Happy Holidays

I hope the chaos of the holidays isn't overwhelming anyone. I've managed shopping and holiday gatherings without having an emotional meltdown, and if I can do that just about anyone can.

Drink more egg nog. That's the ticket.

Alternate Universe

Ever wonder what the result might have been if the guys in Duran Duran had grown up listening to a lot of Black Sabbath? I do. I think the resulting band might sound a lot like this:

Ow.

My parents never gave me that line about hoping I had kids exactly like me. They were too nice to wish that on anyone, but if they had, their wish would be coming true right now.

I was an unenthusiastic student in high school (understatement of the year candidate right there). Slept through Uncle Jimmy's Algebra class, meandered my way through Money Matters twice, did homework only when threatened. My parents heard the same thing at every conference: "He'd do well if he'd only apply himself."

And that's a good way to describe my Comp students--many of them, anyway. They're smart, they articulate their ideas well at times, and they're interested in improving themselves. But they are capable of some stone-headed statements. Such as:

I also believe sending Soldiers to Iraq was a good idea, and that the nine/eleven attack was Saddam Hussein’s way of declaring war on us, so it was necessary for his capture.

This is the kind of stubborn ignorance that earns the conservatives their reputation for willful stupidity. Wow.

Or this gem:

I believe that by partially eliminating suffrage in the United States, we have inevitably created suffrage in other countries.

On what planet do you spend five weeks writing an essay, submit two drafts for peer review, pretend to assemble an argument about a topic, and fail to learn the meaning of the word at the core of said essay? Blergh.

Then there's the need to point out the durability of certain phenomena:

Abortion has been around for a long time.

Immigration has been around for centuries.

The career of nursing has been around longer than I have been a live.

Poorly-developed essays have been around for longer than they should have been. Yikes.

Some of the ideas can't be classified as anything other than WTF?:

Is abortion safer than childhood?

Tuition should be considered highly for picking a university as don’t let it be in the way of a dream for there is many scholarships and grants available for students if they only search hard enough.

In June 2007, Louisiana passed the law that any undergarments being exposed due to their pants not being pulled up enough, will be charged with indecent exposure.

Everybody cares about their belongings right? Well we belong to the earth and it can’t take care of us we have to take care of it.

When the experiment was over the scientist got the results that water was just as good for you than water and that Gatorade did not do any good for you than water.

At least those nefarious undergarments are facing punishment. And so is my brain. Maybe even capital punishment:

The Death Penalty speaks to us all; everyone has an opinion on it.

And euthanasia is always an option:

There are a couple different types of ways to apply euthanasia. The two most common are a lethal dose of narcotics or a narcotic that cancels out the drug that the patient needs to survive. Most times the patient’s doctor will only hook them up to a device which holds the lethal dose. Then the patient pushes a button to release it whenever he or she likes. This is the only way I know about. I don’t think it would be very professional for a doctor to use a gun instead. More importantly it would hurt everyone’s ears.

I can appreciate when a student knows that he's not doing what he needs to be doing and embraces the humor in his failure. Because that's how I see these examples of bad writing. My failure. How did I let this happen? I'm glad it was only a few of them.

This Is Forbidden

Another sign that I'm a product of my time: thrash metal.

Seriously. How can anyone take the phrase "heavy metal" seriously anymore? Grunge killed it, and its resurrection by way of metalcore and heavy alternative and nu-metal bands has been slapdash. But I do. And the single word "metal" can provoke me to debate (not that much can't these days).

But here's where metal was undeniably metal. Not the cheesy Halford-worship or bastardized Kornesque crap--the real thing. San Fransisco Bay Area thrash, unadulterated by popular acclaim.

Forbidden.


and they're good live, too:

I could go on for hours about music, but I shouldn't. Not right now. I have too much nothing in my head.

The Religious Reich

Here's a scary quote I read in Liz Clarke's profile of Mike Huckabee in the Washington Post this morning:

"I didn't get into politics because I thought government had a better answer," [Huckabee] told a group of pastors on the eve of the 1998 Southern Baptist Convention. "I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives." He concluded that speech with words he says he'd phrase differently today: "I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ."

I don't know which scares me more: that an American in 1998, with even a passing acquaintance with the First Amendment, could think that this is an appropriate agenda for an aspiring President, or that millions of people would vote for him based on this single criterion. And I realize he says he'd phrase it differently now, but I don't see how different phrasing would change the idea.

