au naturel

Big thanks to Aubbers for blogging Memorial Day Weekend.


More substantively, I'd like to ask Harris Miller to stop sending me junk mail. Nevksy—who by the by, recently met Steve Carell—has already endorsed Jim Webb. I'm going to go so far as to give him my endorsement as well. Not necessarily because I believe in Jim Webb's specific brand of politics, but because I don't believe in having political beliefs anymore.

Let me explain. You see, the second people to go against the wall in any revolution are those who have enough brain power to think for themselves—greats like Trotsky, The Dixie Chicks, and Christine Todd Whitman. Why is this? This is simply because most of us want to create a schema by which we can understand the world and are uncomfortable when there are ideas or facts which don't fit into the pattern. I'm not just talking about my fellow Commonwealthsmen, Tsunami Pat and Lynchburg Lemonhead, but all of us who have ever had ideals. I have no doubt that most people with whom I vehemently disagree earnestly believe that their ideals are the best for the world.

This is the fundamental problem, ideology does not lead to solutions, but rather to greater problems. This is tragically demonstrated by the movie Downfall, which I finally got around to watching. Of course, this was also amazingly demonstrated by the New Market Battlefield State Historical Park, "Where 257 Cadets from the Virginia Military Institute made the difference between victory and defeat..." Of course, the irony is, that the cadets did not make any difference between victory or defeat, in fact, the battle only delayed the retaliatory burning of their own Institute by a month.

This weekend, we drove right past the Battlefield of Port Republic, which merits merely an old historic marker.


If any battlefield in the Shenandoah Valley is underrated and forgotten, this one might qualify. It was the culmination of Jackson's Shenandoah Valley Campaign, in which he gave the Confederacy a free hand to ship the agricultural bounty of the Shenandoah Valley to Richmond via the Staunton railroad (which passes right through my fair city). This allowed Lee to feed the Army of NoVa right up until a month after the Battle of New Market, at which time Union General David Hunter captured Staunton, and then marched south to burn down much of VMI's campus in Lexington. Another two months after this battle, in August, Philip Sheridan came barrelling down the Shenandoah Valley to fulfill Grant's Command that, "If a crow wants to fly down the Shenandoah, he must carry his own provender with him."

The New Market "Hall of Valor" exists because of VMI. However, it also exists because of Virginia's peculiar adoration of aristocracy. There is a 45 min. orientation film to a battle which lasted an afternoon and at which approximately 8 cadets perished (in a war that claimed upwards of 600,000 lives). This film follows the lives of the grandchildren of our wealthiest founding fathers. One specifically touching segment was the homoerotic adventures of one Moses Ezekiel—VMI's only Jewish cadet, whose bacon consumption and New Testament reading the film makes a special point of mentioning—and one Thomas Jefferson, the grandnephew of our own venerable TJ. Of course, the film never explicitly mentioned any man-on-man action, but I've never in my life seen two men snuggling in bed so much. I don't care if one of them was dying. Which one lives? Which one dies? You'll have to pay $9 to find out for yourself.

Of course, the battle-tested lower-class veterans, whose duties during the war did not mostly involve guarding baggage trains, get scant mention in the museum or the battlefield tour guide. In fact, one has to walk underneath highway I-81 to see anything of the Virginia regular's perspective, or even the Union perspective, to say the least.

What does all of this have to do with political beliefs, you may ask? The Confederacy seceded over some vague notion of "states' rights," which really meant the right to enslave other human beings. The internal contradictions of any ideology are inescapable and damning. In the Confederate case, they were fatal. After General Hunter cut the railroad line from the Valley, Lee's troops began to slowly starve to death, or at least the ones foolish enough to stay and fight. Many left because it was entirely unclear for what the average man was fighting. It was not a conflict that could be portrayed to the Confederate foot soldier as a matter of religion, cultural superiority, or even the triumph of order over chaos. It was an ideological conflict based on a weak idea, that people should be free to be a despot in their own household.

Even the most compelling ideologies have the same weakness in the end. The problem with morality is that it does not lie in absolutes, as many would have you believe. It lies in thoughtful and compassionate action. This is what I hope Jim Webb stands for, because I certainly don't know on what other platform he might be running.

our long national nightmare...

