Dance, Dance, VOLTA!

Janna and I went to waltz class together last night--it started last week, but I was in Philadelphia. This class is being taught by Gaye Fifer, a soft-spoken, graceful woman, whose name is as whimsical as the dances she teaches. Her roommate is Michelle, an old friend whom we haven't seen much of recently, so it was pleasant to see her at the waltz class. Apparently, Gaye's ex-husband?, Gene, is also good friends with John & Alaina and Judy & Liz, and Janna has this vague paranoia that she always says offensive things at parties that causes him to leave early.
I've always enjoyed the waltz, simply because I was introduced to it at a younger age, and it is a dance that you can enjoy at a very simple level. I have to admit, that there is something about poetry and dancing that seems quite ephemeral and that I don't quite understand at an intrinsic level. However, I enjoy interacting with the two because of that mystery. My fascination with physics is much the same. I really don't quite understand it, so I only know enough to prove my ignorance and to maintain that sense of mystery.
Of all the classes I took in college, I think some of the warmest memories I have are of Jazz Dance. I remember telling someone during orientation that I was going to take it, on a whim, to fulfill one of my PE requirements, so I actually followed through and did so. Calvin's dance professor, Ellen Van't Hof, is really quite a remarkable teacher, both demanding and patient, as the best teachers are. I enjoyed that class, for many reasons, but the millieu of students was perfect for a dance class--my friend "Kat," the queen-bee theater major, "Princess," a voluptuous blond who lived on Kat's and my cousin Bev's hall and was P's roommate. My dance partner was a Tejana whose name escapes me. She was pretty enough to be interesting, but not too pretty to be distracting. She was very patient, and attempted to introduce me to the world of Latin dancing. Also, there were two or three other guys--who were more or less as clueless as I--so I didn't feel completely alone--but the gender ratio was still completely skewed.
I'm looking forward to really learning how to waltz well, so the next time we go to a contra-dance (which hasn't been in a while), I can hold my own. Contra is quite fun, and I'm dissapointed that I wasn't able to go with Janna the last time she went.

Chelones

Due to popular demand...
Tullia likes to burrow her way into the corner.

Tullia 
Roger likes to poke his colorful head out and stay in the hide box.

Roger 

Testudines, or Why I Love My Turtles.

Roger and Tullia, my beautiful eastern box turtles, are getting fat. In fact, Roger is so fat, as a normally shy turtle, he can hardly get his big fat head into his shell, let alone close his shell up tight--the secret superpower of the eastern box turtle.
Anyways, I've got to remember that turtles are not like people, or even simply, not like mammals. It's hard to imagine going for days or even weeks without food, but for turtles, it's par for the course. In fact, I felt wracked with guilt for not feeding them for three days, but they still need to go to Jenny Craig.
First of all, I only feed them for sentimental reasons--because I like to see them. However, they probably have all the food they need between digging up juicy worms and bugs in the compost area to chomping on the cabbage I planted. Then add a few enormous nightcrawlers and chopped bananas, served to them on a pink doggie dish, and well, let's just say I'm probably overfeeding them. I just hope I don't do this to my own children.
The reason we have this misunderstanding, though, is that turtles, like all reptiles and other cold-blooded creatures, are solar-powered. They use the warmth of the sun to help their bodies perform the chemical processes necessary to life. In fact, essentially all bio-mass on the planet is solar-powered, whether we are talking photosynthesis in plants, or cold-blooded creatures, or even the warm blooded creatures who have to gorge themselves several times a day on the flesh of their directly solar-powered co-beings.
In fact, in many ways, turtles are the perfect foil for humans. Turtles are slow--they move slowly; they reproduce slowly (Tullia can hold Roger's semen in her body for up to four years before she becomes pregnant). Turtles are simple--they consume very little, are fairly hardy animals, and they carry all their wordly possesions inside their shell. They have very few needs and do very little. They haven't essentially changed in over a 100 million years. In fact, after the nuclear holocaust, turtles will keep doing what they are doing now, with very few changes.

