SPidge Tales

This Blog Is Retired

2009-02-20T13:57:00.005-05:00

I began this blog in August 2005. I had way too much time on my hands. I still do, but I gave up the blog in April 2008. The blog is still here for, I don't know, posterity.

Some of the posts I think are pretty good. Some are amazingly bad. If you wish, you may read through the archives and comment.

These are my current websites:

Links I Bookmark

My Amazon.com Book Reviews

Know your ABC's or People Will Starve

2008-04-11T10:34:00.002-04:00

Fifty years ago, bad grammar would get you a slap on the wrists from Sister Mary Catherine’s ruler. Today, bad grammar means poor people will die.

The website www.FreeRice.com teaches American kids and feeds African kids at the same time. Some starving kid is waiting to eat, and his appetite counts on you knowing your podiatrist from your pediatrician. Free Rice gives you a vocabulary word such as "complaisance," followed by four choices such as ’lottery,’ ’icing,’ ’dusk,’ and ’agreeableness.’ If you clicked ’agreeableness,’ congratulations! Twenty grains of rice will be donated to fight world hunger. And if you got it wrong? Well poor little Singh in Calcutta.

What? Is there some guy holding food on a string over the outstretched hands of poor Indian and African children saying, "No food until some American kid clicks on a website and gets a grammar question right"?

Gov. Eliot "Client 9" Spitzer

2008-03-11T16:16:00.000-04:00

I smelled trouble the moment governor Eliot “Client 9” Spitzer approached the podium for a press conference, with his wife by his side. This is the modern politician’s way of announcing to the world he will be sleeping on the couch tonight.

I’m in shock. I don’t know what to think about this. Those $4,300 dollars could have bought countless drivers licenses for illegal immigrants. What happened to the good old days, when philandering politicians sat in bathroom stalls and tapped their feet?

Three-thousand years ago, King David sealed his love affair with Bathsheba by sending her husband, Uriah the Hittite, to death in battle. Today’s politicians seal their infidelities with a different type of deathblow. They butcher our intelligence with the farcical press conference and the euphemistic circumlocutions. “It was a lapse in judgment.” Gee, you think?

Political maneuvering has been around since the dawn of man. Can we be all that surprised when a practitioner of probably the world’s second oldest profession gets caught up in the world’s oldest occupation?

Geography Skillz

2008-03-07T14:32:00.001-05:00

Use this map and see how good you are with geography. This game's addicting. If the map doesn't work, go to http://www.travelpod.com/traveler-iq

presented by TravelPod, the World's Original Travel Blog ( Part of the TripAdvisor Media Network )

Eighteen and One! 18 and 1!

2008-02-04T09:38:00.001-05:00

Congratulations New England Patriots on your magnificent season . Your 18 wins ties the '84 49ers and the '85 Bears for most victories in a single season. You are the greatest regular season team of all time. And, think about this: How many people can say they are second best on the whole planet at what they do? You are the second best football team in the world.

Also, congratulations to the Super Bowl Champion New York Giants, the best football team in the world.

We Got Him!

2008-01-30T16:08:00.000-05:00

Mets sign winning 'Han'

Getting Hit on by a Gay Man at a Redneck Bar

2008-01-24T16:50:00.001-05:00

Redneck Pub* is the last place a person would expect to meet a flamboyant gay man, let alone get hit on by one. Redneck Pub has NFL pennants, NASCAR decals, a pool table and dartboard, Vietnam POW-MIA drapings, live country bands and a dance floor, and a steady diet of Michelob Ultra, Miller Lite, and Budweiser. Yet on Friday, the unwanted advances of a gay man are exactly what happened.

I went to Redneck’s with my friend Angela. I was the designated driver, but at the start, I still had fun. We even played darts with a couple of locals. Soon, the monotony of middle-aged mustachioed men was delightfully disrupted by the entrance of the most beautiful woman I have seen to date in my year and a half living in the North Country.

If I were a romance novelist, I’d give a metaphor-filled description, starting with, “Her flowing curly blond locks radiated…” But I am terrible at describing, so I will break the unwritten bad writer no-no by comparing her to a celebrity. I will just say, “She was in her early 20’s, and looked kind of like Taylor Swift, and just as beautiful.”

She walked in with her slightly less hot, but still very attractive, female friend (no problem there). But right behind followed their two good looking mid 20’s male companions (darn!). No sooner did I glimpse her, than I got tapped on the shoulder by a man who looked like Al Franken. “Al” (not his real name, but I will call him “Al” for anonymity purposes), was very friendly and very flamboyant. He talked like Stuart Smalley. He introduced me to the man and woman standing with him. They were not with him, just people he’d met, like me. I though, ‘Okay, he’s a friendly gay man introducing himself to everyone since he likes to make conversation. No problem.’

My mind (and my steady shifting glances) was still on the curly blond haired beauty. To my delight, Al called her over. “Come here. I just HAVE to talk to you.”

The conversation was interesting. “You know, you’re gorgeous, right?”…“I LOVE that jacket! I designed it myself!”

She responded to his compliments with head nods, thank you’s, and delighted (‘delight’ and its variations will be my overused word for this essay) blushes that augmented her natural beauty.

Al introduced “Taylor” (what I shall call her for purposes of anonymity) to me and the others in our group. ‘This is great,’ I thought. ‘The gay man is going to help me talk to the pretty girl. Too bad she is with those guys over there, but it’s always good to get practice talking to beautiful women, whether they are available or not.’

Of course, I wasn’t sure what to say. ‘So, you come here often?’ roamed through my head, until I quickly swatted that pathetic cliché out of my mind. ‘Are you from here?’ wouldn’t work either, since she already told Al she lived in Ogdensburg. Like I usually do, I froze up, didn’t know what to say, so I just said, “Hi, I’m Sean,” and smiled.

Then, Al re-grabbed the reins of the conversation and took things in a great direction. He asked Taylor, “So which one of those pieces of man-candy are you with?”

“None of them,” said Taylor. “I’m single. They aren’t my type.”

“We need to talk,” said Al. Al and Taylor went off to chat, and I went to the bathroom. I played some more darts with my friend Angela and the locals. Soon, Al came strolling over. He asked me about my hair, what I did with it, complimented me on it, and even suggested where I should go to get it cut and styled. He even asked me how old he looked, and since he was acting like a middle aged woman, I treated him like one, and gave him friendly compliments, just like I would to placate a middle aged woman. “You can’t be older than 35,” I said, even though it was obvious he was in his 40’s.

“I’m 49!” he said.

I thought to myself, ‘this is fun. He noticed me glancing over at Taylor, and he came over to help me out. He’s going to be my “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” helper. He’s giving me style tips so I can go talk to Taylor.’ And, I certainly needed all the style tips I could use, seeing as a pack of 20-something-year-old meatheads swarmed around Taylor, all vying for attention. I had one of those jungle kingdom flashbacks, just like Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls. If I was going to break through the lion pack and assert myself as King of the Jungle, I had better listen to Al and play along.

“Have you ever heard of this restaurant in Potsdam?” asked Al. “It has nice Italian food, a great wine selection, and a full Starbuck’s coffee bar.”

‘Wow, what a nice guy,’ I thought. ‘He’s even giving me dating suggestions.’ ‘Gay guys have so much style, it’s a good thing they aren’t into girls,’ my thoughts continued, ‘or we straight guys would never get any dates with the ladies.’

“So, you wanna go sometime?” asked Al. Wow! That question was a huge sucker punch to my naiveté. I just gave him a blank stare.

It got worse. He put his hand on my arm and said, “Ooh! Do you work out?”

