This is what D.C. looked like yesterday. 

The Agony and the Irony

In my last few posts, I've been tracking the sad fate of my students, waiting for a snowday with an apocalyptic anticipation. Well, their desires for this Monday look to be cruelly thwarted once again. When the radio makes those crazy noises, "boop, beeeeeep, bzzbzzbzz, booo, beee, bop," I usually anticipate either nuclear annihilation or the subduction of the entire continent of North America. The radio made these noises Friday, and then told me about a coming blizzard, the likes of which Central Virginia had never seen, that would last for the entire day of Saturday. This caused a whole lot of Shifletts, Shiflettes, Shifflets, and possibly some Chiphlettes to make a run on toilet paper at Food Lion.
When storms of this nature roll through the Thomas Jefferson area, we can usually count on at least two days of school to be nixed. So, I was anticipating an unpleasant return trip from D.C. yesterday afternoon. Making our way from Ryan and Rebecca's apartment to Paul's was a little arduous, but made much easier by the presence of few cars on the road, a manual transmission, and the will to use it.
However, Janna and I decided that it would be a great idea to swing by IKEA in Potomac Mills, since we don't come up that way all that often. Janna wanted to get a new mirror, and I had my eye on some more of those VINK CD Racks, of which I had purchased one, but could not find on the IKEA website. (By the way, for a company that does a significant catalogue business, they have very few items that can actually be purchased online.) Anyways, this resulted us in getting off the highway at two different wrong exits, asking directions at a McDonalds and a Shell station, calling our wonderful friends Judy and Liz on my new cell phone, and eventually finding IKEA, only to find out that it was closed due to inclement weather. Janna's suggestion, after getting lost the first time, that we just go home, was not acceptable to yours truly, who would not allow himself to be thwarted by his own stupidity, only to find that such a conclusion to our journey was inevitable.
Resigned to our fates, we headed back the long way, on I-95 to I-64. Conditions were getting better and better as we header farther south, so I became more bold in the left lane. Eventually, I had gotten myself out to a place where I was driving outside of the "wolf packs" we learned to fear in driver's ed. I had passed some folks a while ago, and was making a move to get back into the center lane. As I did so, I hit a rough spot of ice and snow, which caused my car to spin out of control. I am grateful for the years of winter driving in Chicago and Grand Rapids, because I did not have the ability to use my cognitive faculties during this episode. However, my autonomic nervous system remembered to steer into the swerve and to pump the brakes (yes, we're too cheap to have ABS). Also, I am grateful for the angels that guided our car, as I was unable to use my own brain. As we spun, at first I was convinced we were headed into the ever-deepening ditch, which although eventually blocked by a guard rail, I was convinced would be my final resting place. Suddenly, the car completed a 180 degree spin, and then I was faced with on-coming traffic that I was convinced was coming to ram into me.
Fortunately, the car had enough momentum to gently slide onto the shoulder with nary a scratch to ourselves or to our vehicle. The angels on our shoulders had seen to that. A good samaritan pulled over to see if we were alright, which we told him we were. I hesitate to mention that he was a black man, but I think it only makes the good samaritan metaphor even better. We got back on the road, and needless to say, spent most of the rest of the next few hours driving in the right lane and singing hymns of thanksgiving in hastily improvised harmony.
A Charles Krauthammer essay in the Jan. 24th issue of TIME magazine, suggested that the two news stories that best act as bookends on human nature are the Indian Ocean Tsunami-- demonstrating the true frailty of humanity--and the Huygens probe to Titan--demonstrating the heights to which the human spirit can soar. I thought it was a nice dichotomy. However, the truth of the matter is, no matter how advanced our technology gets, we are still an insignificant part of the whole of the universe on a cosmic scale. What makes this so remarkable is the faith that billions of us share that we are so special to the creator of the cosmos, that he is willing to interact in our daily lives, for instance, sparing Janna and I from ending our days on an interstate outside of Ashland, VA.
However, possibly (and I must say that I am still unadvisedly keeping my hopes up) Joan and David, my sister and brother-in-law, will be moving there this next fall. Joan is flying out here for an interview in February, and maybe she will become a pseudo-Virginian too.
But for my students, who are already Virginians, they are going to have to deal with a snow day dissapointment again, quite unusual for this particular latitude. It looks like the snow on the roads has already melted, and the best we can hope for is a two-hour delay tomorrow. For most of them, the "best" that they are going to get is a reprieve from Church, which was cancelled for pretty much everyone today. However, Janna and I did read through the assigned lectionary readings today, not out of a spirit of duty, but of thanksgiving, for the eternal Lord of the Universe offers mercy to us all on a daily basis. Sometimes we just need to face our own end to see it.
Grace and Peace from Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with all the angels in glory forever and ever, Amen.

