Happy Halloween

Boo.

I didn't wear a costume today, but I told my Logic students that I was dressed as my own evil twin. Then they asked me if my evil twin would be nicer to them than I am.

Rotten skunks. Hehe.

On another note: Still not eating meat, seventy-two days later. It's gotten to the point now that I don't even consider that during the course of my day. We discuss what we're going to eat, we pick something, and we make it. The fact that meat isn't included in the conversation becomes less noticeable all the time.

Weird.

Tomorrow starts NaNoWriMo. I think I'm ready. I need something to kick me in the ass and make me keep at it.

I got confirmation today that I'll be teaching two sections of Comp I at OCCC next semester. I'll also be teaching two sections of Fundamentals of English and one section of Comp II at Rose. That's more like a real workload. Should be fun.

We'll be driving to Minnesota for Thanksgiving. I'm not sure how many days we'll be up, but we'll have time to see many of you in the Twin Cities area (those of you not traveling to other places, that is). That's only three weeks away. Yikes.

One Unfortunate Byproduct of Searching YouTube

I find a bunch of stuff I thought lost to my past. Then I get lost in the amusing stuff. Here are a couple of videos I've been laughing at:



and



Hehe.

Music and Literature

I like to think of essays as songs in prose form. Now Diana is preparing a promotional site for her forthcoming book of essays, and she's trying to match songs to the essays she's written. Some suggest songs easily, and others cause problems. As always, I'm available to lend my bent mind to any project.

I read Diana's manuscript last year, and I enjoyed all of the essays. One of those I liked best, though, was about her first husband--mostly because I knew nothing about that time of her life previous to the reading, but also because of the depth of her analysis about him. She didn't slag on him (which would have been out of character anyway), and she seemed to understand him even in the ways she knew she didn't like.

The link to where the essay is published online as fiction is here.

The song I suggested for that essay was Tom Waits's "I Don't Want To Grow Up." The title might lead you to believe I'm poking fun at Darry (that's the name given in the story), but I'm not--because Waits isn't. What Waits derides here is the supposed requirements for conforming in American society once one is of legal adult age. Here are the lyrics:

I Don't Want To Grow Up
by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan (his wife)

Here's the video.
Here's the Ramones cover.

In the first stanza Waits says that he wants to be a dog. Dogs play a part in this essay--especially those who shouldn't be pampered. And the treatment of dogs ties into the treatment of people in the rest of the essay.

Diana mentions Darry's hair, and how it's thinning, so the lyric, "I don't want my hair to fall out" would be appropriate.

But the bulk of the appropriate material resides in the materialistic verses:
"I don't wanna have the biggest amount" seems a natural, and so does " I don't wanna live in a big old Tomb/On Grand Street."
He wants nothing to do with materialist culture, with the American Dream.

I'll accept additional support from these pasages:
"When I see the 5 o'clock news/I don't wanna grow up/Comb their hair and shine their shoes"
Image isn't important.
"Stay around in my old hometown"
She mentions specifically that he always wanted to leave Pennsylvania.
"I don't wanna get me a big old loan/Work them fingers to the bone"
She mentions his preference for the barter system.
"I don't wanna float a broom/Fall in love and get married then boom/How the hell did I get here so soon/I don't wanna grow up"
This seems the heart of the essay/story. This guy doesn't even know who he is, so he can't competently marry another human.

I'm going to adjust this a bit. This is a first draft, even though I've found my main points.

NaNoWriMo

A few days ago MacAdoo* mentioned that he's facing National Novel Writing Month (shortened to NaNoWriMo for people, like me, who are too lazy to say/type that all out) for the second year, and that he's conflicted about what to write during the month of November. In the past I've rejected the idea of participating in this. I have a few reasons for my avoidance:

1. I can barf out 50,000 words in a month on any topic, but this seems to encourage the writing of crap.
2. In the publishing world, if you can believe agents and their assistants, such as Miss Snark and The Rejecter (and I think you can), a novel is only (or at least for the most part) marketable between 70,000 and 100,000 words. Fifty-thousand will get you almost to the climax. It's a tease.
3. For the past few years my primary projects have been outside the novel: a few screenplays, some short stories, some essays, and even some philosophy.