I bluntly said, “No.” My mind started going into hyper-drive. ‘What did I do wrong? How could I have possibly led this man on? Do I exude Gay-Dar? Do I really need to wear a “Do Not Enter” sign on my back just above my pants? Did I make a mistake—is the name of this bar not “Redneck’s” but “Bathhouse”?’

Now, I’ve always thought of myself as tolerant. Yes, my beliefs on dating are similar to the teachings of my Catholic faith. But, I am against gay bashing. I am against employment discrimination. I think “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” should be abolished and gays should be allowed to serve openly in the military. I think gay and lesbians should be able to do anything they want in their personal life, free from state interference. And, just as I would never judge or condemn a straight couple living together outside of marriage, even though I believe it is wrong, I would never dream of judging gays in person, no matter my personal beliefs on the lifestyle. I believe gay couples should receive government benefits, even if I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.

I had never before thought of myself as homophobic. I had always enjoyed meeting gay men and lesbians. I had always found gay flamboyance (and—yes—I know not all gays are flamboyant. Probably most aren’t. I’m just saying…) entertaining. But, I had never been hit on before. I was uncomfortable and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to just come out and say, ‘I am into women,’ because, maybe he really wasn’t hitting on me (maybe he just wanted to make a new friend. Doubtful, but still…), and that would be interpreted as awkward and rude. Also, I had already told him my age (27). I thought it was creepy that someone 22 years older than me—someone old enough to be my parent!—was hitting on me. I mean, “middle-aged-man” is the exact opposite category from the type of people I am attracted to. I like 20 to 30 year old women.

If I were a woman, it would have been perfectly socially acceptable to flat out say, ‘you’re a creepy old man. Get away from me.’ But if I said that, it could come across as homophobic. So, I couldn’t just tell the truth—I am straight—since it might come across as awkward. I couldn’t point out the creepiness of the age dynamic since that might be interpreted as a homophobic excuse. And, I couldn’t lie and tell him that my friend Angela and I are dating, since I had already told him that Angela and I are just friends.

If Taylor, the beautiful curly haired blond, was not there, I would have lied and said Angela was my girlfriend. But I was hoping for the chance to talk to Taylor, so I had told the truth. Since I was the designated driver, I played that up and said I needed to get going, and after awhile, Angela and I were finally able to escape Al’s conversation and fake pouting at my reticience towards his advances, and we left without me getting the chance to talk to Taylor (who was still surrounded by the herd of every twenty-something male in the bar).

I am not a redneck gay basher. I am also not a 21st century enlightened tolerant man. I am probably smack dab in the middle, the embodiment of Seinfeld’s comment on gays, “…not that there’s anything wrong with that.” I am a typical male who tries to be tolerant and open minded, but is still slightly uncomfortable around gay men. I realize the flaw lies with me. But on the bright side, I used to always get made fun of in high school for wearing mismatching clothes. This proves my fashion sense most certainly has improved since then.

*Name of the bar changed for purposes of anonymity AND to give a better picture of the environment.

Huckabee and Edwards are Catty Mean Girls

2008-01-07T15:38:00.001-05:00

“Change over experience,” scream the pundits, newsmen, and Monday Morning Quarterbacks after Thursday night’s Iowa caucuses. Republican Mike Huckabee and democrat Barack Obama, the first round winners in this year’s presidential race, are viewed as agents of change. Frank Rich called it in his Sunday New York Times column, "They Didn't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow". But, it is not Obama who should be lumped in with Huckabee. It is Huckabee’s fellow prophet of doom, democrat John Edwards, who should be linked, says Washington Post columnist George Will, in "Iowa's Histrionic Hucksters".

There are two wings in the modern Republican Party; the social conservative wing, and the economic, Wall Street, conservative wing. One, as Will says, wants to “take back this nation for Christ,” and the other wants to “take back the nation for James Madison.” These two wings tolerate one another, so long as they allow the other to exist. It is an uneasy alliance that mixes rich businessmen who secretly pay for their teenage daughter’s abortions with evangelical Christians who probably think Dow Jones is a local preacher.

But Mike Huckabee, the modern William Jennings Bryan (despite Will’s allusion of John Edwards to the famed lawyer/three-time presidential candidate), is a Christian populist who rejects the Wall Street message, simultaneously opposing the murder of unborn children (sorry for the blunt language; that is what it is) and favoring government spending to help the poor. He is on a messianic mission to save America. This man, outspent twenty to one by republican contender Mitt Romney, was able to beat the former Massachusetts governor, he of the heretical Mormon faith, through the grace of the One True God. Huckabee won, by “the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people.” George Will says, “God so loves Huckabee’s politics that He worked a Midwest miracle on his behalf? Should someone so delusional control nuclear weapons?”

John Edwards is no less messianic in his populism. Obama wants the establishment and the pandered-to masses to hold hands and sing kumbaya. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is the establishment. Edwards excoriates the establishment, speaking out against the supposed futility of working with the producers of corporate greed.

Could we call Edwards and Huckabee Old Testament-style populist prophets of doom? No. Edwards and Huckabee are not true prophets. They do not follow in the footsteps of Isaiah and Elijah, Micah and Amos, or the one man worthy of a messiah complex, Jesus Christ, the Messiah Himself. Huckabee and Edwards are Cady Heron, Regina George and Gretchen Wieners, Mean Girls who smile to each other’s face, but talk gossip behind the back. Huckabee and Edwards are typical teenage girls who act friendly, but throw the “bitch,” “slut,” and “whore” accusations around to improve their own fragile social standing.

Sure, Huckabee and Edwards speak out against the Man. They condemn corporate greed, and the fat cats who get rich off the poor. But, do they ever do this at fat cat meetings? No, they preach to the choir, to friendly crowds who buy into their message. They are not true prophets, but rather cowards. Those Old Testament prophets directed their message to the bad guys; they didn’t sit around talking about the bad guys to crowds of fawning admirers. Jesus didn’t say, “let’s go tell those Pharisees, I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword.” He told the bad guys themselves, “I bring a sword.”

Huckabee and Edwards are telling America to repent of its sinful, corporate greedy, ways. But, they aren’t telling “America” that. They are kissing America’s ass, and telling America we need to fight together some ephemeral enemy.

Sorry, Huckabee. Sorry, Edwards. You can’t fight the Man by pandering to the common man. If Huck and Edwards want to be prophets of change, they need to bring that message to those corporate baddies they believe are ruining America. It doesn’t cut it to smile politely at the establishment, then call the populist people on the phone and spread the class warfare gossip. Huckabee and Edwards are no Messiahs. They are just small town Mean Girls.

Giants Face Their Battle of New Orleans against the Patriots

2007-12-27T15:34:00.000-05:00

On January 8, 1815, Andrew Jackson led American forces to victory over the British at the Battle of New Orleans. The British sustained 2000 casualties, while the Americans lost as few as 100. This great victory made Andrew Jackson a national hero and household name, propelling him to one of America’s most eventful presidencies.

But the battle was otherwise meaningless. Two weeks earlier, on Christmas Eve 1814, the U.S. and Britain signed a peace treaty in Ghent, modern-day Belgium, officially ending the War of 1812. But since people did not yet have wireless Internet, the news reached American shore too late to stop war’s final battle.

My New York Giants face a similar battle on Saturday. They play the mighty undefeated New England Patriots. In the grand scheme of things, the game is meaningless. The Giants are 10-5, and locked into the 5 seed in the playoffs. They play Tampa Bay in round one whether they finish 11-5 or 10-6. Ninety-nine percent of the time, teams sit their best players to avoid injury. But New England is the first team to ever start a regular season 15-0, and has a chance to be only the second team in the Super Bowl era to complete an unbeaten regular season. The Giants have a chance to ruin history and make a name for themselves. A chance, I believe, that makes the injury risk worth it.