The rhetoric of compromise

Why has the United States constitution functioned so effectively for almost 218 years? It is the oldest constitution as such--as opposed to the British constitution, which is merely a state of mind, rather than a document--which has operated without a total rewrite. For comparison's sake, the French are on their Fifth Republic.
The answer, I tell you, is compromise. The greatest virtue and deepest flaw of a capitilist democracy, is that there are no moral absolutes--everything is negotiable. The only time our constitution failed to protect us from civil chaos, was when folks were not willing to compromise on slavery, seeing it as either a total evil or a God-given economic necessity. The fact of the matter is, slavery was really awful, but the Southerners did have a point in that it was quantitatively no worse than Northern wage-slavery. In fact, in ancient Roman times, removed from "modern" theories of race, day-laborers were considered to be even lower than slaves in the social hierarchy.



Now, obviously, what I am suggesting repulses me even as I write it. The idea that slavery could somehow be morally acceptable makes me shudder. However, the death of almost 700,000 of the nation's youth and the complete economic destruction of an entire region of the country are also quite horrible as well.
The fact of the matter is, morality is subjective. Surely, once Fort Sumter was fired upon, only a true pacifist could have opposed the war. However, the American Civil War was a terrible stain on this continent's history, and dwarfed any of the previous European Wars in comparison. If somehow, a compromise could have been reached, so that slaves would be gradually emancipated, as they were in other parts of the world, would that not have been somewhat good? As it is, the Civil War was itself only somewhat good, and the horrible period of virulent racism that followed was itself stimulated by the defeat of Southern manhood on the battlefield.
Okay, so here comes my point. I am extremely conflicted on the topic of abortion. I feel it to be morally abhorrent, and could never bring myself to urge anyone to engage in the practice. However, if judges who will try and whittle away at the hard-won freedoms the working men and women of this country achieved in the past century will be appointed, solely because they have an extreme view on this issue, I cannot see this as good.
So why can't the Senators cut a deal to preserve some of the basic functions of our democracy (anyone see Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) and maybe allow one or two extremely right wing judges to go by. The fact of the matter is, Congress in the 90's held up a far greater percentage of Bill Clinton's judicial nominees than are being held up currently.
Also, this whole Bolton thing? Why can't the Republicans see that this guy is crazy. I'm not asking for some left-wing peacenik to take the job. Just get me a conservative that doesn't have the vast majority of his or her screws loose.



This country wouldn't exist if our founding fathers didn't agree to define "all other persons" as three-fifths of a human being. That is a horrible thought, but the fact is, if Thomas Jefferson were able to control his own spending, and hadn't been a debtor his whole life, he possibly would have lead the way to gradual emancipation. Thus, hundreds of thousands died, and millions more suffered a loss of human dignity, because the moral cowardice of one man who could have possibly led the effort for compromise. Sometimes compromise is the hardest moral path to follow.
Peace.

yin-yang

Well, I spent the last few hours in a bus full of middle-schoolers coming back from Philly, which my boss, whose judgement I normally respect, decided to turn into an open mic evening of torture. I actually asked him if he hated us, to which he laughed--the correct response.
Well, if that wasn't sufficiently Abu Ghirabesque, I come back home to find out from the grapevine that our God-blessed president is going to be giving the commencement address this May at the school from which I received my bachelor's degree.
There was nothing said on my friends' blogs with which I wouldn't probably concur. If any one event has pushed me closer to a truly anti-dualistic understanding of the universe, it is this one. The fact of the matter is Calvin College is just as wonderful and as corrupted by sin as any one of us or any institution. Let me give you a brief photo illustration.
George Walker Bush

Bad Calvin

Anne Lamott

Good Calvin

The point is that our bad and our good, our flesh and our spirit, our truth-telling and our lying are all so bound up with each other, that it is impossible to see where the line between the two are. The fact of the matter is, although I do not respect George W.'s politics, ideology, or casual disregard for his responsibilities, I do respect that he holds an office that has authority over me. I do respect the fact--not only because the Secret Service would send me to Guantanamo indefinitely and waterboard me liberally--that I should not wish physical harm on him or attempt to harm him myself. I also do respect the fact that he holds the highest political office my homeland affords, and in so doing he has some honor. I respect the fact that George W.'s face will be on knicknacks, in textbooks, and on cheesy pens that are sold at the Valley Forge Gift Shop for years to come.
What I am saying is perhaps quite radical. George W. is no more evil than you or I. My alma mater provided me both with a quality and thorough education, and a post-modern ennui without which I would be as lost as Kurt Cobain without Courtney. The fact that Kurt chose to put a gun to his head and end it all is the same as my blind determination, in the face of daily failure and humiliation, to continue to show up at school and church and to "educate" and to "be educated."
If this is becoming too obtuse, my point is, I can no more get mad that someone who on most days, I consider to be an evil, lying, murdering bastard is giving the commencement address at the same school where I learned the joys of middle verbs, making out in the forest preserve, and writing overly verbose self-important screeds about the nature of the universe.
To sum up--What the c---s---ing, skullf---ing, g--d---, b----a--, c---licking, hell!?!

