Best Buy has been running a series of commercials (sorry I'm watching too much television while recuping) in which a young mother takes on Santa Claus.
Is this really a good idea?
First, it makes Christmas giving into a competitive event. Admittedly, it makes it a women against men competitive event, with the women winning. That part probably is good, given the third or fourth wave feminist attitudes I see in the young women I teach.
But these women don't just win, they win in ways that allow them to gloat. One relegates Santa to giving toys to the dog. A second Ims Santa to the phones on the tree – to which Santa, like a defeated bf responds, “Very mature.” The third meets Santa on the housetop and topples a plastic elf onto the lawn in a sort of “watch out fat-man or you're next” threat.
OK, so maybe this is empowering. I don't know. I'm not a young woman (in case you haven't noticed). But this is Santa Claus. For much of his life he's imaged without a woman. The whole Mrs. Claus thing is just a cover to give the elves some breathing room. This is Santa, the jolly fat celibate who sneaks into your house to bring toys and jollies and eat cookies. This is a beloved, if somewhat weird, elder statesman of the holiday season. Is it really a good idea to humiliate Santa? Does that really make you see powerful – or just petty?
My vote is for the latter choice. I don't like the Best Buy commercials. They certainly haven't made me want to shop at Best Buy. I don't have a thousand dollars to blow on Android Powered Smart Phones for the whole family. In fact, the only way my family is going to get that technology is if Santa delivers them. But then, I'm not – as I've already said – a young woman looking for empowering experiences by humiliating Saint Nick.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
What's With All the Posts?
I've been posting regularly these days. What's up with that?
I think its because I'm well enough to think and I need to keep doing things before January when I get busy writing syllabuses and doing research for new classes and directing energy in school tracks. In the meantime I can explore and think and complain and write about whatever I want to write about. It's a blessing that has unlocked a whole lot of energy. I'm even rewriting my essay on Greta G. for publication (hopefully) with a Swedish American publication.
I think its because I'm well enough to think and I need to keep doing things before January when I get busy writing syllabuses and doing research for new classes and directing energy in school tracks. In the meantime I can explore and think and complain and write about whatever I want to write about. It's a blessing that has unlocked a whole lot of energy. I'm even rewriting my essay on Greta G. for publication (hopefully) with a Swedish American publication.
Broncos Lose to a Good Team
Stefan Fatsis has an amazing commentary on the Pat's destruction of the Broncos and Tim Tebow over on Slate. As several other commentators have pointed out, the Patriots were the first team with a winning record in quite some time - and the last team to have a winning record was the always unreliable Jets. Fatsis' peroration deserves a reprint:
I didn't know that Tebow was ever all miked up – so I didn't hear those bromides and prayers. It is, I'm afraid what too many Christians have to offer too often: bromides and prayers. I wish I could hear sermons that weren't filled with bromides and platitudes. I wish the prayers of the people cold capture the hearts of the people. Unfortunately, in life these days, under the leadership of the fundagelical wing of Christianity all there is to offer is bromide, platitudes and “just make my heart just wait upon thee my Jesus” prayers.
Bad enough that it's all I hear in church. Sad to hear it on the football field as well.
Unlike other miked-up quarterbacks, we don’t see Tebow analyzing photos from the All 22 cameras or suggesting to a coach or teammate how to exploit a weakness he’s detected in the defense. With Tebow, it’s prayers and bromides, the NFL as produced by the Christian Broadcasting Network. That’s just edited video, of course, and none of us knows what’s happening in the Broncos’ locker room or quarterbacks' meetings, or on the sidelines. Still, the rational among us were reminded on Sunday that, regardless of what if any god you pray to, a very good NFL team with an exceptional veteran quarterback will usually beat a decent team with a quirky inexperienced one.
I didn't know that Tebow was ever all miked up – so I didn't hear those bromides and prayers. It is, I'm afraid what too many Christians have to offer too often: bromides and prayers. I wish I could hear sermons that weren't filled with bromides and platitudes. I wish the prayers of the people cold capture the hearts of the people. Unfortunately, in life these days, under the leadership of the fundagelical wing of Christianity all there is to offer is bromide, platitudes and “just make my heart just wait upon thee my Jesus” prayers.