Sure, the Giants need their stars healthy to make a deep playoff run. But I know this Giants team. If they are anything, they are inconsistent. The Giants have not put together three straight consistent games all year, and I don’t see it happening in the playoffs. They will not play three straight solid games. They will not make the Super Bowl. This week is their Super Bowl. The game will be simulcast on NBC and CBS. If the Giants can shock the world, they will be remembered as the one team to beat the NFL’s all-time greatest team (which the 2007 Patriots will go down as when they take home the Lombardi trophy in February). If the Giants pull off the upset, Eli Manning can have his Andrew Jackson moment and make a name for himself. This is his fifth up-and-down season, and if he is going to make what Bill Simmons calls The Leap, it is now or never. If Elishah Manning is ever going to be a great quarterback, if he is going to lead the Giants to glory sometime in the next half decade, if he is going to ride a chariot of fire to Super Bowl heaven, like his Biblical prophet namesake’s friend Elijah, then he needs to make like the Americans at the battle of New Orleans, even if the Giants already signed their playoff ticket Treaty at Ghent in last week’s victory over the Bills.

PC Christmas Story (A day late, but still...)

2007-12-26T20:08:00.000-05:00

And Joseph went up from Galilee to Bethlehem with Mary, his espoused wife, who was great with child. And she brought forth a son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. And the angel of the Lord spoke to the shepherds and said, "I bring you tidings of great joy. Unto you is born a Savior, which is Christ the Lord."

"There's a problem with the angel," said a Pharisee who happened to be strolling by. As he explained to Joseph, angels are widely regarded as religious symbols, and the stable was on public property where such symbols were not allowed to land or even hover.

"And I have to tell you, this whole thing looks to me very much like a Nativity scene," he said sadly. "That's a no-no, too." Joseph had a bright idea. "What if I put a couple of reindeer over there near the ox and ass?" he said, eager to avoid sectarian strife.

"That would definitely help," said the Pharisee, who knew as well as anyone that whenever a savior appeared, judges usually liked to be on the safe side and surround it with deer or woodland creatures of some sort. "Just to clinch it, throw in a candy cane and a couple of elves and snowmen, too," he said. "No court can resist that."

Mary asked, "What does my son's birth have to do with snowmen?" "Snowpersons," cried a young woman, changing the subject before it veered dangerously toward religion. Off to the side of the crowd, a Philistine was painting the Nativity scene. Mary complained that she and Joseph looked too tattered and worn in the picture. "Artistic license," he said. "I've got to show the plight of the haggard homeless in a greedy, uncaring society in winter," he quipped. "We're not haggard or homeless. The inn was just full," said Mary. "Whatever," said the painter.

Two women began to argue fiercely. One said she objected to Jesus' birth "because it privileged motherhood." The other scoffed at virgin births, but said that if they encouraged more attention to diversity in family forms and the rights of single mothers, well, then, she was all for them. "I'm not a single mother," Mary started to say, but she was cut off by a third woman who insisted that swaddling clothes are a form of child abuse, since they restrict the natural movement of babies.

With the arrival of 10 child advocates, all trained to spot infant abuse and manger rash, Mary and Joseph were pushed to the edge of the crowd, where arguments were breaking out over how many reindeer (or what mix of reindeer and seasonal sprites) had to be installed to compensate for the infant's unfortunate religious character.

An older man bustled up, bowling over two merchants, who had been busy debating whether an elf is the same as a fairy and whether the elf/fairy should be shaking hands with Jesus in the crib or merely standing to the side, jumping around like a sports mascot.

"I'd hold off on the reindeer," the man said, explaining that the use of asses and oxen as picturesque backdrops for Nativity scenes carries the subliminal message of human dominance. He passed out two leaflets, one denouncing manger births as invasions of animal space, the other arguing that stables are "penned environments" where animals are incarcerated against their will. He had no opinion about elves or candy canes.

Signs declaring "Free the Bethlehem 2" began to appear, referring to the obviously exploited ass and ox. Someone said the halo on Jesus' head was elitist. Mary was exasperated. "And what about you, old mother?" she said sharply to an elderly woman. "Are you here to attack the shepherds as prison guards for excluded species, maybe to complain that singing in Latin identifies us with our Roman oppressors, or just to say that I should have skipped patriarchal religiosity and joined some dumb new-age goddess religion?"

"None of the above," said the woman, "I just wanted to tell you that the Magi are here." Sure enough, the three wise men rode up. The crowd gasped, "They're all male!" And "Not very multicultural!" "Balthasar here is black," said one of the Magi. "Yes, but how many of you are gay or disabled?" someone shouted. A committee was quickly formed to find an impoverished lesbian wise-person among the halt and lame of Bethlehem.

A calm voice said, "Be of good cheer, Mary, you have done well and your son will change the world." At last, a sane person, Mary thought. She turned to see a radiant and confident female face. The woman spoke again: "There is one thing, though. Religious holidays are important, but can't we learn to celebrate them in ways that unite, not divide? For instance, instead of all this business about 'Gloria in excelsis Deo,' why not just 'Season's Greetings'?"

Mary said, "You mean my son has entered human history to deliver the message, 'Hello, it's winter'?" "That's harsh, Mary," said the woman. "Remember, your son could make it big in midwinter festivals, if he doesn't push the religion thing too far. Centuries from now, in nations yet unborn, people will give each other pricey gifts and have big office parties on his birthday. That's not chopped liver."

"Let me get back to you," Mary said.*

*Not sure where I found this. Whoever the author is, s/he deserves credit for a job well done.

Why an Atheist Cannot be President

2007-12-21T10:56:00.000-05:00

In less than 11 months, we may have our first woman president-elect; or we may have our first black president-elect; or we may have our first Mormon president-elect (who would double as our first Ken-doll president-elect). But we will not have our first atheist president-elect. No out-of-the-closet atheist is running. No open atheist could run. There are still a handful of Americans who wouldn’t vote for a woman or a black man, and there is a sizable minority who would not vote Latter-Day-Saint. But an atheist in America does not have a prayer.

Is hostility to atheism the last acceptable prejudice? Is it wrong for Americans to dismiss a man for his lack of religious conviction and endorse (at least on the Republican side) Mr. William Jennings Bryan 2000 (Mike Huckabee) and his 10,000-year-old earth?

I don’t believe opposition to atheism is an irrational prejudice. Strident atheism, I really think, is incompatible with our American way of life. No, Americans are not itching for a return to Christendom. We like religious freedom. We are religiously tolerant. Each December, we have a public melting pot of crèche, Santa Claus, menorah, and Kwanzaa displays. But atheism by its very nature is intolerant and incompatible. As much as an atheist may claim tolerance and respect towards other beliefs, in his secret heart he thinks all religious claims are bullshit.

A devout Christian no doubt thinks her religion is superior to, say, Hinduism or Buddhism. An orthodox Jew believes he is one of God’s specially chosen people. A staunch Muslim believes he is closer to Allah than the infidel. Anyone strongly committed to her faith by definition believes followers of other religions are “wrong” when their beliefs go against or contradict the dogma of her creed. For example, Christians believe in resurrection of the dead. Reincarnation is not a part of Christian doctrine. Therefore, a Christian, of course, would believe that the Buddhist belief in reincarnation is wrong. Islam, for example, believes that God would never become human. God is transcendent, and always outside the world. So, of course, Muslims by definition would reject the Christian belief in the Incarnation. A good Muslim must believe that faith in Jesus Christ as God Incarnate, as the Second Person in the Trinity, is wrong.