WIC

So, today, while I was in line at Kroger, the woman ahead of me was loading up on the powdered milk courtesy of WIC. She was smartly dressed, and I imagined that she was a bank teller, because of her SunTrust lapel pin. You know, it used to be that in this country we had a moral conversation about poverty. Now, major corporations don't pay their employees enough for them to provide for their families, which forces them to work long hours so that they never see their families. Then, the government, which is being starved of tax revenue, is asked to foot the bill. All in the name of "productivity", "progress", and the best piece of Repouble-speak yet, "growth." (No they are actually, not talking about viagra.) By the way, for all those keeping score, everything above is actually a pro-family position. Raise the Minimum Wage!
Time had a nice piece on the shrill banshee that is Ann Coulter. Sometimes, I would love for Jesus to come back and ask me to hang out with a bunch his conservative followers. I, like Judas, or a pharisee, would ask him how he could possibly let this bunch of farsical @$$holes use his name in the service of their dubious objectives. Then of course, Jesus would put that stone in my hand and ask me to toss it, if I could promise that I had never, ever been a farsical @$$hole. Well, God bless ye AC, and as you cuddle up next to your Muslim ex-boyfriend as one of his houris in the afterlife, I will be repeatedly asked to explain perfect passive participles to pedophile priests in purgatory.
By the by, thanks to Commander Sue, I have discovered that I'm actually an Orthodox Quaker. This explains the strange cravings for oatmeal as a child. Don't worry, Mom, the bottom five on my list were...
5. Mormonism
4. Islam
3. Jehovah's Witnessing
2. Christian Science
and the least likely religion for yours truly to become a part of...
1. Nontheism (formerly known as atheism, but it's more fun when you mix Greek and Latin roots). Actually, I was slightly more likely to be Catholic than Conservative Protestant, but just slightly so. So screw you Falwell, Ratzinger and I are going out for coffee.

Yes, I'm one of those liberals Ann Coulter warned you about

The above is a reference to the popular T-Shirt/bumper sticker/piece of cheap crap phrase, "I'm one of those Christians Satan warned you about." I felt the analogy appropriate. I wrote the following to NPR this morning.

>In an earlier news summary this morning, you quoted Tom DeLay at an NRA event as did CNN, "When a man is in trouble or in a good fight, you want to have your friends around, preferably armed. So I feel really good."
However, later on your news summary did not use the quote. I think this is a terribly important thing for the American people to hear. Probably more important than the Dean "scream" which NPR endlessly replayed the day after.
I mean, this is genuinely one of the most powerful men in America suggesting that violence is an acceptable way to resolve disputes over behavior.<

If you're wondering why I am posting so much this weekend, you guessed it, I have grades due next week before I go to Philly with the 7th graders.

Wow, the Internet is Creepy...or is it just Me?

So, I discovered Google Local today, and with it, the satellite image feature. Now, we can all have the same power as the NSA to not quite know what the heck is going on in the world, but to scarily know more than we should. Anyways, as "googling" is always an entertaining way to spend an afternoon, here are some wonderful things I creepily discovered on the web.
My friend Aubrey, who grew up with me in Wheaton, helped to lay cables for an experiment at Fermilab.


Here's a nice picture of Phil you have to scroll down a ways to see, and here you can see some of the articles he has written since.
My friend Bev left some random comments at a website when she lived in Korea and wrote this journal entry in high school.
Below is a very sexy picture of my friend Allie in her friend's wedding. I am looking forward to attending Allie's own nuptials in Minnesota! I think this might have been the wedding at which she met her fiance.