Bad enough that it's all I hear in church. Sad to hear it on the football field as well.
Hoarders & Me
For some reason I've gotten hooked on Hoarders.
One episode I watched this morning featured a 28 year old hoarder whose hoard hadn't yet become life threatening. This 28 year old was extremely controlling, and yet extremely insightful. She recognized that her behavior was undermining her relationship with family and significant other. She made it impossible for the significant other to say anything about her behavior, to voice his opinion about anything, to make any requests for his own space or to satisfy his own needs. When he asked for something she responded emotionally in a way that most of us are fearful to confront.
A&E offers those who participate in the show aftercare funds to work with both therapists and organizer. This hoarder undermined that as well, making it impossible for the organizer to help her -- putting up obstacles until the organizer gave up and quit.
All of this can be ascribed to the illness, the compulsive hoarding. But I was also left wondering if this hoarder was aware of her disease and was using her disease as a way of manipulating others, an excuse for essentially bad behavior.
But it also made me wonder if I do/am doing the same thing. I think I am and I do.
I think I use my illness as an excuse for getting snappy at Kris. Yes I am drugged. Yes I am in some pain fairly constantly - though it isn't great pain but it is a pain that keeps me aware that I have recently had major surgery. I do use the illness as a way of excusing my not calling the people I need to call to get things done around the house. I do use the illness as an excuse for watching a lot of television and reading very little.
OK. I am using my illness as a way of avoiding actual responsibility. So, will I change that, call the plumber and get the home in the shape it should be. Will I at least turn off the television and open a book.
Sure, just as soon as this episode of Hoarders is over!
One episode I watched this morning featured a 28 year old hoarder whose hoard hadn't yet become life threatening. This 28 year old was extremely controlling, and yet extremely insightful. She recognized that her behavior was undermining her relationship with family and significant other. She made it impossible for the significant other to say anything about her behavior, to voice his opinion about anything, to make any requests for his own space or to satisfy his own needs. When he asked for something she responded emotionally in a way that most of us are fearful to confront.
A&E offers those who participate in the show aftercare funds to work with both therapists and organizer. This hoarder undermined that as well, making it impossible for the organizer to help her -- putting up obstacles until the organizer gave up and quit.
All of this can be ascribed to the illness, the compulsive hoarding. But I was also left wondering if this hoarder was aware of her disease and was using her disease as a way of manipulating others, an excuse for essentially bad behavior.
But it also made me wonder if I do/am doing the same thing. I think I am and I do.
I think I use my illness as an excuse for getting snappy at Kris. Yes I am drugged. Yes I am in some pain fairly constantly - though it isn't great pain but it is a pain that keeps me aware that I have recently had major surgery. I do use the illness as a way of excusing my not calling the people I need to call to get things done around the house. I do use the illness as an excuse for watching a lot of television and reading very little.
OK. I am using my illness as a way of avoiding actual responsibility. So, will I change that, call the plumber and get the home in the shape it should be. Will I at least turn off the television and open a book.
Sure, just as soon as this episode of Hoarders is over!
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Evigheternas Evigheter
The Sunday following my long posts on time and eternity the lessons for the day are full of promises about everlasting kingship, unforgotten, timeless promises of the divine toward the chosen people, and "forever."
Just for fun I take the Swedish bible along and read the lessons in Swede while they're being read in English. The second lesson, Paul's doxology to the Romans reads - in Swedish - "den ende vise Guden tillhör äran genom Jesus Kristus i evigheternas evighet." I am not entirely sure of my translation, but I read this as saying "the only wise God through Jesus Christ to him belongs glory for the Eternal's eternity." The English reads "the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever."
What's got me confused is the phrase "Evigheternas evigheter." The Endless ones foreverness? Something like that.
To solve the problem I need to consult commentaries and the Greek text. I wonder if this is an odd phrase in Greek as well as Swedish. What this does for me though is to keep me pondering the relationship between time and eternity, feeling fairly certain that I haven't yet gotten to the last insight on how Now fits into Forever.