The National Museum of the American Indian

The NMAI is the swankiest, post-modernest, and uptodatest museum on the National Mall. Janna and I went there yesterday with Ryan, Rebecca, Aubrey, and Aubrey's fiance, Paul. When we arrived in the Potomac room, which we found out was an Indian word--who would've guessed, right--that means gathering of resources, or marketplace. I won't even go into any K-Street rants, Rebecca. The Potomac room is actually completely bare, but is an incredibly impressive rotunda, which also has windows and prisms that can mark out the equinoctes and solstices in rainbows on their austere compass rose.
We decided, that since an orientation tour was going to depart from this point, we would join it. Our tour guide was less than a skilled interpreter of the museum, however, she did possess and admirable enthusiasm for the project of gathering native artifacts from all over the Western Hemisphere into one massive collection. Apparently, however, most of the artifacts are housed in Maryland in a Cultural Resources Center, which is open to the public. The exhibits in the NMAI were very well presented and intruiguing, but the general consensus of the group was that the Museum had very little space actually devoted to exhibitions. This is a museum that you can "see" in the course of an afternoon, not like its other siblings on the mall.
The architecture of the building itself is probably the most intruiging, supposedly inspired by the site of Chaco Canyon. Therefore, it is supposed to be designed like a Southwestern Mesa. Inside and out, the building is very harmoniously designed, and offers many places for a visitor to sit and to have some incredible vantage points over the Mall. However, I still think a major influence of the Potomac room is the Rotunda of the National Gallery of Art, which in itself is part of the Mediterranean tradition passing through TJ, the Italian Renaissance, etc..., and back to the Pantheon in Rome, which should not be confused with the Parthenon in Athens.
Anyways, it is always a pleasure to visit Ryan and Rebecca, whose marriage, much like that of Mary Matlin and James Carville, is a reminder that if Republicans and Democrats can sleep together, maybe they can actually run the country together.
I enjoyed meeting Paul, Aubrey's fiance and a public policy grad student at George Washinton University. Of course, when I met him, I had to make my George Foreman University joke. (You know, there's also George Mason University, Georgetown, etc... Plus, wouldn't it be great if there was a Metro stop that said "GFU.") Anyways, Janna doesn't think that this joke is funny anymore, but that's just because she's heard it several gazillion times. I figure someone upon whom this joke has never been inflicted would find it hilarious. Plus, when I first came up with the idea, Janna thought it was funny.
So, Paul seems like a nice guy, and he has recently converted to Roman Catholicism. I was very impressed to see that both he and Aubrey are embracing the doctrines of transubstantiation, papal authority, and natural family planning. Not that yours truly, the heretic, can really claim to buy into doctrines of unquestioning obedience to church authority. However, it seems there is a trend in this country towards people accepting the authority of church tradition. This can be especially noted in the increasing number of conversion to the Greek or Eastern Orthodox Church, including Phil DeVries.
Anyways, I pray that God blesses Aubrey and Paul as they move towards the sacrament of holy matrimony.

"We're spreading freedom in Iraq, darnit, freedom!" 

The Unkindest Snow of Them All

In previous posts, I wrote about my students' anticipation of the "Movement Marathon" and their dissapointment at our first snow of the year. Well, today was a first, because of when the snow fell, not only was the Movement Marathon postponed, but the day off that they were anticipating to sleep off their caffeine hangovers became a school day, albeit with a two-hour delay.
>For northerners, a two hour delay is when you wait two hours for the snow to melt, because, it probably will. By the way, the city overloaded our street with salt during the first snow so that absolutely none of the snow stuck on the ground. (The City of Charlottesville actually has a small salt-stockpile and a few snow plows. Albemarle County, which is a separate entity (welcome to the East Coast), has, I think, one snow plow and a bag of salt that they bought at Lowe's.) They overloaded our steet with salt, because last year, during a particularly bad snow, our neighborhood was one of the last to receive snow removal services. It took three days before our road had been plowed, and even then, it was only a cursory plowing. I think all of this is evidence of racism. :)<
Anyways, all this aside, this cruel twist of fate, in which snow actually ended up adding a day to our pint-sized friends' school year, came about due to our inside connections with the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Our 8th grade English teacher's husband is an award winning sports writer for the aforementioned newspaper. He called her at about 4 o'clock yesterday to let her know they were upping the possibility and amount of precipitation for the overnight. Therefore, we cancelled the Movement Marathon based on the above information. Although the snow came as predicted, most roads were clear by the morning, so we proceeded with a two-hour delay school day.
Anyways, I'm excited about this weekend, because I'm going to Washington, D.C. this weekend to see my friends Ryan, Rebecca, and Aubrey, and to meet Aubrey's fiance. Hopefully, the city is still not as crowded with Bush protesters and corporate lobbyists from Bush's inauspicious inauguration. For the non-Latinists in the crowd, an inauguration orginally involved the prediction of the future from flights of birds and entrails of sheep, etc...
Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet.

