography.

"We're like an island," said Mullins, 42. "An island in dirt."

His back yard, which used to overlook trees, now overlooks a vast, dusty, denuded valley where a subdivision called Eagle's Point is being built. With no trees, the sun is brighter these days and the wind so stiff that once it blew over his weight-lifting bench.

And what of the communities formed by these new developments? In previous times, practices like redlining and processes like white-flight maintained and established geographical communities in response to the emergence of other peoples and identities. In other words, the geographic and material space emerged in response to the community's sense of identity. In today's situation, however, with older and poorer folks being displaced and ignored by newer housing developments, it seems that identity has emerged after the geographic and material space was created.James Kline, 62, noted that a way into the neighborhood is being sealed off because of increased traffic.

"We've been here all these years, but they're the ones who are going to benefit," he said, referring to new residents. "They're isolating us. They're penalizing us. The way they treat us now, I guess they call us white trash."A poorer-house class has developed because a newer, fatter, and more contented-house class has emerged--a class that has probably developed because they are seeing the occasional lonely old wooden house next to the busy new roads they're driving on.

On A Joke Most Probably Missed

2005-05-01T14:33:00.000-05:00

Though plenty of folks are talking about Laura Bush's funny speech at this year's White House Correspondant's Dinner, I doubt that as many people have noticed something funny President Bush said while helping plant a tree for Arbor Day:

THE PRESIDENT: Glad you all are here. Ready, Mr. Secretary?

SECRETARY JOHANNS: I'm ready.

THE PRESIDENT: First of all, I'm honored -- we're honored to be here with the Secretary of Agriculture, as well as Marshal Case, who is head of the American Chestnut Foundation. We are planting an American chestnut tree here at the White House. This is the 133rd year of Arbor Day. Our message is to our fellow citizens, plant trees -- it's good for the economy and it's good for the environment.

As well, Marshal informs me that the American Chestnut Foundation has worked very closely with the Agriculture Department to coming up with a disease-resistant strain of the American chestnut. And he says we're making good progress, and that one day the American chestnut, which had been wiped out by blight, will be coming back. And this is our little part to help it come back.

So, Mr. Secretary, are you prepared?

SECRETARY JOHANNS: I am ready. Let's --

THE PRESIDENT: A man known for shoveling a lot of things. (Laughter.)

Even though I might be inclined to say it's a little undecorous for the President of the United States to imply that his Secretary of Agriculture is accustomed to shoveling shit, especially in light of recent criticism about the new Food Pyramid, I think that the earthy atmosphere created by a digging up of the ground to plant a tree makes it okay to talk a little dirty.

On President Bush Reminding Me of President Nixon

2005-04-28T21:59:00.000-05:00

Quite unexpectedly, as I turned on the TV this evening to catch an episode of the OC, I discovered President Bush giving a press conference. I decided to watch that rather than sulking around to some lousy Friends episode on TBS. Here is something that struck me as I was listening.

In his opening remarks President Bush had this to say about social security reform:

Secondly, I believe a reform system should protect those who depend on Social Security the most. So I propose a Social Security system in the future where benefits for low-income workers will grow faster than benefits for people who are better off. By providing more generous benefits for low-income retirees, we'll make this commitment: If you work hard and pay into Social Security your entire life, you will not retire into poverty. This reform would solve most of the funding challenges facing Social Security. A variety of options are available to solve the rest of the problem, and I will work with Congress on any good-faith proposal that does not raise the payroll tax rate or harm our economy. I know we can find a solution to the financial problems of Social Security that is sensible, permanent, and fair.

I don't know how common the phrase good faith is in today's political deliberation, but the phrase quickly brought to mind a passage from Richard Nixon's famous Silent Majority speech when he talked about trying to get North Viet-Nam to the negotiating table:

We have not put forth our proposals on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. We have indicated that we are willing to discuss the proposals that have been put forth by the other side. We have declared that anything is negotiable except the right of the people of South Vietnam to determine their own future. At the Paris peace conference, Ambassador Lodge has demonstrated our flexibility and good faith in 40 public meetings.

Karlyn Kohrs Campbell argues that throughout his speech, Richard Nixon creates a rhetorical slight of hand, implying that the US was willing to leave Vietnam as long as North Vietnam was willing to recognize South Vietnam's separte state-status, one independant of the North:

In other words, the success of the policy [Vietnamization} depended on the cooperation of the enemy. It would have required them to acquiesce in the division of Vietnam into two nations, which they had vowed never to do. Given their negotiating record as reported in the speech, there was no reason to expect them to agree. On its face, then, based on Nixon's pwn words, the proposed policy must fail.(Campbell, Critiques of Contemporary Rhetoric, 1997, p. 206.)

In saying that he was willing to listen to good faith proposals, just so long as they didn't involve raising taxes or harming the economy, is President Bush doing the same thing that Campbell says President Nixon was doing--limiting all the options before the debate even begins?

On A Terrible Answer

2005-04-26T18:41:00.000-05:00

The most recent New York Times Magazine has an interview with PBS' interim president, Ken Ferree. During the interview, the reporter asked him what PBS shows he liked and he answered:

I'm not much of a TV consumer. I like ''Masterpiece Theater'' and some of the ''Frontline'' shows. I like ''Antiques Roadshow'' and ''Nova.'' I don't know. What's your favorite show?

What a lousy answer from the head of a public corporation whose budget Congress has just cut by around 15%. How can he begin to make the case to Congress that public TV is important when he doesn't even seem to watch it himself? Deborah Soloman, the reporter, even gives him a chance to make amends:

For the head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, you don't sound like much of a PBS viewer. Perhaps you prefer NPR, which your organization also finances?

There: a chance to say that TV's not his thing, but that his life is really much better because of what PBS does. But, what does he say?

No. I do not get a lot of public radio for one simple reason. I commute to work on my motorcycle, and there is no radio access.

Commutes on a motorcycle--what a lame excuse!

On Metaphoric Language that Doesn't Work with Its Subject

2005-04-26T09:30:00.000-05:00

The Seattle Times has an article that reports sales for Boeing's new airplane, the 787, are doing well and expected to do even better:

Boeing executives are predicting a blowout quarter for 787 sales that will seal the success of the Everett-assembled jet and leave a proposed rival from Airbus in its dust.

I think that airplane executives should think twice before associating their company and its products with a "blowout," regardless of the context. "Reaching new heights" or "soaring profits"--these are better phrases and metaphors that both appropriately describe an airplane company's success and prevent us from conjuring up thoughts and images of explosions. A good thing for an airplane company, I think.

On Means Being Justice-fied

2005-04-25T20:44:00.000-05:00

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear a case that would decide whether the federal government can garnish Social Security payments of folks who have not paid off their student loans.

U.S. justices voted to hear the case of James Lockhart, a Washington state man who went to four colleges in the 1980s with the help of federally guaranteed student loans. He became disabled from diabetes and heart disease and was unemployed in 1991 when he defaulted on nine student loans. ...

To repay his debts, the government took $93 a month from his disability benefits. A year later, Lockhart reached age 65 and began receiving old age benefits instead of disability benefits. Now, the government is taking $143 per month from his benefits.

Under the law, the government can seize 15% of a recipient's monthly benefits to repay the loans.

The Education Department said these seizures had "proven to be an effective means" of recovering unpaid student loans. In 2003, the collection effort brought in $400 million from reclaimed Social Security benefits.

That has to be one of the grimmest and most ominous statements I have read in a while. Though I have no doubts about the collection's efficacy, I do wonder about it's ethic-acy.

It seems so strikingly incongruous to be collecting college payments from social security recipients that I would say the government should just forgot about the $3.6 billion's worth of unpaid student loans that the government is concerned about. I know, I know, "a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon [we're] talking real money." But, it can't be that soon or pretty, yet!

On An Elite Institution on an Average Institution

2005-04-25T19:11:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, the New York Times had a lengthy piece describing the lives of several students at the University of Arizona. The article's hook, I suppose, is that the reporter lifts the rock up and expose the worms, centipedes, and other crawly-things that eke out their existence away from the sun and ivy most of the Times' regular readers are familiar with. Thus, a comment like this appears after a description of the University of Arizona:

This is not exactly the popular image of ivy-covered higher education, but it's the truth of it. Most students do not go to an Amherst or a Williams. They go to enormous public institutions like the Universities of Arizona, Iowa, Connecticut, Minnesota: more than five million undergraduates attend an institution with at least 15,000 students. The freshman class alone exceeds the population of a small town, and the course catalog is the size of a phone book.

I suspect that it's only a reporter from an elite paper like the Times who would be compelled to note for and remind readers that most students don't go to elite institutions.

For the rest of us, thankfully, it's tautological.

On Something You Don't Hear Everyday

2005-04-22T18:54:00.000-05:00

After investigating the claim that some Wendy's chili had part of a human finger in it, an Assistant District Attorney said something you don't often hear, in the wake of all those corporate scandals:

"We think America should return to Wendy's," Sinunu said this morning from San Jose. "The corporation is a victim ...

Perhaps because it sounded so silly, she added:

[T]hat means many workers and employees of Wendy's are suffering a loss."

Of course, I think the real victim is the person who this finger belonged to! Even if it was some random dead person's finger, what a lousy thing to have a part of your body used in such a way--even in death.

On A Contradicting Space

2005-04-22T18:38:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post has a nice little section that points out an ironic aspect of President Bush's Earth Day speech:

The threat of hail and thunder storms prevented the president from a planned stop to help with some quick restoration on a trail in the Smokies' picturesque Cades Cove area and delivering remarks in the park.

Instead, he talked at the airport outside Knoxville, then climbed back on his plane and departed for Texas. Bush was spending the weekend at his ranch there ahead of meetings Monday with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. ...

"We didn't create the earth but we have an obligation to protect it," he said from an airport hangar, with a steady electrical hum and a view of the airfield providing quite a different backdrop than the White House planned. "We are meeting that obligation."

On Bush Speaking at Calvin College

2005-04-22T18:12:00.000-05:00

President Bush is going to deliver a commencement address at Calvin College, a small conservative Christian liberal arts college in Michigan, this year. Given Bush's religious faith, there seems to be an expectation that Bush will address '"spiritual issues":

"Certainly he's aware of Calvin's Christian foundation," said de Haan [spokesperson for Calvin College], adding that he expects spiritual issues to be a part of the president's speech. "It would be a message that they've heard from other speakers as well. This is an amazing opportunity for the Class of 2005."

These type of speeches are a great opportunity for political leaders to give some thoughtful attention to and discussion of the relationship between private faith and the public forum. I hope President Bush takes the opportunity to speak in more than platitudes.

On a President Who Renames

2005-04-22T16:11:00.000-05:00

Occassionally, I hear about President's Bush's penchant for giving people nicknames when he meets them; I suppose this is some sort of power game that he plays in a way that only the Leader of the Western World can. Though I find it a little eye-rolling that he does this and does it frequently, I suppose it's harmless enough within the ovular walls of "Prez's" office.

It's when this sort of gamesmanship happens in a more public and ceremonial space that I think he has taken it a little too far. Take today's announcement of President Bush's new appointees to the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. When it comes time to announce his appointment of Admiral Ed Giambastiani, President Bush has this to say:

Today I am pleased to announce that I have nominated an outstanding military officer, Admiral Ed Giambastiani. (Laughter.) He shall be known as Admiral G. (Laughter.) Anyway, he's going to be the Vice Chairman. (Laughter.)