But I think this year I'll do it. In fact, I signed up for it this morning. The complication is that participants must write something new. Almost anything I have an interest in writing, I've been working on for some time. But I have a way around that.

My big novel project, the one that I wrote 30,000+ words toward this summer, qualifies. Since the work I've done to this point is prep (I even titled the file "Pre-Draft Draft"), and they allow for pre-existing notes and outlines, I'm classifying my material as "notes." I don't plan to use any of it word-for-word in the actual story, anyway. I couldn't. It's not a story--it's a description of a story. For now, I'm calling it Mostly Dead. Or maybe The Other Dead Guy.

So in a little less than a week I'm going to be intent on producing at least 1,666 words a day. Actually, I'll aim for 2,000, since that would put me closer to an actual novel's length. I'm sure in the beginning I'll be able to outdo that goal. After a week or so, though, I may bog down. I usually do.

Like I needed more to do. I'm grading a round of essays every three weeks and my Logic class keeps me jumping on a much more constant basis. Good thing I love teaching that. Right now we're doing Implicational Rules of Inference for constructing proofs in statement logic. Here's a sample:

1. ~X-->(~Y-->~Z)
2. X v (W-->U)
3. ~Y v W
4. ~X•T
5. (~Z v U) --> ~S   .: (R v ~S)•T
6. ~X                4, Simplification
7. T                 4, Simplification
8. ~Y-->~Z           1, 6, modus ponens
9. W-->U             2, 6, Disjuctive Syllogism
10. ~Z v U           3, 8, 9, Constructive Dilemma
11. ~S               5, 10, modus ponens
12. R v ~S           11, Addition
13. (R v ~S)•T       12, 7, Conjunction

And there we’ve proved that this argument form is valid.

Take that, you scientists and techies who live to torment me with your crazy jargon and such.

* I call him "MacAdoo" because of a long-standing inside joke. He's an actor, and he's prone to being cast in musicals. At one point I saw him in The Mikado, which I hated, though I thought he did well in his part. At any rate, we joked about doing a Scottish version of The Mikado, and it would almost have to be named The MacAdoo, because when pronounced with a Scottish accent it sounds almost the same.

And I thought it was funny. Which may be a point against the idea.

Downtown Train to Banality

While I'm not posting anything substantial, I may as well throw out this, one of the best songs ever--"Downtown Train" by Tom Waits:



And then the cover that made the song famous, by Rod Stewart:



Rod is so weak. So sad.

I'm Anti . . . I'm Antisocial

That last post forced me to delve into some other antisocial songs I've embraced over the years. The first is Ugly Kid Joe's "(I Hate) Everything About You." Funny thing about this is that the drummer from Wrathchild, Shannon Larkin, played in UKJ for a while, and now plays in Godsmack. I'd embed the video, but that's been disabled.

The second is Scatterbrain's "Don't Call Me Dude."



This song cracks me up, and the whole album was a great mix of solid technical instrumentation and goofiness. What can you expect from a band whose singer is named "Tommy Christ?" Sorry about the poor video quality. It's the only one there.

Next up? Overkill's "I Hate."



This live version is so close to the album version I can't help but be amazed. These guys are a tight band.

And one of the coolest songs ever, with one hell of a groove: Prong's "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck."



And another of the coolest songs ever: Corrosion of Conformity's "Vote With a Bullet." Sorry, can't embed that one, either.

Or Anthrax's cover of the Trust tune "Antisocial."


There. Now I've gotten that out of my system. That will do for now.

Surrounded By Idiots

In the late 1980s and early 1990s the American musical tide was shifting. Hair metal had taken hold of the guitar-based music, to the extent that Metallica, the couterculture gods, began writing three-minute songs based on a single riff. The music got dumb, and that's why grunge was able to succeed. It parodied the dumbness of popular rock the same way punk parodied the slick glamour of 1970s overprocessed, cheesy arena rock (see The Eagles, who suck, for further information).

But there was still decent music in the pre-grunge and early-grunge eras--mostly underground, where most of the best music has historically been. One of the bands who caught my attention was Wrathchild America, who gave us the song "Surrounded by Idiots."