Grading Projects

There's nothing quite like web-surfing to make grading projects an all-night affair. Well, I was reading this article at Al-Jazeera, and I realized that any idiot could make a comment afterwards. I also realized that I could easily fit into that category. So, I decided that I needed to send out an urgent message to my Farsiphone brethren. This is a shout out to the Medes and Persians!

Why do we have to be hating on each other? What is the deal--Iran, we have huge gas guzzling cars, you have lots of oil. Here's how it works, you can ask us to bend over and charge whatever the heck price you want, and we'll fill up our giant SUVs as much as we want because we have no self-control. Everybody gets rich, stupid, and happy! If you all are still obsessing over 1979, I want you to know, Americans need a major network mini-series to remind them of anything that happened more than half a decade ago. We're totally over that whole hostage thing. Just give it a few years, and we'll be so sick of Iraq, we'll have totally forgotten about Osama, and he and the Bush boys can get back to wildcatting and overthrowing governments which respect human rights. This means you have nothing to fear.

Redneck Agenda

So, many thanks to my friend Ann, whose inadvertant dialing of my cell-phone increased my street cred with the students today. Her misnumeration caused my cell to play "American Idiot" by Green Day. My students expressed sincere shock that my mobile (that's for you, Jess) did not play the first declension song (to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb). Anyways, my students are far more excited about DJ Funky Fresh rockin' it all night old school style. For shizzle.
I wonder how many of my preconceptions are complete b~!!$&!#? The other day, I saw a guy walking somewhat distractedly at Food Lion, and I was just amazed at how real and fragile he seemed. He looked like someone who has a 9-5, a family, and the usual distractions from the meaninglessness of daily life, but he had a look on his face that he just was lost.
I wonder how often I wander around with that look on my face. Do strangers look at me and take pity? Does everyone wander around with that look on their insides. I have a sneaking suspicion that we all do.
Like, take the snowfall today. As soon as my students saw the snow falling, they went crazy. I closed my blinds and threatened to send them to "meteorology class" in the Dean's office. The truth was, I was going just as crazy as they were, but only inside the privacy of my own mind. My first mental reaction was "Call their parents, bundle 'em up, and send 'em home."
However, I have the advantage of being able to check www.weather.com while I work, and I could see that fate had a cruel twist in store for our pint-size friends. The snow didn't fall early enough for honest, frost-fearing, Virginia school administrators to scramble to be the first to cancel school that day for no good reason. Nor did it stay long enough on the ground or in the air for anyone in the headmaster's office to think about packing it in early.
The forecast for tonight looks like it offers an equal disappointment. So, it looks like the Movement Marathon is still on, and yours truly is now expected to actually play music that someone wants to listen to.
Kyrie eleison. The LORD moves in mysterious ways.