Just for fun I take the Swedish bible along and read the lessons in Swede while they're being read in English. The second lesson, Paul's doxology to the Romans reads - in Swedish - "den ende vise Guden tillhör äran genom Jesus Kristus i evigheternas evighet." I am not entirely sure of my translation, but I read this as saying "the only wise God through Jesus Christ to him belongs glory for the Eternal's eternity." The English reads "the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever."
What's got me confused is the phrase "Evigheternas evigheter." The Endless ones foreverness? Something like that.
To solve the problem I need to consult commentaries and the Greek text. I wonder if this is an odd phrase in Greek as well as Swedish. What this does for me though is to keep me pondering the relationship between time and eternity, feeling fairly certain that I haven't yet gotten to the last insight on how Now fits into Forever.
If I were a poor black kid
If I were a poor black kid . . . Gene Marks wrote this advice, presumably to influence poor black kids who read Forbes. It's been thoroughly attacked, rejected, abused and refused by a large segment of the public. Lots of not-poor not-black and not-kids have commented. Some formerly poor black kids have added their opinions. So why not me too.
If I were a poor black kid . . . I'd be very amazed and puzzled. How'd that happen? Unlike Navin P. Johnson, (Steve Martin's character in The Jerk) I was born a middle class white kid. My dad was the sole breadwinner in the family, and his paycheck was just enough to pay all the bills and put a little aside.
No matter how well my imagination works – and sometimes it works pretty well – it would take a monumental effort to imagine myself “a poor black kid.” I'd also need lots of solid data about the actual existence of actual poor black kids to inform that imagination.
It might also be useful to have a whole lot more information about brains and the differences among brains. It seems to me that there are profound differences among brains.
For example, some of us “get” literature and metaphor and allusion. Others of us don't get it, never will get it, no matter how much training we receive in reading metaphor. Those who don't get it can learn to see that there is something they don't get and even appreciate what it is that they don't get, but they'll never be great at reading metaphor and understanding and commenting on art – and therefore they shouldn't plan on making a living as a playwright or poet.
In the same way there are people for whom numbers have a reality, even a personality that they lack for me. I think of Mark Ahlseen, member of Bethany's faculty, who has an amazing facility with numbers. They clearly mean something to him that they don't mean to me. He understands numbers in a way I never will. I can barely keep my checkbook. Mark makes sense of where his money goes as if that paycheck were his good friend. I am convinced that it isn't just training – I can be better at understanding numbers, Mark likely can be better at understanding metaphor – but there is something inherent in each of us that is quite different. No matter how I try I could never be an accountant. No matter how hard Mark tries, I doubt that he'd ever be a poet.
So, if I were trying to imagine myself being something other than what I am I'd need to feed my imagination with lots of clear data about actual social conditions, about actual brains and their workings, about actual beings actually existing in a life that isn't mine.
Where Gene Marks goes off the rails is in his presumptions about the life of other people and how they would, could, and most importantly should behave in order to succeed in this world. Because his writing does not reflect his having invested himself in coming to understand how poor black kids actually live, the piece seems shallow and condescending.
It also seems like a call to behave, to willingly cooperate in being co-opted by “the system.” Behave, get good grades, learn technology – not so you can rule rather than be ruled – but so you can get a good job and be a good cog in the machine. Marks' call is not unlike Gingrich's desire to replace adult janitors with child janitors in training (which makes no sense, because you're going to be fired as soon as you become a competent adult janitor and earn a living wage).
For me, this raises the question of the purpose of education. Is education supposed to prepare us to be better workers or is education supposed to prepare us to think independently – independent of our job and the will of the state? In my view education should prepare us to resist the imposition of the will of the hegemon. But that's not my main point in this post.
My main point is that offering advice to others requires an empathic imagination. I need to see myself in others' circumstances.