Granted, maybe "Admiral G." isn't so much as a nickname as a way to avoid pronouncing a tough name (I should sympathize, since I sometimes have to go by "Admiral W.," myself!) But, it's still something of a re-naming and one that places the burden on the Admiral to be easy-going and understanding at the botching and adjustment of his name. It's probably a big day for the guy, and he might have liked to hear his name done right for the occassion. And even if the Admiral's used to folks messing up his name, I don't think it's too much to ask that a President read a correct pronounciation of his name off the teleprompter at this fairly formal occassion.

So, whether this is one of President Bush's new nicknames because he's enacting some sort of power-play, or just a result of his poor pronounciation prep, I think that Bush could have done well to just get the name down right, once, and refer to him as "Admiral" the rest of the time. This seems like a better way to deal with a heavy name that keeps all the appropriate attention on the appointee, rather than the President and his habit for playing Adam in the Garden.

On the Power of Speaking

2005-04-21T11:08:00.000-05:00

If you've ever doubted the significance of speaking, take note of reports that Cardinal Ratzinger's performances throughout ceremonies over the last few weeks helped rechristen him.

But it was also his dignified celebration of John Paul's funeral Mass on April 8, his guiding hand at the cardinals' daily meetings during the period between popes and the pre-conclave Mass that helped convince the cardinals. He fulfilled those roles as dean of the College of Cardinals.

On Lincoln Museum Pictures

2005-04-20T23:25:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Springfield's new Lincoln Museum was dedicated, and President Bush visited. A couple of photographs struck me as interesting.

This one, showing some Lincoln-look-alikes walking near secret service members is sort of a twist, given that Lincoln was shot when his own security guard was drinking in a bar next door to Ford's Theatre!

And I don't know about this museum display that places the Lincoln Family in front of the White House as John Wilkes Booth leans jauntily against a column. I understand that we often interpret the Lincoln Presidency in light of his death: We hear about his macabre and prescient dreams, we imagine a less acrimonious Reconstruction, and envision a different future for the country had he served the remainder of his term. In fact, so dark and shadowed was his figure that I can't help but think about his death whenever I see a picture of him.

But, as much as I am drawn to these thoughts, looking at the display, I can't help but think that Booth is just a minor, short-lived, one-line, two-bit character in a much larger and grander production of Lincoln's life and presidency. Sure Lincoln died because of this man's bullet, but the important part of his death is the flip-of-the-coin emphasis we simultaneously place on the years he lived and the savvy and skill with which he operated; when we think about Lincoln's death, we don't think about some silly, Latin-quoting, fool who ended-up dead in a barn.

No, Lincoln's life can't and shouldn't be reduced to a scene with Booth, devilishly and omnisciently standing in the background, looking forwards, towards his future quarry.

On A Look

2005-04-20T22:38:00.000-05:00

Looking at President Putin's eyes, I expect Secretary Rice actually blew-up in a puff of smoke a few seconds after this picture was taken.

On Talking About the Next Pope's Death

2005-04-20T15:36:00.000-05:00

Listening and reading all of this babble about the new Pope, I'm struck by how frequently folks mention that the new Pope will likely be dead soon enough. Let's just look at what some of the country's major newspapers are saying.

Here's what the Dallas Morning News has to say:

At age 78, Benedict may not rule the See of Peter for long, but a governor with papal powers can accomplish an enormous amount in a short period of time.

The LA Times is even more confident of the Pope's imminent demise:

The quick election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger speaks quiet volumes about what cardinals seek from the new pope: a stable interregnum after 26 years under the charismatic Pope John Paul II. Benedict XVI will hold to the late pope's theologically conservative line, but he won't do it all that long, giving the church a breather in which to plan its future. At 78, he is among the oldest men to assume the papacy.

The New York Times, unlike the LA, at least leaves open the possibility that the Pope won't certainly be dead soon:

The new pope is, at 78, not likely to serve long enough to have the kind of impact his predecessor had. But the church has seen men elected as supposedly transitional figures in the past turn into agents for sweeping change.

I understand that selecting the next leader of an estimated 1.1 billion person institution is bound to evoke analysis and commentary. And I'm also aware that we talk about public figures in a way that is different from how we would talk about our dads (not to be read as fathers, in this instance!). But, nonetheless, it seems a little unseemly and tacky to be talking about the death of the newest Pope, when the old one hasn't been in the Basillica's basement for more than three weeks! Decorum, after all, seems as noble a virtue as any other.

Update: Well, as inappropriate as I think talking about the new Pope's future death is, it seems the Pope himself would disagree. Apparantly he told some Cardinals not to expect him to be around too long:

Chicago Cardinal Francis George said Ratzinger, who had repeatedly asked John Paul to let him retire, told the cardinals, "I too hope in this short reign to be a man of peace."

So, go ahead, newspapers, speculate about his death till he's blue in the face!

On the Carnival of Education

2005-04-20T03:35:00.000-05:00

This week's Carnival of Education is up, so drop by! If you look carefully, you'll see my post on the university's anti-union email was included.

On A Funny Picture

2005-04-20T00:48:00.000-05:00

A funny look at the new pope.

On A Jab at Nixon

2005-04-19T12:00:00.000-05:00

Richard Nixon has become a convenient bogeyman and commonplace reference for people today--a quick toss-in whenever someone wants to talk about the rottenness of the late 60's and the 70s. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert uses him in much this way when talking about the demise of FDR's radical vision for the United States, a vision that imagined a decent wage, home, and healthcare plan for every American.

Roosevelt's vision gave conservatives in both parties apoplexy in 1944 and it would still drive them crazy today. But the truth is that during the 1950's and 60's the nation made substantial progress toward his wonderfully admirable goals, before the momentum of liberal politics slowed with the war in Vietnam and the election in 1968 of Richard Nixon.

In college, I had the chance to take a class on Nixon's "rhetorical presidency" with Lee Huebner, a former Nixon speech-writer. Admittedly, the class offered a much rosier portrait of Nixon than one might expect--it emphazed the contradictions and tensions of Nixon's personality and times, rather than simply painting broad and dark strokes about a bitter and evil man.

One thing that I remember--because it stood out sharply, given my initial impression of the man--was that Nixon, on domestic issues, was pretty liberal. In fact, liberal journalist of the era, Tom Wicker, later wrote a biography-of-sorts about Nixon called, One of Us, a striking tribute to a man the press seemed to love to hate.

Wicker was able to call Nixon "one of them" because Nixon instituted and argued for some rather progressive domestic policies throughout his administration. However nasty the "Southern Strategy," he did allow the schools to become integrated, he worked to establish the EPA, and would have, with Senate approval, instituted a minimum family income. Look at what Robert Asen has to say about this Nixon proposal:

The expansionist era may have reached its apex on the night of August 8, 1969, when President Richard M. Nixon, in a televised address to the nation, introduced Americans to his Family Assistance Plan (FAP). Passed by a comfortable margin in the House of Representatives (243 to 155), the FAP died in the Senate Finance Committee. Had it been enacted, the FAP might have been regarded by subsequent commentators as one of the most progressive pieces of social welfare legislation in American history. The FAP would have offered poor families a minimum income guarantee. It would have expanded incentives for recipients to seek paid employment while retaining a portion of their monthly cash grants. The FAP would have increased federal welfare spending and added new recipients to the rolls, and it would have created greater equality in monthly grant amounts across different regions of the country. Most importantly, the FAP may have blurred disabling and divisive distinctions between the welfare and working poor. These distinctions have enabled public policy appeals from advocates asserting an allegiance to the "working man" by contrasting his situation with the luxurious life of welfare.

This hardly sounds like a barrier thwarting "liberal momentum" or the dismantling of FDR's legacy! What is Herbert talking about? I think he's just too easily slipping into that sloppy habit of conjuring rotten ole' Nixon to kick around.

On A Lovely Expression from a Former President

2005-04-19T11:29:00.000-05:00

At times, President Clinton can really turn a phrase. This AP article in the New York Times describes a beautiful moment from Clinton's speech at today's memorial service for the Oklahoma City Bombing:

Clinton got a chuckle when he mentioned the Survivor Tree, the elm that was heavily damaged in the bombing and is now a leafy green reminder of it.

''Boy, that tree was ugly when I first saw it (in 1995), but survive it did,'' Clinton said.

''Trees are good symbols for what you did. You can't forget the past of a tree. It's in the roots, and if you lose the roots you lose the tree. But the nature of the tree is to always reach for tomorrow. It's in the branches.''

By making the gentle humorous observation, Clinton smoothly unites everyone in the audience by making them laugh together. In quick fashion, Clinton then deftly merges the spatial with the temporal--"roots," "branches," "past," and "tomorrow."

This is just what a good memorial speech does: it brings us together to an immediate place and space where we can jointly remember the past in order to allow us to go into and create a better future.

On Congratulations

2005-04-18T19:50:00.000-05:00

A grad student friend and some of the professors in my department just released some interesting research about how some people can change their attitudes towards groups of people by watching TV. I gave one of their surveys to my class for extra credit.

If what they are saying is true, given the significant amount of reruns of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman I've been watching via Netflix, I should have an increasingly accepting attitude towards women, doctors, Native Americans, men torn between Native American culture and the love of a Boston Brahmin, and surly drunks who never seem to do the right thing until the very end of the show.

On Experimentation That Can Occur at the Local Level

2005-04-18T01:22:00.000-05:00

The Dallas Morning News has an article about a high school's neat cooking program.

This year, seniors opened the Pirate Cove Cafe, a nautical-themed hideaway known for its intimate ambience and cheap yet adventurous specials. Lunch is served to staff members and the public at the hot spot tucked between math and science classrooms.

Unfortunately, the article doesn't let us know what some of these "adventurous" specials are. I would have liked some more details. What it does let us know, however, is the adventures some high schools are having in trying out new ideas for educating and training students.

The Wylie restaurant is one of several student-run enterprises sprouting up statewide as ties between schools and restaurateurs tighten and food-related class offerings go far beyond family and consumer science (the updated version of home economics).

On a broader, socio-level, some might critique the program for just training kids to be near-minimum-wage working cogs in the resturant-industry. But, on the other hand, it sounds like a good idea to give kids some real-world experiences and responsibilities that will keep them excited about school and actively learning and trying new things. Plus, it seems to be having some good effects:

For Anthony Moore, a senior at Wylie High School, the restaurant experience has solidified his career plans. He said he has no desire to sit behind a desk all day when he enters the workforce and hopes to earn a scholarship to attend culinary school next year.

The only downside is that other school kids are not allowed to eat the food.

Its hours are limited. The cafe is open about every other day depending on the school's class schedule. It is open to the public but is not exactly in a prime location for foot traffic, and it largely relies on word of mouth to attract outsiders. (The cafe is not open to students who are not enrolled in culinary arts.) Still, the place is plenty busy.

There must be some sort of silly regulation that prevents students from eating purchased food from anywhere other than the official school cafeteria. That's too bad. With this neat experimental program, it seems like letting the student-chefs' student peers sample and patronize the cafe would be an even better way to cement the program and make it a vibrant part of the school and the community. I think that if schools are going to be given some leeway in trying out new programs, the local school regulations related to the programs should be a little more relaxed so that the experiment could take on even more dimensions.

On Calling Evoking the Holy Spirit a Device

2005-04-17T17:19:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post, reporting on the Conclave, examines the statements some of the Cardinals are making regarding the selection of the next Pope. Here's one with the reporter's analysis:

Before going into Vatican City, Honduras' Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga told reporters, "People think we are going to vote like in an election, but this is something completely different. We are going to listen to the Lord and listen to the Holy Spirit." Arinze, Antonelli and Rodriguez have all been touted as papal possibilities.