But, these criticisms between religions differ from atheist critiques of faith in a vital way. Religious criticism of other faiths is secondary, while atheistic criticism of faith is primary. Christianity, by definition, may consider Hinduism in error on the afterlife. Islam and Judaism may consider Christianity in error on the nature of Jesus. But the primary belief of Christianity is not that everyone else is partly (or more than partly) wrong. The primary tenet of Christianity is faith in the Incarnation, redeeming death, and Resurrection of Christ; the rest just follows secondarily. Judaism may consider other faiths to be in error; but its primary belief is not in the error of others but in the covenantal relationship between God and His people. Islam may consider non-Muslims infidels; but its primary point is not the error of others, but that there is one God, Allah, and Muhammad is His prophet.

However, the primary belief of atheism is the fallacy of everyone else. For atheism, “you are wrong” comes first. As a Christian, if I meet a Muslim, I know he thinks I am partly in error. But that is just a side effect of his primary beliefs. When I meet an atheist, he thinks first and foremost that my belief is wrong. In fact, that is all he’s got. The ONLY thing he believes is that I am wrong (as is everyone else who believes in anything more than the natural world).

We Americans are pluralistic. We each believe in God in our own way, and most of us are open to the idea that another faith might be right, or at least right in some ways. We believe differently, but we respect one another for believing in something more than ourselves. But atheists, frankly, make us uncomfortable. They don’t see different faiths as different (if not less valid) ways to God. They condescendingly see all faith as childish. As Boston College philosopher Peter Kreeft says, “To be an atheist is to be a snob. For it is to believe that 9 out of every 10 people who ever lived were wrong in their deepest, most heartfelt beliefs.” And, for some evidence of this snobbery, read the new books by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, or read the comments section from any article on the New York Times website dealing with religion or faith.

If you really want to understand these obnoxious atheists, just think back to high school, and think of the nerds who couldn’t understand why the girls always dated the good-looking athletes. They failed to see how condescending they really were to the “average”-intelligence kids. Atheists share this same befuddlement towards the beliefs of religious people. “How can she date that guy instead of me?” “How can she believe in such superstitious fantasy?” The nerd will continue to get bypassed for prom court, and the atheist will continue to get bypassed for higher office.

No One Ever Had An Original Thought

2007-12-17T12:05:00.001-05:00

I have never had an original thought. That’s right. Everything I’ve ever said was already formulated by greater minds. I am like that Harvard asshole with the ponytail who tries to impress a girl by embarrassing Ben Affleck at that bar in Good Will Hunting. No worries, I don’t need Matt Damon’s Will Hunting to tell me:

“Were you gonna plagiarize the whole thing for us? Do you have any thoughts of your own on this matter? Or do you…is that your thing? You come into a bar. You read some obscure passage and then pretend…You pawn it off as your own idea just to impress some girls and embarrass my friend? See the sad thing about a guy like you is in 50 years you’re gonna start doin’ some thinkin’ on your own and you’re gonna come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life. One: don’t do that. And, two: you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a fuckin’ education you coulda’ got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library.”

But, again, I’m no genius. I’m no Will Hunting. I’m not even a Zack Morris (1502 SAT score). Sure, I’m semi-smart. My SAT’s were a 650 math, 620 verbal, and my GRE’s were a 710 math, 580 verbal. I can outwit your average meathead, but I’m just a routine deja-vu. It’s all been said and done before.

I believe Marxism is morally bankrupt and intellectually flawed. Marx may have said all history is class conflict, but it just ain’t true. Is this my own conclusion? No way. I can thank Boston College philosopher Peter Kreeft and his book Socrates meets Marx.

The Enlightenment? Its account of morality is flawed and unsustainable. We have two options: embrace Nietzsche and his critiques or, even better, go back to Aristotle. Whose brilliant theory is this? I wish it were mine, but it belongs to Notre Dame philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, and his book After Virtue.

I believe without God, anything goes. “If there is no God, all is lawful.” Either I made this idea up, or I took it from Dostoyevsky (his novel The Brothers Karamazov) and Nietzsche (his tract Thus Spoke Zarathustra; “God is dead”).

I believe in the small of a woman’s back and opening presents on Christmas Day, not Christmas Eve. Thank you, Kevin Costner and Bull Durham.

I believe teacher certification should not be required, and anyone with a bachelors degree is qualified (not necessarily capable, but definitely qualified) to teach. That’s my brilliant theory or Nicholas Kristof's. Take your pick.

I believe in the the abolition of the designated hitter, but this personal dogma did not emit from the eminence of my vast mind. It grew in the brittle brains of every grumpy old man who thinks baseball was better when there were only 16 teams and no free agency.

I believe the Mets are the new Red Sox, which may be my own idea, but the idea of “this is the new that,” “X is the new Y,” “40 is the new 30,” and all the other new things is not my idea, but a tired cliché that I unfortunately borrowed. And, my use of pop culture comparisons with sports was a new, unique idea…about ten years ago, when Bill Simmons got famous taking the fan angle as a sportswriter. Now, there are a million terrible rip-offs (like me) doing the same thing as Bill Simmons, but only not as well, since Simmons is a sports-fan genius, a pioneer, and knows what he’s doing (and, yes, I’m kissing his ass. If you type in “Bill Simmons Sucks” on Google, there are 78,900 links. I’m counteracting the ever-expanding circle of jealous haters out there).

There are very few Great Ideas. Rare is the Original Thought. And, with the change in the history curriculum, there may be no more. Yes, the history curriculum has changed. History used to be the study of cool things like wars, great men, and the way these leaders shaped the world and affected history. Now, the Great Man theory of history is being de-emphasized, and historians focus on boring things, like social structures from below, and what the common people were doing; running their farms, selling their goods, and all the other bland everyday-life stuff that we all have to do but don’t really care about.

Yet, when you look at historical change, what propels it? Great ideas. Great inventions. Great leaders. Aristotle gave us logic. Alexander the Great conquered the world. Einstein discovered the theory of relativity. Ford made the Model-T. Copernicus gave us modern astronomy. Descartes started modern philosophy. The Founding Fathers (brilliant men all) gave the world its greatest-to-date experiment with representative democracy. Yeah, everyday life happens with the common people. But, history is propelled by Great Men. They give us those Original Thoughts we debate and discuss.

But, I have never met any of these Great Men. One, most of them are dead. And, two, I have yet to meet any of the few great living ones (like Stephen Hawking). Even my college professors—as smart as many of them are—they weren’t giving me their own theories, but the theories of pioneers who went before them. Is greatness even possible? Honestly, I’m afraid not. I’ve met many humans, and humans just aren’t capable of much more than thinking about great inventions and great ideas.

Every real great invention and unique thought, I must conclude, come not from earth, but from aliens, who, time to time, come down to earth, and implant these ideas in the minds of certain men, or, in some cases, inhabit the bodies of men and give off these great ideas (for the record, aliens gave Isaac Newton his great ideas. Albert Einstein, however, really was an alien. What, are you surprised? Aliens may be brilliant, but they have no sense of hair fashion). The aliens, who look after us, come down from time to time and give mankind a new invention when they feel it’s time for us to advance again. If they didn’t, we humans would start worrying about the lack of new technology, and we’d start killing each other. It happened during World War II. In 1945, the aliens realized they needed to stop our imminent self-extinction, so they gave us the atom bomb to end the war. In retrospect, they could have given us a giant fireworks display, but even they didn’t yet know the power of a split atom.

But even this—this great theory of civilization-advancement—is not mine. The Alien Support theory (that’s what I call it) comes from my dad. He made up this theory and used it farcically (I think it’s a farcical theory. He never really lets on whether he really believes it. He also has a theory on how the moon landing was staged. So go figure) in a grad school paper for one of those piece-of-cake education classes. As Will Hunting might say (in a different context; I know, I’m stretching it), “How bout ‘dem apples!”