What would I have been had my father not emigrated in the 1920's, lived through the depression by farming in Minnesota and the war by serving in the Army Air Corps? What would I have been had my father not left the family farm some twenty miles outside Haparanda, Sweden? I look at my cousins' lives in Sweden and realize that it is entirely possible that I would have become a child of the middle class. I might still have been a priest and a believer. I might have a darker, less optimistic view of the world if I had grown up in the “city in darkness” (that's the title of a prize winning novel about life in Haparanda).
I can sort of imagine what my life might have been like if I had grown up in the forests of the far north of Sweden. I can sort of imagine it because I've been there, seen the house, used the privy, walked the roads, slept in the summer night. But even then it is difficult to imagine.
How difficult is it then to cross the major lines of race, culture, religion and imagine ourselves members of another race, living in another culture believing in god in another set of thoughts with another revelation. Yes, I might imagine myself aspiring to a materially and even spiritually better life – but I don't think I could give advice to that alternative me, much less advise those who are actually living that life.
If I were a poor black kid . . . I'd be very amazed and puzzled. How'd that happen? Unlike Navin P. Johnson, (Steve Martin's character in The Jerk) I was born a middle class white kid. My dad was the sole breadwinner in the family, and his paycheck was just enough to pay all the bills and put a little aside.
No matter how well my imagination works – and sometimes it works pretty well – it would take a monumental effort to imagine myself “a poor black kid.” I'd also need lots of solid data about the actual existence of actual poor black kids to inform that imagination.
It might also be useful to have a whole lot more information about brains and the differences among brains. It seems to me that there are profound differences among brains.
For example, some of us “get” literature and metaphor and allusion. Others of us don't get it, never will get it, no matter how much training we receive in reading metaphor. Those who don't get it can learn to see that there is something they don't get and even appreciate what it is that they don't get, but they'll never be great at reading metaphor and understanding and commenting on art – and therefore they shouldn't plan on making a living as a playwright or poet.
In the same way there are people for whom numbers have a reality, even a personality that they lack for me. I think of Mark Ahlseen, member of Bethany's faculty, who has an amazing facility with numbers. They clearly mean something to him that they don't mean to me. He understands numbers in a way I never will. I can barely keep my checkbook. Mark makes sense of where his money goes as if that paycheck were his good friend. I am convinced that it isn't just training – I can be better at understanding numbers, Mark likely can be better at understanding metaphor – but there is something inherent in each of us that is quite different. No matter how I try I could never be an accountant. No matter how hard Mark tries, I doubt that he'd ever be a poet.
So, if I were trying to imagine myself being something other than what I am I'd need to feed my imagination with lots of clear data about actual social conditions, about actual brains and their workings, about actual beings actually existing in a life that isn't mine.
Where Gene Marks goes off the rails is in his presumptions about the life of other people and how they would, could, and most importantly should behave in order to succeed in this world. Because his writing does not reflect his having invested himself in coming to understand how poor black kids actually live, the piece seems shallow and condescending.
It also seems like a call to behave, to willingly cooperate in being co-opted by “the system.” Behave, get good grades, learn technology – not so you can rule rather than be ruled – but so you can get a good job and be a good cog in the machine. Marks' call is not unlike Gingrich's desire to replace adult janitors with child janitors in training (which makes no sense, because you're going to be fired as soon as you become a competent adult janitor and earn a living wage).
For me, this raises the question of the purpose of education. Is education supposed to prepare us to be better workers or is education supposed to prepare us to think independently – independent of our job and the will of the state? In my view education should prepare us to resist the imposition of the will of the hegemon. But that's not my main point in this post.
My main point is that offering advice to others requires an empathic imagination. I need to see myself in others' circumstances.
What would I have been had my father not emigrated in the 1920's, lived through the depression by farming in Minnesota and the war by serving in the Army Air Corps? What would I have been had my father not left the family farm some twenty miles outside Haparanda, Sweden? I look at my cousins' lives in Sweden and realize that it is entirely possible that I would have become a child of the middle class. I might still have been a priest and a believer. I might have a darker, less optimistic view of the world if I had grown up in the “city in darkness” (that's the title of a prize winning novel about life in Haparanda).