The evocation of the Holy Spirit is a common device for cardinals when they need to avoid specifics of decision-making inside the Sistine Chapel. The histories of conclaves in the last half of the 20th century show marked similarities with the formation of governments in fractured parliaments. Passions run high, personalities count, quick thinking can make or break a candidacy.

Yikes! For all we know, this Cardinal actually believed that the next Pope has already been selected by God and will be revealed through the Holy Spirit.

When does something that people do become a device and when is it just something that people do? In this case, it must be when the selection of a Pope has become big news and hundreds--maybe thousands--of reporters who don't typically report on religious issues are forced to translate this fairly mysterious religious event into something more easily understood by a non-Cardinal audience.

If it is okay to include religion in public life (and I know that this isn't necessarily a good example, of course) and this inclusion means that we have to translate religious "things" into more secular terms, how can we do it in a way that does justice to the religion? I wonder if we can do it by just acknowledging--as we do it--that the translation will be lousy, but that it's the best that we can do.

On eBay's Marketplace

2005-04-16T15:50:00.000-05:00

Apparantly, someone on eBay was auctioning off a supposed Host consecrated at one of Pope John Paull II's 1998 Masses.

Some, like Verity at Southern Appeal and the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights argue that this type of sale should be prohibited by eBay, given that Catholics are offended by the sale of what, in the words of the Catholic League, is considered to be, "the center of [their] religion, worthy of the utmost reverence." EBay, according to the League, refused to stop the sale:

The Community Watch Team of eBay’s Trust & Safety division said that ‘even though these auctions may be offensive to some, please remember that most of the time the law does not prohibit these items.’

The League responded:

But the law has nothing to do with this issue: lots of things are legal and immoral at the same time.

Yes, the debate appears to about something other than the law.

Some Catholics argue that, regardless of the law, eBay should have stopped the sale because it was offensive to their faith. EBay and others might claim that this is a marketplace that operates within the law and relies on the market to regulate itself.

I'm inclined to sympathize with this latter position. In our society, religious belief and faith is partially established and maintained through an open discussion of religion that allows people to freely choose or act in faith. The Catholic Church is able to proudly and openly exist and convert people of every generation because, in the marketplace of ideas that emerges from our Constitutionally recognized rights, Catholics are able to hear the Church and its doctrines and can openly accept the Church's tenets and values. In the same way, Evangelicals, Muslims, and all the people of all the other faith and belief systems--and maybe some without!--are able to come to express their beliefs and act in their faith. In the process of moving throughout this chaotic and bustling marketplace of ideas, a marketplace filled with all sorts of claims (religious or otherwise), I'm sure folks will come across ideas that they are unwilling or unable to appreciate or attach a particular meaning to. This symbolic and abstract conception of the marketplace of ideas seems to have been made material on eBay, recently. In this instance, then, someone was selling a wafer touched by a dead Pope. Naturally, Catholics were offended that anyone would sell a Eucharist consecrated by Peter's successor.

In the marketplace of ideas, it seems, these folks can hash things out and the rest of us can decide where we stand. If one idea sounds better than the other, well, we'll drink the cream that rises to the top. If it's terrible to sell the Host, we won't buy it and this fellow will close-up shop. Folks can call the seller bad and others can call the seller good. Deliberate! Deliberate! Deliberate! It should all work out in the end.

Now, if the marketplace of ideas actually mirrors a marketplace of goods and services, then eBay should just let this item be auctioned, since it isn't illegal; EBay should just let the market regulate itself. EBay, regrettably, doesn't always act like this, though. It seems that they have a policy that allows them to prohibit "offensive items"--stuff like Nazi patches and helmets, I imagine. This policy, then, allows them to pull off items that might be offensive to a group of people, something that they have done in the past. (The League letter cites at least one silly example.) Given that eBay has decided to place some restrictions on its marketplace and that the selling of the Host offends something like 1.1 billion Catholics worldwide (though, admittedly many lapsed Catholics and folks without the Internet make up this figure) eBay should have stopped the sale. It's good business not offend so many people, after all.

So, as far as I'm concerned, if you're going to hype up your "marketplace" status, then, sell everything that is legally allowable--Nazi caps or Eucharists, the market will correct itself. If you're going to make excpetions, then make one for this case too.

On A Most Ridiculous-Sounding Assertion

2005-04-16T01:17:00.000-05:00

According to a New York Times article about the upcoming selection of the next Pope, there are some who think that Italians are naturally well--and better!--suited for the Papacy.

"There is a vocation, an Italian charisma," said Vittorio Messori, an Italian writer who collaborated on John Paul's 1994 book "Crossing the Threshold of Hope." "The Italians have a tradition of centuries behind them, they know how to do the job of pope, it's in their DNA."

Though I think he's trying to be a little over-the-top here, I still think it's a silly sort of statement to make. Given that one of the central tenets of the Catholic Faith is the immaculate conception--a type of conception that seems to defy our traditional understanding of passing one's DNA on to another--it seems slightly out of place to talk about the appointed head of the Church in these terms.

If Mr. Messori wants to talk about tradition, he might do well to talk about those early Christians who were expected to give up their earthly--read: genetic--families (see Luke 9:57-62) or recall that Saul's conversion hardly seemed genetically encoded in his DNA!

On A President that Tithes

2005-04-15T17:28:00.000-05:00

Every year at taxtime, I read about the president's taxes. After marveling at the thought of earning over $400,000 in investment trusts, I always notice how much the president gives away. President Bush, as much as I recall, has been fairly consistent in his donations: he and his wife give about 10% of their income away:

The couple contributed $77,785 -- about 10 percent of their adjusted gross income -- to churches and charitable organizations. Those included Evergreen Chapel at Camp David, Md., St. John's Church in Washington, the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army World Service Office, AmeriCares, an international relief organization; and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

As Evangelical Christians, the Bushes seem to be giving the 10% of their income that tithing requires. This kind of giving is good. How much better might the world be if everyone gave away 10% of their income to churches or charities rather than interest payments on credit-card balances!

I wonder though, if his contributions to the Salvation Army ever raise questions, given the church's frequently criticized position on homosexuality. Given that President Bush is often criticized for his religious perspective and expressions, I wonder if folks might see a tension between his willingness to privately support groups like the Salvation Army and his public position as president.

On What to Do with School Pools

2005-04-15T16:56:00.000-05:00

The New York Times has an article that examines pools in the city's public schools. Apparantly, a lot of the pools are in a state of disrepair and are no longer being used:

Of the 50 swimming pools tucked inside the city's 1,200 school buildings, 10 are in unusable condition. At Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Manhattan, the pool, empty since leaks and filtration problems were discovered in 1986, has been used over the years to store old chairs and desks. The pool at Walton High School in the Bronx has been closed since the 1980's, despite a $54 million schoolwide renovation. Next to Truman's competitive pool is a smaller practice pool, which is alsoempty, except for grime, spattered paint and a few cigarette butts.

It sounds like a grim scene: decaying pools, memories, and symbols of urban decay. Certainly, this is the pathos appeal that the article frames the story around. Folks are quoted with maudlin voice, waxing on about memories past and forlornly looking at empty deep ends in the present.

"It was gorgeous," recalled Linda Roemer, a 1962 graduate whose memories are only slightly tainted by the unflattering tank suits worn during swim classes. "White tiles and that chlorine blue water. With the sun coming in through the skylights, you could see rainbow effects."

But, really, anything that is closed-up and ignored begins to look sad and invites ideas of rejuvination. This sort of natural cognitite leap doesn't necessarily affirm the appropriateness of funding pool repair.

But, there are folks who are advocating for funding these pools in order to provide kids with a chance to to get some exercise and release some of their stress.

Teachers and principals say that when school pools work, they are oases from whatever troubles may pass in the hallways and classrooms. Tension over test scores and safety concerns dissipates in the smell of chlorine, the creak of diving boards, the splash of the butterfly stroke.

But, like everything else, this repairing of pools will cost money--to the tune of millions of dollars per pool. I think repairing these pools is a frivolous goal. Millions of dollars, if sent to schools, would be much better spent on teacher training, teacher pay, and all of that sort of stuff.

Sure, kids are getting fatter and a pool might encourage exercise, but I suspect that the cure for obesity is not in finding some new--and expensive!--exercise venue so much as it is finding a way to incorporate healthful living in everyday life--slower and less eating, longer walks, and less video games, etc. However nice it would be to go swimming in a school pool, I doubt that students would get to swim everyday for the 45 minutes or so that would produce significant weight-loss. Nor do I think that people fundamentally enjoy exercising more just because they are swimming; sweating is sweating regardless of whether it's washed away with smelly chlorinated water. All these millions would do is create an image of healthy and happy education for the principles and people walking by to see what schools are up to. Getting a chance to swim in PE is probably a fine goal, et ceteris paribus but spending a lot of money so kids can dip their toes in water an hour a week is hardly going to solve anything.

No, take that money and find ways to teach folks how to eat better and incorpote realistic everyday activities in their lives Take that money and train teachers to think critically and teach those critical skills; fund inner-city speech and debate teams, fund inner-city outreach programs, invite more mentors in, provide literacy tutors. At the very least, turn those old, dingy and sad pools into classrooms so we can stop swimming down memory's lane!

On Shrinking

2005-04-14T19:29:00.000-05:00

Using the random blog finder at the top of the blog, I stumbled across this site, Shrinking, that displays pictures of someone who seems to have had one of those stomach-staple surgeries. It's pretty impressive.

On Heavy-Handedness

2005-04-14T16:37:00.000-05:00

Today, the teaching and research assistants working on the University of Minnesota's Minneapolis campus began voting for a proposed TA/RA student union. For the past couple of weeks, the university, through the Office of Human Resources, has been sending out emails to all of us TAs and RAs, telling us about the university's take on the issues and reminding us how important voting was, since only the folks voting would decide whether or not the union would exist. In other words, as the university is fond of putting it: If only 500 graduate students vote, and if bare majority of them support the union, then all 4500 graduate students will be spoken for by this small group of students.

Now, I understand that it might not be in the University administration's interests to have to deal with another union, especially during times of funding-uncertainty, but I didn't think that the university would be so heavy-handed and cloddish in their campaign against the union. Though there haven't been roving gangs of thugs beating up union supporters, the emails TAs and RAs have been receiving are as transparant as they are unsophisticated.

Look at part of an email they sent last week, warning us about union dues:

While the union is eager to proclaim what they will do for you, here is a sample of the approximate annual dues for other unions on campus:

AFSCME (Clerical) $415
LELS (Police) $444
AFSCME (Technical) $445
UEA (Duluth Faculty) $1100

If the United Electrical, Radio, Machine Workers of America were to charge the average of these amounts, the total revenue the union would generate from graduate assistants exceeds $2.7 million dollars a year. By law, the union can require all graduate assistants to pay a fair share fee, which can be up to 85 percent of the regular dues.

What will the Union do with your money? How much of this money will go to their state and national offices? How much will be spent on lobbying on behalf of electrical, radio, and machine workers? These are questions that all graduate assistants have a right to ask before casting a ballot, especially when this union is already meeting to plan your future, but refusing to let you participate unless you are a union supporter.