On days like today, when it seems like I need a hammer and a chisel to get ideas into students' heads, I hear that song in the background, like whatever voices compelled David Berkowitz to kill people. I'm not compelled to kill--just to use explosive language to force people to learn.

So here's Wrathchild America, and their video for "Surrounded by Idiots":




Enjoy.

First Things First: The Yankees Suck

I have hated the Yankees with a passion since the mid-1980s. The reason? The Yankees' wunderkind first-baseman, Don Mattingly, continually beat out my hero, Twins' first-baseman Kent Hrbek, for the Gold Glove award. Mattingly was a marginally better batter, but a significantly inferior fielder. Since the award is the Gold Glove, I figured Hrbek should have destroyed "Donny Baseball."

I've always had reasons to hate the Yankees, though. George Steinbrenner, if nothing else. Then there was the terrible 1996 playoffs, and . . . ugh. Anyway, no matter what, the Yankees have been anathema to my conception of what sports should be for a quarter century.

With one exception:

Joe Torre.

This is a classy man. A guy who took a gaudy franchise and lent it a bit of dignity. He allowed me, at least in vulnerable moments, to think that, okay, so this is a purchased championship--at least a good guy is benefiting from it. The Checkbook Champions had a decent man at the helm.

And now Torre is leaving.

Congratulations, Yankees. The last reason to not want your whole team eliminated by nuclear weapons is now gone.

You officially are beyond suckage. You are a black hole of sports sentiment, from which no goodwill can ever escape.

This Hurts My Brain

Possible alternate title: Big Hitter, the Lama

Today, Dubya gave the Dalai Lama the Congressional Medal of Honor for his peaceful, forty-eight-year pursuit of Tibetan autonomy.

In 1959 the Chinese invaded Tibet, sending the Dalai Lama and his followers into exile, and the Tibetans have conducted their business from Dharamsala, India ever since. They haven't taken up arms, they haven't attacked anyone. But there's Dubya--a man who couldn't restrict himself to hunting down the terrorists responsible for 9/11, who had to start an unprovoked war of aggression with an unrelated country before he even finished the first campaign--bestowing an honor on a man who is, to put it simply, superior to him in every sense of the word.

I'm glad Dubya recognizes a worthy man when he sees one. I wish he could also recognize an unworthy man when he looks in the mirror. This is like Carrot Top handing out the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement to Al Pacino.

Humbled, I Am

The usual image of a professional athlete is that of a babied, delusional, obnoxious animal. A person we wouldn't want to bump into, let alone befriend. I mentioned some time ago how I feel that Kevin Garnett is different from that mold--and now I've seen something to support it. Sure, he made millions playing a game that little kids play for free, but watch this and tell me he does it for the money.

Not a damn chance.

At Long Last: Andrew Meyer vs. Kent State

The Andrew Meyer tasering incident has largely faded from public discourse, but I’m confident nobody will think I’m acting out of character for flogging a dead (vanished?) horse. I’ve made noise about how I don’t see the University of Florida tasering and the Kent State shootings as parallel, so here’s my explanation of that position.

First is the presence of the enforcement personnel itself. In the Kent State incident, the National Guard had been called in on May 2 in response to violence off-campus, in downtown Kent, Ohio on the night of May 1. The National Guard set up camp on the university campus, putting the student protesters in close proximity to combat-trained soldiers. This was not a riot task force as we have now, but a contingent of wartime soldiers armed only with lethal weapons. This is the first difference between the two situations. There was no place for the National Guard on the Kent State campus—but the campus police at the University of Florida had legitimate reasons for being at the John Kerry appearance. They were there to provide security and prevent disruption. And that’s what they did. Meyer was disrupting the question-and-answer session, and they intervened.

The type of intervention deserves more attention, though. The National Guard at Kent State was armed with automatic weapons affixed with bayonets. The U of Florida’s police had tasers. The first is clearly unsuited to quieting a mob without casualties. The second is well-suited to subduing unruly people. When students were bayoneted on May 2 and 3, 1970, the authorities should have realized that. Kent State was a three-day interaction that never should have reached that point. The Meyer Polka was a three-minute interaction that didn’t offer that kind of time for reflection. Despite that, the police reacted with a weapon that didn’t kill Meyer, and one that likely kept him from hurting himself or others.

