Crunch time at the shop

It's the end of November, which, in the academic world, means it's crunch time. Time to feel the burn, and the stress. Time to look in the mirror and see if you can do it. Time to suck it up and get things done. The crunch applies to faculty and students alike, but the problem is particularly acute for those twenty-somethings who have been thrust into higher education, often with limits to their motivation and their skill set. And sometimes, it's not a pretty sight.

Now that I've been an educator for nearly four decades, I've seen amazingly bright and competent students and amazingly dull and overwhelmed ones. As I occasionally tell my students, Western Civilization is not a piece of cake: one must learn to manage an incredible array of demands, skills, and tasks, with a heavy emphasis on being productive. And as I also tell them, there are indeed other options, including a simple life of hunting and gathering on some remote island in the south seas, where things like algebra, philosophy, and research methods are largely irrelevant. But, since the south seas option is not on their mental radar, they try to plug along and survive in the modern and fairly neurotic world of 2010.

As in a war, some soldiers go through the campaign with flying colors, to a heroes' welcome. But others are wounded in battle, and they limp and stumble to the end. Still others go AWOL, perhaps thinking that if no one sees them, they won't have to deal with things. And some die a quiet academic death, casualties of a system that simply grinds them down and removes their will to survive.

About this time of year, I say a quiet prayer for all of these people. I don't want them to be maimed or shamed or bruised, but I do have to stretch them and challenge them. Unfortunately, some of them can only be stretched a little bit, and despite my desire to see them succeed, I can only do my duty and submit a grade that is appropriate to what they have achieved--which, more often that we like to admit, isn't much. Almost all of them are fine people, but at crunch time, we on the other side of the desk don't always see them at their best.

On that cheery note, a happy holiday season to you all!

Technologically-challenged, indeed

I need to spend a solid year just trying to keep up and catch up to technology.

Although the 21st century has not totally passed me by--witness this very blog, written on one of them computer thingies--I constantly feel as if I'm behind the curve. And I'm not keeping up, plain and simple.

• I want to be able to send text messages on our cell phone with ease, and to be able to take photos off the phone and then upload (or download?) them somewhere. And I'd like to be able to send photos on the cell to someone else.

• I want to know how to make my iPod Shuffle work as well as it's supposed to. Although I have 163 songs loaded on it, only the same 30 or 40 seem to play when I go running.

• I'd like to know how to sell stuff on-line, on either eBay or Craig's List. I've got some old baseball cards that I think could fetch a pretty penny.

• I need to be able to take my new video camera--a digital job given to me by my son for my last birthday--and convert those images to DVDs, or put them on our PC, or whatever the hell you do with them.

• I have a digital camera--also a present from son Tony--that mostly sits around. I don't have a clue about how to transport those images to other places.

• I should try to find out what this "4G" phones are all about. I've never used a Blackberry or an iPhone, and I have no idea how.

• I'd like to master the many fine points of Moodle, the platform used at the school where I work, for use in classes. I just stick to the basics.

• I've never tried to edit someone else's writing electronically, with those little windows that pop out when you want to make responses or comments.

• I've never Skyped anyone. I've never used an iPad. And I've never Kindled.

• When all is said and done, I'm Twitter-challenged and have no idea how I would or could use it.

Damn--when you start making this into a list, it really looks pretty pathetic. But I will, slowly but surely (or, "slowly but Shirley," as one of my students once wrote) try to make it into the year 2010. Right now, charitably, it's about 2001 for me, and these days, missing nine years of technology feels like I'm missing a century.

Obama's need for a rhetoric of idealism

I write this from "the lake," which is definitely a Minnesota term. It doesn't matter which of the 15,000 lakes in the state you're at--when you're there, you're simply at "the lake." It's been five years since we've rented a cabin on Woman Lake (near Hackensack and Longville) and it feels good to smell the breeze and gaze out over the shimmering water.

Maybe this lake stuff is putting me in a dreamy, romantic mood, but I'm wondering if our President needs to spend a little more time at the lake--despite the criticism that he's already spending too many days on vacation. What got Mr. Obama national attention in the first place was his "red state/blue state" speech at the '04 DNC--it laid out a vision of America that was not based on Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, good guys and bad guys. Rather, it was based on the ideal that we are all Americans, and we need to pull together with a common vision and an inclusive mindset. It was a type of rhetoric that appealed to our best impulses and our highest ideals--something that is sorely lacking in politics these days.