Though the union-that-might-be has expressed a set of goals that would involve negotiating salary increases and healthcare benefits, I think proclaim is a little much, in how it conjures up images of dirty socialists standing atop wooden crates with voice-trumpets excreting calls for anarchy. No, by and large, this has been a quiet campaign, one almost bereft of public debate (an aspect I naturally find unsettling since the union would ostensibly be speaking for all TAs and RAs on campus). And even if there is a literal sense in which the union has proclaimed--letting known in public what its goals are--the word seems rather charged, relative to the typically bland and technical language university letters and emails generally employ.

What's even sillier, though, is the "sample" the university offers in order to warn students of out-of-control union dues. This might be a demonstration of "how numbers lie."

Look at the comparison: clerical workers, police, technicians, and faculty members on Duluth's campus. Are graduate students roughly analogous to any of these groups? I don't think so. Not in respect to either duties or income, at least. From what I've been told, union dues are a percentage of our incomes. And, since most of us make, on average (oh, how tricky these are!) around $10,500 annually, it seems highly improbably that we would be paying the same amount of dues as folks earning three to six times as much as we do. Also, from what I understand, the graduate student union expects to charge $15 a month for dues. Multiplied by 12 months, graduate union members would be paying about $180 annually. Naturally, I have no way of confirming these claims, except to repeat what the union reps told me. But, regardless of my own uncertainty about these facts, the university could have done the reasonable thing and compared our future dues with those of comparable unions--perhaps student unions at other public universities?

And look at the averaging move they made! Even I know, with my paltry math background, that the problem with averaging is that it tends to skew data if there is a significant disparity between the items being sampled. So, if there were 100 people in the sample, and one person made a million dollars annually while the other 99 made $10000 annually, then, on average, everyone would make $19900 annually (or twice what 99% of the people were actually making)! Given that the university has included faculty members of Duluth and their $1100 dues in its calculations, the graduate student union might expect to pay $601 annually--about $200 more than three-out-of-the-four unions sampled. Unions that, to begin with, are arguably not representative of graduate students anyway!

How frustrating that the university has decided to use such strained numbers! If the university doesn't think we'll take these numbers seriously, then they are just silly and churlish in their use of useless statistics. But, if the university actually thinks that some of us will be swayed by these figures, how little does that mean they think of us?

Update: Welcome, Carnival of Education Readers! Just to let you all know, the election results are in, and the union proposal was defeated. I just hope it wasn't because of those emails.

On an Editorial About the Walker Art Center

2005-04-14T11:57:00.000-05:00

The Walker Art Center, a museum for contemporary art, is reopening after about a year of extensive remodeling and expansion. The Minnesota Daily has a positive editorial about it's re-opening, but offers a warning, as well:

But if the center can offer reasonable prices that allow anyone to peruse its revamped galleries and attend performances, it has the potential to become a social center in the Twin Cities. Too often centers of art become elitist institutions because of costs. Sadly, elitism in the field of art is self suffocating. Art centers become intimidating and as unapproachable as the mysterious mansion on the hill and the exchange between the public and the arts institutions becomes stale. Nobody wants an arts center that seems to be dying of gangrene, a lack of new blood.

I think that contemporary art is "self-suffacating," regardless of the costs involved in viewing and/or participating in it. From what I understand, contemporary art seems to be alot about conversations with other artists about very subtle and not too terribly obvious things--sometimes about the producing and production of art.

This is probably no new thing, of course. I'm sure that Matisse was saying lots of things to Monet with his paintings. But, I bet there is a difference between the folks 100 years ago who looked at those paintings and the folks who look at contemporary art. I can't imagine folks in the past looking at lillies or people next to a river remarking: "What the hell is that!?" I'm sure most people said, "Ahh, a picture of lillies or people next to a river."

Today, however, it seems like a pretty commonplace thing for most folks to say, "I don't get it, this is art?" whenever they see contemporary art. And it's not because contemporary art is fundamentally inscrutable, so much as the art requires a lot of prior knowledge and art-literacy to appreciate. Which might be pretty fine, too, I suppose.

I just think it's a little silly to assume that cost is the biggest thing preventing most people from visiting a contemporary art gallery. Even if the museum had free admission, I suspect that most folks wouldn't go, or derive a whole lot of pleasure from it if they did.(Apart from saying, "There! I visited a gallery.") And I should know; I lived right across the street from the center for a year before its remodeling, and I never visited--even on Thursdays when the center had free admission!

Update: Oops! I didn't mean Matisse and Monet, I meant Monet and Manet.

On A Reminder That I am in Minnesota

2005-04-14T11:42:00.000-05:00

From today's Minnesota Daily:

Representatives from 10 St. Paul campus student organizations competed in the Milkmaid Competition, a contest to see who could get the most milk in 30 seconds.

The milking was performed to popular songs whose lyrics were rewritten by students to reference agriculture and milking cows.

Participants parodied artists such as the Steve Miller Band, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Tobey Keith and the Baha Men and were awarded points for the best song and costumes.

There must be something neat about the incongruent blending of the traditional and old-fashioned milking contest with today's music. Of course, now that I think about it, both activities, taken separately, share a common goal: milking as much as you can as quickly as possible to the beat of a good rythm. The only difference, I suppose, is who gets to be the cow.

On the Washington Post's Implicit Position on Abortion

2005-04-14T08:05:00.000-05:00

Many consider the Washington Post a member of the "liberal media," filled with politically biased folks who, though perhaps not consciously, frame their stories with the same liberal perspective that they view the world with. They may be right. But, I have found at least one reporter for the Post who seems to sit on the right's side of the cultural wars, one that affirms the "culture of life" by recognizing life occurs in the womb--a concession that might be said to lead one to an anti-abortion position. Here's my proof. Look at how Amy Argetsinger describes Teresa Anderson, a surrogate-mother-to-be of quintuplets:

"It is something more than I had planned for," said Anderson, a tall, vivacious woman with blond-streaked hair. "But it's what I chose."

Look at that, Anderson is vivacious, a term commonly understood to mean: full of life. Now, given that this woman is about to have five babies and that this article is about that, isn't it likely that the life referred to, in this context, is the life of the babies in her belly? If so, isn't it safe to say that there is at least one cultural conservative reporter for the Post?

I think so.

On Asking but Not Recieving

2005-04-13T22:44:00.000-05:00

Apparantly, the White House website has an "online interactive forum where you can submit questions to Administration officials and friends of the White House," called Ask. Friends of the White House? Would the National Archives be one of them? Do checks and balances prevent the Capitol and Supreme Court Building from getting too chummy? Will archealogists from the future dig up the White House cornerstone and discover an etching from the Smithsonian, signed, "BFF [Best Friends Forever], Smithy"?

Or, maybe "White House" is just a type of metonymy, representing the president and the executive branch.

Regardless of my momentary confusion, I thought I would take a look at what the most recent Ask session brought. U.S. Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales was charged with fielding questions this time around and did he get some doozies! Look at this one:

Teresa, from Middleburg, VA writes:
Mr. Gonzales, how has your role in serving the President changed from being his lawyer to being his Attorney General? Thank you for your time

Alberto R. Gonzales
Good question, Teresa. My role has indeed changed since being confirmed as Attorney General. While I was Counsel to the President I served as the President’s lawyer. As Attorney General my primary allegiance is now to the Constitution and the American people.

Since the President has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and represent the American people as well, I hope that Gonzales new role won't put him at odds too much with his previous one! Here's another Q & A:

Chris, from Connecticut writes:
Attorney General Gonzales,I feel like I hear so many different sides of the Patriot Act. Could you please tell me exactly what it is, why we have it, and when it was enacted?

Thank you for the facts.

Alberto R. Gonzales
Thanks for your question, Chris. The Patriot Act was enacted with great care and overwhelming bipartisan support in October of 2001. The act provides law enforcement and intelligence investigations with additional necessary tools to protect America.

That was a pretty short answer; I don't think it really gave too much attention and nuance to the question. In fact (since Attorney General Gonzales is giving them out today), I think that maybe this answer--and maybe the whole forum--is somewhat ridiculous. I understand that the White House's website is not going to have anything on it that directly criticizes the president. But, can't they just leave this sort of stuff out altogether? It seems a little unseemly for the chief executive's website to have such softball sections pretending to be more than what they are.

Of course, it's not only the administration that can be criticized. Look at what one of us asked:

Rick, from Worcester, Mass writes:
Sir, Congratulations on your confirmation. Despite the cries of those who are opposed to the Patriot Act, I do not know anyone who has been affected by it in a negative manner. What would you say to those who irrationally oppose this Act?

It seems that Rick has been a little irrational himself (if you define irrational as not being logical). After all, he seems to be implying that the Act isn't all that bad or hasn't negatively impacted folks. That's fine, but he might be overstressing his own personal experience in order to provide evidence for his claim. Is it possible that even though Rick doesn't know anyone who has been "affected in a negative manner," that there are still people out there being so affected? How do we know that Rick isn't some sorta hermit who doesn't know anyone?

On Correlation Not Equalling Causation

2005-04-12T18:33:00.000-05:00

In response to Andrea Dworkin's death, a few grad students and I had a brief discussion about Dworkin, her ideas, and her death. One of my friends mentioned that when he was studying at another school he had his argumentation class read some of Dworkin's Intercourse to see what they thought about her arguments regarding sex. He mentioned the class had some football players who reacted skeptically to Dworkin's claims. He also mentioned--by way of ironic aside--that five weeks after reading Dworkin, one of the football players was arrested and charged with committing rape.

After hearing this, I was reminded of a passage I had just read over at University Diaries:

Dworkin published prolifically, in heat and in haste. She padded out her books with long paraphrases and descriptions of the most violent pornography she could find. When people began to intuit the desperation of her worldview, she and her supporters had to stammer and back up so that her rage calmed down into something anyone else could share.

Why then did so many people read her? Because it’s rousing in a voyeuristic way to read an absolute fanatic. Because Dworkin, as I say, paraphrased very extensively -- page after page of it -- from the most violent of pornography. UD believes that Dworkin’s books probably brought more people to pornography -- and to an unusually violent level of pornography -- than took them away from it.

Was it possible that, after reading Dworkin and all her graphic discussion of violence and sex, the football player was compelled to rape someone?

On an Ad Populum Fallacy

2005-04-11T20:17:00.000-05:00

Michael Tomasky, from the American Prospect, argues that President Bush is objectively the least popular president in history.

A Gallup-CNN-USA Today poll at the end of last week found that 50 percent of American adults now believe that the Bush administration “deliberately misled” them about why we had to go to war in Iraq.

[...]

Combine this finding with other recent polls putting Bush’s approval rating at 44 or 45 percent, which is the lowest of any sitting two-term president at this point in his tenure in decades. Bush is objectively and without question one of the most unpopular presidents of the last 80 years: Herbert Hoover after the Depression; Truman after Korea; Richard Nixon after Watergate; Jimmy Carter after Iran. Bush is right there with them.

And yet: Why do I suspect that if you asked Washington’s top 100 agenda-setting journalists -- Tim Russert, George Will, Tom Friedman, etc. etc. -- whether Bush deliberately misled us into war, no more than about 15 or 20 of them would acknowledge what the half the American public sees clearly? Why do I still hear some of these bigfoots speak emphatically of a "popular wartime president"?

This strikes me as being an ad populum fallacy. Logically, having half the population believing that the Bush administration lied about the war (assuming that Bush, the president, equals the "Bush administration"--something that might not be said about Reagan and the Reagan administration!) does not necessarily mean that the Bush administration did lie. What about the other half of the population that doesn't claim to believe that the Bush administration "deliberately misled" them? It seems to me, in this particular binary situation, that either half of the country could be wrong or right. But, if 75-80% of the media elite--experts, some might say--won't say the President "deliberately misled" us, might it be the case that the President didn't?