I can sort of imagine what my life might have been like if I had grown up in the forests of the far north of Sweden. I can sort of imagine it because I've been there, seen the house, used the privy, walked the roads, slept in the summer night. But even then it is difficult to imagine.
How difficult is it then to cross the major lines of race, culture, religion and imagine ourselves members of another race, living in another culture believing in god in another set of thoughts with another revelation. Yes, I might imagine myself aspiring to a materially and even spiritually better life – but I don't think I could give advice to that alternative me, much less advise those who are actually living that life.
Time and Eternity II
Eternity seems to me to require an essential difference from time. As we sing in the old gospel hymn “Just a closer walk with thee:” “When my feeble days are o'er, Time for me shall be no more . . .” It seems to me that most evangelicals don't see eternity as a state of being when time is “no more.” Rather, evangelical eternity is time extended indefinitely.
Admittedly, talking about eternity as essentially different from time stretches our ability to say anything meaningful. Thus religious texts must talk about eternity – in so far as they talk about eternity – in terms of time. But if we take the metaphors of scriptures and attempt to treat them as concrete bits of data like “it's currently 8:30 pm and I am watching television” is to badly misunderstand and misuse the religious text.
Eternity, in order to be eternity must be different from extended time. But what then is it? It is qualitatively and quantitatively different. It has no quantity, and no duration. Time has duration. Eternity cannot have duration or it would simply be more time – which it cannot be. It has a quality different from the quality of being “in time.”
But what is it to be “in time” except to experience duration – more or less. Perhaps better said, being “in time” means that we are aware of duration and the passing of time. In eternity we are unaware of the passing of time because there is no time to pass.
Perhaps I've made a leap that is unjustified by tradition or scripture. Perhaps what the gospel writers meant by eternal life was simply a continuation of this earthly life on this earth and continuing it forever with a cognizance of the passing of time.
I'm working from memory, so I may get the details wrong and I don't claim that these are my final thoughts about the subject. But as I recall it, when the Christian scriptures talk about eternal life they do so in codes that are fairly obviously meant metaphorically. John's vision of the martyrs hidden under the altar is surely not meant to be taken literally. Martyrs keeping an unending vigil crouched or crammed or somehow confined under an altar and being forced to sing one line over and over and over again would seem to be not far from the kinds of punishment that good evangelicals reserve for the atheists and others who question their sadism.
John's vision of the heavenly city, one of my favorite passages from the Christian scriptures, likewise seems to me to force a metaphoric, synecdochal interpretation on the reader. If we take it literally, there isn't room in this puny city – this heavenly Jerusalem – for all the inhabitants that would have to be accommodated from Jesus' day to ours. It's rather like the dilemma of attempting to cram all the “living creatures” onto Noah's ark. They just wouldn't fit.
I don't want to drive myself batty by spending all my time trying to think thoughts that have been better thought by actual philosophers. Still, I've been pondering time and eternity for a long while, and never more seriously than these past six months.
It seems to me that the fundagelicals in particular have it all wrong. I don't think I have it all right, but I do think, no I'm certain, that the idea of a place of punishment where Christopher Hitchens is being fried over and over and over again – and is conscious of the continuation of his cooking is both a vile sadism and not eternity. Likewise, the notion of a place of bliss where we are with our unborn unformed unexperienced unchildren for an unending family reunion is pure sentimentality. I can understand why people find consolation in that idea, but I find it as much of a torture as the idea of hell. After all, what will the Duggers say to little Jubilee Shalom after the first “Hi, how are you, sorry you didn't get to live on earth?”
I love family reunions. But they have a end and I look forward to the end.
Admittedly, talking about eternity as essentially different from time stretches our ability to say anything meaningful. Thus religious texts must talk about eternity – in so far as they talk about eternity – in terms of time. But if we take the metaphors of scriptures and attempt to treat them as concrete bits of data like “it's currently 8:30 pm and I am watching television” is to badly misunderstand and misuse the religious text.
Eternity, in order to be eternity must be different from extended time. But what then is it? It is qualitatively and quantitatively different. It has no quantity, and no duration. Time has duration. Eternity cannot have duration or it would simply be more time – which it cannot be. It has a quality different from the quality of being “in time.”