Chuck Norris Roundhouse Kicks Huckabee to Frontrunner Status

2007-11-20T14:54:00.000-05:00

Unless we are Vegas bookies, we cannot accurately predict Super Bowl, World Series, and Final Four winners. But we can be damned certain, before the confetti has settled and the championship hangovers have been slept off, the ESPN talking heads will start predicting next year's winner. Yes, we are an impatient society. If we had been present at Creation, we'd have said to God, "enough with this day of rest. Make something new." This restlessness extends beyond sports, to the world of politics. Before George W. Bush could be sworn in on Inauguration Day 2005, pundits began anointing Hillary Clinton as frontrunner for 2008.

Many people hate Hillary. I mean, hate Hillary. Some of it has to do with policy differences. But, let's not kid ourselves. Most of it is sexism. Really, do we need to call her a bitch? Must every strong woman be called the b-word, if not the c-word? Frankly, I'm not thrilled about Hillary, but I think she'd make a good president. She is intelligent, she's experienced, she's pragmatically opposed to the Iraq War, but she's not one of those nutty peaceniks who think America is always wrong and we should hold bake sales for bombs. Plus, if she has questions, she has a brilliant former President she can visit in the bedroom for advice (his bedroom; we know they have an FDR-Eleanor relationship). And, look how much trouble Bill got in when he was Commander-in-Chief. Think how much trouble he'll get in running around the White House as a male first lady. The Hollywood writers strike can go on forever; those late-night jokes will write themselves.

I mean, what are the alternatives? Barack Obama and his plithy platitudes about nothing? John Edwards, the $400 haircut and the 10 cent ambulance chaser? Dennis Kucinich has a hot wife and wins the illegal alien vote (I'm talking real, UFO aliens, not border crossing Mexicans. We're gonna need those Mexicans, otherwise we'll have no one to build the border fence). Joe Biden would be a great President to compliment all those clean and articulate black men. But, really, if we want someone other than Hillary Clinton, we must look to the Republican side.

Sadly, it's not much prettier on the Elephant side. Unless we are talking spouses. Fred Thompson has a hot wife. Mitt Romney has a gold-plated policy book that no one can see but him, and if you vote for Mitt, he might just find some young teenage brides to add to your polygamous harem (if that's your cup of tea). I think Fred Thompson just fell asleep. No, we have to look back in the pack, to my new favorite candidate, Mike Huckabee. Yes, I am man-crush smitten. I ♥ Huckabee (even if the movie I ♥ Huckabee sucks).

Huckabee is endorsed by Mr. Walker, Texas Ranger, himself. Chuck Norris teamed with Huckabee to create the ad of the political season, thus far. Enjoy!

Shoot for the Moon; Face It, the Stars are Too Far

2007-11-13T16:58:00.000-05:00

I hope my New York Giants make it to the Super Bowl and get destroyed by the New England Patriots. Oh, sure, I’d be overjoyed if they actually won the big game, but I’m realistic. I know that nobody is beating the Patriots this season. I’d be happy if the Giants put forth a goal-line stand on the inevitable “rub-it-in” touchdown drive by Tom Brady & Co. late in the 4th quarter with a 30 point New England lead.

I’ve learned to temper my expectations. I used to believe in shooting for the stars; if you fail—hey!—you’ve still reached the moon. But, really, if you shoot for the stars, you’re going to run out of jet-fuel, and crash land on earth. Why not aim a little bit lower in the first place, for the moon, and if you have leftover gas after the lunar expedition, then keep going for the stars.

There’s nothing wrong with being second best, and there’s nothing wrong with settling for your backup plan. If only the Teachers Union would learn this. I’ve rambled ad-nauseum in earlier posts (see http://spidgetales.blogspot.com/2007/08/lets-end-pointless-teacher.html, or better yet, read NYTimes Columnist Nicholas Kristof, a far better writer than me: http://select.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/opinion/30kristof.html) about the inane certification requirements to become a public school teacher, but now I’ve stumbled upon the real reason for certification requirements: the Teachers Union doesn’t want people who see teaching as a fall-back option becoming educators.

Let’s imagine that Bill Gates decides one day, “You know, I’ve made enough money; I’d like to give back to society. I’ll go teach high school kids about computers.” The public schools would say, “Sorry Mr. Gates. You’re not qualified to teach computer class. You only invented the personal computer.” Or imagine Stephen Hawking thinking, “I want to share my scientific mind with the innovators of tomorrow.” The schools would politely decline; “Sorry, Dr. Hawking, you’re not qualified to teach physics. You’re only the greatest physicist in the world.”

The public schools would make these accomplished gentlemen go back to college for certification. This process weeds out those people who see teaching as a (God forbid!) fall-back option, or starter job.

Well, fall-back options and 2nd, 3rd, and 4th choices are the vinegar and baking soda of the 5th grade volcano science project we call life. Sure, Michael Jordan lived his dream; he became the greatest basketball player ever. Jesus Christ didn’t need a fall-back option; He is our Lord and Savior. Muhammad didn’t have to settle for a backup career; Allah revealed Himself in the Holy Qur’an, dictated by the angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad, Blessing and Peace Be Upon Him. Ron Jeremy achieved his goal; he…umm…got a college degree to teach special education (I’m not making this up). But most of us do something other than our childhood dreams.

Even most professional athletes and movie stars are living the backup dream. Do you think that Major League second baseman batting 8th wouldn’t rather be the shortstop batting leadoff? Do you think That Guy in movies playing the comic relief wouldn’t rather be the main star?

Look around you. That beat reporter for the local paper wouldn’t rather be a columnist for the New York Times or Washington Post? That IRS lawyer wouldn’t rather be a partner in a major firm? Let’s look beyond the work-world to the fairytale land of relationships. Do you really think that ugly couple would be holding hands if he weren’t turned down by the head cheerleader and she weren’t rejected by the star quarterback? Brad Pitt is dating his top choice and Angelina Jolie is sleeping with hers. Almost every other man and woman is with a fall-back option.

I won’t lie; I’m a baseball fan because I didn’t make it as a pro baseball player. I’m single because I’m not good looking enough for the girls who’ve turned me down. I write blog posts and Facebook notes because I’m not a good enough writer to get published. I’m a schoolteacher because I’m not smart enough to be a college professor.

But does it make me a bad teacher because I would rather be a baseball player or a writer? Does it make me a bad teacher if I would leave the job to be a columnist for a major magazine or journal? A person can still work hard and embrace his career even if he dreamt of something greater as a child (there are people bitterly and resentfully slogging through careers after failing their first dream. I’m not discussing them here. I’m talking about the majority of people who make do with dream number two…or three…or four). Somebody has to be the backup quarterback in life and hold the clipboard of second career choices.

I know the Teachers Union wants teachers who dreamt of chalkboards and grade books from the time they drank their mother’s milk, then spent their college careers studying Education, followed by 30-year careers in the schools. But would it really be awful if teaching were open to the many intelligent people in fields as diverse as history, English, philosophy, theology, business, biology, chemistry, Latin, and journalism? Would it really be awful if energetic young college grads became teachers as a fall-back option or career starter option, leaving in a few years and making way for more energetic young grads? Would it really be awful if professionals could easily slide into teaching as a second career and give something back to America’s youth? Am I really writing one of those essays with an annoying amount of rhetorical questions?