Regardless, if the point is more about how the media elite doesn't recognize President Bush's low popularity numbers and reflect that unpopularity in their coverage, as the last quoted sentence and rest of the article seems to imply, why bring up this business about the deception-poll at all? Why not just quote the recent polls (which, he never cites!) that say the president isn't popular and then point out that the media elite doesn't act like he's unpopular?

One more question about Mr. Tomasky's argument. Since he seems to have elided percieved dishonesty and the President's low popularity numbers, I wonder if it is logically-sound to assume that a president cannot be both popular and a percieved liar?

On the Significance of Land

2005-04-11T17:22:00.000-05:00

Usually, the opening lines for President Bush's everyday speeches are pretty boilerplate: "Thanks for having me come here and speak with you all ... Laura says hello ... I married up ..." etc. Today's address, however, seemed to have an introduction more hefty than usual, given that Isreal's Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, was standing next to him:

Mr. Prime Minister, welcome to my home. Appreciate you coming. I appreciate our meeting. I'm looking forward to serving you some good food for lunch. Most importantly, I'm looking forward to driving you around the ranch - I want you to see my place. I know you love the land. The Prime Minister was telling me he's really a farmer at heart, and I look forward to sharing with my friend what life is like here in Central Texas. So, welcome. He invited me to his place one day, in Israel, and it's something that I look forward to doing, as well.

If much of Jewish history can be interpreted as the Jewish people's search for a homeland, then President's Bush's emphasis on land and home is not as trite or vaguely braggartly as it first seemed. Instead, it might serve to underscore the importance of place--of having your own home.

Reading more of the text, I was struck by how very much physical, land-based, language was used:

Prime Minister Sharon is showing strong visionary leadership by taking difficult steps to improve the lives of people across the Middle East -- and I want to thank you for your leadership.

By working together, Israelis and Palestinians can lay the groundwork for a peaceful transition.

The United States will continue working with the international community to help Palestinians develop democratic political institutions, build security institutions dedicated to maintaining law and order, and dismantling terrorist organizations, reconstruct civic institutions, and promote a free and prosperous economy.

I remain strongly committed to the vision of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. The Prime Minister and I reaffirmed our commitment to that vision and to the road map as the only way forward to realize it.

The United States is working with Palestinians and Israelis to improve security on the ground.

How fitting that much of the president's language lines up with the central concern of the Middle Eastern situation: land. Of course, it might be that the problem exists because he and everyone else talks about it that way! I wonder how the Palestinian leaders--the unlanded ones--talk. Do they use even more land-language, or less, because they got so little of it?

On A Horrible Sounding British Colloquialism

2005-04-11T16:32:00.000-05:00

In the course of finding out how to do Paris on the cheap, I came across a pretty ugly looking and sounding word:

First stop: the Louvre, (33-1) 40.20.50.50, where on Fridays after 6 p.m. admission is 6 euros ($7.80), down from the usual 8.5, and free for anyone 26 and under. So we saw the museum's treasures - the Rembrandt portraits, the two Michelangelo "Slaves," the Botticelli frescos - in the company of young people from around the world. Most were pursuing the art, some the art of sexual pursuit. The shadows gathering in the Marly Court of French sculpture made it a particularly popular snogging spot.

"Snogging"!? That sounds more like some maritime punishment than a British slang for cuddling and kissing.

And why is the New York Times using British slang anyway? Couldn't canoodling have done just as good and descriptive and American a job? As it's written, the word comes across to this American reader as pretty jarring. Of course, for some, it might be just as jarring to be looking at art only to stumble across some strangers snogging. So, maybe the word works after all.

On Multiple Meanings of a Word

2005-04-11T13:43:00.000-05:00

A funny little word in an article about "man-dates":

Simply defined a man date is two heterosexual men socializing without the crutch of business or sports. It is two guys meeting for the kind of outing a straight man might reasonably arrange with a woman. Dining together across a table without the aid of a television is a man date; eating at a bar is not. Taking a walk in the park together is a man date; going for a jog is not. Attending the movie "Friday Night Lights" is a man date, but going to see the Jets play is definitely not.

Is outing the right word for this context, given the pains the straight men in this article go to, in order to carve out a non-homosexual-perceived space for themselves?

On A New Approach to Newspapering

2005-04-11T13:29:00.000-05:00

I don't know whether this will solve the problem of decreasing newspaper circulation, but it seems like it would increase a sense of connection between a newspaper and its readers (hardcopy readers and/or internet).

At the Greensboro News & Record's Web site, registered users can submit their own stories by clicking on a link. An editor gathers submissions, makes a few small edits, then publishes the articles online -- sometimes within hours. Among recent stories written by readers: a feature on an upcoming cotton-mill convention and a primer on Social-Security reform.

How is it different from a message board or a blog? Well, it taps into the respect and credibility that mainstream media outlets have. So, it simultaneously relies on and reworks (potentially, at least) the institution. Isn't this how innovation works?

On Another Way to View a Nazi

2005-04-11T13:15:00.000-05:00

Outside the Beltway provides some evidence for the claim: We shouldn't make too big a hero out of a Nazi. And, while we're at it, some more evidence.

On the Use of Appalachia

2005-04-11T12:00:00.000-05:00

PBS is offering what looks to be a pretty interesting documentary about Appalachia. That got me thinking about how often I hear about the place--not very. In fact, the only time I really here it mentioned is when people are talking about the sociology of poverty, or something like that, and don't want to talk exlusively about urban or black poverty, preffering to throw in some poor white people too.

So, you'll be talking about institutional or sociological pressures that create poverty and you'll hear something like, "poor people from Harlem or Watts or Appalachia," and you'll wonder, "Wow, where did that come from?" Or, you'll be talking about how awful poverty is and you'll bring up the aching poorness of mountain Tennesee or Kentucky and you'll recall all of those WPA black-and-white pictures of barefoot little girls with coal smudges on their faces looking blankly at some camera.

I know it's all grim, but I wonder how related the poverty is. Is poor-is-poor-is-poor? Or, is there a difference in degree or causality about poverty in Watts and Appalachia? If we just throw in that last bit about Appalachia, are we doing it as some form of off-the-cuff, let's be inclusive about how we talk about "the Poor?" Or, are some folks displaying some sort of soft-conscious white-backlash--letting people know that poverty isn't all about African Americans? Or, do we really mean to remind ourselves that poverty is very broad and widely diffused throughout society's various geographies? Depending on what question we answer and how we do it, I would suggest that we might just be using Appalachia and its imagined (in the sense that we are just imagining what that kind of poverty is like) poverty for our own momentary linguistic or argumentative purposes.

On An Op-Ed On Labels

2005-04-11T11:14:00.000-05:00

The LA Times has a nice op-ed piece by Geoffrey Nunberg that talks about the large and broad signification that comes with labels like "Conservative" or "Liberal." Mr. Nunberg points out that we don't refer to a person's "philosophy of government" as much as we used to when we call someone a conservative or liberal.

More important still, we no longer think of liberals and conservatives merely as adherents of different "schools of political belief," in the way we might talk about devotees of supply-side and demand-side as disciples of two economic schools. Now the categories go much deeper — to lifestyle, values and even traits of character.

The shift in perceptions began with the onset of the culture wars in the 1970s, when the right began to depict liberals as elitists out of touch with "mainstream values." That was also when consumer preferences started standing in for ideological characterizations. Liberals were tarred in a kind of guilt by brand association, as Volvo-driving, brie-eating, Chardonnay-sipping snobs — the "libs," as Rush Limbaugh calls them.

This sort of identity-shorthand seems heightened, given the increasingly commonplace usage use of "red state" and "blue state." This type of distinction adds a spatial distinction to our identity, a distinction that allows us to speak of ourselves as members of ideological states, and one that create its own set of expats and diaspora. This is probably nothing new, in as much as we've always thought that city people were different from country folk. The heavy use of these labels that stand in for so much however, seems to be what's new and problematic, allowing us to name ourselves and thus draw incredible distinctions.

I wonder what the implication for public deliberation is? At some earlier point, when the labels we commonly used would refer back to some "philosophy of governance," labels might have been useful for debate; we'd know the outlines of the debate and the evidence we'd employ based on the other person's willingness to identify with FDR's party or Herbert Hoover's. With labels meaning much, much, more and signifying who we are, it seems harder to debate each other on matters of individual policies. Instead, it seems like we're just debating each other. An attack on a position is quickly broadened to become an attack on the position's holder. Suddenly, discussion is a string of ad hominems and I wonder what sort of public compromise and policy can emerge from that, given folks' identities are now at stake. It's a lot easier to concede on a single issue than it is to concede on our principles, values, and personal identity.

On Using Medical Descriptions

2005-04-11T10:42:00.000-05:00

In a New York Times article about New York's troubled hospital sector:

Twelve New York hospitals have closed in the last 27 months, and others have shut wings, wards and clinics. The industry as a whole has lost money five years in a row in New York, while turning a profit nationally each year. Even some of New York's biggest, most sophisticated teaching hospitals, like Mount Sinai and St. Vincent's in Manhattan, have been hemorrhaging money. Just last week, county officials scrambled to assemble a cash infusion for Westchester Medical Center.

Though a little cute, I wonder if analogy language like this only maintains the flawed and failing perspectives and policies regarding hospitals and the city's medical system. Don't concieve of the hospitals as patients if there's a need for a solution to a problem centered on how to deal with patients. If the old way isn't working well, then perhaps folks need to develop a different set of lenses and words to view and discuss the system.

On Another Springtime Stroll

2005-04-10T16:21:00.000-05:00

Saturday brought another nice day, so I decided to take a trip downtown with my camera.

On my way to the bus-stop, I passed a neighbor's house. This is one of her dogs. Everytime I walk past, this dog and another come to the edge of the lawn and bark ferociously at me. If it wasn't for the invisible fence, I sometimes imagine they would bite my head off. I used to think that, over time, the dogs would learn that I wasn't a threat to them or their owners and would give up their barking in favor of playful yapping and good natured jumping. I am beginning to think that they'll always bark at me like I was some shifty type. I wonder if those dogs know about self-fulfilling prophecies?

I think this is my favorite house, it reminds me of some colonial-era house, filled with spiced cider and Thomas Paine pamphlets. Look at how the chimney blends in with the tree.

A noteworthy fence.

Here's my bus stop.

This is the funeral home directly across from my stop. Everytime I wait for the bus, I feel as if I'm waiting for death.

"Nick's Barber Shop" What an odd name for a business based on scissors and cutting.

After stepping off the bus and entering Minneapolis proper, I saw this family whose awed expressions and conversation implied that the kids had never been into the city before. From the looks of their shirts, it seems that they come from a small town named Culpepper.

Here's the IDS Building. It's a fairly significant building for the city. When it was built back in the late 60s or early 70s, it was the first really big and modern skyscraper the city had, and it dramatically altered the skyline. Prior to that, the tallest building was the Foshay Tower, the little-looking building to the back-left of the IDS Building.

In the IDS Building's lobby is a waterfall. Look at that: falling water in a rising building.

Another picture inside the IDS Building's lobby. Where's the center? It reminds me of some T.S. Eliot poem.