Take the proposed Islamic cultural center, two blocks from "ground zero" in NYC. Quite rightly, the President has said that there are and should be no legal roadblocks to such a project. On the other hand, he has deferred comment on the wisdom or appropriateness of such a move. And in the process, I think he is erring by omission. This is an occasion to call all of us to our best impulses--our ideals, if you will.

What kind of nation do we want to be? What are our "best practices"? When all is said and done, how do we want to see ourselves? If we want to see ourselves as a nation that values and cherishes freedom, understanding, and tolerance, then we need to celebrate it in this case, not merely grudgingly accept it. For at our best, we can indeed be "better" than the rest of the world--we adhere to a higher standard. And when we don't maintain those highest standards--such as at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo--we diminish the United States in ways that no "terrorist" can.

Mr. Obama needs to get back "on message"--the message that propelled him to the national stage in the first place. At HIS best, he can move people to a common vision, to a set of ideals. It requires a passionate, positive, blunt, and forceful approach--not an equivocal finger in the wind, worrying about the political fallout. Other Presidents (John F. Kennedy certainly comes to mind) distinguished themselves by their ability to articulate lofty ideals. I think we are still ready to hear someone at the top speak that way; indeed, I think we are yearning for it.

Note to Barack: go for it, big guy. Show us a vision for America that plays off of our best impulses, not our deepest prejudices and fears.

Inception: Quite a complex conception

Well, the big movie buzz of late has been around the movie "Inception," which has been touted as nothing short of amazing. And, in many ways, it is an amazing attempt to play around with our sense of "reality," and in a visually stimulating way.

Having said that, I can't help but feel a little exasperated at a movie that tries to do so much. As a premise for a film, it's apparently not enough to work with the idea of planting a thought--one thought--in someone's head through dreams. No, in this movie, they are trying to plant thoughts in (a) a dream (b) within a dream (c) within a dream--no small feat! Not only that, but the dreams portrayed are incredibly rich in detail--gosh, these people dream way better than I do! To create dreams for others of such intricacy severely strains my sense of credibility. I can't even begin to think how visuals of such elaborate complexity could ever be planted in someone else's brain.

In short, I'm OK with trying to move us into another realm of consciousness. But I have a hard time suspending my disbelief to a level that defies any sort of realism. It's the same complaint that I have with the TV show "Medium"--Allison DuBois not only dreams about various crimes that have occurred or will occur; she dreams about them in such elaborate detail that it's as if a video camera were in the room. That makes for a sort of clarity that seems unreachable. I'd be happier if Allison had some vague-but-compelling images that she had to interpret. But not to worry--it's all there for her, item-for-item and word-for-word. If a guy in her dreams is wearing a blue shirt and says "I just came from the hardware store with this cordless drill," that's precisely how it plays out in "reality." That woman is just very, very talented!

Dream on, Hollywood.

Keeping up with the Joneses (and every other freakin' family)

I'm coming off a "cluster reunion" this past weekend at my alma mater, dear old Macalester College in St. Paul. And quite a cluster it was! Three different class years all put together in the same place. And quite a group of very "accomplished" people! Yikes--I felt like a total schlub. One of my classmates has given $2 million to the college. Another was governor of Wisconsin a few years ago. Another owns a portion of the horse that placed 3rd in this year's Kentucky Derby. Another (my first debate partner in college) is a high-profile D.C. lobbyist who just gave $2500 to the college and spreads thousands of other dollars around for various political causes and campaigns. Suffice it to say that I wasn't in line for any "Most Likely to Succeed" awards!

At times like these, we are forced to examine our own life and take in some basic principles of Buddhist philosophy. Fight off the envy, my man! Be at peace with what you have! Do not find contentment in material goods! Strive for inner goodness! And, find SOMEBODY who you feel at least a little superior to! (There were a couple such people at this event, but it would be pointless and tacky to say anything more.) But, best of all, appreciate that you are still around to attend these events; I regret to say that I can think of several people out of that era who didn't even live close to long enough to celebrate such a milestone.