Some Pictures and Words

At first the conditions were fun. Power went out in the early morning on Monday, and school was cancelled for both of us. Ice covered everything, and we ventured out early to get coffee and some groceries. While we drove around a crystalline Norman, we listened to the only music that could possibly be appropriate:
After we got home we wandered around the neighborhood and took some pictures. Despite all the destruction that came later, it was beautiful.

But I mentioned some destruction. Here are a couple minor examples:

And I found a woman hiding inside of a crystal cave:

Either that or I told Michele to stand underneath the branches of a bowed tree so I could take a picture. See?The "not having power" thing got old after the first day, though. And the ice shredded the trees in Norman. It really looks sad. Some people still don't have electricity (ours came back on Tuesday night), and we're looking at up to eight inches of snow this weekend.

I think we brought winter with us.

In other news:

The semester is over (except for a mountain of grading).

I was asked to teach a section of Logic next semester, but I can't because of a scheduling conflict.

I'm seriously considering talking to the Philosophy department at OU about working toward a PhD. Teaching Logic has fired me up again. I think it's a sickness.

Alive and Well

Just got internet back this minute--got electricity back on Tuesday night, after 37 hours with no power. I'll say more later. Just wanted to let everyone know we're still here.

And we have some pictures.

Another Rare Sports Post

I've mentioned my affection for the Minnesota Timberwolves and Kevin Garnett, and how my sports-love has been split now that they're entirely separate entities. I get a thrill every time I check out the Celtics and find that KG did well, or that the Celtics did well even when KG didn't, or that KG kicked ass for 17 minutes and then sat the rest of the game. I just want him to do well. It's like I have a son. A son who's only seven years younger than I am, who's a foot taller than me, and who's about my weight. A son who has so much melanin in his skin, if it were packed into my smaller frame it would make me look like Drizzt Do'Urden:

(Sorry--I'm a geek.)

On the flip-side of that (as opposed to the Flip-side) are the Wolves. They're languishing. They're losing. They suck.

But they don't--not really. They've been in every game. Until the last few minutes of each contest, they've been in a position to pull it out--but they haven't. Last night they got a bunch of great performances (like and such as: 20 points and 9 rebounds from my favorite player, Craig "The Rhino" Smith, and 18 rebounds from rookie Corey Brewer), but still lost. It's tough, but they're not a terrible team.

But right now the Wolves are 2-15 and the Celtics are 15-2. And both of those numbers are due to Kevin Garnett. His absence and his presence.

No! No! I'm One of You!

So Mitt Romney gave a speech yesterday defending his Mormonism and explaining how it wouldn't play a part in his decision-making. Of course it's bullshit, and of course he displayed what a moron he is (as opposed to what a Mormon he is). For a more thorough dissection of the speech than I'll give, read Nathan's post, which addresses the most egregious lapses.

In his attempt to counter Mike Huckabee's increase in popularity in Iowa, Romney has decided to throw everything into appealing to evangelical Christians so he can save his campaign. In doing so he's positioned himself against secularists, who seem to be supported by the text of the Constitution of the United States. But he knows this plays well to the pious, so he can ride this horse 'til it collapses, because nobody's there to call him on it.

A quote from Romney's speech comes close to addressing reality:

[R]eligious tolerance would be a shallow principle, indeed, if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree.

In the interest of completeness, I'd restate it as:

Tolerance of other worldviews would be a shallow principle, indeed, if it were reserved only for religious faiths.

Funny

When I was young my parents liked to say that I would grow up to be a doctor and my brother would be a lawyer. I think they just liked to imagine us both in successful careers, even if it turned out later that I wouldn't be a very good doctor (can't handle the sight of blood). Who knows how good a lawyer Jam would have been. But then I take the quiz Hammer posted on his blog:

You Should Be a Doctor

You are practical, sharp, and very intuitive. Optimistic and energetic, you are a problem solver who doesn't get discouraged easily. You are also quite compassionate and caring. You make people feel hopeful. You're highly adaptable and capable. You do well with almost any curve ball life throws at you. You do best when you: - Are always learning new subjects - Use your knowledge to solve problems You would also be a good therapist or detective.

What Should You Be When You Grow Up?

Thing is, I don't imagine I'll grow up. So there's no need to figure out what I'll be. Hah.