My friend Jess cut her hair from when I saw her last.
I also found out that my old friend Rhonda is working on a screenplay.
I found out that an old girlfriend of mine recently climbed up 80 flights of stairs for charity and has become an actuary.
Well, I'm starting to creep myself out, so I'll leave it at that.

P.S. I've had to do an inordinate amount of editing on this entry, so I will add one more fun fact. If you Google the following phrase--"matt lind" blog--you will find this humble website. However, if you choose--matt lind blog (without quotation marks)--you might find my doppelganger in name, some figure skater who is far more talented than I will ever be. Peace.

Disconnect

Have you ever had that feeling that every object in the universe is just a few centimeters away from your fingers, but if you lean forward, Tantalus-like, to touch them, they will scurry away from your fingertips. Well, this is my second day in the magic sleep deprivation experiment. Once again, mea culpa est, I spent all weekend in my yard, planting, and admiring my turtles, so when it comes to crunchtime, I've got to suck it up. I also dithered away my evening last night with Jessica and Janna, drinking our sorrows away at the not-so-local Mexican restaurant, and then watching NBC sitcoms, while I half-assedly (can I make that word up?) graded quizzes (involving a frantic drive to school for a lost gradebook--actually a clipboard--that was sitting on my desk). I then slept for about 3 hours, wrote the other test for today, slept for another hour, and showed up to school with barely enough time to be ready for class.
Anyways, I haven't had much caffeine because I'm so tired that I couldn't remember to stop by the fridge in the teacher's loungue to pull out one of my diet pepsis. So I have no idea what I was trying to do, but apparently, I did a word search at the Perseus website for the Greek word which means "to read." Anyways, it's interesting, but I have no idea why I did this search earlier this morning. I'm sure it's the answer to some great mystery, but I don't know what the question is--like the number 42 in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. By the way, I'm glad they made another movie of it, which will hopefully have better special effects, but there is just something about reading a book about a magical book that seems more appropo.
So back to the Greek word for reading, there doesn't seem to be just one simple one-syllable stem verb for reading on the list. I just pulled out Groton, which I don't know why I didn't do that before, and she's says that it is "anagignosco." Well, that makes sense, but it's not a simple stem. I like the idea that the Greeks had to make up a compound verb for "read." I mean, we think of them all the time as these geniuses who invented civilization for the first time, when really all they did was jabber on in a bunch of town meetings for a long time, and defeat the Persians. So they have a compound verb for reading--interesting. The Romans don't, we don't, I can't think of any language I've ever encountered that does. Obviously, it's because the alphabet had only been invented a hundred years before anyone in Athens became pretentious enough to be a "philosophos."
Gosh, I need to sleep. It's like being a teenager. My theory is that teenagers, because they need more sleep than the rest of us, and they don't get it, are constantly sleep deprived, therefore, putting a strain on their still developing brains to make good decisions.
schlaf gut.

It's 5:30 in the morning

Okay, so I had a nice comfy sleep from approx. midnight until 2:30 this A.M. Don't feel sorry for me, it was all due to poor planning on my part. Anyways, I got all my work done with a little time to spare, so rather than taking a nap from which I probably would not be able to wake up, I'll save it for the staff meeting afterschool today. If you want to see a roomful of hypocrites, go see a bunch of teachers at a staff meeting. Most of us don't listen to half of what's said. There are teachers doing grading, and it takes forever for the administrators to get our attention. Then we have the stupid questions...and the inane responses that only prompt more confusion. Well, anyways, it's a great opportunity for a nap.
So as a teacher, one is held to a higher standard than the rest of the populace. And nobody judges teachers more harshly than other teachers. That is why my stupid Software Design class at PVCC is so frustrating. I'm taking it online, and that was a poor decision. However, it was not available as a night class so I'm screwed. Basically, their is no instruction offered through the internet, other than--read these incredibly dense books and then solve the problems. Oh, and did I mention the program that no one in the class has been able to download? Well, I just finished my homework for today, and I have no idea if I did it right, but I don't actually care.