Sometimes, those people who are living their dream life are a little toooooooooooo enthusiastic. Think of those Type-A personality camp counselors or dorm directors or motivational speakers who are a little toooooooooooo excited to speak in group settings. No, we don’t need teachers who hate their jobs, and are only itching for the chance to move up in the world (we don’t need people like that in any job). But, there’s nothing wrong with men and women who happily, joyfully, teach America’s youth, always putting forth their best effort, even if they grew up dreaming of being lawyers, doctors, and, yes, baseball players. They may even find that the backup dream is greater than the first item on their Santa Claus wish list. Think of teenage movies; the protagonist ends up happiest when he dumps the super hot mean girl (choice #1) for the slightly less hot (but still plenty good-looking) girl with the cool personality (choice #2).

To every day people: lower those expectations, and not only will you appreciate the small victories, the big wins will be like extra whipped cream on the strawberry shortcake of life. I mean, who would you rather be, a New York Giants fan that sees every playoff win as extra gravy on the turkey dinner we call the football season, or a Patriots fan that sees anything less than a Super Bowl championship as spilling the gravy on grandma? To the Teachers Union: get rid of those certifications, and embrace the role of teaching as a “backup quarterback” type of career. Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach gym. And those who can’t teach gym, substitute teach. I’m substitute teaching, and I’m embracing it…at least until I go back to college for my PhD, become a professor and famous writer, and get a hot trophy wife with a mistress on the side.

Doggy Poo: Sometimes Dreams Really Do Come True

2007-11-10T10:09:00.000-05:00

“Once upon a time, a little doggy poo lived on the side of a road. He felt all alone in the world. He believed that nobody needed him for anything, and that he had no purpose in life. If only Doggy Poo had a reason for being, then he wouldn’t give up on his dream to be useful to the world.”

Sometimes I feel useless. What good can I do? What is my purpose? People like soup kitchen volunteers, Boy Scout leaders, and Dane Cook are feeding the hungry, shaping tomorrow’s leaders, and making people not laugh. And here I am, 26 years old, a drain on society, with two useless (B.A. Philosophy, M.A. Theology) degrees, barely making ends meet substitute teaching. My career earnings don’t even match my college and grad school debt. Life couldn’t seem any more meaningless if I bought new shoes, only to walk out of the store and step in doggy poo. But thanks to Korean stop motion animation, I learned that everything has purpose; we are all precious and special, even Doggy Poo.

Young little Doggy Poo sits sullenly on a dirt road in the Korean countryside, forlorn since he can’t figure out his purpose. His friend Soil helps potatoes grow, and his friend leaf can blow through the wind, but Doggy Poo’s life seems so meaningless, he isn’t even worthy of being supper for Mother Hen and her baby chicks (they think he smells and tastes bad).

When Flower sprouts, will Doggy Poo cry tears of joy through finding out his purpose? I could not stifle my tears (I’m serious) watching this delightful stop-motion Korean folktale. Nor could I look at the other teacher in the room, for fear of breaking into laughter. But the sunlight of my life is a little bit brighter, the ice cream sundae of my life has added some colorful sprinkles and tasty hot fudge, the ice skating competition of my life has landed a triple-lutz, thanks to the inspiring story of young Doggy Poo.

Click here http://www.doggypooworld.com/ for the official Doggy Poo webpage. Click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFZIqbocM-s for a one minute Doggy Poo trailer. I couldn’t find the full-length version (30ish minutes) in English, but there are short cuts from the film on YouTube and Google Video if you use their search engines. And, you can buy it on Amazon.

Proof of God's Existence: A Critique of Christopher Hitchens' not-so-great book

2007-10-30T14:36:00.001-04:00

I saw proof of God’s existence at a public school. My seeds of doubt, planted by the witty verbatim of that scotch swilling, verb shilling, British import Christopher Hitchens, were gloriously uprooted in a high school auditorium. A presentation called Rachel's Challenge, a program in honor of Rachel Scott, victim of the Columbine Massacre, cleansed my heart of Hitchens’ poison; through the glimpse of a tear-stained rose, I was reminded, like Antoine Exupery’s Little Prince, that what is essential is invisible to the eye.

Hitchens rightly prefaces God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything with a quote from Ivan Karamazov’s The Grand Inquisitor, the famous legend in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. Hitchens is no emotionless logician, content to politely throw syllogisms at his opponent, waiting patiently for his argument to win out in the friendly match of ideas. He is a combative rhetorician; like Nietzsche, ready to philosophize with a hammer. His battle with God is no trite intellectual exercise; like Ivan Karamazov, creator of that grand indictment of the deity, Hitchens is in rebellion with the Almighty.

“Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature—that baby beating its breast with its fist for instance—and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth.” So asks Ivan to his brother, the saintly Alyosha. Hitchens uses this quote to open chapter 16. Yet, it serves Hitchens as not much more than an anecdote, to later bring his chapter on religion as child abuse to closure. To serve his purpose, he could have done more. That tiny passage contains the greatest argument against God in all of literature.

In Book V, chapter 4, of The Brothers Karamazov: Rebellion, Ivan outlines his case against God. He understands Christian theodicy. He understands the dilemma (If God is omnipotent and good, how come evil exists? An omnipotent God who allows evil could not be good; a good God who allows evil could not omnipotent, or he would stop evil). He understands the Christian answer (God gives man free will; man freely chose evil). But Ivan gives examples, such as the baby beating its fist, above, and a child torn to pieces by dogs on order of a soldier. Even if that poor child goes to heaven, and even if the evil abusers burn in the fires of hell, even if harmony is restored and all sing hosanna gloriously to God, Ivan still cannot accept a world built on the suffering of children. It is a foolproof argument, and Dostoyevksy, Ivan’s creator, admitted as much. Hitchens follows in Ivan’s grand tradition, and his argument could have been greater advanced if he explored Ivan’s dilemma more. Hitchens is a literary critic, and what better angle to advance his thesis than to grapple with the most famous fictional opponent of what he considers the world’s great poison?

While Richard Dawkins attacks religion from the perspective of Darwinism in The God Delusion, Hitchens has entered into rebellion against God. He writes an invective history of God, chronicling religion’s lacerations into the heart of man. If one wants to write a negative history, pick a broad enough topic, and one can do it. Howard Zinn chose the United States and created a history of America through the paradigm of Western imperialism in A People’s History of the United States. Hitchens’s target is religion, Western, Eastern, and anything in between.

Sins in the name of God are legion, and there is no triangulation around the critiques presented in this book. From Hitchens’s framework, as from Ivan’s framework, the argument against God is logically unassailable. To critique an atheist argument from a Christian perspective is similar to critiquing a theocracy from a democratic perspective. Like Alistair MacIntyre’s explanation of competing moral claims in chapter two of After Virtue, arguments pro and contra just-war, abortion, socialized medicine, and other divisive issues cannot be solved when each side frames the issue from internally logically valid, but non-crossing, perspectives. Dostoyevksy does not attempt a logical response to Ivan through one of his Christian characters, but rather presents a compelling alternative in the Christ-like love of Fr. Zossima, and shows the fruitlessness of Ivan’s lifestyle. That is, Ivan’s beliefs may be logically coherent, but they are unlivable.

I must confess, immediately after completing Hitchens’s book, I was troubled. There is so much wrong with the world, and much is caused by religion. I even pondered a world without God. But, at the school where I teach, students, faculty, and staff were brought to the auditorium for a presentation. At that high school presentation, I was touched by the life story of Rachel Scott, first victim of the Columbine shooting in 1999. A beautiful young woman at the dawn of life, she was a wonderful poet and artist. She preached kindness and tolerance, and encouraged people to ‘pass it on,’ so to speak; she believed we should do good deeds for others when others are kind to us. Soon after the shooting, the speaker told us, a random man from Ohio called the father of Rachel Scott and told him of a vision he had in his sleep. He described it in detail. The father didn’t know what to make of it, but a few weeks later after looking through Rachel’s final diary entry, he noticed a picture she drew the morning of the shootings—a picture that matched perfectly that random man’s heretofore unexplained vision: she drew two eyes, spilling forth thirteen tears onto a rose (thirteen was the number of innocents murdered that day). My faith—in God, in religion, in humanity—was restored.