DJ Funky Fresh

Well coming up soon is our middle school "Movement Marathon," which could more aptly be named the "ADHD Marathon brought to you buy HFCORNsyrup SolutionsCorp and Industrial Light and Caffeine LLC." This no-sleep extravaganza is going to feature, once again--God spare us--yours truly as DJ. You may be asking yourselves, "Whud the fud?" Well, apparently I am the only teacher who knows what an "MP3" is, or how to plug speaker wires together.
This means that I am now the arbiter elegantiae for 100 or some 13-15 year olds for approx. 4 hours. In the past, I have allowed my open contempt for the market-driven top 40 to allow me to play my favorite music with no thought to the utter horror of these "tweenagers (gag me with a pitchfork)" who weren't able to rock out to their favorite Brittany Spears tune.
Anyways, although sorely tempted to bring my new Ozomatli CD, I have been given a laptop laden with Top 40 treasures from the last three or so decades by our resident tech guy, who is actually a professional DJ. Anyways, as true believer in pure democracy, I have given my students a chance to tell me what they want to hear. Therefore, I passed them quarter-sheets of paper to tell me what they want to hear.
Now, the genius who requested the unedited version of "Holidae In" by Snoop Dogg is going to find his wish sadly unfulfilled. However, this leads me back to my previous dilemma. If I am going to choose music based on the following criteria, what am I left with?
--appropriate subject matter (NO sex, drugs, alcohol, devil worship, etc...)
--music which 13-15 year olds listen too (i.e. music foisted upon them by the audio industrial complex)
--good music (for those of you keeping track with Venn Diagrams, you may have noticed the tiny corresponding area between the three categories)
For some reason, more illustrative of my thought processes than any logical development upon the previous ideas, I was thinking about the life-saving station story popular among Evangelicals. You know the one, you've heard it a million times. The life-saving station is set up on the beach, eventually becomes a social club, and its members stop saving people from shipwrecks. Eventually a faithful remnant moves a mile down the beach to set up a new life-saving station, which in its turn follows through the same cycle.
This is supposed to be a metaphor for the church, but I would suggest, possibly a rather unbiblical metaphor. For instance, for Chuck Colson, who is my primary source for this story, I believe that the Unitarians and the PCUSA might be examples of the now socially elitist life-saving stations that have turned their back on saving lives. However, I think it is interesting to notice that the Unitarians and the PCUSA probably go on as many "mission" trips and send as much money to charities as any other more orthodox protestant demonimation.
When Jesus criticizes the stuffy religious types like the Pharisees or the Saducees it isn't because they aren't trying to do the right thing, which he acknowledged that they were. It was because these guys had become way too literal minded in their interpretation of the scriptures. It was this juvenile literal-mindedness that kept these guys trapped from experiening life as it was meant to be.
I am thinking of a conversation I recently had parsing the actual meaning of "Hey Ya!" by Outkast and whether or not this song is appropriate for the middle school crew. The fact of the matter is that we take the meaning out of something that we put into it. This, I think, is well demonstrated by The DaVinci Code. For instance, for centuries, the literati have all winked and nodded at the fact that John is clearly depicted by DaVinci as Jesus' catamite--you know, the beloved disciple. Seriously, people. However, now that Dan Brown comes along with his "historical fiction", suddenly we have to discuss the more boring and played out theory that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were knocking boots. By the way, if anyone out there is under the impression that the pagans were proto-feminists, I would encourage you to disabuse yourselves of said notions.
If you're still reading this, I'm done, thanks for indulging my intellectual narcisism.

This is my head, because I'm trying to put my picture in my profile. if you don't like it, don't look at it. 

This is a picture of me in front of my house. 

That costume sure looks like a forgery, and doesn't Harry kind of look like Beavis? 

Challenging the Networks!

Did you see the coverage of Prince Harry! I think this is clear evidence of media bias. Everyone knows that Nazis stopped manufacturing swastika armbands in the mid 40s! How could this be anything but a forgery. Look at those 21st century lines! Where are the skulls on Harry's collar? This is bigger than Rathergate! I'm not going to stop until I take this to the top