Also, the student protesters at Kent State were in a space traditionally known, and specifically suited, for protests. They were in the University commons, where they disrupted no proceedings and made their views known. Andrew Meyer was attending an event were a speaker spoke and then offered to take questions from the audience—the implication being that, since time is limited, that each questioner get one question. The Kent State protesters were acting in accordance with their context—Meyer was not. His delivery—a minute-long diatribe followed by a series of questions, one piled on top of another—was disruptive (normally when you ask a question and expect an answer, you give your counterpart time to answer). His inanity—Skull and Bones? WTF?—didn’t help his case. And if he did push his way to the front, he rightly earned the attention of the police.

Most importantly, though, is the effect of the authority’s actions in each case. At Kent State, not only were nonviolent protesters killed in a context where their behavior was appropriate, the National Guardsmen indiscriminately killed passersby. Nobody killed on May 4, 1970 was within 70 feet of any of the Guardsmen, and two of those killed were walking from one class to another. In contrast, Andrew Meyer was the rightful target of the action by the U of F police. He was the disruption, he was the resister, and he got shocked. Nobody else.

I’m sure some disagree with me that Meyer was disruptive. I’m sure some think the police had no business asking him to leave, or trying to compel him when he resisted. Again, I’d have to be convinced. Free speech doesn’t mean that you say whatever whenever wherever with impunity. I can’t walk into a college dean’s office and start screaming no matter what I have a right to say. I can’t berate a librarian, no matter what books I think should be in the university’s library. Security will remove me, and rightly so.

Another point: John Kerry wasn’t in charge of security at that event. He wasn’t in charge of anything on that day. If he thinks Meyer is harmless and security thinks he’s a danger, they take him out. If Kerry thinks he’s no danger and security thinks he’s an inappropriate disruption, they take him out, and Kerry has nothing to do with it.

That’s all for now. I hope this generates more thought (or at least discussion). I think this event is worth discussing, and I don’t think any of us have all the answers necessary to come to conclusions yet. But here are my provisional views. Enjoy.

Three . . . Two . . . One . . .

Michele got our computer video-camera-thingy working tonight. We were able to observe the in-laws (The Cat Whisperer and Skiffy for the time being) and the new dog (Sherlock for the time being). It was pretty fun. I'm computer illiterate enough to be impressed with the technology, but not so much that I want to sacrifice the whole setup to a volcano.

Not that we have those in Oklahoma.

So now our relatives can go to my in-laws' house to see us. It's better than nothing.

But we'll be up in five weeks or so.

Happy Birthday, Hammer

You're getting old, man. That's okay, though. I think I'm catching up. Wish I could be up there to party with you. Or sit and be old in a sedate manner.

Thank You For Not Forcing Me To Smoke

Outside every entrance on the OCCC campus there's a sign that reads, "THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA REQUIRES NO SMOKING BEYOND THIS POINT." The signs are about fifty feet away from the doorways, so there's some space to avoid the airborne death-crud.

The way these signs are written makes me laugh, though. I know they mean that smokers should smoke no closer to the doors than these signs, but what it actually says is that the state does not require people to smoke past the sign. I'm glad. If they did require me to smoke, I couldn't get to work without breaking a law, or a statute, or whatever governs smoking on campus.

Despite the signs, though, smokers huddle right around the doors. I guess the addiction is so strong that they can't manage to walk that far away from the building, or care whether others have to breathe their filth just to leave. And cigarette butts must be awfully heavy, based on the number of them I see on the ground. Just. Can't. Get. To an ashcan.

Sorry. Ranting again.