You may notice that I included my realtor's blog in my links. That is because she is quite possibly the most professional person I have ever met in my life. If you want to move to Charlottesville, like the rest of the Universe, she'll give you the hook-up. I also wanted to see if I could make the html code to show an image to work.
I saw the movie I Heart Huckabees yesterday while I was grading quizzes. Quite possibly the best philosophically oriented comedy ever made. The point was, well, heck, watch it for yo' darn self.

Tullia and Roger

Tullia poked out her precious little head today for the first time. I was worried, because she and Roger had been hibernating since October. Yesterday, I was planting greens for them to eat, and I accidentally discovered Roger. He seemed to be okay, after he warmed up in the sun. However, there was no sign of Tullia. She came out today, and after a trip to the local gas station/bait shop, I provided both of them with tasty, juicy nightcrawlers. Tullia promptly devoured hers, like the little pig that she is. I'm so happy that both of them are back, in their nicely and neatly planted chelonian enclosure. I planted some greens that I bought from some hippies at the City Market. I added an extra basking rock as well, so they can each have their own. We'll see if they get into any hot turtle-on-turtle action, as they seemed to be so excited about when they first met each other. However, any relationship like that can never sustain that kind of passion, so I hope they'll settle for a simmering dissatisfaction that could last them the rest of their natural lives (some estimate the lifespan of a turtle like Tullia or Roger to be a century.) Sometime in the near future, I look forward to bringing them to school so Gina can incorporate them into a lesson on herptiles (the pretentious word for reptiles).

The Cider House Rules

What a long, boring movie. However, the point was that sometimes people don't and possibly shouldn't follow written or unwritten rules that aren't enforced or that they don't feel are important to follow. See I Corinthians 6:12.

Just like when Reverend Lovejoy counselled Marge Simpson to get a divorce,...
MARGE: Doesn't the Bible say not to get divorced?
LOVEJOY: Have you actually read this thing? You practically can't even go to the bathroom!

If you are still basking in the glow of Nipplegate, I guess it would be a good suggestion to get a life (and I suppose that same advice could be given wisely to yours truly). However, if this is something that truly got the FCC's hackles up, then why didn't someone fine Kid Rock for the most @$$backward display of patriotism on record?
As I was researching the novemdiales during which the official morning of "il Papa" takes place, I wondered if the U.S. flag was held at half-staff for 9 days as well (in continuity with ancient pagan practice). However, it turns out that although we ain't metric, we do our mourning in base-ten. Anyways, if you wanted to see all the horrible crimes that true patriots who would like to put in an amendment into the constitution against burning flags commit to their innocent flags every day, visit the following link. Basically, if your question is, are most Americans completely unaware of the disrespect they pay to their own flag every day, the answer is yes. So next time you have a 4th of July barbecue, get the plates without the flag pattern.
Here's my point. I think the problem with people who insist on literality or black and white thinking--"you're either with us or the terrorists"--probably don't realize how many rules they have violated in their lives. If they do, and they still insist on black and white thinking, then they're just being jerks. It's just too bad that John Ashcroft wasn't around when Jesus said, "Let he without sin cast the first stone," because Johnny-boy would've gotten a lightning bolt in the butt for chucking his rock anyway.

prope mortem

So I almost died last night. Obviously, I'm exaggerating. However, I was watching the American version of The Office on NBC for the first time last night. I missed the first few episodes due to spring break, etc...

Dwight (the Gareth character) is trying to justify why the employees do not need health care.
DWIGHT: I have complete mental control over my body...I can raise and lower my cholesterol level at will.
PAM: Why would you want to raise your cholesterol level?
(pause)
DWIGHT: So I could lower it.

When I heard that line, I was drinking Fresca, the soft drink of death, and started choking from hilarity. Fortunately, I was able to keep my reaction under control, and was able to move on with my life.
I didn't think that the NBC version could ever possibly recreate that ethos of the original, and as many of the critics point out, they didn't really try, rather, they made something unique and interesting. In fact, the weakest parts of the show are where it parallels the BBC version, if only for a been there, done that kind of feeling. I hope that it continues to be consistently funny. Having Ricky Gervais as executive producer and Steve Carell as the star definitely do not hurt. However, personally, I think the actor who plays Dwight Schrute, Rainn Wilson, is going to run away with this one. He probably has the best comic timing of the ensemble.