Once again, I refer you to the most prophetic comment about the Bush Administration ever written.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28784
But first, let's talk about Arrested Development. I've been using my now weekly free rentals from Blockbuster to enjoy this series. You may have heard the fulsome praise heaped on to this cruelly cancelled sitcom. There are no other superlatives I could add to "Best Sitcom Ever," so I'll just wax rhapsodic about its genius pitch and timing.

There has been much discussion in this general blogospheric region about the nature of satire due to the brilliant, if somewhat heavy-handed, spoof issue that is not officially from Chimes. In terms of television satire, while South Park and Family Guy may win in the Taco Bell/Slim Jim/XBox marketing demographic, these shows hardly qualify as satire as much as creative, absurdist, and abusive adolescent fantasies. Blue one-liners in Arrested Development such as, "I can blow myself," or, "My brother said we could do it," are spoken in context so flawlessly that one is laughing at the situation before the dirty joke even dawns upon the viewer. What makes Arrested Development truly effective satire is that, as in Seinfeld, sympathetic characters are made out of people whom in real life we would find completely morally reprehensible. The fact that the writers make this a running joke throughout the series merely highlights the respect they have for their audience. It also demonstrates their skill that the show never devolves into, "Nudge, Nudge. Wink, Wink. We're so self-aware that we're impossibly cool."

Of course, it is my opinion that intelligent history teachers of the future will teach the Iraq War to their students by showing them clips from Arrested Development much as they use the Wizard of Oz to teach the Gilded Age. I won't bother defending that statement, because I'd either ruin the series for anyone who hasn't seen it, or ruin it for myself by overthinking its perfectly tuned humor.

Speaking of miserable failures, back to W. There has been some suggestion on the liberal end of things, that if the Democrats win control of Congress, the Articles of Impeachment will be moved forward against our dear leader. While this merely seems like justice when one considers the purely spiteful impeachment of Bill Clinton, it strikes me as a tremendously bad idea.

If W. is actually impeached, it would merely prolong this long national nightmare of war, economic malaise, and partisan bickering. I can't see what problem it would solve. Consider that if W. were impeached, he'd probably never get convicted by ⅔ of the Senate, and even if he were, he'd only be succeeded by Dick Cheney, whom you know would never pull a Spiro Agnew, even if there were no more arteries left in his body by which his heart could be bypassed. Thus, we'd be forced to hold continual impeachment proceedings until the 2008 election, and we'd still have a hard right neo-con as president.

Consider that even if conservatives don't come out to vote in droves in 2006 for a third or fourth constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage which Karl Rove will most likely demand every state Republican committee to put on the ballot because of the gross incompetence of this administration and legislature, surely a drive towards impeachment out of pure spite would energize some of the base. More Congressional oversight of the war and rescinding the "tax cuts" is what will get us out of the Iraqi Civil War that we started (if that's what we liberals really want), and start us slumping back to gross penury rather than complete and abject dependence on Chinese credit.

Also, do we really want to set a precedent that every two term president is impeached in their second term? It's time for liberals to turn the other cheek—not so that we can be the benighted practicers of some kind of superior Christianity, but so that our politics doesn't descend into the kind of tit-for-tat quasi-anarchy of the late Roman Republic.

Of course, I have an opinion—don't I always? I think that we should change the constitution. No, I don't want to ban gay marriage for the seventeenth time. I do think that the 22^nd Amendment should be changed. I think that we should allow people to run for president as many times as they would like. However, I think that people should be limited to only one consecutive term in office. We'll call it the "Grover Cleveland" amendment. I think this would encourage presidents to always be mindful of public approval, but not be waging the "perpetual campaign" which Carter introduced to the Information Age. This would also reduce the risk of patriogastic "war goggles" which re-elected Madison, McKinley, LBJ, and W. in the midst or immediate aftermath of an ultimately foolish war.

Anyways, no one should be concerned about this actually happening, but as I have said before, "Blogito ergo sum."

Dominus videbit.