On The President's Radio Address on the Pope

2005-04-09T17:01:00.000-05:00

I'm interested in how public figures talk religiously, how they include--or exclude--their faith and religious perspectives in their everyday arguments about everyday matters of public concern. When it comes up, I also like to look at how public folks talk about religious things. Given the recent death of the Pope, there's been a lot of things to pay attention to. How does someone like President Bush, representing the religiously diverse United States and being compelled to talk about this prominent religious leader, talk about the Pope?

Since this week's radio address was all about the Pope, I thought I would take a peek at what that our protestant President had to say to all of us about the Catholic Pope.

Good morning. This week I have been in Rome to attend the funeral mass of Pope John Paul II. The ceremonies were a powerful and moving reminder of the profound impact this Pope had on our world. And on behalf of America, Laura and I were honored to pay tribute to this good and holy man.

The president, though acknowledging the Pope's "holiness" seems content to cast the Pope in terms of his effect on the world, rather than his religious identity--even though I suspect that you couldn't have had all the effect without his religion.

During nearly three decades on the Chair of St. Peter, this Pope brought the gospel's message of hope and love and freedom to the far corners of the Earth. And over this past week, millions of people across the world returned the Pope's gift with a tremendous outpouring of affection that transcended differences of nationality, language and religion.

This part of the text seems more overt in its "religiosity," explicating the "gospel's message" for listeners. But, the message is described in fairly universal terms and, through the actions of millions, the message has "transcended" its own religiousness by dramatically reaching and affecting many different folks. Given President Bush's own willingness to underscore the Pope's "historical" influence and persona, though, I wonder how much of this positive public response came from the gospel's message and how much of it was just directed at a man who helped stare down Communism.

But, regardless of his explication of the "gospel's message" and his analysis of its effects, President Bush offers a very nice passage that iconistically represents the transcendant quality of the Pope and his life. Look at how one Pope, sitting in one chair, is able to reach "far corners of the world." And, look at how the paragraph's active agents move from the solitary Pope to millions of people. People who, in turn, make the message even broader and more transcendant. Nicely done. With language and structure like that, I guess all people, regardless of their faith or non-faith, will be brought along with the President in honoring this religious figure.

The call to freedom that defined his papacy was forged in the experiences of Pope John Paul's own life. He came to manhood during the Nazi occupation of his beloved Poland, when he eluded the Gestapo to attend an underground seminary. Later, when he was named Poland's youngest bishop, he came face to face with the other great totalitarianism of the 20th century: Communism. And soon he taught the communist rulers in Warsaw and Moscow that moral truth had legions of its own and a force greater than their armies and secret police.

But, in case folks get a little nervous about all of this religious stuff, Bush defines the Pope's life in very human, and fairly secular terms. The Pope's legacy is rooted in the universal "call to freedom," his life seemed marked by physical struggles that responded to physical forces ("forged," "manhood," "eluded," face to face," etc), and his message was about "moral" truths--a type of truth that includes "religious truths" but not to the exclusion of non-religious ones.

Later on, President Bush offers perhaps the most overtly religious passage in the text:

Everywhere he went, the Pope preached that the call of freedom is for every member of the human family because the Author of Life wrote it into our common human nature.

Though it might be possible to read Bush's other statements in fairly ecumenical and universal ways, it seems hard to read this passage as applicable to anyone but believers. Perhaps this is a point where Bush speaks more as a believer than a representative of all Americans.

In short order, however, President Bush makes the Pope very applicable to all folks in the United States:

The Pope held a special affection for America. During his many visits to our country, he spoke of our providential Constitution, the self-evident truths about human dignity enshrined in our Declaration, and the blessings of liberty that followed from them. It is these timeless truths about man, enshrined in our founding, the Pope said, that have led freedom-loving people around the world to look to America with hope and respect. And he challenged America always to live up to its lofty calling. The Pope taught us that the foundation for human freedom is a universal respect for human dignity. On all his travels, John Paul preached that even the least among us bears the image of our Creator, so we must work for a society where the most vulnerable among us have the greatest claim on our protection.

Despite some criticism from the Pope in the recent years about the War in Iraq and the increasing commercialization and commodification of our society (Europe's too, of course!), the Pope seems in this secyion to tacitly support the concept of American Exceptionalism. If that's the case, it's probably a lot harder for Americans, regardless of their faith, to get too worked up about honoring a man who so honored us!

And by his own courageous example in the face of illness and suffering, he showed us the path to a culture of life where the dignity of every human person is respected, and human life at all its stages is revered and treasured.

Aha! Here is a passage that seems to argue for a "culture of life"--a very religious-conservative thing to argue for. But, rather than citing any religious support, Bush elides everything like Bible passages and quotes from Augustine with this fairly universally applicable image of a courageous, moral--and not particularly religious seeeming--Pope. Is this sneaky of Bush? I don't know. It does seem to work structurally, though, given the rest of the text.

And finally, one more nice passage that gets some good movement in:

As the Pope grew physically weaker, his spiritual bond with young people grew stronger. They flocked to him in his final moments, gathering outside his window to pray and sing hymns and light candles. With them, we honor this son of Poland who became the Bishop of Rome, and a hero for the ages.

I like the transition from son, to Bishop, to hero. It goes nicely with the spatial-temporal transformation that moves us from Poland to Rome to "the ages."

On Stepping into Spring with a Spring in My Step

2005-04-08T20:35:00.000-05:00

Convinced that today was one of those perfect spring days I would regret letting slip away if I didn't get out and take a long walk, I took a walk. And, I took a camera along.

I said goodbye to the house.

Look closely at this house I passed. Can you see the contrast between Spring's open windows and Winter's Chrsitmas lights? What you can't see, however, is a red truck behind me, driven by the house's owner who was somewhat miffed at my decision to photograph his house. After a rough, but brief, questioning he let me go on my way without having me erase my pictures. I guess I shouldn't be such a smart ass about seeing contrasts in others.

No flag at half-staff for the Pope in front of this city hall--even though it's Saint Anthony's city hall!

I thought I would take a seat in the bus stop to see what would pass by.

There! I wasn't sitting for more than a minute before a popcorn cart on a trailer went by.

Two buses raced by too.

On the other side of the tracks is a brand new Wal-Mart. I bet that when it was being built, some folks thought that it would make its side of the tracks, the wrong side of the tracks.

While they were building the Wal-Mart, they would have done well to build some bike racks too.

I think it's a little lame that Cub Foods Grocery has painted cookie ads on children's carts.

On the Colors of Compassion Coming Out of the Blue

2005-04-08T19:15:00.000-05:00

A North Dakota woman of 19 has been charged with stealing puppies and dyeing them blue and purple:

Police said she stole the dogs on two different occasions in January and February, putting the puppies in her backpack and leaving without paying.

Hoffart [the puppy purloiner] told police she took the dogs because she felt sorry for them. She used nontoxic hair dye to color the dogs' fur because she wanted to make them more unique, police said.

I think she succeeded at making them more unique, but think she failed to make them any less pathetic; you can't help but say, "Oh, those poor things, getting stained like that at the hands of some nutjob." But, then you smile. After all, it's not like she was making a puppy fur coat or anything like that.

On A Quirky Name

2005-04-08T15:07:00.000-05:00

I appreciate the name of the sick cardinal whose illness prevents him from voting for a new pope: Cardinal Sin. I also hope he feels better and makes it up to the Vatican!

On Which of these Things Does not Belong Here and on What Does

2005-04-08T14:24:00.000-05:00

On his way back to the United States after attending the Pope's funeral, President Bush offered a few remarks about his trip to the Vatican. In an apparent defense of his decision to attend the ceremony, Bush declares that there was never a question that he would attend and that many leaders of the US Catholic Church were glad he did.

Last night we hosted a reception at the embassy for many of the leaders of the Catholic Church at home, and they were very grateful that I came, and Laura came, and Dad came, and President Clinton came, and Condi came, as well as others. And I told them, to a person, that it's such an honor to represent our country at a ceremony honoring a truly great man who is and will always be a great historical figure.

I guess it wouldn't be hard to pick out the person who stands out in this crowd. Granted, it would have been ridiculous for President Bush to call him Bill, but I wonder if it might have sounded smoother if Bush had started or finished his list with President Clinton.

Plus, recognizing that these are comments likely to be more off-the-cuff than usual, I would still point out that the Pope will be a religious figure as much or more than an "historical" one. What a silly phrase, "historical figure," and what an even sillier way to sanitize the Pope's Catholic identity. Bush sounds down right Kennedy-like here, dodging the whole "religious issue." Is there that big a concern that the Church/State division will be breached if the president admits, out loud, that the Pope was a religious leader? Of course he was historic. But, his position in history stems largely from his role as a religious leader, a position the Pope was willing and able to use, along with his Church's moral standards and traditions, to work within and without the constraints and contexts of his time.

No need to clean that up for us, Mr. President. We won't ever really think that the Vatican is reaching across the Atlantic into your office and into our homes. Plus, it's not 1932 and you're not even Catholic. So, give this guy his full due.

On Complexity in Coupon-Cutting

2005-04-07T20:14:00.000-05:00

A woman from Georgia has just made a contract with Good Morning America to discuss coupon-cutting every now and then.

Monday, the "Coupon Mom" will tell viewers how to use coupons to buy clothing online and in traditional stores.

Take a peak at that picture. Is she even doing the work? It looks like she's recruited an army of moppets to do all the heavy clipping, with none of the credit! And, really, how difficult can it be if a bunch of ankle-biters can become coupon-clippers?

On A Depressing Story

2005-04-07T12:00:00.000-05:00

Possibly, the most depressing thing I have ever read in the New York Times. It's an article that describes a building in New York going through its gentrification process; the poor and down-on-their-luck types being replaced by the well-and-high-heeled ones. I think that this moment of the journalist's self-reflection only doubles the article's heaviness:

There are more important matters in the world than the four old men living out their lives in a building that has changed around them. Their story does not concern the war or the economy, but here it is nonetheless.

I think that recently I have begun to sneer at the notion that journalists are capable of writing articles in an objective manner; I mean, we all look at the world from a particular lens and all that. But, reading that little prelude, I suspect that a line can be drawn between the "facts" and senseless editorial commentary.

Sure, I'll concede that maybe, in the grand scheme of things, there are things going on in the world that are more significant than what is happening here. But, I will also point out that the point of these soft news pieces is probably to highlight some small aspect of life--some banal mundanity--and elevate its significance and status--for a few paragraphs, at least. How is this done with such a rotten aside, stage whispered to the all-knowing readers and arbiters of what's what? Surely, even reporters from the Times--however established and knighted by the Paper's mist of Pulitzers Past, Present, and Future--must not be so fat and content as to allow such a comment to slip out so smoothly about the supposed insignificance of the very material providing them with their day's story.

It must be that the lives of these men are--in some small way, at least--significant to the people living them. Plus, in as much as they have warranted a journalist's attention, an even greater significance has been attached to them. In the end, I think that we, as readers, should be afforded the opportunity to apply our own standards of evaluation and decide where in the vast hierarchy of life these four men are stationed!

On a Conversation Overheard in Class

2005-04-07T09:31:00.000-05:00

Waiting for the professor who's a little late making it into class this morning, I overheard a student say this:

She's late. This is the first time I've made it to class on time and the professor is late. Sigh

Is this something this student should say? Doesn't the phrase contain some sort of concession that it is okay, or at least understandable to be late; how can the student articulate a sense of entitlement when she herself has not given, in the past, what the professor's entitled to? Very frustrating to hear, since I have made it into class a little late every now and again (as have my students, of course!)

