What does it mean to be a friend? I have lived a scattered life, long of the opinion that I was rather little liked and regarded, and I have spent too little time in reflecting and acting on what it means to be a friend, seeing as I thought I had very few people who were concerned at all about me. Perhaps it was rather self-centered, and mistaken, of me to think and feel this way, but so it is. We are all interconnected with each other, and our happiness and sadness, our triumphs and our trials all have an effect on those around us. We are, after all, to rejoice with those who laugh and cry with those who mourn. As I have reflected on the fact that I have a surprising amount of friends and acquaintances, I have also reflected on their lives and on the many connections between all of us, even after many of us have scattered far and wide from where we originally met and have not seen each other for years.
One of my classmates from high school recently got engaged. This is not terribly surprising, as it is the time of life where people tend to get married, but what struck me is that this person's wedding wishes were so frequent (I sent him wedding wishes myself) that he is not able to invite all of his friends to the reception. Certainly I can sympathize with his problem, and the way in which he is handling the large amount of well-wishers is quite admirable. Happy indeed is the man (or woman) who knows how well they are thought of by others. This particular young man graduated from the same high school as I did in the same year, but I did not know him closely then. We were both in Orchestra during high school--I as a violist towards the back of the section and he as the concertmaster--first chair first violin. It seemed that everything came so easily for him--he was charming, friendly, good looking, came from a wealthy and loving family, was stellar in school, in tennis, in playing the violin, and seemingly in everything he did. He was (and remains) active in various religious groups as well as his social activities. And yet he was and remains well-liked by just about everyone. About the only bad thing I ever heard about him was that his violin playing was skilled but not passionate, and considering the bad things I have heard about others (and myself) this is rather light indeed. And yet, despite the apparent ease of his life and of his frequent successes in so many years, no one (including myself) begrudges him any of his happiness. Instead we share in his joy over his happy life, and hope it will continue as such. As he is a just and fair and friendly fellow, his happiness and success does not come with resentment from anyone who knows him.
At other times, one must share sorrow and not joy when it comes to friends. One of my friends, for example, is having a rough time with stomach cancer, and I have not seen him (largely because I am sick right now and would not wish to pass on any germs to someone whose health is already in such a state as his), but I have sought to send my regards through other friends who are able to see him. The same is true for other friends I have--one of whom has been struggling with colon cancer for about two years now, and the father of another friend of mine whose pancreatic cancer has spread to other organs also. At other times, one must support friends whose struggles are not life-threatening illnesses, but such mundane troubles as car problems, or such serious life-issues as the breakup of a marriage or serious family difficulties. There is no shortage of friends in need indeed. When my friends suffer, I suffer with them. I suppose the same is true of others. We cannot be so consumed with our own lives that we are ignorant of what is going on with others--even if there is little we can do besides lend a sympathetic ear to them, or to spend our precious time reminding them that they are not alone and that they are in our thoughts and prayers. It is a terrible thing to feel and believe one is alone--and I would not wish that on anyone, much less those I care about.
At other times being a friend means helping in the labors of what friends seek to accomplish. I have many friends who, like myself, study and write about subjects of faith as well as of amusement. Even if I lack the time to do as much as I would like to help in the various labors of my friends, I will often help them edit and refine what they have written, which is what I would also expect of them. Sometimes this research is an areas I am knowledgeable in, and sometimes it is not. When I know something of the topic, I usually try to discuss this with the friend. If I do not know about the subject at hand in depth (and this does happen on occasion), then I will often take that as the opportunity to research areas I have not studied at length before. Having intelligent and intellectually curious friends is a good way to ensure that one is constantly learning and growing as well, and keeps the mind fresh. It is tragic to cease learning because one thinks one knows everything already. The greater my knowledge, the more profound my sense of ignorance, if only because I realize there is so much more that I do not understand.
I often wish I was a better friend. Often I feel that I am too concerned about my own thoughts and affairs to be the sort of friend I ought to be. Perhaps my friends may feel differently about this, and if so they are welcome to tell me, but I wonder often if I have shared enough in the joy and sorrows of those friends I have. A true friend is present in good times and bad, even if all one can do is provide moral support by one's mere presence and cannot actually do anything about a given situation. Sometimes that is enough. I know I am thankful for those friends I have, and I would hope they are thankful as well.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Friday, August 03, 2007
On The Randomness of Facebook
This past week, I have become a frequent visitor to Facebook, one of those popular networking websites that appeals mostly to teens and young adults through college age, with the occasional older person as well. The experience has been a useful one for me, because it has given me a much better perspective about a few matters I have long pondered. Since this is a blog given to much pondering, I will continue. Some of these lessons were ones I should have known, but lacked the perspective to put into a full focus.
On Moderate Popularity
I have never considered myself a particularly well-liked or popular person, despite being well traveled and generally talkitive and outgoing. Perhaps I am a bit biased by an early life in which it appeared as though I was a social leper, but I have never considered how dramatically my social life has improved in the last few years until I took a look at the amount of people on facebook who were willing to say they were my friends. Now, many of my closest friends do not even have facebook, even among young adults and teenagers, but over a hundred people so far have been willing to say they were my friends. This is a remarkable thing. To put it into some context, one of my roommates was much more popular around campus it seemed, and he certainly went to more parties and had more dates than I did. However, looking at his profile indicated that he had 78 friends, but nearly all of them in Southern California. Of his 78 friends, 59 of them lived in the Los Angeles area. Of my 118 friends in comparison, only 11 of them lived in my most popular region, Tampa Bay.
My Friendships Are Scattered
This leads to the next conclusion, one that had prevented me from taking a full account of my rise in popularity from leper to a moderately well-liked one. My friendships are scattered all over the US, and indeed, all over the world. I do not have any particularly large groups of friends in any one place. I have sizeable groups of friends in Florida, Texas, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Washington, and a few other places, but they are not concentrated at all, and include a couple of friends in England and one in South Africa. Part of the reason for this scattering of friends is being in the Church of God, which tends to bring one into contact with a wide variety of people. But comparisons with other young people in the church of God on my buddy list (and there are many such people to compare with) demonstrates that while I share a great deal of common friends among people in the Church of God, most of them show a greater concentration in the area where they live. Even among my many friends who are not in the church, many of them, like me, have scattered far and wide in the course of interesting and complicated travels, and so my friends seem to be a bit more nomadic than most. My own moving around, my ties in a variety of different areas, and my lack of a strong social base among peers in my home territory (where I have lived the vast majority of life) have given me a false, and somewhat darker, picture of my social network than was in fact the truth. The truth is, I could travel in many areas and have friends and acquaintances there, at least a couple of people I knew and enjoyed spending time with. However, I don't have any one particular area whose pull of connections is so strong as to make that a place where I truly belong. In the end, though, my dispersed friendships can be a great source of strength provided I can summon the energy to keep up with them, which is the purpose of a site like Facebook in the first place.
On Memories
Joining Facebook has also been the opportunity to revisit a lot of memories of people I knew when I was younger. People who were not particularly nice to me in high school, for example, now inhabit a fair deal of space on my Facebook page, and I remember many stories about those whom I have added. However, the past is put into a different perspective when one reflects on where I stand and where they stand now. Many of us are graduate students, who have moved at least once from where we spent those years together. We are older, and hopefully wiser, and in my case at least, nowhere near as squirrelly and immature as we were back then. Remembering the past, even an unpleasant past, need not be depressing, so long as one knows how far one has come. On the other hand, some people have changed dramatically for the worse in their own moral lives, having fallen victim in college to serious immorality, even as others have become very mature and serious young adults. There are certainly cautionary tales that could be told as well as stories of coming to terms with what has been done but burying the hatchet, so to speak. Perhaps that is another purpose of Facebook I was not aware of. The act of putting one's life on a webpage in pictures and songs and stories puts one's life in a different perspective, viewing how we are interconnected, and how we have grown into the people we are today. If people are honest about themselves, it can lead to deeper connections with people as we find out some of what makes them tick and what is most important to them. I know it has been an eye opening experience for me personally.
On Moderate Popularity
I have never considered myself a particularly well-liked or popular person, despite being well traveled and generally talkitive and outgoing. Perhaps I am a bit biased by an early life in which it appeared as though I was a social leper, but I have never considered how dramatically my social life has improved in the last few years until I took a look at the amount of people on facebook who were willing to say they were my friends. Now, many of my closest friends do not even have facebook, even among young adults and teenagers, but over a hundred people so far have been willing to say they were my friends. This is a remarkable thing. To put it into some context, one of my roommates was much more popular around campus it seemed, and he certainly went to more parties and had more dates than I did. However, looking at his profile indicated that he had 78 friends, but nearly all of them in Southern California. Of his 78 friends, 59 of them lived in the Los Angeles area. Of my 118 friends in comparison, only 11 of them lived in my most popular region, Tampa Bay.
My Friendships Are Scattered
This leads to the next conclusion, one that had prevented me from taking a full account of my rise in popularity from leper to a moderately well-liked one. My friendships are scattered all over the US, and indeed, all over the world. I do not have any particularly large groups of friends in any one place. I have sizeable groups of friends in Florida, Texas, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Washington, and a few other places, but they are not concentrated at all, and include a couple of friends in England and one in South Africa. Part of the reason for this scattering of friends is being in the Church of God, which tends to bring one into contact with a wide variety of people. But comparisons with other young people in the church of God on my buddy list (and there are many such people to compare with) demonstrates that while I share a great deal of common friends among people in the Church of God, most of them show a greater concentration in the area where they live. Even among my many friends who are not in the church, many of them, like me, have scattered far and wide in the course of interesting and complicated travels, and so my friends seem to be a bit more nomadic than most. My own moving around, my ties in a variety of different areas, and my lack of a strong social base among peers in my home territory (where I have lived the vast majority of life) have given me a false, and somewhat darker, picture of my social network than was in fact the truth. The truth is, I could travel in many areas and have friends and acquaintances there, at least a couple of people I knew and enjoyed spending time with. However, I don't have any one particular area whose pull of connections is so strong as to make that a place where I truly belong. In the end, though, my dispersed friendships can be a great source of strength provided I can summon the energy to keep up with them, which is the purpose of a site like Facebook in the first place.
On Memories
Joining Facebook has also been the opportunity to revisit a lot of memories of people I knew when I was younger. People who were not particularly nice to me in high school, for example, now inhabit a fair deal of space on my Facebook page, and I remember many stories about those whom I have added. However, the past is put into a different perspective when one reflects on where I stand and where they stand now. Many of us are graduate students, who have moved at least once from where we spent those years together. We are older, and hopefully wiser, and in my case at least, nowhere near as squirrelly and immature as we were back then. Remembering the past, even an unpleasant past, need not be depressing, so long as one knows how far one has come. On the other hand, some people have changed dramatically for the worse in their own moral lives, having fallen victim in college to serious immorality, even as others have become very mature and serious young adults. There are certainly cautionary tales that could be told as well as stories of coming to terms with what has been done but burying the hatchet, so to speak. Perhaps that is another purpose of Facebook I was not aware of. The act of putting one's life on a webpage in pictures and songs and stories puts one's life in a different perspective, viewing how we are interconnected, and how we have grown into the people we are today. If people are honest about themselves, it can lead to deeper connections with people as we find out some of what makes them tick and what is most important to them. I know it has been an eye opening experience for me personally.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
For The Love Of The Game
In 1999, when I was a freshman at the University of Southern California, a movie came out called For The Love Of The Game, based on the novel by Michael Shaara (more famous for his excellent historical novel The Killer Angels, which was later turned into the film Gettysburg). I watched this movie while returning home from the Feast in Hawaii that year, and then bought the soundtrack, whose title track was an excellent song by Semisonic, a band best known for its hit "Closing Time," which uses the last call for a bar as a metaphor for birth. Anyway, I spent early Sunday afternoon with some friends of mine from Houston watching a particularly exciting baseball game, which led me to reflect upon many things.
The movie, directed by Sam Raimi ("Spiderman") details a perfect game that is pitched by Billy Chapel (played with restraint in an excellent performance by Kevin Costner), a washed up pitcher playing in Yankee Stadium for a bad team (only recently good--the Detriot Tigers). As he plays the game he reflects upon his life, as his love (played not-very-convincingly by Kelly Preston) prepares to move to Paris for a job. One of the more convincing aspects, for me, of the movie is the way in which Billy takes a fatherly role to Heather, the daughter of his sweetheart, played very well by Jena Malone. One of the flashbacks involves Heather going to college, and she ends up at USC, which I thought was an amusing and touching detail.
Lyrics to "For The Love Of The Game" - Semisonic
In the morning of the first night of my life
I was feeling like I'd lost my inspiration
Then in the afternoon she walked into the light
To relieve me of my doubt and desperation.
She's not coming here to make herself a name
She only wants to play with me to see if she can win
And we both want it to happen.
None down in the bottom of the ninth with three men on
And she saw me like nobody's ever done before
Now in the glory of victorious dominion
She's receding in the sunshine down the corridor.
She's not in it for the money or the fame
She only came to play with me to see what place I'm in
And we both know who's gonna give in.
For the love of the game
Sometimes you've gotta cry a little.
For the love of the game
Maybe even gotta die a little.
For the love of the game
I made a sacrifice I never thought I'd have to make.
For the love of the game
Sometimes you've gotta cry a little.
For the love of the game
Maybe even gotta die a little.
For the love of the game
I made a sacrifice I never thought I'd have to make. (I made a sacrifice...)
Sometimes you've gotta cry a little.
For the love of the game
Maybe even gotta die a little.
For the love of the game
I made a sacrifice I never thought I'd have to make...
[End song lyrics.]
Anyway, baseball is a pastime I associate closely with my family. As I was watching the game, I wore my Pittsburgh Pirates shirt (even though the Pirates were not playing that day--the Astros and Padres were). When I would visit my father as a child/teenager up in Pennsylvania during the summer, we would often go to Pirates games on Sunday afternoons, not an uncommon way for fathers to try to bond with their children. Indeed, on this particular afternoon the game was originally planned to have a father and one of his friends in the church taking his daughter (my friend Kristin) and some of her friends to watch the Astros. Even the seats we had were with this goal in mind, as we sat in the right field, a few rows up in the closest area to the field, right next to the Astros bullpen. Luke Scott, a rookie for the Astros, plays right field, and one of Kristin's friends is particular fond of him. She and her brother (Jimmy, who went to Burlington Coat Factory on Friday with Kristin and I and with him many funny "hat" pictures on their myspace profiles were posted) were not able to make it to the game, though, because they were in Texarkana at the funeral of their grandfather, who had died of cancer on Thursday. So, they were not able to go.
Before I got to my seat, the Astros were already down 3-0. Richard (the father) and I had gone to get peanuts and beer (no beer for either Kristin and I), and due to the limit of 2 beers per person, my id was useful. Luke Scott had made a bad play on a ball and it ended up as a ground rule double, ending up in the row in front of where I was to sit. Too bad I was not there to catch it. By the time the first half inning of the game ended, Houston was already down 11-0 and their starter had been taken out of the game. I figured at this point the game would be a blowout, but it ended up being a compelling offensive game.
In the second inning, San Diego added to their lead, pushing it to 12-0, but in the bottom of the third the Astros hit a solo homer to spoil a hitherto perfect game from the Padres starter to make it 12-1. Then in the bottom of the fourth inning Berkman and Scott homered and Houston finally showed some offense, narrowing the deficit to 12-8, at which point the Padres starter, who was handed an 11 run lead before he even took the field, was pulled.
In the 5th inning San Diego scored a run on an interesting play where a player (with the last name of Bard) hit a fielder's choice grounder to the pitcher, and the pitcher threw too far to the left of home, letting a San Diego runner score. Then the catcher threw to second base, trying to get a runner out there, but failed. It was a strange play that left the stadium booing loudly. At the middle of the fifth inning, Houston was down 15-8. In the bottom of the 5th, Houston scored some runs themselves. With two outs, Biggio (whose name and number my friend Kristin had on her pink (!) Astros shirt) came in as a pinch hitter, but he did not reach base, and left two on to stop the rally. Before his out, though, the entire stadium was chanting his name. Biggio, you see, is past his prime himself, and is retiring at the end of the season, the last of Houston's famed "Killer B's". Houston ended the inning down only 15-11.
And so the game remained until the 9th inning, though there were some dramatic moments. In the bottom of the 7th inning, for example, after an entertaining seventh inning stretch where three songs were performed ("God Bless America," the Astros version of "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" and "Deep In The Heart of Texas" were played), the Astros loaded the bases with two outs, but were unable to drive in any runs with the tying run at the plate. At the top of the 9th inning, though, the Houston closer, Lidge, ran out of gas and allowed three runs, the last two coming from a blast to deep left field. Houston was unable to score any more runs, so in an exciting game with three errors (two by Houston and one by San Diego), seven home runs (four by Houston and three by San Diego), and fourteen pitchers (eight by Houston and six by San Diego), the game was over. By then most of the fans had streamed out of their seats, no doubt disappointed. After the final out, "Come Monday," played on the stadium PA. There is always tomorrow, or next season, for those who do not win today.