But what is it to be “in time” except to experience duration – more or less. Perhaps better said, being “in time” means that we are aware of duration and the passing of time. In eternity we are unaware of the passing of time because there is no time to pass.
Perhaps I've made a leap that is unjustified by tradition or scripture. Perhaps what the gospel writers meant by eternal life was simply a continuation of this earthly life on this earth and continuing it forever with a cognizance of the passing of time.
I'm working from memory, so I may get the details wrong and I don't claim that these are my final thoughts about the subject. But as I recall it, when the Christian scriptures talk about eternal life they do so in codes that are fairly obviously meant metaphorically. John's vision of the martyrs hidden under the altar is surely not meant to be taken literally. Martyrs keeping an unending vigil crouched or crammed or somehow confined under an altar and being forced to sing one line over and over and over again would seem to be not far from the kinds of punishment that good evangelicals reserve for the atheists and others who question their sadism.
John's vision of the heavenly city, one of my favorite passages from the Christian scriptures, likewise seems to me to force a metaphoric, synecdochal interpretation on the reader. If we take it literally, there isn't room in this puny city – this heavenly Jerusalem – for all the inhabitants that would have to be accommodated from Jesus' day to ours. It's rather like the dilemma of attempting to cram all the “living creatures” onto Noah's ark. They just wouldn't fit.
I don't want to drive myself batty by spending all my time trying to think thoughts that have been better thought by actual philosophers. Still, I've been pondering time and eternity for a long while, and never more seriously than these past six months.
It seems to me that the fundagelicals in particular have it all wrong. I don't think I have it all right, but I do think, no I'm certain, that the idea of a place of punishment where Christopher Hitchens is being fried over and over and over again – and is conscious of the continuation of his cooking is both a vile sadism and not eternity. Likewise, the notion of a place of bliss where we are with our unborn unformed unexperienced unchildren for an unending family reunion is pure sentimentality. I can understand why people find consolation in that idea, but I find it as much of a torture as the idea of hell. After all, what will the Duggers say to little Jubilee Shalom after the first “Hi, how are you, sorry you didn't get to live on earth?”
I love family reunions. But they have a end and I look forward to the end.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Time & Eternity I
Christopher Hitchens' death has occasioned all sorts of public reflection on the nature of death and life after death and faith and its opposite certitude. It feels like the moment I might finally get around to writing about an issue I've been thinking about for many months – the nature of eternity.
First though, my own opinion of Hitchens. I didn't like him. Not because of his atheism or his drinking. Drunk atheists aren't uncommon – just as drunk true believers aren't uncommon. What bugged me was his arrogance. He decided that the US was right in attacking Iraq and could not bring himself to show a little humility when he turned out to be wrong. Salon has a great article about Hitchens' errors and his inability to back down on the Iraq question.
Hitch wasn't the only death that awakened thoughts of eternity. The Duggers, of the TV show "19 and Counting" fame, “lost” their 20th child. Michelle Dugger was told at her December 9 doctor's appointment that the child she was carrying no longer had a heartbeat. She miscarried the baby two days later. UK's Daily Mail reported on December 15:
Amy Duggar, a cousin who frequently appears on their hit TLC reality show tweeted the picture, saying: 'RIP precious Jubilee Shalom Duggar! Can't wait to meet you someday, thank you Lord for giving our family peace.'
So what happened to Hitchens after his death? What happened to “Jubilee Shalom Duggar” before her life?
Some evangelical thought would, of course, put Hitchens in a gruesome sadistic place of torment – thrown there for endless torturing by the will of a vengeful and hatefilled absolute deity – a power lacking the moral sensibility that most humans are capable of. On the other hand, the Dugger cousin, and probably the Duggers too, seem to picture a world that is essentially like this one, but without a the finality of death.
Eternity then isn't qualitatively different from time. It is essentially the same as time, but longer and without death. That's the only difference.
But if that's the only difference, eternity isn't eternity. It's just overtime. Like the overtime at the end of a regular soccer game – if you've been interrupted or play has stopped in life you get to have an extra three minutes, only the extra three minutes just keeps going on and on and on.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Politics and Ideas
Newt Gingrich is being hailed as a man of big ideas. What a load.