Yahtzee and one's legacy

As my thousands--nay, tens of thousands--of loyal readers may know, one of the first things I read each day in the Star Tribune is the obituary column. Yes, I start the day by finding out who has died. Why, you ask? For two main reasons. First, there is a chance that someone I know has died, and from time to time, that truly is the case, and so I need to know. The second reason is a bit more odd, perhaps, and vaguely "philosophical." But it comes down to this: reading the obituaries is my way of celebrating that I am alive for at least another day. It's a recognition that life is transitory, that shit happens, that my shit is waiting as well, but that for now, I need to appreciate that I am still among the living. Any psychologist ought to have a field day with that!

While reading the obits, I also sometimes glance at or pay some attention to the details of some stranger's life. The other day I was reading the notice for a woman named "Patty"--a very nice woman, I'm sure, and her photo revealed a winning smile. But in terms of her existence, the best they could seem to come up with--besides the fact that she "cared for her family, her animals, and the garden"--was that "she enjoyed playing Yahtzee and Scrabble, gardening, decorating, and attending garage sales."

Now, I should tread carefully. One can live a very full and happy life without doing anything "amazing." And one's family, animals, and garden can be a meaningful focal point for a very deep and satisfying existence. Still, I for one would hope that my legacy does not come down to Yahtzee, Scrabble, and garage sales. There's gotta be more to life than that. Although I have many mundane activities that comprise the daily rituals of my life, if anyone is writing a notice for me, please leave out some of the silliest ones! For whatever reason, I don't want to be remembered as "the meanest Scrabble player in town." But then, I can vibrate my uvula, I once memorized the Gettysburg Address, and I enjoy doing the Cryptoquip in the paper each day! Lacking a Nobel Peace Prize, I guess I'll have to live with a smaller legacy. It's just too bad that I'm not an avid Bingo player.

Heil Obama?

As mentioned in some previous posts, I have corresponded quite frequently with a high school friend I have referred to as "Kyle." And Kyle, as you thousands of loyal readers know, is about as far to the political "right" as anyone I know. He's a "birther" who believes that we should eliminate the minimum wage, sees Obamacare as a "power grab" by the feds, and believes that global warming is more than a myth--it's a conspiracy among liberal scientists to obscure the truth. So it should come as no surprise that a fair number of Kyle's posts to me have included references to Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany in the same sentence as Barack Obama. The implicit (and sometimes explicit) claim is that Obama and Hitler and the Nazis have something in common.

I have told Kyle repeatedly that this linkage of Obama to Nazism is at once inaccurate, incorrect, inflammatory, and an exercise in demagoguery. Still, he continues to make such claims, including a tu quoque fallacy--i.e., that those "liberals" have called certain Republicans Nazis, which I guess in his mind makes it OK for him as well to return the favor.

Recent developments make the Nazi analogy even more annoying. Mr. Obama has just announced that he is nominating a Jew for the Supreme Court of the United States--gosh, that's a sure sign of another Hitler! Meanwhile, the Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that our true-blue, all-American governor, Tim Pawlenty, violated the law by deciding on his own to cut various state budgets--something called "unallotment." And indeed, unallotment is the closest thing we have in this nation to a "dictatorship"; what this move involved was for Pawlenty to flat-out ignore what legislation had been passed by elected representatives, and to trim the budgets based on his own whims as a chief executive. So much for democracy.

Anyway, I ended up telling Kyle that I'm done with such rants. I simply won't read anything else he sends along because it is so offensive that it ceases to be civil discourse. Now I haven't heard from Kyle at all in more than a week since I started trashing his messages. And, it's been very liberating--damn, it just feels good to keep toxic waste off of my screen. Until such time as gay people are forced to wear pink triangles and Jews are shipped off to concentration camps, I think that Kyle should stop playing the "Nazi card," which is nothing like a trump card in my deck. It's more like the Joker. Or maybe not even a card at all. It's just stupid.

Rot at the top

"Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery on society, which increases earthquakes."

- Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedinghi, an Iranian Muslim cleric, blaming women for a spate of recent temblors around the globe

"(T)he feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

– Pat Robertson

I think that we are all conditioned to believe that people in positions of authority and leadership know what they are doing. The world has to make some sense, doesn't it? Surely these people--whoever they are--must be intelligent and reasonable; after all, they are in a prominent position! Well, that ain't necessarily so, as these two quotations demonstrate--those are a couple of steel-trap minds! (Robertson is especially annoying, if only because I see his mug so often when I'm channel-surfing--how does he get so darn much exposure?)

The latest and rather interesting case: Christopher Hitchens, writing in the current Newsweek, makes the argument--and a rather strong one at that--for bringing up the Pope on criminal charges, given the protection which pedophiles have gotten within the Catholic Church, in some cases with the direct involvement of the Pope himself. Even yours truly, a skeptical heathen type, was surprised to encounter this point of view and to seriously entertain it for the first time. I mean, he's the Pope! How could a Pope be arrested for anything? The Pope sent off to prison for obstruction of justice? It's almost incomprehensible--that is, until you consider the utter humanity that we all share. The Pope is a guy named Joseph Ratzinger--call him "Joe" if you want, because he is in the end just an Ordinary Joe. He puts on his pants the same way you and I do. He trots into the bathroom in the morning to do the same things that you and I do (we share the same throne!). He gets spinach stuck between his teeth. And, like Misters Sedinghi and Robertson, cited above, he is no smarter than you or I; at times like these, notions of "papal inerrancy" seem particularly ridiculous.

There is rot at the top, my friends--and sometimes in the middle or at the bottom! Please help us avoid legitimized insanity in any way that you can.

Embracing the absurd

Ever in touch with the absurd, I am reminded again of how at any waking moment--at this very moment--there are billions of different realities. As we in the U.S. herald the launching of the iPad into our cyber-environment, as we get into our hybrid cars and watch our plasma TVs, there are the people of the Omo Valley in Ethiopia, profiled in last month's issue of National Geographic (arguably my favorite magazine of all).

The tribes which populate the Omo Valley (the Kara, the Banna, the Bashada, the Hamar, and several others) all lead lives that are in stark contrast to the 21st century vibe in the U.S. The Mursi women still wear ornamental clay lip plates, making their mouths look like small frisbees. The Suri tie on armor made of goat hide and fight each other with long poles. There is still the Hamar ritual in which women demand to be whipped until they bleed, and there's the cattle-jumping initiation rite, in which boys run along the backs of cattle to prove they are ready for manhood. And they do most of these things--in classic National Geographic picture form--buck naked, without an ounce of self-consciousness or embarrassment. And I think to myself, what a strange and wonderful world! (Intentional song reference here.)

It goes deeper, though. The differences transcend mere clothing or artifacts. In this part of the world, mingi is a kind of very bad luck. In southern Ethiopia, many tribes believe it is a bad omen if children are born deformed, if their top teeth erupt before their bottom teeth, or if they are born out of wedlock. Tradition dictates that such children must be killed before mingi spreads. The writer of this article (Neil Shea) notes, "I met a Kara woman who gave birth to 12 children before she was able to be married; she said she killed all of them. Parents do not necessarily want to obey, but communal pressure is strong. Sometimes the child is abandoned in the bush, its mouth filled with earth; sometimes it is hurled into the river."

Reading National Geographic is more than a trip through a time machine. It's traveling to another planet--although in this case it turns out to be the other side of our own planet. But, Happy Easter! And because you are where you are--reading this off of a laptop somewhere--put on some clothes, dammit!

Insanity on a global scale

I like to think that I am an optimist. But when I look around the world, much of what I see is insanity, plain and simple. (Well, insanity may be a little imprecise, and a little too hyperbolic, but suffice it to say that billions of people on this planet--billions of them--lack what I would call good critical thinking skills.)

A significant part of my professional mission is to enable people to think better. But despite my best efforts, there's a tsunami of dogma and ignorance out there that's formidable, and I don't see us overcoming it in the next several decades--maybe the next couple of centuries.