The movie, directed by Sam Raimi ("Spiderman") details a perfect game that is pitched by Billy Chapel (played with restraint in an excellent performance by Kevin Costner), a washed up pitcher playing in Yankee Stadium for a bad team (only recently good--the Detriot Tigers). As he plays the game he reflects upon his life, as his love (played not-very-convincingly by Kelly Preston) prepares to move to Paris for a job. One of the more convincing aspects, for me, of the movie is the way in which Billy takes a fatherly role to Heather, the daughter of his sweetheart, played very well by Jena Malone. One of the flashbacks involves Heather going to college, and she ends up at USC, which I thought was an amusing and touching detail.
Lyrics to "For The Love Of The Game" - Semisonic
In the morning of the first night of my life
I was feeling like I'd lost my inspiration
Then in the afternoon she walked into the light
To relieve me of my doubt and desperation.
She's not coming here to make herself a name
She only wants to play with me to see if she can win
And we both want it to happen.
None down in the bottom of the ninth with three men on
And she saw me like nobody's ever done before
Now in the glory of victorious dominion
She's receding in the sunshine down the corridor.
She's not in it for the money or the fame
She only came to play with me to see what place I'm in
And we both know who's gonna give in.
For the love of the game
Sometimes you've gotta cry a little.
For the love of the game
Maybe even gotta die a little.
For the love of the game
I made a sacrifice I never thought I'd have to make.
For the love of the game
Sometimes you've gotta cry a little.
For the love of the game
Maybe even gotta die a little.
For the love of the game
I made a sacrifice I never thought I'd have to make. (I made a sacrifice...)
Sometimes you've gotta cry a little.
For the love of the game
Maybe even gotta die a little.
For the love of the game
I made a sacrifice I never thought I'd have to make...
[End song lyrics.]
Anyway, baseball is a pastime I associate closely with my family. As I was watching the game, I wore my Pittsburgh Pirates shirt (even though the Pirates were not playing that day--the Astros and Padres were). When I would visit my father as a child/teenager up in Pennsylvania during the summer, we would often go to Pirates games on Sunday afternoons, not an uncommon way for fathers to try to bond with their children. Indeed, on this particular afternoon the game was originally planned to have a father and one of his friends in the church taking his daughter (my friend Kristin) and some of her friends to watch the Astros. Even the seats we had were with this goal in mind, as we sat in the right field, a few rows up in the closest area to the field, right next to the Astros bullpen. Luke Scott, a rookie for the Astros, plays right field, and one of Kristin's friends is particular fond of him. She and her brother (Jimmy, who went to Burlington Coat Factory on Friday with Kristin and I and with him many funny "hat" pictures on their myspace profiles were posted) were not able to make it to the game, though, because they were in Texarkana at the funeral of their grandfather, who had died of cancer on Thursday. So, they were not able to go.
Before I got to my seat, the Astros were already down 3-0. Richard (the father) and I had gone to get peanuts and beer (no beer for either Kristin and I), and due to the limit of 2 beers per person, my id was useful. Luke Scott had made a bad play on a ball and it ended up as a ground rule double, ending up in the row in front of where I was to sit. Too bad I was not there to catch it. By the time the first half inning of the game ended, Houston was already down 11-0 and their starter had been taken out of the game. I figured at this point the game would be a blowout, but it ended up being a compelling offensive game.
In the second inning, San Diego added to their lead, pushing it to 12-0, but in the bottom of the third the Astros hit a solo homer to spoil a hitherto perfect game from the Padres starter to make it 12-1. Then in the bottom of the fourth inning Berkman and Scott homered and Houston finally showed some offense, narrowing the deficit to 12-8, at which point the Padres starter, who was handed an 11 run lead before he even took the field, was pulled.
In the 5th inning San Diego scored a run on an interesting play where a player (with the last name of Bard) hit a fielder's choice grounder to the pitcher, and the pitcher threw too far to the left of home, letting a San Diego runner score. Then the catcher threw to second base, trying to get a runner out there, but failed. It was a strange play that left the stadium booing loudly. At the middle of the fifth inning, Houston was down 15-8. In the bottom of the 5th, Houston scored some runs themselves. With two outs, Biggio (whose name and number my friend Kristin had on her pink (!) Astros shirt) came in as a pinch hitter, but he did not reach base, and left two on to stop the rally. Before his out, though, the entire stadium was chanting his name. Biggio, you see, is past his prime himself, and is retiring at the end of the season, the last of Houston's famed "Killer B's". Houston ended the inning down only 15-11.
And so the game remained until the 9th inning, though there were some dramatic moments. In the bottom of the 7th inning, for example, after an entertaining seventh inning stretch where three songs were performed ("God Bless America," the Astros version of "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" and "Deep In The Heart of Texas" were played), the Astros loaded the bases with two outs, but were unable to drive in any runs with the tying run at the plate. At the top of the 9th inning, though, the Houston closer, Lidge, ran out of gas and allowed three runs, the last two coming from a blast to deep left field. Houston was unable to score any more runs, so in an exciting game with three errors (two by Houston and one by San Diego), seven home runs (four by Houston and three by San Diego), and fourteen pitchers (eight by Houston and six by San Diego), the game was over. By then most of the fans had streamed out of their seats, no doubt disappointed. After the final out, "Come Monday," played on the stadium PA. There is always tomorrow, or next season, for those who do not win today.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Im In Ur Yardz Huntin Ur Dukz
It almost pains me to write "I'm in your yards, hunting your ducks" that way, but such is the grammar and spelling of a humorous phenomenon known as lolcats. As I find the news around me (even sports news) to be rather grim much of the time, it is important to have something humorous in order to give one a bit of a chuckle, even a silly one, once in a while. First I will look at the structure of lolcat photos, some explanations for their appeal, and how they have spread into other areas besides cats (since I am not a particularly fan of cats).
An lolcat photo (or any other lol*insert noun here* photo) is made up of two elements. One is a photo, and the other is a rather goofy caption. The captions are generally silly, and say such things as "I Loves U" or "I Pronounce Every Day Iz Caturday" or "I Are Serious Cat. This Is Serious Thread" or "You're Adopted" or "Im In Ur Fridge Eatin Ur Foodz" or "I Made U A Cookie...But I Eated It" or "I Can Haz Cheezburger?". In other words, most of the pictures deal with cats in their normal (?) activities and focus on food, excitability, and affection (or the lack thereof).
What makes lolcats funny, besides the fact that people (including myself) are easily amused? For one, cats are pretty funny to watch. They often behave in humorous ways by lounging about, lunging at inanimate objects, steathily hunting like their wild ancestors, and so on. Some cats are cuddly and affectionate, and others are rather standoffish and unfriendly. Cats, for all their snobbery, have recognizable and occasionally charming personalities. What lolcats do is take these photos (some edited, some not) from the lives of cats and adds to them a sort of childish language that one could imagine cats thinking, putting an entirely new context onto the action of the cat and those around it.
It is surprising that no one thought of this idea before, but the creators of lolcats and memecats and so on deserve credit for an inventive way to have an honest and simple laugh. What is not surprising is that the idea behind lolcats has spread far beyond its original confines. A friend of mine from Wisconson sent me some rather humorous pictures he was submitting for an lolopera thread. These photos showed an opera singer (Jessye) with silly captions such as "Oh Noes, Drove Wif Da Top Down," "I C U," "Invisible Giant Cheezburger," "Mah Speeker Iz Too Loud," and so on. If opera fans are adapting something as silly as lolcats, one knows the phenonemon has spread far and wide.
I for one, do not see a problem in this. Perhaps some may find lolcats to be a bit silly, but I know I take this life way too seriously often, and generally need something simple and a bit quirky to laugh with/at sometimes. Lolcats generally lack irony or sarcasm or the other ways in which humor presents itself the most often. So, if you have a quirky and somewhat child-like sense of humor, may you go and seek out some lolcats for a laugh this most serious of Thursdays. It is, after all, a lot more entertaining (I promise) than reading a rant from me.
An lolcat photo (or any other lol*insert noun here* photo) is made up of two elements. One is a photo, and the other is a rather goofy caption. The captions are generally silly, and say such things as "I Loves U" or "I Pronounce Every Day Iz Caturday" or "I Are Serious Cat. This Is Serious Thread" or "You're Adopted" or "Im In Ur Fridge Eatin Ur Foodz" or "I Made U A Cookie...But I Eated It" or "I Can Haz Cheezburger?". In other words, most of the pictures deal with cats in their normal (?) activities and focus on food, excitability, and affection (or the lack thereof).
What makes lolcats funny, besides the fact that people (including myself) are easily amused? For one, cats are pretty funny to watch. They often behave in humorous ways by lounging about, lunging at inanimate objects, steathily hunting like their wild ancestors, and so on. Some cats are cuddly and affectionate, and others are rather standoffish and unfriendly. Cats, for all their snobbery, have recognizable and occasionally charming personalities. What lolcats do is take these photos (some edited, some not) from the lives of cats and adds to them a sort of childish language that one could imagine cats thinking, putting an entirely new context onto the action of the cat and those around it.
It is surprising that no one thought of this idea before, but the creators of lolcats and memecats and so on deserve credit for an inventive way to have an honest and simple laugh. What is not surprising is that the idea behind lolcats has spread far beyond its original confines. A friend of mine from Wisconson sent me some rather humorous pictures he was submitting for an lolopera thread. These photos showed an opera singer (Jessye) with silly captions such as "Oh Noes, Drove Wif Da Top Down," "I C U," "Invisible Giant Cheezburger," "Mah Speeker Iz Too Loud," and so on. If opera fans are adapting something as silly as lolcats, one knows the phenonemon has spread far and wide.
I for one, do not see a problem in this. Perhaps some may find lolcats to be a bit silly, but I know I take this life way too seriously often, and generally need something simple and a bit quirky to laugh with/at sometimes. Lolcats generally lack irony or sarcasm or the other ways in which humor presents itself the most often. So, if you have a quirky and somewhat child-like sense of humor, may you go and seek out some lolcats for a laugh this most serious of Thursdays. It is, after all, a lot more entertaining (I promise) than reading a rant from me.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Bad Call
Though I am not a particularly big fan of professional basketball (I am more a fan of college basketball), I am a casual fan of just about every sport around (that I have heard of at least), and so I try to keep up on the news about basketball as I would most other sports. There has been a recent scandal in the NBA that might even be the largest the sport has ever faced involving mafia ties and gambling by a referee who apparently gambled on games he officiated. While the whole story has yet to come out, what has come out looks very damaging for the credibility of referees in basketball, the particular referee in question, and the NBA's image as a whole, even among a rather corrupt sports climate generally right now.
As the story goes, a referee by the name of Tom Donaghy, whose father was a college basketball referee (so being a referee is in the blood, so to speak) apparently had some gambling debts as he lived an opulent lifestyle in eastern Pennsylvania. He was apparently contacted by a low-level mafia figure over the debts and offered a deal that he couldn't refuse--the debts would be forgiven if he used his whistle to influence the point spreads of games he officiated and make his new associates happy. He apparently took the offer and refereered well enough to be given prestigious assignments, including playoff games. His whistle may have been twisted, but it was apparently not twisted enough to make him anything less than a well-regarded referee (which says something about the state of refereeing in the NBA). Now that his name has come out, information has come out that says that Mr. Donaghy may have been warned about his gambling problem by the NBA before the current FBI case was publicized. If this is the case, then the NBA stands as well to be culpable as they enabled him to affect the course of important games after this warning.
With the benefit of hindsight, we can now look back on some of the most important games that Donaghy has officiated and look at how his calls may have been tainted by other concerns. Once someone is found to be corrupt, their decisions fall under much harsher scrutiny. The arrogant dismissals from David Stern, the head of the NBA, about the lack of moral rectitude among referees appears to have come back to bite him. If a ref can be tainted and be considered a pretty good ref, who is to say that there are not more corrupt referees around? The following is a list of the games that, so far, reek of the most corruption:
Game 3, Western Conference Semifinals, 2007: San Antonio 108-Phoenix 101. This game is marred by bad calls, in particular a phantom (and delayed) foul that gave San Antonio three free throws in the 3rd quarter, and other foul calls that kept Phoenix Suns star Amare Stoudemire on the bench except for 21 minutes. The Spurs were favored by 4 points and ended up winning by 7, meaning the calls Donaghy made appeared to have accounted for the point spread in the game. Already a questionable game before the calls, the news of Donaghy's corruption makes this game, and the series as a whole, a tainted one, and diminishes the achievement of the Spurs in winning the NBA title this past year.
November 2004, "The Brawl at the Palace," Indiana versus Detriot. This game, the infamous brawl that ended up with numerous players given lengthy supsensions for lengthy brawling on the court as well as fighting in the stands (between players and patrons) was officiated by Donaghy and others. Apparently this was not the first time Donaghy had problems with Rasheed Wallace, the combative Detriot player (who had threatened the ref a year before and had earned a seven game suspension for it). Donaghy and others were widely condemned for letting the fighting go on for too long, but now there are questions there may have been ulterior motives for the lax officiating with regards to the fighting.
Donaghy does not appear to have been a popular fellow among his peers, certainly not a proof of any guilt, but also a sign that he does not have any support already, much less after these allegations and the mounting evidence have come out. With Donaghy under police protection and a widening FBI probe exposing a lot of very unfriendly evidence, the picture for the NBA looks grim indeed. Where it will lead is a story that may yet be told in the days and weeks and months to come.
As the story goes, a referee by the name of Tom Donaghy, whose father was a college basketball referee (so being a referee is in the blood, so to speak) apparently had some gambling debts as he lived an opulent lifestyle in eastern Pennsylvania. He was apparently contacted by a low-level mafia figure over the debts and offered a deal that he couldn't refuse--the debts would be forgiven if he used his whistle to influence the point spreads of games he officiated and make his new associates happy. He apparently took the offer and refereered well enough to be given prestigious assignments, including playoff games. His whistle may have been twisted, but it was apparently not twisted enough to make him anything less than a well-regarded referee (which says something about the state of refereeing in the NBA). Now that his name has come out, information has come out that says that Mr. Donaghy may have been warned about his gambling problem by the NBA before the current FBI case was publicized. If this is the case, then the NBA stands as well to be culpable as they enabled him to affect the course of important games after this warning.
With the benefit of hindsight, we can now look back on some of the most important games that Donaghy has officiated and look at how his calls may have been tainted by other concerns. Once someone is found to be corrupt, their decisions fall under much harsher scrutiny. The arrogant dismissals from David Stern, the head of the NBA, about the lack of moral rectitude among referees appears to have come back to bite him. If a ref can be tainted and be considered a pretty good ref, who is to say that there are not more corrupt referees around? The following is a list of the games that, so far, reek of the most corruption:
Game 3, Western Conference Semifinals, 2007: San Antonio 108-Phoenix 101. This game is marred by bad calls, in particular a phantom (and delayed) foul that gave San Antonio three free throws in the 3rd quarter, and other foul calls that kept Phoenix Suns star Amare Stoudemire on the bench except for 21 minutes. The Spurs were favored by 4 points and ended up winning by 7, meaning the calls Donaghy made appeared to have accounted for the point spread in the game. Already a questionable game before the calls, the news of Donaghy's corruption makes this game, and the series as a whole, a tainted one, and diminishes the achievement of the Spurs in winning the NBA title this past year.
November 2004, "The Brawl at the Palace," Indiana versus Detriot. This game, the infamous brawl that ended up with numerous players given lengthy supsensions for lengthy brawling on the court as well as fighting in the stands (between players and patrons) was officiated by Donaghy and others. Apparently this was not the first time Donaghy had problems with Rasheed Wallace, the combative Detriot player (who had threatened the ref a year before and had earned a seven game suspension for it). Donaghy and others were widely condemned for letting the fighting go on for too long, but now there are questions there may have been ulterior motives for the lax officiating with regards to the fighting.
Donaghy does not appear to have been a popular fellow among his peers, certainly not a proof of any guilt, but also a sign that he does not have any support already, much less after these allegations and the mounting evidence have come out. With Donaghy under police protection and a widening FBI probe exposing a lot of very unfriendly evidence, the picture for the NBA looks grim indeed. Where it will lead is a story that may yet be told in the days and weeks and months to come.
Monday, July 16, 2007
A History Lesson
Though I have thought long and hard about what sort of post to write next--I have been dissatisfied with the tenor of most of the news I have read, little of interest has been going on in my life, reflecting on Father's Day and the 4th of July left me with rather melancholy material, and I have been quite busy with graduate school. Though these particular reflections are melancholy enough, I figured it was a suitable subject to discuss on a blogger post, as many people who read this are, no doubt, well aware of my profound interest in both history. Fewer people are likely to be aware of my interest in the generational cycles of history, but recent newspaper articles and serious reflection, as well as my own particularly deep-rooted sense of pessimism have led to this particular post, which seeks to compare our times with the age of the 1920's, our last guilded age. Additional comparisons will be made with the 1880's, another time similar to our own with similarly serious consequences. Make of these comparisons what you will.