Newt is a thinker who can't think. Something occurs to him and he has to spew it out. Then he doubles down. Let's turn back the clock and put children to work! Yeah, that's a good idea. Let's repeal the laws that protect children from being exploited and let the poorest of the poor children learn their place in our society. They're the toilet cleaners - the untouchable caste. But they sure do have a great work ethic!
Let's be frightened of the Electromagnetic pulse - an unproven danger that no one but Newt thinks is a danger.
Let's do again what we did before that didn't work. Less regulation. Fewer taxes for the rich. If those are such good ideas, how come they didn't work in the ten years they were in force? How come the Bush residency brought us low low taxes on the rich (which didn't have to be paid for) and no no jobs? Except the ones we shipped overseas (or to that 52nd state, the Mariana Islands).
Then there's Herman Cain. Praised by Newt and praised by CNN. Such great ideas - 999 - more like Nein, Nein, Nein. In the interview broadcast this AM on CNN the interviewer asked Cain what he meant calling the work of Jesse Jackson and Julian Bond "a sham." Cain responded "you can call it a sham or you can call it . . ." The point isn't what we might call it, it's what did you mean when you called it that!
At the end of his speech he again quoted Pokemon, the Movie. This time he acknowledged that he got the words from Pokemon, but that he didn't know who was the original author of the line. Sloppy thinking! I certainly wouldn't give high marks for credibility to any student who did that in a speech.
The quote itself is actually rather banal. The fact that it's from the tag tune to, as John Stewart said, get you the f*** out of the theatre so the staff can come sweep up the popcorn, makes it even less intellectually stimulating.
This is not thinking at any depth. This is thinking in the shallows of life and calling it thinking. To call Newt an idea man and credit Herman Cain with bringing big ideas to the campaign is to debase what can be thought about the political situation in which we find ourselves.
Newt is the perfect representative of the Hegemon. Cain the perfect illustration of Gramsci's theories concerning Cultural Hegemony.
Newt is a thinker who can't think. Something occurs to him and he has to spew it out. Then he doubles down. Let's turn back the clock and put children to work! Yeah, that's a good idea. Let's repeal the laws that protect children from being exploited and let the poorest of the poor children learn their place in our society. They're the toilet cleaners - the untouchable caste. But they sure do have a great work ethic!
Let's be frightened of the Electromagnetic pulse - an unproven danger that no one but Newt thinks is a danger.
Let's do again what we did before that didn't work. Less regulation. Fewer taxes for the rich. If those are such good ideas, how come they didn't work in the ten years they were in force? How come the Bush residency brought us low low taxes on the rich (which didn't have to be paid for) and no no jobs? Except the ones we shipped overseas (or to that 52nd state, the Mariana Islands).
Then there's Herman Cain. Praised by Newt and praised by CNN. Such great ideas - 999 - more like Nein, Nein, Nein. In the interview broadcast this AM on CNN the interviewer asked Cain what he meant calling the work of Jesse Jackson and Julian Bond "a sham." Cain responded "you can call it a sham or you can call it . . ." The point isn't what we might call it, it's what did you mean when you called it that!
At the end of his speech he again quoted Pokemon, the Movie. This time he acknowledged that he got the words from Pokemon, but that he didn't know who was the original author of the line. Sloppy thinking! I certainly wouldn't give high marks for credibility to any student who did that in a speech.
The quote itself is actually rather banal. The fact that it's from the tag tune to, as John Stewart said, get you the f*** out of the theatre so the staff can come sweep up the popcorn, makes it even less intellectually stimulating.
This is not thinking at any depth. This is thinking in the shallows of life and calling it thinking. To call Newt an idea man and credit Herman Cain with bringing big ideas to the campaign is to debase what can be thought about the political situation in which we find ourselves.
Newt is the perfect representative of the Hegemon. Cain the perfect illustration of Gramsci's theories concerning Cultural Hegemony.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Do you always learn something
There is a great American culture myth that you have to make every experience a useful experience.