On the Left's Left

2005-04-05T07:12:00.000-05:00

Instapundit linked to this article in the Sunday Times and highlighted this passage:

Bredesen, a former mayor of Nashville, believes his party has “somehow gotten itself divorced” from the blue-collar constituency it has always relied on for presidential success: “I’ve always felt the Democratic party was a kind of alliance between the academics and intellectuals and working-class men and women. I think what happened is that in my lifetime, the academics won.”

As a result, the governor said, the party had lost its broad appeal. He mocked other Democratic candidates who think connecting with middle America means quoting a few verses from the Bible or being photographed with guns.

Reading it, I was reminded of something very similarly expressed in a memo penned by Laurie Garrett before she retired from Newsday earlier last month (please do the Ctrl-F thing for "Laurie Garrett"). In it she writes:

When I started out in journalism the newsrooms were still full of old guys with blue collar backgrounds who got genuinely indignant when the Governor lied or somebody turned off the heat on a poor person's apartment in mid-January. They cussed and yelled their ways through the day, took an occasional sly snort from a bottle in the bottom drawer of their desk and bit into news stories like packs of wild dogs, never letting go until they'd found and told the truth. If they hadn't been reporters most of those guys would have been cops or firefighters. It was just that way.

Now the blue collar has been fully replaced by white ones in America's newsrooms, everybody has college degrees. The "His Girl Friday" romance of the newshound is gone. All too many journalists seem to mistake scandal mongering for tenacious investigation, and far too many aspire to make themselves the story. When I think back to the old fellows who were retiring when I first arrived at Newsday – guys (almost all of them were guys) who had cop brothers and fathers working union jobs – I suspect most of them would be disgusted by what passes today for journalism. Theirs was not a perfect world --- too white, too male, seen through a haze of cigarette smoke and Scotch – but it was an honest one rooted in mid-20th Century American working class values.

In both passages the working class and its attitudes and perspectives have been seemingly silenced by more *sophisticated* groups--be they academics or white-collar professionals. This transformation and loss of a large group of people seems utterly lamentable, given the need to bring people together for debate and create some form of unity throughout the country during times of debate.

As voices like the academic Left--voices that Garnett's white-collar journalists probably echo--become more prominent, it seems that the Left loses some of its ability to actually connect with the vast majority of the country--including those swing voters who don't know if they will vote Republican or Democrat. When neo-Marxists and socialists, ready with their sophisticated political economy critiques, are speaking and listened to, it is no wonder that many folks are not willing to vote for Democrats. Even though these far-left types hardly represent the majority of the Left, or the whole country, through the institutional power and cultural background that the academics speak from--possibly the same type they critique in businesses and government--they have gained a primacy and significance that seems disproportionate.

In my own department, I sometimes get the sense that my fairly moderate political stance (when forced, I declare myself to be a Joe Lieberman Democrat or John McCain Republican) might easily and relatively be taken for far-right reactionary-ism. Of course this is silly; after all, I, like most people, am not a fascist! But, in this type of environment, it becomes difficult for the Left to create a genuine stasis with the Right, because the fairly-fringed wing of the party that, at times becomes embarrassingly vocal, makes it seem like the Democrats are the party of collectivization and Revolution!

To start a conversation you need some common ground and a sense of some shared system or logic.

On A Disappointing Peek into the Conclave's Accomodations

2005-04-04T15:01:00.000-05:00

I expected big things from this article, based on its headline: "Lavish Accommodations for Arriving Cardinals". Despite being a time of certain mourning for a billion people around the world, the average person's curiosity about this small group of old men called from all around the globe to elect Peter's sucessor is still going to be piqued. This is especially true, here, in the United States, where our particular religious and social history has produced an aura of superstition and mystery around the Church and its shadow and whispered filled confessionals, past indulgences, and O, magnum mysterium belief in bread turned to body.

With all the talk of a cardinal conclave meeting underground to elect a new pope, I have been quick to keep an ear open for any discussion of the Church hierarchy--endless rolling seas--or Church customs like hammers and name-calling. So, it was with an eager eye that I turned to the article's text.

VATICAN CITY, April 4 - Inside the sunlit lobby, with its polished marble floors and a reception desk blanketed by pages of guest lists, the Casa Santa Marta looks like any other lavish hotel in Rome.

But a bronze bust of Pope John Paul II greeting visitors who enter through the hotel's sliding glass doors gives a strong indication that this is no ordinary inn.

An excellent beginning. Here we are, inside the lobby of the cardinal's nest, surrounded by description we can all conjure up an imagined scene with. But, wait. We are promised much more that that, for there is "strong indication that this is no ordinary inn." Aha! It seems that the reporter is going to tap into the commonplace topic of a Church distancing itself from the humble origins and life of Christ by way of its adoration of lavish cloth and stone. No ordinary inn, indeed. Perhaps a little too 1932, but I'm sufficiently "hooked" by the lead, and eager to read.

The 117 cardinals arriving from around the world to elect John Paul II's successor would need a place to stay, so the pope built them a $20 million hotel behind the Vatican's guarded gates. From Casa Santa Marta, the cardinals have only a short stroll or ride, behind St. Peter's Basilica and to the Sistine Chapel, where the voting will be done.

Hmmm. Okay, just a little background information that establishes the need for a hotel--and a seemingly expensive one (though, not Sin City expensive), too. I can take that.

This morning, the pale brick, five-story building seemed poised to receive its special guests. The antique tables with their gold leafed legs were dusted and polished. A small elevator stood ready to lower the more elderly and infirm cardinals to the lobby, below a small flight of stairs. A black placard indicated the dining room in three languages.

All right, here I am, back in the lobby knowing just a little more detail. I want more, Jason Horowitz! Take me deep into the whale's belly.

Yet for all its opulent touches and doting service (chefs, doctors and priests to hear confessions are all on call) the actual revolutionary changes of the Casa Santa Marta are tucked in the hotel's nearly 110 suites and score of single rooms.

"Miracle at the Conclave: The cardinal will have a shower," said a headline in the Italian magazine Espresso last year.

Yes! Here it is, take me into the room I will never see--a cardinal's bed chamber. Tell me about the tapestry, the gilt frames around mirrors. Tell me about how silent it all is, filled with material but lacking soul. Tell me about the showers that will wash away dirt but never sin.

According to the strict rules of the Vatican, if two-thirds of the cardinals fail to agree on a single candidate by the end of the second week of the conclave, a simple majority of ballots will have to do.

Nooooooo! I feel like Christopher Reeve's character in Somewhere in Time, right after he sees the penny and is achingly ripped back from the past into the present. What is this about strict Vatican rules?! I know there are rules. And, since it's the Vatican, I can assume that some strictness will be involved.

That could tempt some cardinals to stall until their preferred candidate gains enough support within the college to win more than half of the vote and ascend to the throne of Peter.

But after years of having a sick pope at the helm of the Roman Catholic Church, many Vatican observers believe that the cardinals will want to quickly move on and tackle the raft of pressing issues facing the church.

In the past, however, they needed plenty of prodding.

In 1271, after the papal throne had been vacant for three years, anxious Catholics locked the indecisive cardinals up in a crumbling building and put them on a strict diet of bread and water. For an extra dose of motivation, the roof was removed from above their heads, and after three months of rain and harsh sunshine, the cardinals elected Pope Gregory X.

The past, Mr. Horowitz, this is the past. The time is now, however, and your headline promisesd--so long ago--discussion of the present. Trust me, you don't need to tell us about the way things were, except in passing on your way to tell us the way things are now. We will take it on ... ... that things were not so glamorous in the Dark Ages.

Conditions had improved by 1978, the year of the last conclave, but compared to the lifestyle that most cardinals are used to, the shelter was still pretty shabby.

Beds were on loan from a local missionary college; the lamps were too weak to read by. The extent of the luxuries were a washbasin and some soap, some notepaper and a desk to write on.

Cardinal Silvio Oddi of Italy often complained about the hardships of conclave housing.

"The Cardinals are almost all old, with prostate problems, tired, with a bathroom for every ten people. I slept near the toilette, but I saw these poor old people crossing 70 meter corridors to get to the bathroom, which they found occupied," Cardinal Oddi, who is now dead, was quoted as saying by Espresso.

"Such pain, and what a humiliation. The cardinals had to make their own beds."

Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, the late archbishop of Genoa, also found much to be desired during his stay in Rome. He referred to his quarters during the brutal Rome summer of August 1978 as an "airless tomb." He was evidently not the only one who felt that way. The election lasted all of a day before the cardinals elected Pope John Paul I.

1978! Poignant tales of prostates! All this does is lay the foundation for a visit to today's remarkably contrasting rooms; rooms filled with luxuries my little Protestant mind could only imagine while looking forlornly at my non-stained glass church windows. Please, I implore, a peek for my piqued interest!

Today, the College of Cardinals held its first meeting in the nearby Apostolic Palace to decide when and where John Paul II will be buried. But in the Casa Santa Marta the phone kept ringing with people looking for them.

"No, there are no cardinals here," the exasperated receptionist yelled.

And that is not the only thing missing, today.

Update: They have changed the headline and cut the last couple of paragraphs. Perhaps they read my commentary! Have you?

On A Tee Shirt

2005-04-04T14:49:00.000-05:00

Over at Instapundit, there is an as ad for this tee shirt and others like it. I think this is a bad idea for a shirt. Associating guns with the issue of diversity is probably best left not done, given the significant and horrible history the world has regarding the treatment of different types of people.

On the Limits of Pacifism

2005-04-04T12:41:00.000-05:00

As the old saw goes: "I'm a pacifist by physique." Despite a certain physical weakness and because of ideological commitments, I am not actually a pacifist. Previously, I would have thought this position would diminish any chances I might have at becoming a Quaker. After reading this, however, I am beginning to have my doubts.

Of the few things one generally learns about the Quakers, Philadelphia's nicely organized street grid, church without preachers, that sort of thing, the one characteristic of the faith most likely to stick in my mind is their commitment to peace and opposition to violence. (Interestingly, I learned this and am reminded about it by hearing about Richard Nixon's willingness to serve in the Navy during WWII, despite his membership in the Society of Friends.)

It seems that William Kristol, the neo-conservative editor of The Weekly Standard, was pied in the face by a student of Earlham College who was protesting a school group's decision to invite Kristol to campus--a campus of a college which, as it turns out, was founded on Quaker principles.

Pledger-Shinn [founder of group that invited Kristol] was "shocked and horrified" by the pie-throwing. "We had invited Kristol, hoping that Earlham students, being passionate, idealistic and articulate as they are, would give him a run for his money." But not a physical attack.

The college leadership concurs. Earlham issued a statement condemning the pie-throwing, although some faculty have asked for tolerance for Medlin -- who has been suspended indefinitely. Others on the faculty questioned why a pacifist school would welcome Kristol.

I'm rather "shocked and horrified" that a student from a Quaker-principled school would resort to a stunt that is rooted in violence. Granted, throwing a pie is not quite the same as throwing a punch, but, to a certain extent, it is about force and the physical demonstration of it. That this type of action occurred on a Quaker campus is surprising and a type of negative enactment which suggests a disconnect between the student and the school's principles.

In a rarefied space like a lecture-discussion, where an emphasis in rightly placed on deliberation--a much appreciated and necessary alternative to decision-by-force--a symbolic protest seems like it ought to respect and adhere to the principles of debate. In as much as the space this incident occurred in invites a connection to the school's principles, it seems reasonable to expect students to attempt an adherence to the values and traditions their school symbolically comes from. Since the school is especially founded on principles of non-violence, one would hope that symbolic gestures would also refrain from the image of violence. Of course, this type of admonition requires a much broader dedication to the cultural norms and principles of our institutions.