Clearly the most formidable of all those forces is organized religion, which takes dubious thinking to new heights. Because virtually all religions regard their beliefs, and the things that underlie these beliefs, as immutable and inerrant, critical thinking goes right out the window. We're dealing with "Truth" with a capital "T," and no matter how ridiculous the notion (virgin births, 72 virgins in heaven, reincarnation of souls, etc. etc.) it has to be "true" because it's the Word of God. Well, that's just plain rubbish, and anyone with the proper education, including theology students, knows better. But most of the world just follows along as some guy in a funny outfit tells them that if they have impure thoughts, they're going to hell.

I realize that my posture is almost inherently "elitist." But it's really hard not to see the major belief systems of the world as arbitrary and illogical--and yes, even ignorant and stupid. And until we do, I just don't know how we bridge the gaps between people--all we do is perpetuate a bizarre world that is bisected into the "faithful" and the "unfaithful," the true believers and the infidels, the good and the bad.

When Christopher Hitchens says that "religion poisons everything," I regret to say that I think he's basically right. If only religion could be based on uncertainty--if it could, we could all, together, embrace the universe and its many mysteries.

Those "elitists" on the left

As I follow the general buzz going on in politics, and when I correspond with my friend "Kyle" (see previous posts), I have been struck of late by how often the word "elite" or "elitist" is attached to either "liberals" or "intellectuals," or anyone with whom the right wing disagrees. Apparently, conservatives and/or Republicans are guided by "common sense" and down-to-earth notions of right and wrong, whereas liberals (especially if they live on the East Coast--funny how that works) are "elitist" and somehow out of touch with ordinary folk, left only with their abstract and pointless theories.

To the extent that one thing which is implicit to elitism is feeling "superior" to the rest of the world, I find it ironic that conservatives should even consider using this word. If there are people who are more cock-sure of themselves and their thinking than the rest of us--i.e., elitist--it would have to be people like Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, and Coulter. Right-wing elitism is not an oxymoron or a contradiction in terms: these people make liberals and intellectuals look fair-minded and reasonable by comparison.

You wanna talk elitism? Bring it on! Liberals and academics may have their opinions, but they also have a better measure of doubt, perspective, and humility. And yes, once in a while (such as when Ms. Palin cannot explain why there are two Koreas or believes that Saddam Hussein was the mastermind of 9/11), the Contentious Introvert can indeed feel a little smug. Maybe even elitist. But for better reasons, I think!

The grimmest of times make me grimace

When the temperature in town starts heading below zero, yours truly begins to grimace. This is not a time of year when the spirit soars, and after a whole lot of winters in Minnesota, you'd think that I'd be used to this meteorological insanity. But, not so much.

Don't get me wrong--I try to embrace and overcome the elements. This past Saturday at 7:30 in the morning, my running group met as usual at the Lake Harriet bandshell, ready to head out for a jaunt at 16 below. And on both Saturday and Sunday, with proper attire, I guess I'd say that running was almost pleasant--although when I'm done, my beard, eyebrows, and eyelashes are a frosty white, caked with chunks of ice, and I resemble some sort of perverse-looking abominable snowman. Being a Finn, I summon up all the Finnish sisu that I can--that stubborn and determined mindset which is a part of Finnish culture and commands me to suck it up and head out the door.

Still, one is keenly aware that there are other options. I spent the winter of 1977-78 living in Los Angeles, and I can say that at the time I didn't miss a single thing about the Minnesota brand of winter. If we could somehow eliminate the period between December 15 and February 1--simply banish it from the calendar--I'd be a much happier camper. (In fact, I ain't no camper at all in these sorts of temperatures!) Occasionally, I think back to January of 1996--my son Tony and I had just gotten back from Malaysia, where it's always 88 and humid, and we encountered the Coldest Day Ever in Minnesota, a day when the actual air temperature (not the wind chill) reached -60 in Tower, MN. And it was on that weekend, with temperatures in the -30 range in the Twin Cities, when the boiler decided to go out in a fourplex that I was managing that was part of my mother's estate. Dealing with that was pure hell--including a bill for more than $20,000 to install a new boiler!

Best of all, consider this: some of our recent weather is so hostile to homo sapiens that one could quite literally DIE without proper planning. Yes, killed by cold air. It happens. And it's one of those times when being an animal outdoors must really suck. To all of my deer, squirrel, rabbit, and raccoon friends I say, take it easy out there! And if you need a warm place to sleep, scratch on our front door; we'll do what we can.