I am not sure that I want to do that yet with the current illness.
It is interesting to note the "stages" I've gone thru in this illness. I've been overwhelmed by having cancer - there is something about the name cancer that makes one feel incredibly vulnerable.
Then there was a stage of being extremely confident that I would come thru this with no or little pain, discomfort, deformation, or even effort.
There was a weekend of weepy regret. While I loved having what felt like deep feelings, my sinuses didn't love the mucus and swelling the weeping brought on. And I couldn't figure out what triggered that phase. It came stayed three days, and in good Franklin style left before it began to behave like a fish.
Then I had minutes of anxiety. I actually wasn't all that scared when it came to surgery. I don't know why, but I wasn't all that afraid. When I was given the sedative that was supposed to merely relax me, I was gone. I remember getting the sedative in my iv line in the right hand. I was told that I'd see the surgeon in the hall before we went into operating room, but that would be the last thing I saw. Nope. Remember being rolled into the hall, but that's it.
Recovery has been going very swiftly and I'm incredibly optimistic. I'm feeling like the pathology report is going to come back positive - i.e., no spread of the cancer. I've got the feeling that the p.t. is going to go well, even though I had significant weakness when we removed the bandage last night.
I've been supported, prayed for, loved throughout the journey. Did that help? I suspect so, but I would hesitate to say that the cancer and its effects have been ameliorated by the support and love. But I also would hesitate to say that the support hasn't made a physical difference. That, as a religious professional, is a really interesting feeling.
I know that I'm "supposed" to support the idea, intellectually, that prayer does make a difference. Intellectually I am not convinced. Emotionally, I haven't "felt" strength coming from others. Yet, a part of me, an inward and secret part of me is beginning to awaken and say, "Oh, wait, think. All this prayer, all this love, all this support and positive vibes, they have made a difference."
But have I learned something from this?
Or is it enough that I have just experienced all this? Right now I'm opting for the latter. I just experienced all this and I am experiencing all this, and I don't have can't have any generalized knowledge that I've gained from the experience.
I am not sure that I want to do that yet with the current illness.
It is interesting to note the "stages" I've gone thru in this illness. I've been overwhelmed by having cancer - there is something about the name cancer that makes one feel incredibly vulnerable.
Then there was a stage of being extremely confident that I would come thru this with no or little pain, discomfort, deformation, or even effort.
There was a weekend of weepy regret. While I loved having what felt like deep feelings, my sinuses didn't love the mucus and swelling the weeping brought on. And I couldn't figure out what triggered that phase. It came stayed three days, and in good Franklin style left before it began to behave like a fish.
Then I had minutes of anxiety. I actually wasn't all that scared when it came to surgery. I don't know why, but I wasn't all that afraid. When I was given the sedative that was supposed to merely relax me, I was gone. I remember getting the sedative in my iv line in the right hand. I was told that I'd see the surgeon in the hall before we went into operating room, but that would be the last thing I saw. Nope. Remember being rolled into the hall, but that's it.
Recovery has been going very swiftly and I'm incredibly optimistic. I'm feeling like the pathology report is going to come back positive - i.e., no spread of the cancer. I've got the feeling that the p.t. is going to go well, even though I had significant weakness when we removed the bandage last night.
I've been supported, prayed for, loved throughout the journey. Did that help? I suspect so, but I would hesitate to say that the cancer and its effects have been ameliorated by the support and love. But I also would hesitate to say that the support hasn't made a physical difference. That, as a religious professional, is a really interesting feeling.
I know that I'm "supposed" to support the idea, intellectually, that prayer does make a difference. Intellectually I am not convinced. Emotionally, I haven't "felt" strength coming from others. Yet, a part of me, an inward and secret part of me is beginning to awaken and say, "Oh, wait, think. All this prayer, all this love, all this support and positive vibes, they have made a difference."
But have I learned something from this?
Or is it enough that I have just experienced all this? Right now I'm opting for the latter. I just experienced all this and I am experiencing all this, and I don't have can't have any generalized knowledge that I've gained from the experience.
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