I Guess I Am

My almost-brother Hammer posted a list of sayings connected to those who may be Minnesotan. Here are those I could relate to:

• You measure distance in minutes.
• Down south to you means Iowa.
• 75% of your graduating class went to the University of Minnesota.
• People from other states love to hear you say words with O's in them.
• You hate Fargo but realize that a lot of your family has that accent. (A lot.)
• You assume when you say "Twin Cities" people know to where you're referring.
• You know what uff-da means and how to use it properly. (Hello? I'm 75% Scandahoovian)
• You know that when it comes to AM, there is only WCCO; besides, what else do you need?
• Everyone you know has a cabin.
• You are proud that your state makes the national news 96 nights each year because International Falls is the coldest spot in the nation.
• You have refused to buy something because it's too "spendy." (Greg loves that one)
• Your local Dairy Queen is closed from December through February.
• You instinctively walk like a penguin for three months out of the year.
• Someone in a store offers you assistance, and they don't work there.
• You know more than one person that has hit a deer. (Who has hit a deer would be the correct way to say this. Sorry.)
• Your dad's sun tan stops at a line curving around the middle of his forehead. (My dad's sun tan stopped in 1988. Again, sorry.)
• You have apologized to a telemarketer.
• You may not have actually eaten it, but you have heard of Lutefisk. (Again: Hello? I'm 75% Scandahoovian)
• You know what Mille Lacs is and how to spell it.
• Nothing gets you madder than seeing a Green Bay sticker on a Minnesota car. (I wouldn't say nothing, but . . . very little.)
• You have worn shorts and a parka at the same time.
• Your town has an equal number of bars and churches.
• You know how to say Wayzata, Mahtomedi, and Shakopee.
• You always believed that vacation meant "going up north." (Only because we rarely had vacations.)
• You call highways freeways.
• Your town has an annual festival honoring a fruit, vegetable, or ethnic food.

I just heard of a corresponding list for living in Oklahoma. I'll report it soon.

I'm Still Here!

I'm almost through with the grading lump, so I thought I'd take a moment and let you know I'm still alive. Sometimes, no matter how smoothly I'd like the semester to go, these things happen in spurts. Like when a boa constrictor eats a rabbit here and a squirrel there, and then realizes it can have a goat. And it eats the goat, but then the snake lies around digesting for a while.

I've been digesting. And I'm almost done.

Some updates, though:

• Forty-eight days into the pescetarian thing I'm still going strong. Sure, I've had a few blips, like that first week when we visited a spice store owned by some acquaintances and they needed someone to try their barbecue beef. I did it, and it was good. Then I had the accidental meatball at a party. I also wound up eating meat in soup two times at restaurants. And then we went to a physics function and Michele mistakenly scooped up some meat in a bean dish on the table. I ate it for her. So, five slips in forty-eight days. And I haven't really craved meat like I thought I would. And, even though I didn't do this for health reasons, I'm down to 217 pounds. That's 28 pounds lighter than I was in August.
• I interviewed at Rose State College on Friday. I'll be teaching there in the Spring in addition to my sections at OCCC. Probably just Comp, but maybe Comp II as well. That would be new and fun.
• We've been invited to a Halloween party, so today we bought our costumes. I'm not going to say what they are--I'll leave that to Michele, because she's really excited about them--but think Terry Pratchett.
• I like teaching Logic more every day. I might not get too many more chances to teach it, as there are a few people at OCCC who want to but couldn't this semester, but I love taking a tough subject and making people understand it. I get more epiphanies in a week of Logic than I do in a semester of Comp.
• The temperature is still in the 90s here.

And I'm still keeping up on the quizzes:
Your results:
You are Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)

Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 70% Wash (Ship Pilot) 60% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 60% Alliance 60% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 50% River (Stowaway) 45% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 45% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 35% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 20% A Reaver (Cannibal) 15% Inara Serra (Companion) 10%

Honest and a defender of the innocent. You sometimes make mistakes in judgment but you are generally good and would protect your crew from harm.

Click here to take the Serenity Personality Quiz

And:
Your results:
You are Jack O'Neill

Jack O'Neill 78% Daniel Jackson 72% General Hammond 60% Thor 52% Samantha Carter 49% Teal'c 41% A Goa'uld 38% Dr. Frasier 20%

You are a born leader. You are often cynical. You are loyal to the end but you are no brainiac.

Click here to take the StarGate SG-1 Personality Test

There was another I saw about political alignment here, but I can't get the graphics to work. Let's just say I make Gandhi look like Hitler. And the farthest person away from me on the graph? Dubya. I'm way down in the anarcho-syndicalist bottom-left corner.

Anyway--I'll have more of substance to say soon. I just needed to send up a flare, because my brother says my five minutes are up.