Yes, certainly it's possible that the student throwing the pie wasn't a Quaker, just as much as it's true that the majority of Northwestern students are probably not Methodists. But what also seems true--and unsettling--is that the student is not committed to the principles and traditions of his school--a place founded on Quaker principles. This sort of thing, of course, is not unique to Quaker schools. Despite adorning university seals and viewbooks, a university's mission and principles are hardly the stuff that visits and takes up a space in our minds as we go about our educations. I would guess that the vast majority of us don't even know our schools' mottos or the principles upon which our university buildings symbolically rest.

I, of course, do not know much about the history of schools and students. But, it seems to me that at one point students might have learned their school song and could be expected to cite some sort of liturgical phrase expressing a dedication to some sort of truth or value. Kennedy's most famous line, after all, is indebted to his recalling of a Choate headmaster's request that students ask what they could do for their school. Losing the ability to argue from values and principles enshrined in institutions seems like it takes away a nice source of argument and evidence.

On Scalia on Originalism and Stare Decisis

2005-04-03T19:10:00.000-05:00

Usually, I don't read all of a New Yorker article--they are as long as my attention span is short. But, last week's issue (March, 28) had an interesting about Antonin Scalia, touching on things like his judicial philosophy and relationships with other members of the Court. In the process, the article argues that Scalia's unwillingness to compromise on his ideas and ideals has hindered his ability to be a sucessful justice, as measured by one's ablity to produce opinions that can appeal to a majority of the Court.

Part and parcel of Scalia's persona is his committment to the judicial philosophy, originalism. Here's how the article describes Scalia defining the concept:

At 4:30 P.M., Scalia strode heavily to the lectern, his head thrust forward. He has a square, ruddy face; thick black hair with a patent-leather sheen; gold-rimmed glasses; and an almost daunting air of vigor. He began explaining that, as a jurist, he is an "originalist"--or, as he put it, in his habitual tone of pugnacious beleaguerment, one of "a small minority who believe in a philospohy called originalism." This cohort was so small, he said, that you could "fire a cannon loaded with grapeshot in the faculty of any major school"--an experiment that Scalia might enjoy trying--"and not hit an originalist."

Originalists, he went on, feel that judges should adhere to the precise words of the Constitution, and believe that the meaning of those words was locked into place at the time they were written.

I've read elsewhere, however, that Scalia respects stare decisis:

But Scalia's pointed comments to Foskett [a biographer of Clarence Thomas] complicate Bush's support for Thomas considerably. Specifically, Scalia told Foskett that Thomas "doesn't believe in stare decisis, period." Clarifying his remark, Scalia added that "if a constitutional line of authority is wrong, he would say let's get it right. I wouldn't do that."

Stare decisis is a fancy Latin term that stands for a bedrock proposition of U.S. law: that the Supreme Court will uphold precedent and not disturb settled law without special justification. As Justice Thurgood Marshall explained for the court in 1986, stare decisis is the "means by which we ensure that the law will not merely change erratically, but will develop in a principled and intelligible fashion."

Is there a tension between Scalia's committment to originalism and his willingness to suport judicial precedent? If the Constitution and laws have set meaning, and the courts' previous interpretations are wrong, then can an originalist be particularly sympathetic towards the precedent?

On Conclave

2005-04-03T04:30:00.000-05:00

Right now, this book is the 60th most purchased book on Amazon.com. I bet, as the days go by and we get closer to having a new pope elected, John Allen Jr.'s book, Conclave: The Politics, Personalities, and Process of the Next Papal Election, will become even more popular. From the back of the book:

The next time a conclave unfolds in Rome, some 6,000 journalists are expected to descend on the Eternal City to cover the death of John Paul II and report on the election of his successor. The man in white who emerges from the Sistine Chapel at its conclusion will automatically become one of the most important figures on earth, a leader who commands a unique combination of political and spiritual power. Depending on how he chooses to exercise that power, governments and political systems may rise or fall, religious wars may heat up or abate, and the Church may undergo a radical transformation–from changes in its stances on such issues as sexuality, the place of women in the Church, to the role of the papacy itself.

Conclave is a fascinating look at the election process and at what this headline-making occasion will mean to the world. John L. Allen, Jr., takes readers behind the scenes to reveal the issues, parties, and people most likely to determine the outcome. Setting the election within a broader context, he explains why it matters who becomes pope, discusses their role in the modern world, and examines the issues that will form the agenda of the next papacy.

He even lists his top twenty picks for pope! Looks like a good read.

On Not Listening to Professor Jamieson

2005-04-01T21:52:00.000-06:00

The American Journalism Review has a piece that examines the high frequency with which some sources are used by journalists. Somes sources have been quoted so often on so many topics that some news organizations have forbidden their reporters from using them:

While official bans are less common, it has become routine for individual editors, say on a national desk, to forbid reporters from using certain pundits as sources. Many editors interviewed for this article would only admit such prohibitions anonymously. "I have told my reporters not to use Larry Sabato anymore," says the editor of a publication that covers Congress. Besides Sabato, the mainstays of this likely-to-be-banned list include Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, Stephen Hess and Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution, Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, Stuart Rothenberg of the Rothenberg Political Report and John Pike of Globalsecurity.org.

Last year, Professor Jamieson [if not the only "public intellectual" communication studies can really claim, then certainly the most famous] walked down the department's hall towards the chair's office and it never occurred to me not to ask her opinions on everything from President Bush's State of the Union to Union Station.

On Politics and Cars Correlated

2005-04-01T17:48:00.000-06:00

The New York Times had an interesting piece about correlations between political party affiliation and car preferences. Not surprisingly, Republican voters seem more likely to buy American-made cars than Democrats, but, I bet nearly all unionized auto-workers (whom I assume still vote Democratic) are just as pro-American car as the reddest Republican.

Among their findings: buyers of American cars tend to be Republican - except, for some reason, those who buy Pontiacs, who tend to be Democrats. Foreign-brand compact cars are usually bought by Democrats - but not Mini Coopers, which are bought by almost equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. And Volvos may not actually represent quite what you think.

Apparently, the Volvo, which has always struck me as being the quintessential car for an academic, is attracting more Republican buyers:

"Volvos have become more plush and bourgeois, which is a Republican thing to be," said Mickey Kaus, a dual expert in politics and cars as the author of the Kausfiles and Gearbox columns for Slate. "Subaru is the new Volvo - that is, it is what Volvos used to be: trusty, rugged, inexpensive, unpretentious, performs well, maybe a bit ugly. You don't buy it because you want to show you have money; you buy it because you have college-professor values."

This might explain my increasing attraction to this car. There seems to be one quirky aspect of the study's findings, however: Democrats, despite generally having fewer children, seem to be more likely to buy mini-vans than Republicans. There's speculation that this is a result of gender and power:

"There is a certain resistance that male new-car buyers have to minivans even in a household with two or three kids," Mr. Spinella explained. "For the most part, red-state households are more male-dominated when it comes to decision-making for a vehicle. In blue states, it's more of a joint decision-making process." Because the Democratic women get more of a say in the decision, their families end up with more minivans than S.U.V.'s.

Now, I wonder if this might also be a function of a male-Democrat's inclination towards mini-vans? As a group, if they more likely to listen and respect their wives than Republican men, might they also be more likely to prefer minivans to other cars? But of course, these finding are not entirely predictive. Case in point: Both of my parents are "red" but my mother has very much to say in family decision-making; resultantly, my folks have two minivans!

A question that struck me: are minivans more cost-effective than SUVs? Do they get better mileage than SUVs? I doubt it. Is there a tension between the Left's environmently-friendly politics and their driving practices?

On What Everyone Thinks

2005-03-31T23:31:00.000-06:00

The Detroit Free Press declares:

Everyone thinks of downtown Detroit as a place for sports, concerts and opera. But, gradually and unobtrusively, the area is asserting itself as a theater district with six theaters in easy walking distance of the stadiums -- the Gem, Century, Music Hall, Fox, City Theatre and 1515 Broadway.

Everyone? Well, have you gotten around to thinking it yet?

On Stimulatedly Serving Stimulants

2005-03-31T18:34:00.000-06:00

If we are what we eat, what becomes of the people serving us our identities? Do they go through a transformation too? Phuong Tran, a Seattle barista competing in an upcoming international barista competition, seems to have become something she might not have, had she not started serving coffee.

Tran becomes one with her inner gunfighter. From this moment, it's all about nuance and speed.

When she tamps the espresso grounds, is her elbow at a 90-degree angle? (It's the only way the water evenly permeates and extracts the coffee.) ...

Tran was in Japan for three weeks training baristas at Zoka's new coffee shop in Tokyo. She returned March 5 with just one week to finalize her routine and signature drink for the U.S. Barista Championship.

The night before the competition, Tran returned to work after dinner to practice. She stayed up all night perfecting her routine, save power naps in-between.

The article says that the competition entails making 12 drinks (four cups of three different drinks), all the while having a good style that produces aesthetically pleasing and tasty coffee--in under two minutes! It's neat that the barista enacts the quickness and alertness that coffee is thought and said to provide.

On How Differing Groups Can Come Together

2005-03-31T09:32:00.000-06:00

Sometimes, the easiest way to get people together is by leaving some people out:

International gay leaders are planning a 10-day WorldPride festival and parade in Jerusalem in August, saying they want to make a statement about tolerance and diversity in the Holy City, home to three great religious traditions.

Now major leaders of the three faiths - Christianity, Judaism and Islam - are making a rare show of unity to try to stop the festival. They say the event would desecrate the city and convey the erroneous impression that homosexuality is acceptable.

In an ironic way, it seems that the WorldPride festival has promoted tolerance. It just happens to be a type that appears to build bridges between faiths rather than a bridge towards homosexuals.

On A Neat Game

2005-03-31T02:15:00.000-06:00

If you have a few minutes to step back many years, try out this little game (via Just another false alarm). Be wary of being too merry towards handsome gentlemen in the park!

On Running on the Web

2005-03-31T00:08:00.000-06:00

A Philadelphia university professor has started his 2006 campaign for senator and is relying heavily on blogs.

[Chuck] Pennacchio and his small, Web-savvy staff have been leaving footprints across dozens of blogs during the last month, hoping their Internet presence - combined with traditional campaigning - builds a loyal grassroots following to rival Casey's stranglehold on the establishment.

Even though the web is nothing solid--just a bunch of ones and zeros dashing from hub to hub on thin fiber-optic paths--people still seem inclined to use concrete imagery that suggests a more solid place is somewhere, out there. Of course, sometimes the detail doesn't seem to fit, even by the web's somewhat looser standards:

Curly-haired and low-key, Pennacchio offers himself as a citizen candidate with convictions, but not an ideologue. He favors gun control, abortion rights and a balanced-budget amendment. He opposes the death penalty, except in terrorism cases, and gay marriage. But he supports civil unions as a way to grant gay couples the same federal rights as married couples.

Though I don't get the connection between the kink in his hair and the plank in his platform, I'm sure Pennacchio must be glad for any description that might help potential voters to recognize him outside the web.

Oh, here's one more physical detail to ground the web for you, if you need it:

It [the Pennacchio campaign] hit Google with paid ad links, Internet yard signs of sorts that flash Casey's Web address in the right column when users search for "Chuck Pennacchio."

As much as language may succeed at recreating the physical world we live in, there is still one difference between the real and the ethereal: senate candidates would never pay to have real campaign signs put on real lawns!