A New Guilded Age
I have read much in the past few years about the rising wealth of corporate magnates whose own tax obligations have lowered even as the economic health of the general population at large has been hindered through stagnant wages, a crushing burden of debt, and an increasingly regressive tax burden as societal interest in defending the common people, much less the disadvantaged of society, begins to crumble under the combined weight of moral decay and corporate plutocracy. Let us see how this is so now, and how it has happened throughout critical and dangerous periods of American history that our time, in many ways, closely resembles.
Most of the articles one reads about the comparisons between the historical periods in question (the 1880's and 1920's) and our own revolve around questions of class and distribution of wealth, questions that are of interest to me (but mainly for their implications on the moral justice present in a society). In all these three times wealth was concentrated in the hands of an ever-shrinking number of fabulously wealthy people who lived in obscene wealth and privilege while the general population suffered stagnation of wages (among the middle class) or a deterioration of economic position (among the lower classes). One important measure of a society's health is how equitably its economic resources are distributed. There will always be some degree of inequality in a society through the accidents of birth, differences in diligence, ability, and education, but such factors themselves do not make for extreme differences in wealth, largely because our own native abilities and inclinations do not vary over a huge range. Societies that demonstrate a lack of concern for social justice and for the concerns of those who are not well off (witness most of Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, and so on) are precisely those countries which have the most unequal distributions of wealth. To the extent that the United States persists in its increasingly unequal distribution of economic resources, the fabric of society will become increasingly frail. After all, if those who possess an ever-growing percentage of wealth and power do not share in the insecurities of ordinary people, then the concerns of the majority of the population will not be reflected in the policies a nation conducts, unless there is social unrest sufficient to remind the wealthy and the powerful of their obligations to the rest of society.
There is some evidence that this is already taking place in parts of the world. Unscrupulous populists with mandates to forcibly redistribute wealth have taken power or consolidated their hold in several countries in Latin America (namely Venezuela and Bolivia), and nearly took power in Mexico. Meanwhile, social unrest over various issues have erupted in the US (over immigration), in France (over immigration and policies designed to harm young adult workers), in China (over government corruption and population controls), and in other places as well. These are not unconnected. As wealth becomes more unequal the institutions of society (whether tax systems, justice systems, or political systems) become more unjust as they reflect the interests of an ever-smaller segment of society. This in turn leads to growing apathy about the fairness and benevolence of government, unless an authoritarian populist leader can motivate these disaffected masses to rise up against the powerful and corrupt. Paradoxically, this furthers the corruption of the state because such leaders do not tolerate limits on their power from free presses and from independent sources of power, and so personal corruption based on cronyism replaces the corruption borne out of wealth. Furthermore, the institutions of democracy (such as an independent judiciary and the market economy) come under threat because of how they had become corrupted to serve the interests of the few instead of all.
It should be noteworthy at this point that in the present age as well as the 1880's and 1920's, immigrants became a common scapegoat for the frustrated longings of the masses (this was also true in the 1850's). In the 1880's, for example, immigrants from China were often the scapegoats for the stagnant wages of unskilled laborers. In the 1920's, immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe were the scapegoats. Now it is immigrants from Latin America as well as the Middle East. In all of these cases immigrants of distinctive appearance, religion, and social customs, whose streaming from areas under extreme stress led to increasing competition among native unskilled workers and created intense social unrest on both sides.
Though my opinions on illegal immigration are rather complicated and nuanced, the immigrants themselves are the symptoms and not the problem. Illigal immigrants (then and now) find work because of official corrpution that refuses to enforce laws, as well as corruption in businesses that seek to avoid paying market wages for labor or provide adequate working conditions. In the end, a few wealthy benefit and the majority of people suffer, though the suffering of the immigrants is often less intense because the situation where they came from is even worse. Intensifying the trouble is the fact that while unskilled labor conditions become increasingly unstable and threatening, there are increasing barriers to entering professional fields due to increased requirements for education and competence. When society ceases to be one and divisions between economic classes becomes hardened, the results are increasing social unrest.
It should be noted that these times are precisely those where the burden of taxation placed on the middle and lower classes is the most severe. During the Guilded Age, for example, income tax laws were declared unconstitutional because corporations were judged as falling under the persons whose rights were protected under the 14th amdendment. This was true even though those same courts denied those rights to the people actually defined under the 14th amendment--freed slaves and their descendents. When corporations have rights and people do not, something is terribly amiss in a society. In the 1920's, incomes were taxed while capital gains were not, and so the wealthy profited handsomely through stocks and property speculation (no comment) while the tax burden fell increasingly on the middle classes (whose benefits were typically in salary and not stock). In our times, we see property taxes and income taxes and estate taxes (which tend to affect the middle and upper classes the strongest) lowered while lotteries and sales taxes (which tend to most strongly affect the lower classes) increased. This skews the tax burden to the poor, who are precisely those who can least afford it and benefit the least from the expenditures gained from those taxes. Socities that rely upon the ignorance of the people to provide for their own unust gain play a very dangerous game.
It should also be noted at least briefly that these times are also precisely those where the national and personal debt levels in society reach the highest levels. Nations, banks, and individuals borrow and lend money at increasingly bad terms in order to keep up appearances, ever putting off the day when they must pay the piper and thus ensuring that the reprocussions of those decisions are the most serious possible and extend over the entire globe. Even if people realize the situation they are in, it is as if they lack the ability to do anything constructive about it, further increasing the strains on an increasingly tense situation.
Social/Religious Stresses
It is of no surprise that during these same times the social and moral fabrics of society also becomes frayed. It is foolish to speculate upon which is the cause and which is the effect between the various factors, but it is important to note that they are all interconnected, which would seem to indicate that there is a connection between them, possibly mutually reinforcing.
It is surely not coincidental that evolution has been a major issue in the last four periods of serious societal stress. In 1859, Darwin published his book "On The Origin of Species." In the 1880's, the doctrine of social darwinism, where the wealthy (the fittest) were claimed to owe no obligations to the "lesser" and "unfit" elements of society was defended and elaborated upon. The 1920's featured the Scopes Monkey Trial and the move to teach macroevolution in the schools. Today, of course, evolution is hotly debated, as the benefits of avoiding obligations to God and fellow man outweigh a concern for the objective evidence in the eyes of many powerful people (if not the population at large). A major reason for this is that Darwinian evolution, in its materialistic universe (without room for a just God who rules sovereignly over His Creation) and its appeal to the survival of the fittest (which would lower one's sense of obligation to the poor, the old, the sick, and the unfortunate) serve against the divine requirements of social justice emphasized repeatedly and strongly throughout the entire scriptures.
Meanwhile, these times are noted also for dramatic societal trouble about drug and alcohol abuse, abortion, euthenasia, immorality in dress, objectification of women, rampant problems with sexuality, violence, and so on (see the Great Gatsby for a comment on the situation of the 1920's, or any of the works of Nathaniel West). In all of these times there is a profound dissention between the standards of the youth and the declining hold of "traditional" morality upon the behavior of the population. Furthermore, these times show a consistent trend towards rampant materialism (see above note about evolution) as well as the importance of appearance over a rigorous attention to reality. Each of these issues alone is worthy of several ranting posts, but time and energy do not permit me to spend my 26th birthday this way.
It should also be noted that these times featured the growth of superchurches (the 1920's in particular) at the expensive of denomonational loyalty. Indeed, any kind of loyalty is particularly difficult to find in these eras of history. Such superchurches are also noticed today where pastors write Horatio-Algeresque tales (see the 1880's) invoking the gospel of plentitude (see the Prayer of Jabez for a notable example of this) and where wealth and success are often taken as signs of righteousness. This has the often neglected but rather pointed corrolary that failure and poverty are the signs of unrighteousness, which serves to bring the nastiness of the outside world into the confines of congregations. Rather than preach about the gospel of social justice that is found in the Bible (notice the first speech of Jesus Christ, or the consistent and fierce condemnation of those who abuse wealth and power in the Bible, especially--but not only--in the prophets such as Hosea, Amos, Jeremiah, Isaiah), the emphasis is on numbers (money, membership) to the detriment of deep and serious examination and application of the scriptures. As a result, even though religion is popular, the Bible does not exert influence over the lives of professed believers.
What Follows
This is predictably depressing, but worst of all is the reflection of what follows after these times and is the direct result of the processes of decay and segmentation found in eras like today. When one looks at what followed the last three eras that most closely resemble our own, the results are quite striking. In the first era, the period of trouble in the late 1850's was followed by the Civil War, the most catastrophic war in American history thus far, when a group of states led by privileged and unjust slaveowners sought to create an independent nation founded on freedom from government interference with slavery but the most draconian regulations on slavery and the criticism of it. The Guilded Age of the 1880's led to the prolonged depression of 1890-1896, which led to the birth of the American Federation of Labor and the Progressive reforms of the early 1900's (including antitrust laws and the first laws regulating the quality of food, among others). The "Roaring Twenties" was followed by the Great Depression and the rise of facism and militarism around the world, leading directly into the Second World War, the most destructive war in recorded history. Obviously, this is not good. What can be done about it at this advanced state is difficult to say, but when I look at the state of the world today, and the inability of people to deal with the full extent of the moral roots of this present state (including those people who see apocalyptic signs in these times) is not a pleasant one.
What will follow these present times, I do not know, but such times have never ended well. Perhaps one of the conflicts in our present society will lead to some bitter rift and ugly civil turmoil. Perhaps there will be a depression like that of the 1890's or 1930's, with delayed federal action to respond and laws that swing the pendulum too far to the other side in response to the current imbalance. Perhaps some unscrupulous leader will take advantage of the righteous indignation of people and promise unrealistic solutions in exchange for the further weakening of our freedoms and our democratic system. Perhaps there will be riots and unrest in the streets. I am no prophet, I do not know. What I do know from all the history I have been able to find on such times like these is that the situation will not be tackled until there is no other choice, and the solution will be more expensive and more troublesome than it has to be if the problem is dealt with sooner. We lack the leaders with the moral vision to understand the depth of the problems we face and the moral courage to deal with the problems and how they interrelate. What can be done about that, I do not know. History lesson concluded.
A New Guilded Age
I have read much in the past few years about the rising wealth of corporate magnates whose own tax obligations have lowered even as the economic health of the general population at large has been hindered through stagnant wages, a crushing burden of debt, and an increasingly regressive tax burden as societal interest in defending the common people, much less the disadvantaged of society, begins to crumble under the combined weight of moral decay and corporate plutocracy. Let us see how this is so now, and how it has happened throughout critical and dangerous periods of American history that our time, in many ways, closely resembles.
Most of the articles one reads about the comparisons between the historical periods in question (the 1880's and 1920's) and our own revolve around questions of class and distribution of wealth, questions that are of interest to me (but mainly for their implications on the moral justice present in a society). In all these three times wealth was concentrated in the hands of an ever-shrinking number of fabulously wealthy people who lived in obscene wealth and privilege while the general population suffered stagnation of wages (among the middle class) or a deterioration of economic position (among the lower classes). One important measure of a society's health is how equitably its economic resources are distributed. There will always be some degree of inequality in a society through the accidents of birth, differences in diligence, ability, and education, but such factors themselves do not make for extreme differences in wealth, largely because our own native abilities and inclinations do not vary over a huge range. Societies that demonstrate a lack of concern for social justice and for the concerns of those who are not well off (witness most of Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, and so on) are precisely those countries which have the most unequal distributions of wealth. To the extent that the United States persists in its increasingly unequal distribution of economic resources, the fabric of society will become increasingly frail. After all, if those who possess an ever-growing percentage of wealth and power do not share in the insecurities of ordinary people, then the concerns of the majority of the population will not be reflected in the policies a nation conducts, unless there is social unrest sufficient to remind the wealthy and the powerful of their obligations to the rest of society.
There is some evidence that this is already taking place in parts of the world. Unscrupulous populists with mandates to forcibly redistribute wealth have taken power or consolidated their hold in several countries in Latin America (namely Venezuela and Bolivia), and nearly took power in Mexico. Meanwhile, social unrest over various issues have erupted in the US (over immigration), in France (over immigration and policies designed to harm young adult workers), in China (over government corruption and population controls), and in other places as well. These are not unconnected. As wealth becomes more unequal the institutions of society (whether tax systems, justice systems, or political systems) become more unjust as they reflect the interests of an ever-smaller segment of society. This in turn leads to growing apathy about the fairness and benevolence of government, unless an authoritarian populist leader can motivate these disaffected masses to rise up against the powerful and corrupt. Paradoxically, this furthers the corruption of the state because such leaders do not tolerate limits on their power from free presses and from independent sources of power, and so personal corruption based on cronyism replaces the corruption borne out of wealth. Furthermore, the institutions of democracy (such as an independent judiciary and the market economy) come under threat because of how they had become corrupted to serve the interests of the few instead of all.
It should be noteworthy at this point that in the present age as well as the 1880's and 1920's, immigrants became a common scapegoat for the frustrated longings of the masses (this was also true in the 1850's). In the 1880's, for example, immigrants from China were often the scapegoats for the stagnant wages of unskilled laborers. In the 1920's, immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe were the scapegoats. Now it is immigrants from Latin America as well as the Middle East. In all of these cases immigrants of distinctive appearance, religion, and social customs, whose streaming from areas under extreme stress led to increasing competition among native unskilled workers and created intense social unrest on both sides.
Though my opinions on illegal immigration are rather complicated and nuanced, the immigrants themselves are the symptoms and not the problem. Illigal immigrants (then and now) find work because of official corrpution that refuses to enforce laws, as well as corruption in businesses that seek to avoid paying market wages for labor or provide adequate working conditions. In the end, a few wealthy benefit and the majority of people suffer, though the suffering of the immigrants is often less intense because the situation where they came from is even worse. Intensifying the trouble is the fact that while unskilled labor conditions become increasingly unstable and threatening, there are increasing barriers to entering professional fields due to increased requirements for education and competence. When society ceases to be one and divisions between economic classes becomes hardened, the results are increasing social unrest.
It should be noted that these times are precisely those where the burden of taxation placed on the middle and lower classes is the most severe. During the Guilded Age, for example, income tax laws were declared unconstitutional because corporations were judged as falling under the persons whose rights were protected under the 14th amdendment. This was true even though those same courts denied those rights to the people actually defined under the 14th amendment--freed slaves and their descendents. When corporations have rights and people do not, something is terribly amiss in a society. In the 1920's, incomes were taxed while capital gains were not, and so the wealthy profited handsomely through stocks and property speculation (no comment) while the tax burden fell increasingly on the middle classes (whose benefits were typically in salary and not stock). In our times, we see property taxes and income taxes and estate taxes (which tend to affect the middle and upper classes the strongest) lowered while lotteries and sales taxes (which tend to most strongly affect the lower classes) increased. This skews the tax burden to the poor, who are precisely those who can least afford it and benefit the least from the expenditures gained from those taxes. Socities that rely upon the ignorance of the people to provide for their own unust gain play a very dangerous game.
It should also be noted at least briefly that these times are also precisely those where the national and personal debt levels in society reach the highest levels. Nations, banks, and individuals borrow and lend money at increasingly bad terms in order to keep up appearances, ever putting off the day when they must pay the piper and thus ensuring that the reprocussions of those decisions are the most serious possible and extend over the entire globe. Even if people realize the situation they are in, it is as if they lack the ability to do anything constructive about it, further increasing the strains on an increasingly tense situation.
Social/Religious Stresses
It is of no surprise that during these same times the social and moral fabrics of society also becomes frayed. It is foolish to speculate upon which is the cause and which is the effect between the various factors, but it is important to note that they are all interconnected, which would seem to indicate that there is a connection between them, possibly mutually reinforcing.
It is surely not coincidental that evolution has been a major issue in the last four periods of serious societal stress. In 1859, Darwin published his book "On The Origin of Species." In the 1880's, the doctrine of social darwinism, where the wealthy (the fittest) were claimed to owe no obligations to the "lesser" and "unfit" elements of society was defended and elaborated upon. The 1920's featured the Scopes Monkey Trial and the move to teach macroevolution in the schools. Today, of course, evolution is hotly debated, as the benefits of avoiding obligations to God and fellow man outweigh a concern for the objective evidence in the eyes of many powerful people (if not the population at large). A major reason for this is that Darwinian evolution, in its materialistic universe (without room for a just God who rules sovereignly over His Creation) and its appeal to the survival of the fittest (which would lower one's sense of obligation to the poor, the old, the sick, and the unfortunate) serve against the divine requirements of social justice emphasized repeatedly and strongly throughout the entire scriptures.
Meanwhile, these times are noted also for dramatic societal trouble about drug and alcohol abuse, abortion, euthenasia, immorality in dress, objectification of women, rampant problems with sexuality, violence, and so on (see the Great Gatsby for a comment on the situation of the 1920's, or any of the works of Nathaniel West). In all of these times there is a profound dissention between the standards of the youth and the declining hold of "traditional" morality upon the behavior of the population. Furthermore, these times show a consistent trend towards rampant materialism (see above note about evolution) as well as the importance of appearance over a rigorous attention to reality. Each of these issues alone is worthy of several ranting posts, but time and energy do not permit me to spend my 26th birthday this way.