macro or micro economics

Our neighbors Judy and Liz, who are great neighbors :) , are sharing NETFLIX with us. Recently I watched the first half of Commanding Heights a PBS documentary about views of the world economy. It presented the history of economic thought as basically pertaining to one of two schools: Keynesian or Hayekian economics. In practical terms, we are talking, the Marshall Plan versus Reaganomics.
The basic dichotomy may be a little simplistic, and not being versed in economic theory myself, I have little ability to judge this choice of the filmmakers. However, what I found interesting is the association of the Christian religion with one school or the other. Here in America, many Evangelical Christians have connected free-market economics with Jesus' teaching based on 1 or 2 parables (i.e. the Parable of the Talents--apparently George Bush and Don Evan's favorite). By the way, I just finished reading Al Franken's Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, (thanks, Jessica) in which his Supply-Side Jesus is absolutely hilarious. However, in Great Britain, and elsewhere in the world, a Christian Socialist is considered by many to be the only variety of Christian.
Anyways, the idea that God is some kind of celestial economist hashing out financial policy from heaven is one that I find slightly scurrilous. However, the idea that one can claim to be a Christian, and completely ignore societal morality is equally wrong.
I know that many kBs have been spilt discussing the future of the Democratic party, so I would like to suggest my new formulation, and it is even alliterated for the sake of mnemonics. The idea is the Moral Marketplace. This is of course, based not so much on Keynes' ideas, but more, I have to admit on Hayek's. However, the idea being, that the market is not as much an idea as a reality. The basis of the market is the concept of value. Human beings cannot seem to exist without a values system. Even those who are accused of engaging in "moral relativism" are expressing the value that right and wrong are less fixed, but still just as real. How can morality be relative if it does not exist?
Anyways, if you accept that the concept of value is intrinsic to human beings, then, I believe you have to accept that the concept of a value exchange is also intrinsic. For instance, saying that a pound of butter is worth a sack of potatoes, or saying a Ryne Sandberg rookie card is worth a mint box of Cracker Jacks reflects this basic reality. However, if one takes the concept of value exchange as a given, it does not need to absolutely morally good, as suggested by the present administration after the fall of Enron (i.e. Enron went bankrupt, Q.E.D. capitilism has punished the evildoers.)
For instance, the fact that the rain falls upon the just and the unjust alike is, I would suggest a given for anyone who acknowledges the existance of the physical universe. However, saying that this always good or always bad would be highly questionable for most people. Let's say that you are out on a picnic--having rain fall on your head might be considered by most to be bad. However, let's say that you are a farmer living through a drought in the same area, you might think that rainfall is a good thing. However, let's take it one step further--if you are living in S. California, and you are experiencing a drought, so much so that your lawn and garden is brown and dead, having your house completely flattened by a mudslide might be considered bad.
Therefore, we can affirm that factual absolutes in the real world need not correspond with moral absolutes. Thus the fact that value exchange is an intrinsicly human concept, does not mean that value exchange is always good. For instance, if someone uses their salary to buy groceries and pay their rent, we might consider this to be "good." However, if someone uses that same salary on blow, crank, or any other psychotropic drug or narcotic, we might consider this to be "bad." Also, if there was someone who had to work two jobs just to pay for the rent on his apartment, and another gentleman who had never really worked a day in his life who had three houses and a beachfront condo in Tahiti, we might consider this situation to be "bad" or at very least "unfair."
Now, one cannot stop the rain from falling from heaven, just as equally as one cannot stop value exchanges between two or more people from happening. However, one can build a lean-to, or even a modestly-sized home, to keep the rain from falling on one's head. One can also choose carefully where or how to buy or build a house, so that it is not subject to mudslides or floods. Just the same, one can make rules to be enforced by some empowered government body to keep the worst excesses of the marketplace from happening.
As George W. Bush has noted, one thing the government is really good at is "punishing evildoers," therefore, I would suggest that a Moral Marketplace, is such a place where employers are encouraged and punished to and for doing the right or wrong thing. Also, when it goes beyond the ability of employers to do the right thing, such as provide health insurance at a reasonable cost to their employees, the government should step in and take that responsibility. This does not mean that we need big government, it means that we need responsible government.
T.J. once told us that "That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves." However, I would suggest that T.J. is wrong. The only thing that I think T.J. really did right was to buy Louisiana, and to write the Declaration of Independence (I even have some quarrels with the language he used therein). For instance, I am not all that thrilled about UVa, having been an off and on student there for the last few years.
Also, this is the man that gutted the U.S. Navy right when we had possibly the greatest naval threat to our nation's very existence that we ever faced. He made the nation suffer through a disastrous trade embargo, which bankrupt many of our citizens, and as the governor of Virginia, presided over the burning of the capital, Richmond, by British Troops. Also, he was an absolute failure in his personal business, dying a debtor; his slaves all had to be auctioned down the river to pay for his very undisciplined personal lifestyle. On top of all these failures, Thomas Jefferson is the one man who had any reasonable chance of leading a successful movement for abolition before the Civil War. The fact that he choose not to do this, I believe, is a great moral failure.
Anyways, back to T.J.'s original quote, I believe that it should read, "The government is best which governs most wisely, because it advocates for the needs and wants of its citizenry." Ideology (small government) is what got the Sage of Monticello into trouble with respect to his embargo and slavery. And his most successful act as president, the Louisiana purchase, flew into the face of his small government ideology.
Therefore, I believe the argument should not be on the ideological grounds "big government" versus "small government" but rather "smart government" versus "dumb government" or possibly versus a "dumb president."
God bless America.