The Rockies, Religion, & Baseball: Josh Beckett Outpitches God

2007-10-25T16:48:00.000-04:00

The Colorado Rockies are in the World Series and it’s a Miracle! This is no small m miracle, like winning 21 out of 22 games just to make the playoffs, sweep the first two rounds, and get here. This is a capital M Miracle, with God on their side. Yes, the Rockies are blessed by the Almighty.

The Rockies are not just a baseball team. They are a Christian organization. Ben Shpigel writes in his New York Times article, “Rockies Place Their Faith in God, and One Another, (www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/sports/baseball/23rockies.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)” that the Rockies look to build a roster based on Christian virtue. Lewd magazines like Maxim and Playboy are banned from the clubhouse, and the team seeks to sign players “with integrity and strong moral values.” There is no compulsion or pressure to become Christian, as player Jason Hirsh, of the Jewish faith, “said not once during the season had he felt uncomfortable with the place Christianity occupies within the organization.” But Dave Zirin of leftwing publication The Nation is concerned by the effort to unite religion and faith in the workplace. In response to Hirsh’s comment, “It’s not like they hung a cross in my locker or anything. They’ve accepted me for who I am and what I believe in,” Zirin, in “The Rockies Get off Their Knees (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071105/zirin),” derisively remarks, “That could be a great pitch for recruiting free agents: ‘They won’t hang a cross in your locker!’”

Is Zirin right? Zirin says “freedom of religion should also mean freedom from religion at the ballpark, it doesn’t matter if you call it Buddha-Jesus-Jewish-Vishnu-Islamic-Wicca Awareness day. We just want to go to the ballpark without feeling like we’re covertly funding Focus on the Family’s gay retraining programs. Religion and sports: it’s a marriage in desperate need of divorce.”

If professional sports were public entities, by law employees—manager, players, coaches—would be asked to keep their religious beliefs to themselves. But baseball is a private business, and private businesses can be set up in support of particular viewpoints and goals. A car dealership exists to sell cars. An environmental group exists to promote conservation. It seems fair to ask, why not allow the Rockies to promote a business goal of proselytizing and playing, bible and baseball. If they wish to alienate fans, it is their financial loss. If players do not wish to play in a Christian organization, there are plenty of secular baseball teams to try out for.

But our society is more than one of religious toleration. Religious toleration allows for one faith to be promoted, while members of other faiths must step back and practice in private. The only way we have found so far to make all people equal is to ask that all faiths step into the background once people enter the public sphere. No one religious belief or philosophy may be seen as normative. It is only considered acceptable to promote a specific faith in a group whose express purpose is faith based. In Catholic schools, it is now common for religion to only be taught in religion class. Catholic Charities in California is required to cover birth control in their health plans, under the notion that their express purpose is not religious. Since the Colorado Rockies primary purpose is baseball, it is considered a faux pas to mix faith with the ball-field, especially if it is a specific faith and not some abstract Unitarian notion of pluralism.

The risk in a society based on a specific faith is the danger of persecution towards non-believers. The danger in a society based on the idea that, “at the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existing, of meaning, of the universe and the mystery of life,” as Anthony Kennedy said in his famous ‘sweet mystery of life’ soliloquy in the Supreme Court decision Casey vs. Planned Parenthood, is that people will have nothing binding them together. For all the melancholy meanderings about the joy of deciding our own beliefs, people cannot be inspired by abstract ideas like “it doesn’t matter what you have faith in; as long as you have faith in something.” People need a common cause, something like—no, more than like, more like specifically—God to rally around and believe in.

It may be necessary in today’s pluralistic society to put our religious beliefs away when we go into public. Like smoking, religion maybe needs to be tolerated so long as we leave the room and not come back until we put out those faith filled ashes. Yes, maybe this is the only way. But, we must admit, something is lost when what we value must be put aside in polite society.

Maybe God is not on the Rockies side, after all. Maybe He doesn’t want baseball and Himself mixed. The Rockies got smoked in game one of the World Series 13-1. But, then again, Red Sox ace Josh Beckett is a fireballer from Texas, God’s home state. The Rockies hopes aren’t too promising tonight either; Curt Schilling—the right arm of God Himself—is pitching for the Red Sox.

Transformers: Not More than Meets the Eye

2007-10-24T16:21:00.000-04:00

What song should you put on the car radio as you drive by that pretty girl? What tune should play as you drive that fine young lady home? The answer is Before It’s Too Late, by the Goo Goo Dolls (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp__g0bahfQ). And Shia Labeouf doesn’t even have to figure it out for himself; his car chooses the song for him as he gives the gorgeous Megan Fox a ride home. The car plays wingman all the way, even stalling at a make-out point. Labeouf doesn’t know it yet, but his car is Bumblebee, a non-biological extra terrestrial life form, sent to earth to fight the evil Decepticons in the live action movie The Transformers.

Megan Fox—I cannot stress this enough—is the hottest actress you have never heard of. She is “makes me lust in my heart” stunning. Even without the amazing special effects of the transformer robots, her physical presence would make this film watchable. She fills the role of the token hot chick that, at first glance, appears to be a self-obsessed drama queen who dates jerks because she can’t help falling for tight abs and strong arms. She even says so. But, fear not, she is the token hot chick who is emotionally deeper than at first glance. Shia Labeouf realizes this, and tells her she is “more than meets the eye.”

Bumblebee, Optimus Prime, and the rest of the Autobots, a race of autonomous robot life forms made famous in the cartoon series The Transformers, need Shia’s help to find the All Spark, a cube that can turn mechanical objects to life, and keep it away from Megatron and the evil Decepticons, or else earth will be destroyed just like Cybertron, the home planet of the Transformers. The stakes could not be higher, as we see in Optimus Prime’s and Megatron’s mano a mano (roboto a roboto?) battle. “Humans don’t deserve to live,” yells Megatron. “They deserve to choose for themselves,” retorts Optimus Prime. The fate of humanity—and bad dialogue—is at stake, as the Autobots and Decepticons continue the war of Cyberton on earth in this cinematic masterpiece.

Thoughts on the Baseball Playoffs

2007-10-19T15:49:00.000-04:00

What do your parents, the English language, Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, the awful taste of peas, and bad television sitcoms have in common? They’ve always been there. As far back as you can remember they were a part of your life. You can’t even remember life without them. Kenny Lofton fits right in there. I cannot remember Kenny Lofton not being in the Major Leagues. As long as I’ve known what baseball was, Kenny Lofton patrolled centerfield for the Cleveland Indians.

I didn’t even know Kenny Lofton was still playing, but the real life Willie Mays Hays came from nowhere to add flair to this season’s playoffs. On Monday night, in game three of the ALCS between the Indians and the Boston Red Sox, there stood “Cool Papa” Lofton (a nickname given by ESPN writer Bill Simmons), sending a Dice-K fastball over the leftfield wall for a two-run homerun. Later, Lofton stole second and passed Rickey Henderson for the career postseason stolen bases record. Rickey Henderson still leads Kenny in career regular season steals, but I bet if we combined Lofton’s Major League stats with his totals from the Negro Leagues, he’d be right up there with Rickey. Seriously, what? Jackie Robinson wasn’t available to pinch-hit? You know the Red Sox are in trouble if they’re getting beat by a team that has to role out journeyman Kenny Lofton.