It should also be noted that these times featured the growth of superchurches (the 1920's in particular) at the expensive of denomonational loyalty. Indeed, any kind of loyalty is particularly difficult to find in these eras of history. Such superchurches are also noticed today where pastors write Horatio-Algeresque tales (see the 1880's) invoking the gospel of plentitude (see the Prayer of Jabez for a notable example of this) and where wealth and success are often taken as signs of righteousness. This has the often neglected but rather pointed corrolary that failure and poverty are the signs of unrighteousness, which serves to bring the nastiness of the outside world into the confines of congregations. Rather than preach about the gospel of social justice that is found in the Bible (notice the first speech of Jesus Christ, or the consistent and fierce condemnation of those who abuse wealth and power in the Bible, especially--but not only--in the prophets such as Hosea, Amos, Jeremiah, Isaiah), the emphasis is on numbers (money, membership) to the detriment of deep and serious examination and application of the scriptures. As a result, even though religion is popular, the Bible does not exert influence over the lives of professed believers.
What Follows
This is predictably depressing, but worst of all is the reflection of what follows after these times and is the direct result of the processes of decay and segmentation found in eras like today. When one looks at what followed the last three eras that most closely resemble our own, the results are quite striking. In the first era, the period of trouble in the late 1850's was followed by the Civil War, the most catastrophic war in American history thus far, when a group of states led by privileged and unjust slaveowners sought to create an independent nation founded on freedom from government interference with slavery but the most draconian regulations on slavery and the criticism of it. The Guilded Age of the 1880's led to the prolonged depression of 1890-1896, which led to the birth of the American Federation of Labor and the Progressive reforms of the early 1900's (including antitrust laws and the first laws regulating the quality of food, among others). The "Roaring Twenties" was followed by the Great Depression and the rise of facism and militarism around the world, leading directly into the Second World War, the most destructive war in recorded history. Obviously, this is not good. What can be done about it at this advanced state is difficult to say, but when I look at the state of the world today, and the inability of people to deal with the full extent of the moral roots of this present state (including those people who see apocalyptic signs in these times) is not a pleasant one.
What will follow these present times, I do not know, but such times have never ended well. Perhaps one of the conflicts in our present society will lead to some bitter rift and ugly civil turmoil. Perhaps there will be a depression like that of the 1890's or 1930's, with delayed federal action to respond and laws that swing the pendulum too far to the other side in response to the current imbalance. Perhaps some unscrupulous leader will take advantage of the righteous indignation of people and promise unrealistic solutions in exchange for the further weakening of our freedoms and our democratic system. Perhaps there will be riots and unrest in the streets. I am no prophet, I do not know. What I do know from all the history I have been able to find on such times like these is that the situation will not be tackled until there is no other choice, and the solution will be more expensive and more troublesome than it has to be if the problem is dealt with sooner. We lack the leaders with the moral vision to understand the depth of the problems we face and the moral courage to deal with the problems and how they interrelate. What can be done about that, I do not know. History lesson concluded.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
On The Ironies of Weather
Every summer, wise Floridians (and residents of other subtropical nations and states) become very familiar with the National Hurricane Center website (www.nhc.noaa.gov), with daily (or multiple-times daily, depending on how grim the situation is) readings about which tropical waves could develop into hurricanes and which hurricanes threaten the flat, reclaimed swampland where I reside. Having recently moved from a rare area in my city not in any evacuation zone to somewhere in Evacuation Zone A (meaning I may be particularly itinerant this hurricane season), I will be paying even more attention (if that were possible) to the business of hurricanes and tropical storms as I go about my affairs in work and school.
This particular year has started early with regards to tropical storms. Despite it being only the beginning of May, on May 9th Subtropical Storm Andrea formed in the Atlantic just off the coast of St. Augustine, slowly drifting west towards the state in dry, unfavorable atmospheric conditions. This brave little storm is already dissipating, but it marks the first storm of what could be a busy season. Ironically enough, some people (including Florida's Governor) were hoping that the tropical storm would bring some much needed rain to Florida. No dice.
What could drive people to wish for a tropical storm to hit Florida when the last few years have been less than kind to Florida in that regard (lest anyone forget, during the 2004 Hurricane Season, Florida was hit by four major hurricanes, the last two of which knocked out power where I lived for over a week)? In 2005 Florida was hit by another three hurricanes, one of which destroyed part of Miami International Airport (and delayed my flight back to Tampa from New Jersey, though it indirectly gave me first class tickets, so I suppose I can't complain too much). The reason is that Florida is as dry as my sense of humor right now.
Florida and Georgia are so dry right now that a swamp is burning (!) and the air quality earlier this week (thanks to a fire near Gainesville) was so bad it reminded me of the smog in Los Angeles (as well as my experiences with fires out there, which threatened Griffith Park Observatory earlier this week, one of my favorite spots in LA). One fire, the aforementioned fire on the GA/FL border, has burned over 100 square miles of land and is now threatening towns on the stateline. Another fire has burned part of northern Minnesota and is now heading into Canada. Drought conditions have prevailed over much of the United States, and the droughts are turning quite ugly as hotter weather has turned dry grass into a tinderbox.
However, other parts of the United States (like Kansas and Nebraska, and other parts of the midwest) are having floods right now from rather severe rains, the worst floods since 1993. Those floods, by the way, were so severe that they forced some towns close to the rivers of the midwest to move further away from the river to avoid being in the floodplains. If cities and towns in Florida were moved away from the floodplains to avoid damage from flooding, there would not be much of Florida left suitable for habitation, but I suppose that is another subject for another time.
It appears that, however you look at it, this year already is shaping up to be a wacky one with regards to the weather. A late start to winter in Europe created serious problems, and the end of winter featured dramatic temperature swings from spring-like weather to late blizzards. No matter what reason one uses for the weather being as it is, the weather is truly bizarre, clearly not right. While it may keep some of us glued to the weather channel (or various other equivalents), it should force us to think as well how much our lives and livelihoods depend on the fickleness of our increasingly erratic weather.
It would not surprise others to know that my life and livelihood, like everything else in my existence, has an ambivalent relationship with the weather. For one, I live in an area rather vulnerable to hurricanes, living near the coast (a bay, to be precise). However, as a reviewer of modular building plans, I get more work when modular buildings need to be built as replacements for destroyed buildings as well as construction trailers for building sites post-disaster. So, while I dislike disasters, and the stress that hurricane season brings for me as I stare at menacing looking storms in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean, I profit off of the same. Like the ironies of the weather, the ironies of my life are many.
This particular year has started early with regards to tropical storms. Despite it being only the beginning of May, on May 9th Subtropical Storm Andrea formed in the Atlantic just off the coast of St. Augustine, slowly drifting west towards the state in dry, unfavorable atmospheric conditions. This brave little storm is already dissipating, but it marks the first storm of what could be a busy season. Ironically enough, some people (including Florida's Governor) were hoping that the tropical storm would bring some much needed rain to Florida. No dice.
What could drive people to wish for a tropical storm to hit Florida when the last few years have been less than kind to Florida in that regard (lest anyone forget, during the 2004 Hurricane Season, Florida was hit by four major hurricanes, the last two of which knocked out power where I lived for over a week)? In 2005 Florida was hit by another three hurricanes, one of which destroyed part of Miami International Airport (and delayed my flight back to Tampa from New Jersey, though it indirectly gave me first class tickets, so I suppose I can't complain too much). The reason is that Florida is as dry as my sense of humor right now.
Florida and Georgia are so dry right now that a swamp is burning (!) and the air quality earlier this week (thanks to a fire near Gainesville) was so bad it reminded me of the smog in Los Angeles (as well as my experiences with fires out there, which threatened Griffith Park Observatory earlier this week, one of my favorite spots in LA). One fire, the aforementioned fire on the GA/FL border, has burned over 100 square miles of land and is now threatening towns on the stateline. Another fire has burned part of northern Minnesota and is now heading into Canada. Drought conditions have prevailed over much of the United States, and the droughts are turning quite ugly as hotter weather has turned dry grass into a tinderbox.
However, other parts of the United States (like Kansas and Nebraska, and other parts of the midwest) are having floods right now from rather severe rains, the worst floods since 1993. Those floods, by the way, were so severe that they forced some towns close to the rivers of the midwest to move further away from the river to avoid being in the floodplains. If cities and towns in Florida were moved away from the floodplains to avoid damage from flooding, there would not be much of Florida left suitable for habitation, but I suppose that is another subject for another time.
It appears that, however you look at it, this year already is shaping up to be a wacky one with regards to the weather. A late start to winter in Europe created serious problems, and the end of winter featured dramatic temperature swings from spring-like weather to late blizzards. No matter what reason one uses for the weather being as it is, the weather is truly bizarre, clearly not right. While it may keep some of us glued to the weather channel (or various other equivalents), it should force us to think as well how much our lives and livelihoods depend on the fickleness of our increasingly erratic weather.
It would not surprise others to know that my life and livelihood, like everything else in my existence, has an ambivalent relationship with the weather. For one, I live in an area rather vulnerable to hurricanes, living near the coast (a bay, to be precise). However, as a reviewer of modular building plans, I get more work when modular buildings need to be built as replacements for destroyed buildings as well as construction trailers for building sites post-disaster. So, while I dislike disasters, and the stress that hurricane season brings for me as I stare at menacing looking storms in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean, I profit off of the same. Like the ironies of the weather, the ironies of my life are many.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
On The Sinister People
I have a confession to make: I am a sinister person. I say this somewhat jokingly, but truth be told, as a left-handed person, I am a sinister fellow. Sinister, a word with nearly uniformly negative connotation and denotation, comes from the latin word for left. In Latin, as in Hebrew and Greek and many other languages, left is given a host of negative meanings and right is given a host of postive meanings. The word left even comes from the Old English and means "weak." It is worthwhile to note some of these relationships first before I go on:
Left/Sinister:
Bend Sinister: signifies the bearer of the coat of arms is an illegitimate child
Sinister is also contained in the names of villians in Marvel Supercomics as well as the Underdog
Sinister is also used as a synonym for evil.
Left does not only refer to the direction, but is also the past tense of "leave" in such expressions as "left behind."
The word left in French, gauche, means awkward or clumsy.
Right/Dextrous:
Dexterity, from the Latin word for right, refers to manual ability, as the opposite of clumsiness, and is often used in role playing games for statistics related to skill in tools and weapons.
Right is not only used for the direction, but is also a positive expression used in "right brain thinking" (referring to creative thinking as opposed to the narrow quantitative thinking known as "left-brained thinking").
Right is also the name of those freedoms which are most treasured and sought after (such as "The Bill of Rights" or the "Civil Rights Movement") and is used to refer to something which is correct and proper as opposed to something which is wrong.
Perhaps these are not noticed very frequently because most of the world is right-handed (different estimates figure the proportion of right-handed people to be about 85-90% of the total population), and it is easy to ignore what is common and obvious. In an entire semester of watching movies, I saw exactly one person writing left-handed, and he happened to be Marshall Mathers, better known as Eminem. When I saw Shawn Mullins write left-handed in the music video to "Everywhere I Go," I was pleased, because it is unusual to see people writing left-handed on-screen. Even had I not already noted that I am left-handed, the fact that I even bother to notice what hand people write with should give away that fact, because right-handed people are not prone to notice what hand anyone writes with at all, while left-handed people like myself are always seeking out allies in our battle against a world designed hostile and backwards for the sinister people.
During the Middle Ages, left-handed people were considered tools of the devil and were burned at the stake (I would not have survived in the Middle Ages for other reasons, notably my intelligence, my intolerance for unjust hierarchies, my outspokenness, and my religious beliefs, but being left-handed would have added to the reasons why I would have received the death penalty in those dark times). Even in the United States in the 20th century, left-handed students were beaten on the wrist until they wrote with their right hand--this happened to my father as well as my mother's father, both of whom were born left-handed but who had it beaten out of them rather literally in school.
Left-handedness plays a role often unrecognized in military history as well. In the Bible, Ehud, a left-handed Benjaminite, used his left-handedness to slay Eglon, king of the Moabites, by sneaking a weapon on the right side of his body, where the guards did not check. Later in Judges, the notably left-handed Benjaminites dealt two defeats to the rest of the Israelites before being nearly eliminated as a tribe. Many fortresses in the Middle Ages were built with towers with stairs ascending clockwise, which would allow a right-handed person to defend them easier.
The Bible even adds to the general hostility towards the left-side in Jesus' parable of the sheep and the goats--the goats (symbollizing those who are not to be saved) are put on the left side, and the sheep (symbollizing those who are to be saved) are placed on the right-side. Yet, despite the often negative connotations of the word left (and the awkwardness in writing and drawing left-handed), and even the various hostile theories about the origin of left-handedness in people (including high amounts of stress at birth and brain damage), left-handedness endures and even has some positive connotations--including a prediliction for high intelligence and creativity.
So, in the end, perhaps the sinister people of this world like myself can have the last laugh--left-handed people are likely the only ones who even notice what kind of handedness most people have, and they are better at tennis and other one-on-one sports (like boxing) due to the assymetry of handedness. Living in a hostile world does have its advantages after all.
Left/Sinister:
Bend Sinister: signifies the bearer of the coat of arms is an illegitimate child
Sinister is also contained in the names of villians in Marvel Supercomics as well as the Underdog
Sinister is also used as a synonym for evil.
Left does not only refer to the direction, but is also the past tense of "leave" in such expressions as "left behind."
The word left in French, gauche, means awkward or clumsy.
Right/Dextrous:
Dexterity, from the Latin word for right, refers to manual ability, as the opposite of clumsiness, and is often used in role playing games for statistics related to skill in tools and weapons.
Right is not only used for the direction, but is also a positive expression used in "right brain thinking" (referring to creative thinking as opposed to the narrow quantitative thinking known as "left-brained thinking").
Right is also the name of those freedoms which are most treasured and sought after (such as "The Bill of Rights" or the "Civil Rights Movement") and is used to refer to something which is correct and proper as opposed to something which is wrong.
Perhaps these are not noticed very frequently because most of the world is right-handed (different estimates figure the proportion of right-handed people to be about 85-90% of the total population), and it is easy to ignore what is common and obvious. In an entire semester of watching movies, I saw exactly one person writing left-handed, and he happened to be Marshall Mathers, better known as Eminem. When I saw Shawn Mullins write left-handed in the music video to "Everywhere I Go," I was pleased, because it is unusual to see people writing left-handed on-screen. Even had I not already noted that I am left-handed, the fact that I even bother to notice what hand people write with should give away that fact, because right-handed people are not prone to notice what hand anyone writes with at all, while left-handed people like myself are always seeking out allies in our battle against a world designed hostile and backwards for the sinister people.
During the Middle Ages, left-handed people were considered tools of the devil and were burned at the stake (I would not have survived in the Middle Ages for other reasons, notably my intelligence, my intolerance for unjust hierarchies, my outspokenness, and my religious beliefs, but being left-handed would have added to the reasons why I would have received the death penalty in those dark times). Even in the United States in the 20th century, left-handed students were beaten on the wrist until they wrote with their right hand--this happened to my father as well as my mother's father, both of whom were born left-handed but who had it beaten out of them rather literally in school.
Left-handedness plays a role often unrecognized in military history as well. In the Bible, Ehud, a left-handed Benjaminite, used his left-handedness to slay Eglon, king of the Moabites, by sneaking a weapon on the right side of his body, where the guards did not check. Later in Judges, the notably left-handed Benjaminites dealt two defeats to the rest of the Israelites before being nearly eliminated as a tribe. Many fortresses in the Middle Ages were built with towers with stairs ascending clockwise, which would allow a right-handed person to defend them easier.
The Bible even adds to the general hostility towards the left-side in Jesus' parable of the sheep and the goats--the goats (symbollizing those who are not to be saved) are put on the left side, and the sheep (symbollizing those who are to be saved) are placed on the right-side. Yet, despite the often negative connotations of the word left (and the awkwardness in writing and drawing left-handed), and even the various hostile theories about the origin of left-handedness in people (including high amounts of stress at birth and brain damage), left-handedness endures and even has some positive connotations--including a prediliction for high intelligence and creativity.
So, in the end, perhaps the sinister people of this world like myself can have the last laugh--left-handed people are likely the only ones who even notice what kind of handedness most people have, and they are better at tennis and other one-on-one sports (like boxing) due to the assymetry of handedness. Living in a hostile world does have its advantages after all.
Monday, April 16, 2007
On The Collatz Conjecture
Yesterday, during the monthly Florida Bibliophile Society meeting, a book collecting former math teacher with a profound interest in Lewis Carroll (of Alice & Wonderland fame) made some interesting comments on an area of mathematics I find quite intriguing. He spoke in particular on the Collatz Conjecture. A conjecture, in mathematical terms, is a supposition that appears to be always true but is not rigorously proven. There are, of course, several ways to prove a statement, which would change the conjecture into a theorem (which is rigorously proven and is followed by three of my favorite latin words--quod erat demonstradum, which mean "it has been demonstrated/proven."