Not Exactly Eighties

Love these guys, even though they're from the nineties--and Danish. Great rock band who have been compared to AC/DC (though I don't see that). They've been known as Disneyland After Dark, DAD, D.A.D, D-A-D, and D:A:D.

They've had lawsuit problems.

To me they combine the Rolling Stones, Tom Waits, and some goofy person. But they're great anyway:


Sorry it's so pixillated. I don't think the real Danes are this pixillated.

Check out their other songs. "Soft Dogs," "Nineteen Hundred and Yesterday," and "Grow or Pay" are incredible.
And this is a more contemporary look at them:

Yaaaaaaaaa!

I Just Checked My Reading Level

I found a thing that analyzes blogs for readability. Here's my current rating:

Cash Advance Loans

That could be a problem, since my intended audience is broader than that. To explain: This rating doesn't imply that readers are deficient if they can't understand what I'm writing, but that I'm writing in a way that only postgrads should be expected to understand. At least on my current front page.

Let me know if I start talking jargon out of my ass. (Hoping to lower the rating--dang, didn't work).

On Hunting

We're in that time of year again when people pay for the privilege of killing animals they don't need to. When people who can go through their lives without harming things go out of their way to find animals to kill. When animal-lovers express their love with a gun.

I've never understood it.

I know hunters. Some people who hunt are people I respect despite their willingness to kill. But I don't get it. How do people find joy in death? How is the use of modern technology against herbivores considered--by anybody--a sport? I get that humans used to have to kill to survive, that this activity was necessary. But it isn't anymore. I'd like to think that our ability, as humans, as rational beings, to reflect and choose action would lead to better behavior, but it doesn't ever seem to.

I was following a FARK thread this afternoon about hunters in Iowa getting shot by their hunting buddies. I have to admit that I laugh every time I read one of those stories. I figure, "You reap what you sow, brother. At least you were armed."

One of the hunting advocates on the board posted a quote, in defense of hunting, by Jose Ortega y Gasset:

To the sportsman the death of the game is not what interests him; that is not his purpose. What interests him is everything that he had to do to achieve that death - that is, the hunt. Therefore what was before only a means to an end is now an end in itself. Death is essential because without it there is no authentic hunting: the killing of the animal is the natural end of the hunt and that goal of hunting itself, not of the hunter. The hunter seeks this death because it is no less than the sign of reality for the whole hunting process. To sum up, one does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, one kills in order to have hunted.

- Jose Ortega y Gasset.

Upon reading this quote I was struck by how self-serving and romantic it was. There's nothing to qualify this as a defense of hunting--and it probably wasn't meant to be one--but it was used in such a way as to pretend to that role. Here's my quick dissection of the passage.

To the sportsman the death of the game is not what interests him; that is not his purpose.

But it is the result of a successful hunt, so whatever his purpose is, the death of an animal is an acceptable exchange for his . . . er, what? Pleasure? Satisfaction?

What interests him is everything that he had to do to achieve that death - that is, the hunt.

So his interest is important enough to accept the death of an animal. Interest. That’s compelling.

Therefore what was before only a means to an end is now an end in itself.

Because now that he has found a thrill in hunting, the death of the animal is justified. Kill something unnecessarily because it gives you an emotion. That’s your worthy end. Nice.

Death is essential because without it there is no authentic hunting: the killing of the animal is the natural end of the hunt and that goal of hunting itself, not of the hunter.

What a bunch of shit. Is there possibly a goal of the hunter that departs from that of hunting? That is, could there be some quality at the core of the activity that defines the participant that isn’t related to the participant’s participation in the activity? Good Criminy, is that a convoluted rationalization.

The hunter seeks this death because it is no less than the sign of reality for the whole hunting process.

So, in order to convince himself that the activity was real, the participant requires a token—even if that token is a corpse. Again—Nice.

To sum up, one does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, one kills in order to have hunted.

Because to hunt just for the sake of killing would be bad, but to kill for the sake of remembering having participated in an activity—that’s sensible.

I know I'm snide about this. I know that there are probably nuances I'm missing, ignoring, whatever. But I wouldn't mind someone explaining this phenomenon in objective terms, because unless I'm misled, this is just an excuse for a bunch of people to indulge in the ultraviolence against an unarmed, safe opponent who won't complain.