Field Day was a success. It was a spiritual victory as well. Although it was somewhat predicted, the weather broke perfectly for Field Day. Late Tuesday afternoon things started to dry up and the sun began to shine. It was perfect weather yesterday—the sun was shining; it was neither too hot nor too cold. This morning when I woke up, it was dreary and bleak again. Students who were normally surly and disruptive thrilled to the challenge of transferring water between two krateres with a kylix. They planned a week ahead of time to show up in owl shirts with the letters ΑΘΕ. They downed garum (or its Vietnamese equivalent) with aplomb. I felt validated as a professional, a teacher, and a human being.

The LORD really has provided in my life. I can cite the daily mercies of my gorgeous Jalaila, a cozy house, and a job which allows me room for a modicum of creativity and intellectual challenge. I have abundant food and clothing. I have political and economic freedom. I have friends about whom I care and who care about me.

Specifically, I have had the opportunity to finally make summer plans, and the end of my master's degree is in sight. In fact, I have signed up for all but one of the classes which I need to take. All of this has worked out to provide an opportunity for me to visit Michigan this summer with Jahalia. I'll send out an e-mail soon to any Michiganders or Michivisitors who might be around.

For the past few months I have come to the realization that it's not my job with which I am unhappy, but myself. However, God has given me the opportunity to change myself. Old habits, unlike old soldiers, die hard. However, I have lost 45 pounds over the course of the past year. I have been making good progress in the gym, in the pool, and on the road—both on bike and on foot.


Today, the 8th graders have trekked to DC for a field trip, leaving me a delightful expanse of 3 hours in the middle of the day to write this blog, research Spanish Fort, AL as a possible vacation destination, and maybe do some grading. And, the fact that I rode my bike to school is prohibiting me from visiting a certain Rex Hamburgensis.

I've always lacked ambition, but my future is brighter than ever now that it is wide open and carefully prescribed.

a damn waste of time

I showed videos about the ancient Olympics yesterday and today, while I graded papers, sorted files, and organized my desk. It was very educational. Especially the nude-colored loin cloths. Some of my students said they didn't enjoy PBS's subtle take on modesty. Well, next year I'll show them something really boring.

Why am I showing videos--something I wouldn't have even countenanced as a new teacher (but something I should have countenanced)? Well, it's Roman Field Day tomorrow, and I've worked my @$$ off for the last 2 months to get ready. That's why finishing a bottle of cabernet france and a box of Wheat-Thins (with a little help from the lovely Jalalabad) is a great way to celebrate. Here's to good weather with no scattered showers tomorrow!

I'm curious, now that my blog is listed on http://www.cvilleblogs.com/, if it automatically gets posted there. Well, I guess we'll find out in a little bit. I don't really have any opinions on city government. Except for the fact that I have an opinion about every damn thing.

For a minute, when I heard "genitum, non factum" while we were singing Mozart's Missa Brevis, I couldn't help but realize that the incarnation is a miracle. Of course, the paucity of truly inexplicable miracles in my life lends me to believe in banalities and heresies. Maybe it's because I'm too busy explaining everything to 13-year olds.

What does it mean to live for Christ, especially, after one takes away all the pretense, all the posturing, all the self-promotion and the preening? I think I am somewhat of a poseur. I guess the question I'd like to ask myself is, "Self, do I really believe the gospel, or do I play at Christianity to make myself feel better in the morning?"

Of course, I just get the impression that my fellow Christians really don't want me. Just today I got an e-mail from a co-worker that all Christians should wear red on Fridays to show their support for the war. There are so many things wrong with that last sentence I don't even know where to start. I don't even care anymore.

Does anyone care? I came up with this great, warm, fuzzy devotional while I was in Ithaca about gorges. Why can't I just be warm and fuzzy inside? Why do I shudder at Christianity? Why am I appalled by George W.? Why can't I just have a "praisegasm" and make love to Jesus? I hear the Gnostics said that Jesus was into that. You know, John, the "beloved" disciple?

I read through I John with my class, and I have to admit that I didn't dig it. I couldn't get where he was coming from. I totally agreed with half of what he was saying and got shivers down my spine at the lest. Maybe I need to have something horrible happen to me. When did Jesus cease being sufficient in my worldview?

I have to give devotions next week Monday, and half of me wants to get up in front of my peers and rant. The other half of me wants to cry uncontrollably. I guess I'm just a μουνάκι.