Logic gives us several ways of proving a statement. One is a proof by contradiction. In this proof, we assume that the theorem is not true and then demonstrate that this leads to a contradiction with what is known to be true. For example, if we assumed a theorem was not true and then showed that if this was the case then 1 = 0, then we would prove by contradiction that the theorem was true. This is a particularly elegant form of proof, and I quite enjoy that as well. Other proofs seek to demonstrate that a statement boils down, eventually, to already proven statements, so that the theorem rests on the shoulders of prior statements (standing on the shoulder of giants, as it were). The immediate implications of a given theorem are considered corollaries, and are added to the pool of proven statements as well. Alternatively, theorems may be proven exhaustively, such that within a given range one can demonstrate that the theorem is true because one has exhausted all of the possibilities. I dislike this manner of proof because I tend to get rather bored of calculating algorithms and my attention has the tendency to wander, leading to mistakes in arithmetic. Since this is apparently a common affliction, generally computers are used in this form beyond the simplest of cases, because their attention does not wander (unless they use a Microsoft operating system and have a blue screen error, but that is another subject entirely).
I particularly enjoy conjectures because they are often composed of rather simple statements and can be verified to very large numbers, but because they resist proof by contradiction or traditional methods of proof, and because they make such grand claims that they cannot be proven exhaustively. One such example of this sort of conjecture is that the digits of pi and Euler's constant do not have a repetitive pattern, making them transcendental numbers. Well, this has not been proven (or disproven, for that matter) despite the fact that computers have calculated pi and Euler's constant to extreme lengths and have found (in the case of pi at least) that there are roughly equal numbers of each digit despite no discernable pattern.
Collatz's conjecture is likewise appealing to me because the conjecture sets two rather simple rules, one for odd numbers and another for even numbers, and these rules have been demonstrated to be correct to very large numbers, but because there are an infinite number of postive numbers, the conjecture cannot be proven true exhaustively. Furthermore, the conjecture has resisted a proof by contradiction or the traditional deductive proof.
The Collatz Conjecture has two rules:
If a number is odd, multiply by three and add one (3x +1),
If a number is even, divide the number in half (x/2).
The conjecture states that, eventually, any number will reduce, given these two rules, to one.
Some examples:
1 4 2 1
2 1
3 10 5 16 8 4 2 1
4 2 1
5 16 8 4 2 1
6 3 10 5 16 8 4 2 1
7 22 11 34 17 52 26 13 40 20 10 5 16 8 4 2 1
8 4 2 1
9 28 14 7 22 11 34 17 52 26 13 40 20 10 5 16 8 4 2 1
10 5 16 8 4 2 1
And so on...
It becomes apparent rather quickly that there is some kind of pattern in the way the rule works, and that once a sequence reaches a number already present in an existing sequence then it follows the same trail (for example, 11 would be 11 34 17 52 26 13 40 20 10 5 16 8 4 2 1). However, the proof of this conjecture has evaded the attempts of mathematicians of far greater ability than I (though, to be honest, it is not a difficult task to find mathematicians of greater ability than I am).
I consider such examples as this simple conjecture as evidence that the world in which we live, even when we look only at such narrow areas as mathematics which appear at first capable of exhaustive rational proof, nonetheless possesses aspects which we hold to be true even though we cannot demonstrate them to be true by logic. The world we live in, that is, requires something we call faith. If this is true in the world of number theory, it is certainly even more true in those aspects of life that are not as quantifiable. This may not make some mathematicians very happy, but it should nonetheless provide food for thought for those of us who are able to handle a bit more uncertainty and are able to reflect upon intelligence greater than our own.
Logic gives us several ways of proving a statement. One is a proof by contradiction. In this proof, we assume that the theorem is not true and then demonstrate that this leads to a contradiction with what is known to be true. For example, if we assumed a theorem was not true and then showed that if this was the case then 1 = 0, then we would prove by contradiction that the theorem was true. This is a particularly elegant form of proof, and I quite enjoy that as well. Other proofs seek to demonstrate that a statement boils down, eventually, to already proven statements, so that the theorem rests on the shoulders of prior statements (standing on the shoulder of giants, as it were). The immediate implications of a given theorem are considered corollaries, and are added to the pool of proven statements as well. Alternatively, theorems may be proven exhaustively, such that within a given range one can demonstrate that the theorem is true because one has exhausted all of the possibilities. I dislike this manner of proof because I tend to get rather bored of calculating algorithms and my attention has the tendency to wander, leading to mistakes in arithmetic. Since this is apparently a common affliction, generally computers are used in this form beyond the simplest of cases, because their attention does not wander (unless they use a Microsoft operating system and have a blue screen error, but that is another subject entirely).
I particularly enjoy conjectures because they are often composed of rather simple statements and can be verified to very large numbers, but because they resist proof by contradiction or traditional methods of proof, and because they make such grand claims that they cannot be proven exhaustively. One such example of this sort of conjecture is that the digits of pi and Euler's constant do not have a repetitive pattern, making them transcendental numbers. Well, this has not been proven (or disproven, for that matter) despite the fact that computers have calculated pi and Euler's constant to extreme lengths and have found (in the case of pi at least) that there are roughly equal numbers of each digit despite no discernable pattern.
Collatz's conjecture is likewise appealing to me because the conjecture sets two rather simple rules, one for odd numbers and another for even numbers, and these rules have been demonstrated to be correct to very large numbers, but because there are an infinite number of postive numbers, the conjecture cannot be proven true exhaustively. Furthermore, the conjecture has resisted a proof by contradiction or the traditional deductive proof.
The Collatz Conjecture has two rules:
If a number is odd, multiply by three and add one (3x +1),
If a number is even, divide the number in half (x/2).
The conjecture states that, eventually, any number will reduce, given these two rules, to one.
Some examples:
1 4 2 1
2 1
3 10 5 16 8 4 2 1
4 2 1
5 16 8 4 2 1
6 3 10 5 16 8 4 2 1
7 22 11 34 17 52 26 13 40 20 10 5 16 8 4 2 1
8 4 2 1
9 28 14 7 22 11 34 17 52 26 13 40 20 10 5 16 8 4 2 1
10 5 16 8 4 2 1
And so on...
It becomes apparent rather quickly that there is some kind of pattern in the way the rule works, and that once a sequence reaches a number already present in an existing sequence then it follows the same trail (for example, 11 would be 11 34 17 52 26 13 40 20 10 5 16 8 4 2 1). However, the proof of this conjecture has evaded the attempts of mathematicians of far greater ability than I (though, to be honest, it is not a difficult task to find mathematicians of greater ability than I am).
I consider such examples as this simple conjecture as evidence that the world in which we live, even when we look only at such narrow areas as mathematics which appear at first capable of exhaustive rational proof, nonetheless possesses aspects which we hold to be true even though we cannot demonstrate them to be true by logic. The world we live in, that is, requires something we call faith. If this is true in the world of number theory, it is certainly even more true in those aspects of life that are not as quantifiable. This may not make some mathematicians very happy, but it should nonetheless provide food for thought for those of us who are able to handle a bit more uncertainty and are able to reflect upon intelligence greater than our own.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Three Vignettes On The Life Of A Graduate Student
My life as a graduate student provides me with numerous opportunities for dry humor and (sometimes) dispassionate reflection on the quirks of higher education and my own place within it. Knowing that graduate education is still somewhat rare in the United States, and particularly rare in my family (I am the first person in my family to go to graduate school since my great-great uncle Willis David Matthias got his Th.D from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1927, but that is another story), hopefully my musings are not too esoteric or obscure.
On Americans In Graduate School
As an American in a graduate engineering program, I am a rather unusual fellow (regardless of whether I would be unusual on account of my own inherent quirkiness). The vast majority of my fellow graduate students in the School of Engineering, even at the University of South Florida, are not American citizens. Those that are Americans are often older students (many of whom have children only a little younger than myself), and many of the other students come from such diverse lands as China, India, South Korea, Turkey, France, Columbia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco. I happen to enjoy studying with such people, as they provide me the opportunity to learn about other lands and backgrounds beyond my own (and I tend to seek out such knowledge anyway). So, for me it is not the presence of people from other lands that is noteworthy. What is noteworthy is the absence of other Americans, particularly young Americans, from my classes. I know I am an odd fellow, but being interested in graduate school in engineering should not make me that unusual, I would think. What makes this rather amusing is that immigration law, which for me personally is a rather non-issue, becomes a very important matter for many of my classmates. One classmate, an undergraduate in a combination graduate/undergraduate program at USF, is from Columbia, and she was unable to go to a recent academic conference she helped organize because it was in Cancun and she did not have travel visa privileges. Other friends of mine face difficulties in finding employment because of a shortage of H1-B visas, with the liklihood that they will have to return to their home nations.
This becomes a problem in that many professions (such as civil engineering, my own) are moving towards making professional credentials more difficult to obtain, often to the point of requiring graduate school. With the above-inflation rise in college costs and the increasing length of time of non-productive (in economic terms) years spent acquiring an education rather than earning a living, coupled with the shortage in young people willing or able to study advanced degrees in science and engineering (and the difficulties in legally hiring educated foreigners to these positions) we face some serious problems. There appear to be no shortage of ambitious young adults in MBA programs, but when it comes to more technical studies the shortage is most glaring (and I have seen it with my own eyes). It appears as if my generation of students has understood that we value the acquisition of money above all else--above integrity, above truth/knowledge--and they have chosen their academic careers accordingly. What are we to do to ensure our nation has enough intellectuals to fill those emptying ivory towers, or even the ranks of middle-class professions like scientists and engineers?
A Nexus Of Cash And Corruption
It is a common thread of mine to comment on corruption in this world wherever it can be found, and recently I have found another occasion to comment on this. A scandal is breaking in the world of academic financing, as numerous university officials have been found to have had overly cozy financial relationships with a clique of financial organizations engaged in predatory lending to university students. While the universities implicated so far in the scandal are on the east coast (Penn, St. John's, and so forth), there are plenty of schools in other parts of the United States that engage in the same practices (and I know of some schools on the west coast that they could look into as well).
The university officials implicated in this scandal (and some government officials as well) received lucrative benefits from a few preferred lenders who apparently gave the universities (and those officials) bonuses based on how many students chose particular loan packages that contained terms advantageous to the lending companies and not as advantageous to the students themselves. Andrew Cuomo, the attorney general for the state of New York (a position that in recent years has inspired rather fiercely anti-corruption officials), apparently began the investigation at the behest of a lender who was apparently shut out of elite college lending on account of being unable to schmooze with the university officials and being unwilling/financially unable to engage in the graft/corruption that such college lending apparently entails. Perhaps the AG of New York should go after the credit card companies that camp out on university sidewalks continually with free t-shirts to give out. Maybe they are paying off university officials as well. That would not be surprising.
A Parking Rant
Actually, one of the benefits of being a commuter student (as I am now) is avoiding such people. When I lived on campus as an undergraduate on the left coast, I could only avoid such people at food speed, and those who know me should realize my foot speed is not terribly fast. Unfortunately, one of the annoyances of being a commuter student is the problem of finding adequate parking.
A few days ago, I received a survey from the University of South Florida about parking, which gave me the opportunity to rant to the people responsible for the travesty that is engineering school parking. (It is a rare treat in my life to be able to rant directly, and anonymously, to people who make my life more difficult than I would prefer). I was bemused by the attempts of the survey to advocate the use of Tampa's rather unacceptable public transportation service (known as HARTLine), as well as advocate future light rail projects to connect USF to the airport and a few other major places. (The question of how someone is supposed to get from where they live to the light rail and back, much less go to work as well, is left unstated).
I took the opportunity of the survey to make a few choice (but non-profane) comments about the incompetence of those responsible for parking at USF. Of course, these are the same geniuses who removed an entire parking lot from student use (for who knows what reason) some weeks ago while the Spring Semester is still in session. Parking was crowded enough before, now the situation is even more untenable. I do not appreciate having to walk half a mile from my car to class, especially not when I have to pass half-empty lots I cannot use because they are reserved for staff. I take such things rather personally, and as a sign of the lack of genuine interest people in charge have about doing what is best for those they purportedly serve. It is distressing that it is so hard to find leaders who are not corrupt and incompetent. If leaders were as competent in serving as they were in advocating their own pet agendas and in avoiding due regulation and accountability, I would have much less to rant about. I think that would be a good thing all the way around. For now, I study what is around me, and occasionally report on it.
On Americans In Graduate School
As an American in a graduate engineering program, I am a rather unusual fellow (regardless of whether I would be unusual on account of my own inherent quirkiness). The vast majority of my fellow graduate students in the School of Engineering, even at the University of South Florida, are not American citizens. Those that are Americans are often older students (many of whom have children only a little younger than myself), and many of the other students come from such diverse lands as China, India, South Korea, Turkey, France, Columbia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco. I happen to enjoy studying with such people, as they provide me the opportunity to learn about other lands and backgrounds beyond my own (and I tend to seek out such knowledge anyway). So, for me it is not the presence of people from other lands that is noteworthy. What is noteworthy is the absence of other Americans, particularly young Americans, from my classes. I know I am an odd fellow, but being interested in graduate school in engineering should not make me that unusual, I would think. What makes this rather amusing is that immigration law, which for me personally is a rather non-issue, becomes a very important matter for many of my classmates. One classmate, an undergraduate in a combination graduate/undergraduate program at USF, is from Columbia, and she was unable to go to a recent academic conference she helped organize because it was in Cancun and she did not have travel visa privileges. Other friends of mine face difficulties in finding employment because of a shortage of H1-B visas, with the liklihood that they will have to return to their home nations.
This becomes a problem in that many professions (such as civil engineering, my own) are moving towards making professional credentials more difficult to obtain, often to the point of requiring graduate school. With the above-inflation rise in college costs and the increasing length of time of non-productive (in economic terms) years spent acquiring an education rather than earning a living, coupled with the shortage in young people willing or able to study advanced degrees in science and engineering (and the difficulties in legally hiring educated foreigners to these positions) we face some serious problems. There appear to be no shortage of ambitious young adults in MBA programs, but when it comes to more technical studies the shortage is most glaring (and I have seen it with my own eyes). It appears as if my generation of students has understood that we value the acquisition of money above all else--above integrity, above truth/knowledge--and they have chosen their academic careers accordingly. What are we to do to ensure our nation has enough intellectuals to fill those emptying ivory towers, or even the ranks of middle-class professions like scientists and engineers?
A Nexus Of Cash And Corruption
It is a common thread of mine to comment on corruption in this world wherever it can be found, and recently I have found another occasion to comment on this. A scandal is breaking in the world of academic financing, as numerous university officials have been found to have had overly cozy financial relationships with a clique of financial organizations engaged in predatory lending to university students. While the universities implicated so far in the scandal are on the east coast (Penn, St. John's, and so forth), there are plenty of schools in other parts of the United States that engage in the same practices (and I know of some schools on the west coast that they could look into as well).
The university officials implicated in this scandal (and some government officials as well) received lucrative benefits from a few preferred lenders who apparently gave the universities (and those officials) bonuses based on how many students chose particular loan packages that contained terms advantageous to the lending companies and not as advantageous to the students themselves. Andrew Cuomo, the attorney general for the state of New York (a position that in recent years has inspired rather fiercely anti-corruption officials), apparently began the investigation at the behest of a lender who was apparently shut out of elite college lending on account of being unable to schmooze with the university officials and being unwilling/financially unable to engage in the graft/corruption that such college lending apparently entails. Perhaps the AG of New York should go after the credit card companies that camp out on university sidewalks continually with free t-shirts to give out. Maybe they are paying off university officials as well. That would not be surprising.
A Parking Rant
Actually, one of the benefits of being a commuter student (as I am now) is avoiding such people. When I lived on campus as an undergraduate on the left coast, I could only avoid such people at food speed, and those who know me should realize my foot speed is not terribly fast. Unfortunately, one of the annoyances of being a commuter student is the problem of finding adequate parking.
A few days ago, I received a survey from the University of South Florida about parking, which gave me the opportunity to rant to the people responsible for the travesty that is engineering school parking. (It is a rare treat in my life to be able to rant directly, and anonymously, to people who make my life more difficult than I would prefer). I was bemused by the attempts of the survey to advocate the use of Tampa's rather unacceptable public transportation service (known as HARTLine), as well as advocate future light rail projects to connect USF to the airport and a few other major places. (The question of how someone is supposed to get from where they live to the light rail and back, much less go to work as well, is left unstated).
I took the opportunity of the survey to make a few choice (but non-profane) comments about the incompetence of those responsible for parking at USF. Of course, these are the same geniuses who removed an entire parking lot from student use (for who knows what reason) some weeks ago while the Spring Semester is still in session. Parking was crowded enough before, now the situation is even more untenable. I do not appreciate having to walk half a mile from my car to class, especially not when I have to pass half-empty lots I cannot use because they are reserved for staff. I take such things rather personally, and as a sign of the lack of genuine interest people in charge have about doing what is best for those they purportedly serve. It is distressing that it is so hard to find leaders who are not corrupt and incompetent. If leaders were as competent in serving as they were in advocating their own pet agendas and in avoiding due regulation and accountability, I would have much less to rant about. I think that would be a good thing all the way around. For now, I study what is around me, and occasionally report on it.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Why Is The Beam Always In Our Eye?
One of the most pointed verses in the Bible concerning our behavior to other people is Matthew 7:3: "Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? (NASB)" One question I have long had about this verse is, why is the beam (or log) always in our eye, and why is the speck in the eye of the other person? Today I would like to look at at least a few possible answers.
On Specks
The answer to the question of why the speck is the eye of the other person seems a bit easier to answer, so I will tackle that one first. What we see of other people is rather limited. Even a fairly obvious person (I would probably qualify as one of these) still keeps a fair amount of information inside simply because not everything can be communicated to other people without a large amount of time spent with someone in a wide variety of different situations. Furthermore, much of what we do communicate verbally and nonverbally is subject to interpretation (and misinterpretation), which presents a further barrier to understanding other people. Therefore, even for people whose living is spent critiquing (that is how I pay my bills, after all) only have a small amount of material available to judge someone on.
This need not be a bad thing. We are not to be judgmental after all (much easier said than done), so it would be salutory for those of us who do tend to be a tad more hypercritical than we probably should be to recognize that we may be wrong (sometimes really wrong) and mean it. However, even when we judge something correctly in other people, we must realize that even here our information may be incomplete. No mercy will be shown to those who show no mercy, and when we do not know why someone acts the way they do, we may err in being harsh to those who suffer and struggle greatly. Consequently, we may be too easy on those who are better at hiding their sins (or are politically powerful enough that most people with a modicum of sense quail at challenging). So, what we see is often imperfect and that we see imperfectly. Therefore we cannot but see specks in the eyes of others, as their logs are often quite hidden to us.
On Logs
On the other hand, we all have logs in our eyes (I have mine, and I am blessed to have other people around me who seem to take great pleasure in reminding me about them, often). We need not be too hard on ourselves--God knows our situations better than we do--but we do need to look realistically at ourselves and understand that we all fall far short of our goal. Without the pardon given to us through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, salvation would be far beyond our reach, as if we were trying to stand on the ground and grasp for the stars in the night sky.
There are many reasons we have logs. For one, most people do not examine themselves particularly closely. We selectively compare ourselves to others and justify ourselves by looking at how other people fall short and how we have been wronged (I say this knowing I do the same thing, often, myself). In doing so, even when we see the worse parts of our own nature, we mitigate them and try to explain away our own problems through forces beyond our control while denying this privilege to others, what is called the fundamental attribution error. Furthermore, by not dealing with our own problems, we have a skewed perception of reality, which prevents us from seeing our world clearly and makes us less able to correctly judge other people.
What To Do Then?
How do we avoid this difficulty? Besides remaining in a state of blissfully ignorant hypocrisy, there are really two solutions. One is not to judge at all, and the other is to learn how to judge wisely. Our society right now seems to point towards not judging at all (though here it is only those people who wish to live righteously who are judged, in a perversion of the concept of judging). Not judging basically amounts to this: you do what you want to do, I'll do what I want to do, and as long as you don't hurt or judge me I won't judge you. This is incorrect, because if we desire a just society that is suitable for human existence, we must realize that no act is without consequences for other people, no matter how private it may seem. I could go at length about this, but a common example should suffice. For example, many people think that buying cocaine is a decision that effects only the drug user. This is false. The purchase of drugs is but one link in a rather complicated picture that involves a lot of people. Besides harming the user himself (itself a sin, as we are to honor God's temple--our bodies), the act of buying drugs supports a whole legion of people who make their livings in illegal ways (drug dealers, laboratories, etc.) who often combine drugs with other criminal behavior such as prostitution, theft, violence. These people, in turn, depend on the sources of their drugs from international drug traffickers who themselves are involved in crimes such as illegal immigration, terrorism, the international slave trade, massacres of populations in drug growing areas, and so forth. When we act, we can either be a part of a nexus of good or a nexus of evil. We cannot pretend, though, that what we do has no consequences outside of ourselves.
That leaves us with the choice of judging wisely. In doing so, we need to be aware (at least as much as possible) about what is right and wrong, and about why what is simple for us may be difficult for someone else (and the reverse is true also). In seeking to understand others, we may find that they have much to teach us and we have much to learn, even when we set out to teach them about their errors. Also, we must separate the sin from the sinner. We are all sinners, all worthy of the death penalty for our actions, and all (potentially) covered by the grace of God should we choose to accept the offer. We all have much to struggle with in this life, and we should recognize it as such. If we spend the limited time and energy we have on this earth honestly and openly seeking to live rightly (and increase in knowledge so that we have a better idea of what it is we are to do and how it is we are to do it), then we will speak louder about sin than we would through a million jeremiads against the sins of others. Sometimes we speak loudest through our own example--do you know what your example is saying? That is a frightening picture to consider indeed.
On Specks
The answer to the question of why the speck is the eye of the other person seems a bit easier to answer, so I will tackle that one first. What we see of other people is rather limited. Even a fairly obvious person (I would probably qualify as one of these) still keeps a fair amount of information inside simply because not everything can be communicated to other people without a large amount of time spent with someone in a wide variety of different situations. Furthermore, much of what we do communicate verbally and nonverbally is subject to interpretation (and misinterpretation), which presents a further barrier to understanding other people. Therefore, even for people whose living is spent critiquing (that is how I pay my bills, after all) only have a small amount of material available to judge someone on.
This need not be a bad thing. We are not to be judgmental after all (much easier said than done), so it would be salutory for those of us who do tend to be a tad more hypercritical than we probably should be to recognize that we may be wrong (sometimes really wrong) and mean it. However, even when we judge something correctly in other people, we must realize that even here our information may be incomplete. No mercy will be shown to those who show no mercy, and when we do not know why someone acts the way they do, we may err in being harsh to those who suffer and struggle greatly. Consequently, we may be too easy on those who are better at hiding their sins (or are politically powerful enough that most people with a modicum of sense quail at challenging). So, what we see is often imperfect and that we see imperfectly. Therefore we cannot but see specks in the eyes of others, as their logs are often quite hidden to us.
On Logs
On the other hand, we all have logs in our eyes (I have mine, and I am blessed to have other people around me who seem to take great pleasure in reminding me about them, often). We need not be too hard on ourselves--God knows our situations better than we do--but we do need to look realistically at ourselves and understand that we all fall far short of our goal. Without the pardon given to us through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, salvation would be far beyond our reach, as if we were trying to stand on the ground and grasp for the stars in the night sky.
There are many reasons we have logs. For one, most people do not examine themselves particularly closely. We selectively compare ourselves to others and justify ourselves by looking at how other people fall short and how we have been wronged (I say this knowing I do the same thing, often, myself). In doing so, even when we see the worse parts of our own nature, we mitigate them and try to explain away our own problems through forces beyond our control while denying this privilege to others, what is called the fundamental attribution error. Furthermore, by not dealing with our own problems, we have a skewed perception of reality, which prevents us from seeing our world clearly and makes us less able to correctly judge other people.
What To Do Then?
How do we avoid this difficulty? Besides remaining in a state of blissfully ignorant hypocrisy, there are really two solutions. One is not to judge at all, and the other is to learn how to judge wisely. Our society right now seems to point towards not judging at all (though here it is only those people who wish to live righteously who are judged, in a perversion of the concept of judging). Not judging basically amounts to this: you do what you want to do, I'll do what I want to do, and as long as you don't hurt or judge me I won't judge you. This is incorrect, because if we desire a just society that is suitable for human existence, we must realize that no act is without consequences for other people, no matter how private it may seem. I could go at length about this, but a common example should suffice. For example, many people think that buying cocaine is a decision that effects only the drug user. This is false. The purchase of drugs is but one link in a rather complicated picture that involves a lot of people. Besides harming the user himself (itself a sin, as we are to honor God's temple--our bodies), the act of buying drugs supports a whole legion of people who make their livings in illegal ways (drug dealers, laboratories, etc.) who often combine drugs with other criminal behavior such as prostitution, theft, violence. These people, in turn, depend on the sources of their drugs from international drug traffickers who themselves are involved in crimes such as illegal immigration, terrorism, the international slave trade, massacres of populations in drug growing areas, and so forth. When we act, we can either be a part of a nexus of good or a nexus of evil. We cannot pretend, though, that what we do has no consequences outside of ourselves.
That leaves us with the choice of judging wisely. In doing so, we need to be aware (at least as much as possible) about what is right and wrong, and about why what is simple for us may be difficult for someone else (and the reverse is true also). In seeking to understand others, we may find that they have much to teach us and we have much to learn, even when we set out to teach them about their errors. Also, we must separate the sin from the sinner. We are all sinners, all worthy of the death penalty for our actions, and all (potentially) covered by the grace of God should we choose to accept the offer. We all have much to struggle with in this life, and we should recognize it as such. If we spend the limited time and energy we have on this earth honestly and openly seeking to live rightly (and increase in knowledge so that we have a better idea of what it is we are to do and how it is we are to do it), then we will speak louder about sin than we would through a million jeremiads against the sins of others. Sometimes we speak loudest through our own example--do you know what your example is saying? That is a frightening picture to consider indeed.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
C is for Controversy
In a humorous news story out of New Zealand reported by Reuters, two teenagers (Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo) appear to have busted the claims of drug manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) concerning the product Ribena. Ribena, a syrupy drink marketed mainly to children, supposedly contains blackcurrants with four times the vitamin C as oranges. Instead, the young ladies found that Ribena contains nearly no vitamin C at all, and that one commercial brand of orange juice in New Zealand contained four times as much Vitamin C as Ribena. The young ladies brought their research to the attention of the company, but it was ignored until the research reached New Zealand's Commerce Commission, which has charged GSK with fifteen counts of various malfeasance, with potential fines around $2.1 million.
This particular humorous case raises some interesting questions about drug labeling. Companies like GSK are extremely powerful, with drug marketing efforts (through direct commercials as well as employing doctors as drug peddlers) that may not serve the interests of the consumer at large. After all, the two expenses that continually outpace the rate of inflation are health care and higher education.
One of the ways in which drug companies like GSK were thought to be superior to snake-oil peddling alternative medicines/vitamin supplements is that medicines were supposed to contain a humorous array of comments about varying results and side effects and so forth. That is, products that drug companies market are supposed to be honest, at least to the level of honesty we would expect from buying used cars from a dealer (with an automobile manufacturer's logo over his business) rather than from a guy on the side of the road.
However, it appears that a product marketed mainly in British nations (it first achieved fame as a drink distributed to British youth during WWII) is merely an overly expensive form of soda rather than a health drink of any kind. Make of that what you will. However, give praise to two plucky and creative young people in New Zealand for their work in refuting some spectacularly false claims about the health benefits of a drink marketed by a drug company. The world needs more people like those two, because it has all the snake oil salesmen it can handle.
This particular humorous case raises some interesting questions about drug labeling. Companies like GSK are extremely powerful, with drug marketing efforts (through direct commercials as well as employing doctors as drug peddlers) that may not serve the interests of the consumer at large. After all, the two expenses that continually outpace the rate of inflation are health care and higher education.
One of the ways in which drug companies like GSK were thought to be superior to snake-oil peddling alternative medicines/vitamin supplements is that medicines were supposed to contain a humorous array of comments about varying results and side effects and so forth. That is, products that drug companies market are supposed to be honest, at least to the level of honesty we would expect from buying used cars from a dealer (with an automobile manufacturer's logo over his business) rather than from a guy on the side of the road.
However, it appears that a product marketed mainly in British nations (it first achieved fame as a drink distributed to British youth during WWII) is merely an overly expensive form of soda rather than a health drink of any kind. Make of that what you will. However, give praise to two plucky and creative young people in New Zealand for their work in refuting some spectacularly false claims about the health benefits of a drink marketed by a drug company. The world needs more people like those two, because it has all the snake oil salesmen it can handle.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
A Truly Scattered Post
Well, given that this blog only shows a small part of my life (though sometimes a larger part than is probably wise), it might be nice to know what this particular blogger is up to when he is not ranting about something or commenting on bizarre events in the world. This post is meant to give a look into the scattered and very random life that is my own. Consider it three very odd posts in one with very little connection, except that they have to do with my life and what I am up to currently. So, here goes.
Nathan's Passive Investment Portfolio
I decided to begin with the weirdest and most ephemeral of the three mini-posts. Last year I started a Roth IRA, because I am rather skeptical about the solvency of Social Security for my generation (thanks to overly greedy Baby Boomers, but that is a rant and I'd like to avoid that if possible during this entry). Deciding it was better to take personal responsibility for my retirement, should I ever want to rest, or ever live that long, I opened a Roth IRA with my tax refund last year, shortly before I turned 25. Since my employer had no retirement plan, I made my own. So far it is doing pretty well, and had over 10% gains for last year. I calculated the amount of money the account would have if the amount in it right now were compounded at 10% until I was 65, and the amount was around $170,000, so I was pretty pleased with that. Of course, now my employer is starting a 401(k) plan, so my financial planning gets a little more complicated now that I have my own Roth plan as well as the deferred plan from my employer. Since my employer will match 50% of the first 4% of my income that is contributed into the 401(k) plan, I figured it would be good to just put 4% into that and continue my regular contributions into my Roth IRA. Between the two, I should have a decent amount set for my passive portfolio income. Now I can look for more active investments to add to the list. I'm not one to put all my eggs into one basket. Rather, I am a person who likes to diversify to reduce risk rather than put all my eggs into one basket (real estate, tech stocks, krugerands, etc.).
White And Nerdy
Okay, Weird Al Yankovic made a song in "White And Nerdy" that suits me a little too well, I suppose. I think I just may be a little bit too nerdy for my own good. How so, you ask? Well, if all goes as planned (and that is never a given in my world), I just may be adding another major to my graduate studies. I suppose I can never leave well enough alone. Right now I am already an MSEM (Master's of Science in Engineering Management) student also going for two graduate certificate programs at the University of South Florida (Technology Management and Total Quality Management). Well, being the uber-nerdy person that I am, I am seeking to add another program with a thesis option, because I suppose I am a glutton for punishment (and, to be honest, a chance to write about third parties in modular engineering and their role in increasing efficiency in building approvals is too good to pass up). Remember that I am a person whose undergraduate major at USC was civil (structural) engineering and whose minor was history. My interests are wide and finding ways to keep myself sufficiently involved in all (or most) of my interests while fulfilling key personal ambitions on my personal five/ten year plan is a difficult task. I do seem to like it that way, though, so there's no reason to complain. It just makes my life rather complicated.
Some Theological Comments (But No Rants About Dead People, I Promise)
Ever since the C.S. Lewis Society Annual Banquet I went to on Thursday night, I have been doing some C.S. Lewis reading (finishing "The Great Divorce" and "Mere Christianity" since then). There are a few things about C.S. Lewis' writing, particularly in "Mere Christianity" that I found quite fascinating and worthy of discussion. First, the concept of Sehnsucht (German for some mystical longing for a place one has never been but knows one belongs, such as the Kingdom of God) inspired me to write a sonnet. Within us all is a God-shaped hole, a longing that can only be fulfilled by our Creator, and when we try to fill it by other means, we commit idolatry by keeping ourself from the one being who can fulfill our needs. It is sad that so many of us try to fill our longings with sex, drugs, alcohol, money, and the like. The second part about C.S. Lewis' writing in both "The Great Divorce" and "Mere Christianity" that deeply moved me was his writing about how God judges the behavior of believers. A quote that made me cry from "Mere Christianity" (page 215) follows:
"There is either a warning or an encouragement here for every one of us. If you are a nice person--if virtue comes easily to you--beware! Much is expected from those to whom much is given. If you mistake for your own merits what are really God's gifts to you through nature, and if you are contented with simply being nice, you are still a rebel: and all those gifts will only make your fall more terrible, your corruption more complicated, your bad example more disastrous. The Devil was an archangel once; his natural gifts were as far above yours as yours are above those of a chimpanzee.
But if you are some poor creature--poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels--saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion--nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends--do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) He will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all--not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school. (Some of the last will be first and some of the first will be last)."
I could not read those paragraphs without thinking both of them applied to me--both as greatly gifted and greatly cursed. Perhaps we are all a bit that way. The third aspect of C.S. Lewis' writings that I found most interesting was his conception of the Trinity. He compared it to the bond between God the Father and Jesus Christ, and said that it was sort of a "group identity" much as is found in a family or corporation. In the chemical sense, that would be the same as a bond between two or more atoms (whether an ionic bond or a covalent one). That bond is what God offers to us (and that we can in no way deserve). While I disagree that this bond is itself a person, except in that fictitious sort of personhood that corporations have, the conception I have of the Holy Spirit is not really different from his. If C.S. Lewis captured what Trinitarians believe when they refer to the Holy Spirit, as that spiritual bond that joins us together with God in His family, then the disagreement becomes one of semantics rather than a different conception of the nature of God. I found that to be most interesting, and enlightening. As such, I thought it worthy of comment.