Peace.

chicken$&!+ punditry

According to Stephen Ambrose, the term "chicken$&!+" was composed not to refer to cowardly officers, but to martinets who were overly concerned about matters which didn't amount to chicken$&!+. Not that I'm trying to denigrate anyone, but I shall now seek to politically prognosticate on small town politics.

According to the Daily Progress, Dave Norris (D) won 39% of the vote (3,945 votes), Julian Taliaferro (D) won 37% (3,742), and Rob Schilling (R) only 24% (2,460). Two thoughts come to mind. Firstly, whatever the merits of Rob Schilling's tenure in office and candidacy, it should be noted that he was running as a Republican in a predominantly liberal city at the nadir (hopefully?) of the Republican administration's popularity. I have a feeling that Schilling came to represent an easy target for a city full of p!$$ed off liberals who are sick of the Republican kleptocracy in the federal government.

Secondly, all of us who were worried that Dave Norris might be shut out of City Council must have come out to vote and proved ourselves wrong. I remember in 2002, when Schilling was first elected to City Council, many Democrats object to so-called "single-shot" voting, wherein Republicans only cast one vote for Rob Schilling even though there were two open seats. However, it seems that many of Dave's supporters used the single-shot strategy to ensure a progressive representative in City Hall. In fact, the large number of single-shot voters for Dave, whose actual number can only be guessed, can be inferred from Schilling and Taliaferro's results. Presumably, a large number of Schilling's votes were "single-shot." However, after all the organizations that endorsed Taliaferro-Schilling, one would assume that the majority of those who voted for Schilling and another Democrat would have voted for Taliaferro—which I imagine would be anywhere from 500 to 1000 votes. The number of split-ticket voters could presumably be subtracted from Taliaferro's total, leaving mostly straight-ticket Democrats—which I would again assume to be around 2000 to 2500 votes. Subtracting these straight-ticket Democrats from Dave's total, which was greater than that of Julian's, would mean that around 1500 to 2000 people voted "single-shot" for Dave.

Of course, all of this serves to prove that, sometimes, democracy does really work. It seems possible that an honest, thoughtful, caring, hard-working person can be elected to a position of authority. Of course, the open question remains, will the stultifying pettiness of politics blunt the political ideals of my friend, Dave? Tune in next time. Same damn human condition, same damn blog.

post scriptum
I never liked Bill when he was president. But, comparing him to the current occupant of the White House leaves one positively wistful for the good ol’ days when politicians just had sex with interns, quietly ignored progressive causes, and tried to avoid starting World War III. And then he goes on and does something like this. Maybe politicians can be trusted after all.

Soda Distributors to End Most School Sales

Vote for Dave Tomorrow

I know Dave Norris. I have watched him dance. I have seen him help homeless people. I have not seen him leap a building in a single bound. He is a good man and deserves your vote. But don't take my word for it, here's an e-mail from my neighbor, Judy.

Hi

The Charlottesville City Council election is this Tuesday, May 2. I'm concerned that Charlottesville progressives don't understand what's at stake.

With the Daily Progress endorsing Schilling/Taliaferro and the Realtors Association supporting Schilling/Taliaferro and many Chamber of Commerce members supporting Schilling/Taliaferro, it's vitally important that Charlottesville's progressive community mobilize. We need to turn out in large numbers on Tuesday to vote for DAVE NORRIS.

DAVE NORRIS is the only progressive on the ballot. He needs our support to win.
Less than one-quarter of eligible voters typically vote in City Council elections. Your vote really does count.

Among the three City Council candidates, DAVE is the ONLY one who:
* supports Council's 2003 resolution against the war in Iraq.
* opposes the ballot amendment denying legal protections to gays and lesbians.
* has made environmental sustainability, affordable housing, and decreasing poverty and racial disparities part of his platform for Council (see www.votefordave.org).
* received the endorsement of the Sierra Club in this year's election.
* says he would favor diverting funds from road-building to alternative transportation.
* opposes the Meadow Creek Parkway.
* opposes opening another vehicular crossing on the Downtown Mall.

Please vote for DAVE NORRIS on Tuesday, May 2nd.

Sincerely,
Judy