Nathan's Passive Investment Portfolio
I decided to begin with the weirdest and most ephemeral of the three mini-posts. Last year I started a Roth IRA, because I am rather skeptical about the solvency of Social Security for my generation (thanks to overly greedy Baby Boomers, but that is a rant and I'd like to avoid that if possible during this entry). Deciding it was better to take personal responsibility for my retirement, should I ever want to rest, or ever live that long, I opened a Roth IRA with my tax refund last year, shortly before I turned 25. Since my employer had no retirement plan, I made my own. So far it is doing pretty well, and had over 10% gains for last year. I calculated the amount of money the account would have if the amount in it right now were compounded at 10% until I was 65, and the amount was around $170,000, so I was pretty pleased with that. Of course, now my employer is starting a 401(k) plan, so my financial planning gets a little more complicated now that I have my own Roth plan as well as the deferred plan from my employer. Since my employer will match 50% of the first 4% of my income that is contributed into the 401(k) plan, I figured it would be good to just put 4% into that and continue my regular contributions into my Roth IRA. Between the two, I should have a decent amount set for my passive portfolio income. Now I can look for more active investments to add to the list. I'm not one to put all my eggs into one basket. Rather, I am a person who likes to diversify to reduce risk rather than put all my eggs into one basket (real estate, tech stocks, krugerands, etc.).
White And Nerdy
Okay, Weird Al Yankovic made a song in "White And Nerdy" that suits me a little too well, I suppose. I think I just may be a little bit too nerdy for my own good. How so, you ask? Well, if all goes as planned (and that is never a given in my world), I just may be adding another major to my graduate studies. I suppose I can never leave well enough alone. Right now I am already an MSEM (Master's of Science in Engineering Management) student also going for two graduate certificate programs at the University of South Florida (Technology Management and Total Quality Management). Well, being the uber-nerdy person that I am, I am seeking to add another program with a thesis option, because I suppose I am a glutton for punishment (and, to be honest, a chance to write about third parties in modular engineering and their role in increasing efficiency in building approvals is too good to pass up). Remember that I am a person whose undergraduate major at USC was civil (structural) engineering and whose minor was history. My interests are wide and finding ways to keep myself sufficiently involved in all (or most) of my interests while fulfilling key personal ambitions on my personal five/ten year plan is a difficult task. I do seem to like it that way, though, so there's no reason to complain. It just makes my life rather complicated.
Some Theological Comments (But No Rants About Dead People, I Promise)
Ever since the C.S. Lewis Society Annual Banquet I went to on Thursday night, I have been doing some C.S. Lewis reading (finishing "The Great Divorce" and "Mere Christianity" since then). There are a few things about C.S. Lewis' writing, particularly in "Mere Christianity" that I found quite fascinating and worthy of discussion. First, the concept of Sehnsucht (German for some mystical longing for a place one has never been but knows one belongs, such as the Kingdom of God) inspired me to write a sonnet. Within us all is a God-shaped hole, a longing that can only be fulfilled by our Creator, and when we try to fill it by other means, we commit idolatry by keeping ourself from the one being who can fulfill our needs. It is sad that so many of us try to fill our longings with sex, drugs, alcohol, money, and the like. The second part about C.S. Lewis' writing in both "The Great Divorce" and "Mere Christianity" that deeply moved me was his writing about how God judges the behavior of believers. A quote that made me cry from "Mere Christianity" (page 215) follows:
"There is either a warning or an encouragement here for every one of us. If you are a nice person--if virtue comes easily to you--beware! Much is expected from those to whom much is given. If you mistake for your own merits what are really God's gifts to you through nature, and if you are contented with simply being nice, you are still a rebel: and all those gifts will only make your fall more terrible, your corruption more complicated, your bad example more disastrous. The Devil was an archangel once; his natural gifts were as far above yours as yours are above those of a chimpanzee.
But if you are some poor creature--poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels--saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion--nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends--do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) He will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all--not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school. (Some of the last will be first and some of the first will be last)."
I could not read those paragraphs without thinking both of them applied to me--both as greatly gifted and greatly cursed. Perhaps we are all a bit that way. The third aspect of C.S. Lewis' writings that I found most interesting was his conception of the Trinity. He compared it to the bond between God the Father and Jesus Christ, and said that it was sort of a "group identity" much as is found in a family or corporation. In the chemical sense, that would be the same as a bond between two or more atoms (whether an ionic bond or a covalent one). That bond is what God offers to us (and that we can in no way deserve). While I disagree that this bond is itself a person, except in that fictitious sort of personhood that corporations have, the conception I have of the Holy Spirit is not really different from his. If C.S. Lewis captured what Trinitarians believe when they refer to the Holy Spirit, as that spiritual bond that joins us together with God in His family, then the disagreement becomes one of semantics rather than a different conception of the nature of God. I found that to be most interesting, and enlightening. As such, I thought it worthy of comment.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
From Russia With Love
When writing my occasional world events blogs, I do not generally like to write about nations that are particularly large or important (since I figure there are already plenty of people who write about such events and are much better able to put them into a coherent picture than my anecdotal sort of style). However, I have been rather troubled by recent events in Russia, and this blog will deal the dark return of Soviet ways on Russia's brave defenders of truth and liberty. The following short comments will relate to some of the more threatening and ominous signs coming out of Russia that the bad old days are returning.
The Soviet Defenestration Returns
I once wrote a historical essay called "The Defenestrations of Prague," and found three important ones in history. The third was the assassination of Jan Masaryk. It is interesting because the Soviets threw him out of the window of his own house and then claimed it was a suicide. The same thing happened on Friday, March 2nd, when Ivan Safronov, a 51 year old Russian journalist who was critical of the military establishment was found dead after a fall from his fifth-floor apartment. He apparently made some enemies after embarassing Russia's military establishment by publishing articles demonstrating the failure of Russia's experimental Bulava intercontinental missle.
Till Death Do Us Part
A mother and daughter set of Russian immigrants who came over the United States in 1989, Marina (age 48) and Yana (age 25) Kovalenskaya, flew to Moscow last month from their home in Los Angeles to attend a family wedding. There, they apparently met up with enemies, because they ended up sick with Thallium poisoning. They were transferred from their hotel room to the American embassy hospital, and from there to the Sklifosovsky clinic, Moscow's top emergency hospital (according to Guardian Unlimited). Thallium poisoning was apparently favored during Soviet times as a poison, but it is unclear how these two women became targets for assassination. Perhaps it hardly matters.
Welcome To Russia
You'd think that with all of the assassination attempts going on that Soviet-type thugs would be too busy to harass young artists, but you would be wrong. Ivan Ushkov, age 33, is part of Russia's "lost generation," the generation that dealt with the fallout from the fall of the Soviet Union while other generations got rich and found positions of power in the new regime. He is a photographer and artist, who takes (and draws) pictures that demonstrate the dark truth behind Russia's rather phony and glamorous facade. He's a man after my own dark heart, but apparently that sort of dark truthtelling is a bit dangerous in St. Petersburg, Russia, these days. His first Moscow showing was cancelled and he has dealt with bogus police investigations of his art studios because he portrays an image of Russia that threatens the interests of the powerful. Of course, I will let this fine gentleman have the last word about the false positive picture Russia's leaders try to promote, "They are smoking their own dope, basically." Indeed. Another comment of his is also insightful: "But if you don't watch television or interest yourself in politics then very soon politics could get interested in you." Very true also.
Lest We Forget
Since Dateline did such a lovely and thorough job on researching the strange assassination of Russian journalist and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvineko, I will not write about it here (as it is too well known for my blog). That said, it is worth mentioning that dark truthtelling is becoming a rather dangerous occupation on Russia. Russia killed more journalists last year than any other nation besides Iraq and Algeria. Worse, many of these appear to be the work of those closely allied to the Russian government, a very ominous trend. Those of us in the West, and in the United States in particular, should not forget that we have our own rather brutal Cold Warriors here as well. We should not be naive to think that if the world's attitude towards truthtelling darkens that we will not be affected by it at all. If the perceived need for security ever trumps our concern for freedom (especially to tell the truth, often an unpleasant thing), then we will suffer greatly, especially those of us with quick pens and big mouths.
The Soviet Defenestration Returns
I once wrote a historical essay called "The Defenestrations of Prague," and found three important ones in history. The third was the assassination of Jan Masaryk. It is interesting because the Soviets threw him out of the window of his own house and then claimed it was a suicide. The same thing happened on Friday, March 2nd, when Ivan Safronov, a 51 year old Russian journalist who was critical of the military establishment was found dead after a fall from his fifth-floor apartment. He apparently made some enemies after embarassing Russia's military establishment by publishing articles demonstrating the failure of Russia's experimental Bulava intercontinental missle.
Till Death Do Us Part
A mother and daughter set of Russian immigrants who came over the United States in 1989, Marina (age 48) and Yana (age 25) Kovalenskaya, flew to Moscow last month from their home in Los Angeles to attend a family wedding. There, they apparently met up with enemies, because they ended up sick with Thallium poisoning. They were transferred from their hotel room to the American embassy hospital, and from there to the Sklifosovsky clinic, Moscow's top emergency hospital (according to Guardian Unlimited). Thallium poisoning was apparently favored during Soviet times as a poison, but it is unclear how these two women became targets for assassination. Perhaps it hardly matters.
Welcome To Russia
You'd think that with all of the assassination attempts going on that Soviet-type thugs would be too busy to harass young artists, but you would be wrong. Ivan Ushkov, age 33, is part of Russia's "lost generation," the generation that dealt with the fallout from the fall of the Soviet Union while other generations got rich and found positions of power in the new regime. He is a photographer and artist, who takes (and draws) pictures that demonstrate the dark truth behind Russia's rather phony and glamorous facade. He's a man after my own dark heart, but apparently that sort of dark truthtelling is a bit dangerous in St. Petersburg, Russia, these days. His first Moscow showing was cancelled and he has dealt with bogus police investigations of his art studios because he portrays an image of Russia that threatens the interests of the powerful. Of course, I will let this fine gentleman have the last word about the false positive picture Russia's leaders try to promote, "They are smoking their own dope, basically." Indeed. Another comment of his is also insightful: "But if you don't watch television or interest yourself in politics then very soon politics could get interested in you." Very true also.
Lest We Forget
Since Dateline did such a lovely and thorough job on researching the strange assassination of Russian journalist and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvineko, I will not write about it here (as it is too well known for my blog). That said, it is worth mentioning that dark truthtelling is becoming a rather dangerous occupation on Russia. Russia killed more journalists last year than any other nation besides Iraq and Algeria. Worse, many of these appear to be the work of those closely allied to the Russian government, a very ominous trend. Those of us in the West, and in the United States in particular, should not forget that we have our own rather brutal Cold Warriors here as well. We should not be naive to think that if the world's attitude towards truthtelling darkens that we will not be affected by it at all. If the perceived need for security ever trumps our concern for freedom (especially to tell the truth, often an unpleasant thing), then we will suffer greatly, especially those of us with quick pens and big mouths.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Next Time, Bring Some Chocolate
Okay, I know I just posted earlier today with one of my more serious-type blog entries, but an unusual and obscure news article involving a small European nation was too rich to pass up:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070302/ap_on_fe_st/mistaken_invasion
I'm sure that somewhere, some company that sells maps (think Rand McNally or Thomas Guides or Google maps) is just salivating over the opportunity to turn this into a really bad commercial that I will have to add to my YouTube favorites list. How often do soldiers on military exercizes wander by accident into neighboring countries? Hopefully, not very often.
In fact, this particular incident, as unintentional as it is, marks the first Swiss invasion of anywhere since 1521, when the Swiss were feared all over Europe for their fierce armies of pikemen, and when they were defeated in battle around Milan. After that the Swiss Guard could be seen in the Vatican City area, but mostly for show (obviously pikemen are not so feared militarily nowadays). The Swiss, except for being invaded by Napoleon in 1798, have been at peace since then making excellent watches, chocolate, and serving as the bank deposit headquarters for would-be billionaire dictators all the world over. Who knew they harbored secret desires to take over their tiny neighbor, the Grand Duchy of Liechtenstein, which happens to be the last surviving principality of the Holy Roman Empire.
Perhaps the Swiss were concerned that the little nation, whose population of 34,000 is only slightly larger than that of my hometown of Plant City, would defeat them in the preliminaries for Euro 2008 (a highly competitive soccer tournament). Perhaps the nation of Liechtenstein, which has no army, was too tempting of a target for Swiss operations of "regime change."
Of course, it appears that it was just some lost soldiers who couldn't follow directions in the dark and refused to admit they were lost. I've done the same thing myself (most notably in the Wilderness of Virginia), and the worst it ever did for me was waste a couple of hours worth of time and gasoline in impenetrable forests that are so bad that two Civil War battles were fought there when large armies got lost near Catherine's Furnace among the second-growth forests (Chancellorsville in 1863 and the Wilderness in 1864).
At any rate, at least there are no hard feelings on both sides. One would hate for the Swiss to face a nasty UN resolution for aggressive acts against its peaceful neighbors. We wouldn't want that to happen...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070302/ap_on_fe_st/mistaken_invasion
I'm sure that somewhere, some company that sells maps (think Rand McNally or Thomas Guides or Google maps) is just salivating over the opportunity to turn this into a really bad commercial that I will have to add to my YouTube favorites list. How often do soldiers on military exercizes wander by accident into neighboring countries? Hopefully, not very often.
In fact, this particular incident, as unintentional as it is, marks the first Swiss invasion of anywhere since 1521, when the Swiss were feared all over Europe for their fierce armies of pikemen, and when they were defeated in battle around Milan. After that the Swiss Guard could be seen in the Vatican City area, but mostly for show (obviously pikemen are not so feared militarily nowadays). The Swiss, except for being invaded by Napoleon in 1798, have been at peace since then making excellent watches, chocolate, and serving as the bank deposit headquarters for would-be billionaire dictators all the world over. Who knew they harbored secret desires to take over their tiny neighbor, the Grand Duchy of Liechtenstein, which happens to be the last surviving principality of the Holy Roman Empire.
Perhaps the Swiss were concerned that the little nation, whose population of 34,000 is only slightly larger than that of my hometown of Plant City, would defeat them in the preliminaries for Euro 2008 (a highly competitive soccer tournament). Perhaps the nation of Liechtenstein, which has no army, was too tempting of a target for Swiss operations of "regime change."
Of course, it appears that it was just some lost soldiers who couldn't follow directions in the dark and refused to admit they were lost. I've done the same thing myself (most notably in the Wilderness of Virginia), and the worst it ever did for me was waste a couple of hours worth of time and gasoline in impenetrable forests that are so bad that two Civil War battles were fought there when large armies got lost near Catherine's Furnace among the second-growth forests (Chancellorsville in 1863 and the Wilderness in 1864).
At any rate, at least there are no hard feelings on both sides. One would hate for the Swiss to face a nasty UN resolution for aggressive acts against its peaceful neighbors. We wouldn't want that to happen...
When Is Greed Good: An Examination of Enlightened Selfishness
I plan on doing a lot more research on this topic this evening for my Erev (Friday Evening) Bible Study, but the following are some thoughts I am trying to organize beforehand. Former American President Ronald Reagan said that "Greed is good," and has been widely lampooned since then. Selfishness is widely considered to be a highly negative quality, and the supposed narcissism of my generation has come under rather undue criticism from Baby Boomers (perhaps the most harmfully selfish generation in the entire existence of planet earth, if environmental scientists and moralists can be believed). Adam Smith stated that we do not trust the generosity of the butcher (or any other merchant) but his self-interest. The research of humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow sought to demonstrate that in certain circumstances selfishness was an act of altruism because benefitting the self also served to benefit others as well. Jesus Christ seemed to indicate the same thing when he stated that those who were not faithful with unrighteous mammon would not be faithful with much either (a paraphrase). The question is therefore: in what circumstances is selfishness good?
At first blush, this question may seem quite proposterous for some people. Many people do not consider selfishness to be positive at all, especially the selfishness of others (all of us are at least a little bit selfish ourselves). When we feel jealous about the success of others, and are insecure about how we are loved and respected, we are behaving selfishly. When we try to hoard money and resources and knowledge for ourselves rather than give them generously, we are also behaving selfishly. Most would agree with me, I suppose, that these types of selfishness would be bad. This is the sort of selfishness that seeks to increase one's own at the expense of other people (through shortchanging them as is common in the actions of businesses towards their salary/pension obligations, tax obligations, and social obligations). No one, save an overly greedy and wicked sort of person, would consider this sort of greed to be good.
What kind of greed is good then? When Adam Smith referred to the self-interest of the butcher (a stand-in for merchants in general, businesspeople who make their living by providing goods and services to paying customers), he seems to be referring to the fact that when a company seeks to meet the highest customer standards at the lowest price, both the customer and business benefit. The customer benefits by having his or her needs and wants fulfilled, and the business benefits by receiving profit on the transaction (as well as the possibility of future profit as satisfied customers tend to be creatures of habit and return to the same businesses over and over again so long as their standards are met). In this case, the selfishness of the merchant (the desire for profit) was benevolent because it served to help the customer as well.
This, then, provides the way out of the false dilemma of selfishness versus generosity and an environment where acting to benefit ourselves benefits others, and acting to benefit others benefits ourselves. This world is what Maslow (and others) would call an enlightened world. In an enlightened world, success, wealth, honor, and love are not zero-sum concepts, where one person must suffer if another benefits. Once an environment becomes synergistic (where gains in one area trigger gains in other places as well, to the benefit of all in the system), then we can gain enjoyment from the good we do to others, and acting for ourselves will serve to benefit others. In these cases selfishness is not a bad thing at all--and it cannot be separated from the benefit we are bringing to others as well. Both generosity and selfishness (taken as personal enjoyment and personal benefit) are intertwined into one.
In order for selfishness to be good, however, we must build an environment where what benefits us benefits others as well, and vice versa. This sort of environment would increase the connections that people have with each other, and would mean the sharing of gains we have with others around us, and vice versa. In such a realm of mutual generosity and love and respect, what benefits one benefits all, and there need not be a hostility or jealousy about the good that happens to others, so long as everyone shares in its benefits. This can be true of families, churches, businesses , and societies, indeed even the whole world. It is only the case, though, when we start from the premise that all human beings are worthwhile and valuable and important simply by being human beings, and that the human beings who are yet to be born are deserving of the same pleasures of this earth that we who now inhabit hte earth are. Such enlightened selfishness is not wicked at all. The question, though, remains: can we behave so righteously ourselves as to make enlightened selfishness possible for ourselves and those around us?
At first blush, this question may seem quite proposterous for some people. Many people do not consider selfishness to be positive at all, especially the selfishness of others (all of us are at least a little bit selfish ourselves). When we feel jealous about the success of others, and are insecure about how we are loved and respected, we are behaving selfishly. When we try to hoard money and resources and knowledge for ourselves rather than give them generously, we are also behaving selfishly. Most would agree with me, I suppose, that these types of selfishness would be bad. This is the sort of selfishness that seeks to increase one's own at the expense of other people (through shortchanging them as is common in the actions of businesses towards their salary/pension obligations, tax obligations, and social obligations). No one, save an overly greedy and wicked sort of person, would consider this sort of greed to be good.
What kind of greed is good then? When Adam Smith referred to the self-interest of the butcher (a stand-in for merchants in general, businesspeople who make their living by providing goods and services to paying customers), he seems to be referring to the fact that when a company seeks to meet the highest customer standards at the lowest price, both the customer and business benefit. The customer benefits by having his or her needs and wants fulfilled, and the business benefits by receiving profit on the transaction (as well as the possibility of future profit as satisfied customers tend to be creatures of habit and return to the same businesses over and over again so long as their standards are met). In this case, the selfishness of the merchant (the desire for profit) was benevolent because it served to help the customer as well.
This, then, provides the way out of the false dilemma of selfishness versus generosity and an environment where acting to benefit ourselves benefits others, and acting to benefit others benefits ourselves. This world is what Maslow (and others) would call an enlightened world. In an enlightened world, success, wealth, honor, and love are not zero-sum concepts, where one person must suffer if another benefits. Once an environment becomes synergistic (where gains in one area trigger gains in other places as well, to the benefit of all in the system), then we can gain enjoyment from the good we do to others, and acting for ourselves will serve to benefit others. In these cases selfishness is not a bad thing at all--and it cannot be separated from the benefit we are bringing to others as well. Both generosity and selfishness (taken as personal enjoyment and personal benefit) are intertwined into one.
In order for selfishness to be good, however, we must build an environment where what benefits us benefits others as well, and vice versa. This sort of environment would increase the connections that people have with each other, and would mean the sharing of gains we have with others around us, and vice versa. In such a realm of mutual generosity and love and respect, what benefits one benefits all, and there need not be a hostility or jealousy about the good that happens to others, so long as everyone shares in its benefits. This can be true of families, churches, businesses , and societies, indeed even the whole world. It is only the case, though, when we start from the premise that all human beings are worthwhile and valuable and important simply by being human beings, and that the human beings who are yet to be born are deserving of the same pleasures of this earth that we who now inhabit hte earth are. Such enlightened selfishness is not wicked at all. The question, though, remains: can we behave so righteously ourselves as to make enlightened selfishness possible for ourselves and those around us?
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
It Isn't Pretty....
I am often amused by the news stories I read, and yesterday I read a pretty funny one:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/wrtv/20070227/lo_wrtv/11122828
Apparently, some sorority members in Indiana at DePauw University didn't get the memo that members of sororities are supposed to be attractive. Out of a chapter of 35, only 12 were slender and pretty enough (apparently) to meet the national chapter's rigorous standards. The University is protesting, complaining about the hardship it has caused its students, and is considering requesting the sorority to leave campus. What most concerns me, though, is that some people actually believe that sororities were meant to promote womanhood. Indeed, it appears that the university and many of the sorority members are the ones confused about what sororities (and the Greek system as a whole) is actually about.
Now, I have never been a part of a fraternity (and certainly not a sorority, obviously) myself, but during my time in Los Angeles I lived about half a block north of Fraternity row at the University South Central (as I affectionately called it). Delta Zeta might have been one of the many fraternities and sororities in that area (my old apartment, in fact, had once been the fraternity house for some Pharmacy fraternity). I can't remember, though. It was all Greek to me. I do remember, though, that the Tri Delta Sorority was at the end of our street, and they were widely considered to be one of the most competitive sororities (and had a large number of slender blonde members).
There are basically two types of fraternities/sororities that I saw. Some fraternities (though no sororities) were professional fraternities. The professional fraternities were generally coed, and included Alpha Rho Chi (the Architecture fraternity, where I had many friends), as well as professional fraternities for nursing students, engineers (I had many friends and classmates here as well), and so forth. These fraternities partied, but also had a professional focus that allowed students with similar majors to congregate together. Generally speaking, even as a teetotler I did not have a problem visiting my friends at those houses. Other fraternities like honor fraternities would also fall into this category as well.
The other fraternities and sororities appeared somewhat more sinister to me, however. They were largely filled with rather affluent students in high risk of contracting cirrhosis of the liver and any number of other diseases involved with copious amounts of alcohol consumption and fornication. While claiming to benefit the campus life in general, these societies were made up of people who were often quite arrogant, and unpleasant to be around (especially on Thursday through Saturday nights when msot of the partying went on). The people in this second group of fraternities certainly gained useful connections, but that had more to do with the fact that they were all pretty well off and well-connected already, and were now even better connected.
As far as the sororities go, they had even less credit to their names, as they appeared to be largely populated with young ladies whose slim figures as freshman pledges tended to gain as the years progressed due to poor eating habits and excessive drinking. Sadly, the wardrobe quality of many of these young ladies (though not all) did not tend to improve as they aged. Nurse's uniforms on Halloween remained a consistent tradition on that street during my time there. Indeed, the only way sororities might have promoted womanhood is to provide a place for girls to be around each other without guys around. I don't know if that's a good thing, though.
I don't know, to be honest, what the young ladies at DePauw University expected from their fraternity. Maybe they justed wanted to meet friendly and ambitious young ladies. If so, perhaps they would have been better served joining service clubs or professional clubs rather than a sorority. If your focus is not on the superficial, then there is probably no place for you in Delta Zeta or any number of other sororities. Perhaps being kicked out of the sorority is a good thing--if they are not superficial enough they just may be good enough people that a sorority would do them no good at all. And that is a matter of celebration, rather than mourning. Sometimes being kicked out of a group can be a good thing, after all. That, however, is a subject for another day.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/wrtv/20070227/lo_wrtv/11122828
Apparently, some sorority members in Indiana at DePauw University didn't get the memo that members of sororities are supposed to be attractive. Out of a chapter of 35, only 12 were slender and pretty enough (apparently) to meet the national chapter's rigorous standards. The University is protesting, complaining about the hardship it has caused its students, and is considering requesting the sorority to leave campus. What most concerns me, though, is that some people actually believe that sororities were meant to promote womanhood. Indeed, it appears that the university and many of the sorority members are the ones confused about what sororities (and the Greek system as a whole) is actually about.
Now, I have never been a part of a fraternity (and certainly not a sorority, obviously) myself, but during my time in Los Angeles I lived about half a block north of Fraternity row at the University South Central (as I affectionately called it). Delta Zeta might have been one of the many fraternities and sororities in that area (my old apartment, in fact, had once been the fraternity house for some Pharmacy fraternity). I can't remember, though. It was all Greek to me. I do remember, though, that the Tri Delta Sorority was at the end of our street, and they were widely considered to be one of the most competitive sororities (and had a large number of slender blonde members).
There are basically two types of fraternities/sororities that I saw. Some fraternities (though no sororities) were professional fraternities. The professional fraternities were generally coed, and included Alpha Rho Chi (the Architecture fraternity, where I had many friends), as well as professional fraternities for nursing students, engineers (I had many friends and classmates here as well), and so forth. These fraternities partied, but also had a professional focus that allowed students with similar majors to congregate together. Generally speaking, even as a teetotler I did not have a problem visiting my friends at those houses. Other fraternities like honor fraternities would also fall into this category as well.
The other fraternities and sororities appeared somewhat more sinister to me, however. They were largely filled with rather affluent students in high risk of contracting cirrhosis of the liver and any number of other diseases involved with copious amounts of alcohol consumption and fornication. While claiming to benefit the campus life in general, these societies were made up of people who were often quite arrogant, and unpleasant to be around (especially on Thursday through Saturday nights when msot of the partying went on). The people in this second group of fraternities certainly gained useful connections, but that had more to do with the fact that they were all pretty well off and well-connected already, and were now even better connected.
As far as the sororities go, they had even less credit to their names, as they appeared to be largely populated with young ladies whose slim figures as freshman pledges tended to gain as the years progressed due to poor eating habits and excessive drinking. Sadly, the wardrobe quality of many of these young ladies (though not all) did not tend to improve as they aged. Nurse's uniforms on Halloween remained a consistent tradition on that street during my time there. Indeed, the only way sororities might have promoted womanhood is to provide a place for girls to be around each other without guys around. I don't know if that's a good thing, though.
I don't know, to be honest, what the young ladies at DePauw University expected from their fraternity. Maybe they justed wanted to meet friendly and ambitious young ladies. If so, perhaps they would have been better served joining service clubs or professional clubs rather than a sorority. If your focus is not on the superficial, then there is probably no place for you in Delta Zeta or any number of other sororities. Perhaps being kicked out of the sorority is a good thing--if they are not superficial enough they just may be good enough people that a sorority would do them no good at all. And that is a matter of celebration, rather than mourning. Sometimes being kicked out of a group can be a good thing, after all. That, however, is a subject for another day.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Profile In Courage
Yesterday I read a fantastic article about a person who has taken a brave stance against corruption by the wealthy and powerful in the rather corrupt nation of Columbia.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070220/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/colombia_uribe_s_nemesis
Anyway, I was most impressed in the article by the courage this particular fellow had to oppose the drug traffickers on the left as well as the paramilitaries/government on the right. It is not an easy thing to antagonize everyone with guns in a nation as violent as Columbia. I am not someone who views Hugo Chavez very highly, so I do not know what to make of the friendship Gustavo Petro has with him, but there is much about his behavior that is admirable and worthwhile. Let us take a few lessons and comment on them.
1. Fight the power.
In today's world, those who hold power at all are generally corrupt, and often threaten those who seek justice and truth. Leaders would rather have those who follow them blinded by idyllic and pleasant false visions than grapple with the truth about what is and how it came to be. In most cases these threats are not all that severe (depending on what sort of authority someone has), but in the case of Señor Petro, he and his family have been threatened with death due to his firm stand against corruption in high places. Then again, as Mr. Petro was tortured by various unpleasant means (including large amounts of beating and dunking) for mostly peaceful protesting, it appears as if he has little fear for himself, and a realistic appraisal of what his resistance means to him and to his long-suffering people.
2. Where there's smoke, there's usually fire.
When faced with unpleasant accusations, there are a few sorts of defenses that people can make. The best defense is to come clean (preferably on 60 Minutes or some other popular show) and to be honest about one's side of the story, not minimizing what one has done, but putting a less hostile spin on it than was initially presented. Honesty about one's own flaws and foibles gives a lot of credibility when talking about those of others. After all, if we are not honest about ourselves, we are not likely to be honest about others as well. And if we have nothing to hide, those who oppose us should not have anything to hide either. Those, on the other hand, who do have something to hide, cannot bear to have their lives brought into the harsh light of day. Therefore they can choose to either hide their lives all the more and refuse to answer allegations (pretending that such matters are beneath them), or they can attack the person opposing them by slurring, namecalling, and the like. Most of us choose both methods (the odd fellows among us choose all three methods, in a baffling display of inconsistency). The point, though, is that enough independent allegations leads to a prima facie case of wrongdoing, and the refusal to answer becomes an admission of guilt.
3. Never Give Up
Columbia right now is experiencing a massive scandal extending all the way to the presidency thanks to the persistent efforts of Gustavo Petro and other members of the democratic opposition. In steadfastly opposing the paramilitary of the right wing (supported, sadly, by the American government with billions of dollars worth of aid and equipment) and in defending the rights and dignity of an oppressed common folk, Gustavo Petro has demonstrated firm integrity as well as a stubborn refusal to give in. Even where one would disagree with his policies (and I must admit I do not know them very well, except that I would assume human rights, avoidance of corruption, and land reform would be among them), one must respect someone who behaves with integrity and avoids making alliances of convenience with either the paramilitaries/military forces or the leftist guerillas, who between them have all the guns.
So, this blog gives a salute to the bravery and integrity of Gustavo Petro, former guerilla and now muckraking politician. Let there be others as brave and morally upright as you in the struggle against the evil all around us.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070220/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/colombia_uribe_s_nemesis
Anyway, I was most impressed in the article by the courage this particular fellow had to oppose the drug traffickers on the left as well as the paramilitaries/government on the right. It is not an easy thing to antagonize everyone with guns in a nation as violent as Columbia. I am not someone who views Hugo Chavez very highly, so I do not know what to make of the friendship Gustavo Petro has with him, but there is much about his behavior that is admirable and worthwhile. Let us take a few lessons and comment on them.
1. Fight the power.
In today's world, those who hold power at all are generally corrupt, and often threaten those who seek justice and truth. Leaders would rather have those who follow them blinded by idyllic and pleasant false visions than grapple with the truth about what is and how it came to be. In most cases these threats are not all that severe (depending on what sort of authority someone has), but in the case of Señor Petro, he and his family have been threatened with death due to his firm stand against corruption in high places. Then again, as Mr. Petro was tortured by various unpleasant means (including large amounts of beating and dunking) for mostly peaceful protesting, it appears as if he has little fear for himself, and a realistic appraisal of what his resistance means to him and to his long-suffering people.
2. Where there's smoke, there's usually fire.
When faced with unpleasant accusations, there are a few sorts of defenses that people can make. The best defense is to come clean (preferably on 60 Minutes or some other popular show) and to be honest about one's side of the story, not minimizing what one has done, but putting a less hostile spin on it than was initially presented. Honesty about one's own flaws and foibles gives a lot of credibility when talking about those of others. After all, if we are not honest about ourselves, we are not likely to be honest about others as well. And if we have nothing to hide, those who oppose us should not have anything to hide either. Those, on the other hand, who do have something to hide, cannot bear to have their lives brought into the harsh light of day. Therefore they can choose to either hide their lives all the more and refuse to answer allegations (pretending that such matters are beneath them), or they can attack the person opposing them by slurring, namecalling, and the like. Most of us choose both methods (the odd fellows among us choose all three methods, in a baffling display of inconsistency). The point, though, is that enough independent allegations leads to a prima facie case of wrongdoing, and the refusal to answer becomes an admission of guilt.
3. Never Give Up
Columbia right now is experiencing a massive scandal extending all the way to the presidency thanks to the persistent efforts of Gustavo Petro and other members of the democratic opposition. In steadfastly opposing the paramilitary of the right wing (supported, sadly, by the American government with billions of dollars worth of aid and equipment) and in defending the rights and dignity of an oppressed common folk, Gustavo Petro has demonstrated firm integrity as well as a stubborn refusal to give in. Even where one would disagree with his policies (and I must admit I do not know them very well, except that I would assume human rights, avoidance of corruption, and land reform would be among them), one must respect someone who behaves with integrity and avoids making alliances of convenience with either the paramilitaries/military forces or the leftist guerillas, who between them have all the guns.
So, this blog gives a salute to the bravery and integrity of Gustavo Petro, former guerilla and now muckraking politician. Let there be others as brave and morally upright as you in the struggle against the evil all around us.
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