Yeah, the Sox won last night. But, that’s because Josh Beckett has turned into God in the postseason. The Indians tried icing him by bringing in ex-girlfriend (and legitimate hottie) Danielle Peck (http://www.daniellepeck.com/) to sing the national anthem. Heck, I’m even developing a man-crush on Beckett. He stared down our old friend “Cool Papa” Lofton when Kenny dropped his bat, almost starting a bench-clearing brawl. Fists stayed put, though. Beckett saved his punch-outs for the Indians batting order, racking up 11 K’s in eight innings, leading Boston to a 7-1 win, and reducing their deficit to 3-2.

But if I were Boston, I wouldn’t be too confident with Schilling and Dice-K set to pitch this weekend. Like Mom and Dad, the English language, Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, the awful taste of peas, and bad TV sitcoms, Red Sox fans can’t remember a time when they didn’t expect to lose. That Calvinistic pessimism disappeared after 2004, but like Kenny Lofton, it’s back.

There's Only ONE October!...and Dane Cook's a Tool

2007-10-15T16:52:00.000-04:00

“There was an old lady who swallowed a fly
I don’t know why she swallowed that fly
Perhaps she’ll die.”

Joba Chamberlain did not allow one runner in scoring position to touch home plate all season. His fastball packs more heat than John Madden’s ass after a Mexican dinner. His curveball hooks left more than a college faculty member. When he comes in for the New York Yankees each 8th inning, opponents ought just take off their cleats and hit the showers. It would take a biblical plague to score off Joba. Alas, that is what happened in game two of the American League Division Series. The Yankees held a 1-0 lead when they brought Joba in to finish of the Cleveland Indians. But thousand of gnats swarmed Jacobs Field from nearby Lake Erie, getting in Joba’s face, Joba’s mouth, leading to an uncharacteristic wild pitch, allowing the tying run to score. The Yankees never recovered, losing that game in extra innings, and losing the series three games to one. The Yankees swallowed some gnats. I don’t know why they swallowed those flies. Their playoff dreams died.

It has been a strange postseason. The New York Mets, the National League’s best team with one week left in the season, missed the playoffs entirely (but enough on that. I think I’ll light myself on fire). The Colorado Rockies, historically known for slugging homer after homer—historically known for serving up homer after homer—have won 19 out of 20 games, mostly with pitching and defense, and are one win away from their first World Series.

You may not have known this, since the playoffs have mostly been on cable this year. TBS has picked up the first round and the National League Championship Series. But, fear not, they have learned from Fox. We could always count on Fox to advertise all those new shows destined for cancellation. TBS has joined in this tradition, presenting us with Frank TV (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIxFyU0gIpE). Those commercials couldn’t be less funny if I punched myself in the face. We get it; Frank Caliendo does impersonations. Next time, find someone who does them funny. It’s like all those Scary Movie, Not Another Teen Movie, Date Movie, and Epic Movie spoofs; it’s not funny just referencing shit; you need to lampoon and satirize it.

But at least when other commercials come on, I don’t forget whose country it is. Whose country is it, again? Oh yeah, “this is ouuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr country! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0HTff63E0I).” Please, just shoot me now and get it over with. But, you better do it soon, or else the calendar will turn to November, and you’ll miss out, because “there is only ONE October! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV8GV2LIknY&mode=related&search= , this is the SNL parody, because I really would shoot myself if I linked a real Dane Cook commercial). (Okay, here’s one Dane Cook commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBy8nhFx7WQ&NR=1 , really please shoot me now).”

Abolish the Designated Hitter

2007-10-10T12:41:00.000-04:00

Once Upon a Time, baseball, boxing, and horseracing ruled as kings, the big three professional sports in America. In the year of Our Lord nineteen hundred and fourteen, dawn of this golden age of sport, the Boston Red Sox signed a young left-handed pitcher from the minor league Baltimore Orioles. This young pitcher won 87 games, losing only 45, between 1915 (his first full season) and 1919, helping the Red Sox win back to back World Series championships in 1915 and 1916, and victory in their final World Series in 1918, the second to last World Series ever played. Sadly, professional baseball collapsed following the 1919 season. The Chicago White Sox threw the 1919 World Series, losing on purpose in an attempt to make money off mafia gamblers. Baseball never recovered, and faded to the dustbin of history, to be followed in the next half century by horseracing and boxing. America never got the chance to see this young left-handed pitcher become one of the all-time greats, although, if you had asked him, he would have claimed capable of being an all-time great slugger. Stories spread and about his legendary hitting prowess in the minors on days he didn’t pitch, but the institution of the designated hitter rule in 1914, right before his major league call-up, prevented any talk of letting some overweight pitcher hit. At any right, with the demise of baseball, no one would be doing any hitting or pitching for a long time.

This young left-handed pitcher is historical. His name, you may recall, is Babe Ruth, and he quickly established himself as an elite pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. His pitching feats described above are no fiction, and neither is, sadly, the story of the Chicago Black Sox and the thrown World Series of 1919. But the demise of baseball, thankfully, is a myth. Baseball, boxing, and horseracing would remain the big three through the 1940’s and ‘50’s. Boxing and horseracing have since faded into niche sports, replaced at the top by football and basketball. But baseball never did fall off the map. The designated hitter rule was not instituted until some sixty years after 1914, Babe Ruth’s slugging feats during his pitching days led the Red Sox to slowly shift him into a full time hitting outfielder, and his record setting 1919 total of 29 homeruns, followed by his record shattering 54 in 1920 saved baseball from the Black Sox scandal. If the designated hitter had been in place at the time, the icon Babe Ruth would never have come into being.

The powers that be ruined baseball forever in the 1970’s with their decision to institute the designated hitter in the American League. In a sport where all nine players must play the field and bat, the American League created the designated “pinch” hitter, a player who would leave his glove at home, bringing the batting gloves and bat to the plate each time the pitcher’s spot in the lineup arose. And, to be fair, I find it kind of interesting and novel to grant the American League a designated hitter while preserving the integrity of baseball in the National League. With the rise of free agency, the distinction between the two leagues began to fade. The DH American League and the no-DH National League: it adds a tangible ingredient to the heretofore mystical differences announcers spoke of when they debated the merits of National League ball versus American League ball.

If only the designated hitter had stayed in the Major Leagues, where it belongs: The problem with the DH is the trickle down effect it has induced upon lower levels of baseball. No longer is the American League a cute little novelty. The American League is the norm, the standard, and the National League is the novelty, the cute little outlier, clinging to the traditional form of baseball, while every other level of baseball above Little League has drank the Kool-Aid and adopted the DH.

Pitchers, let’s be honest, have never been great hitters in the Major Leagues. Babe Ruth, to be fair, is the only elite pitcher who also hit at an elite major league level (Rick Ankiel of the Cardinals is attempting to become a regular outfielder after failing as a pitcher. We shall see how that goes). And, it would be more proper to say of Babe Ruth that he was a great hitter who also could pitch exceptionally at the big league level. But part of the joy of baseball is that every player in the field must hit, every baller with a bat must put on a glove and try his hand at defense. And, just about every major league pitcher was an above average baseball player at other positions, and at bat, while growing up and playing amateur ball. The major league pitcher no longer plays infield or outfield on days he does not pitch, like he did as a Little Leaguer, high school player, and in college, but he has swung a bat at each step up the baseball ladder, so he is not completely helpless standing at the plate against other major league pitchers.

But this DH trickle down effect has left the National League and Little League as just about the only leagues allowing pitchers to hit. Every level of the minor leagues uses the DH. NCAA college baseball plays by American League rules, using a DH for the pitcher. High school baseball even allows the DH (although many high school coaches don’t use it, since often the star pitcher at that level is one of the best hitters on the team and plays shortstop of centerfield when not pitching, or if the DH is used, it is used on the second baseman or rightfielder or another position player who hits weakly). A pitcher brought up to the major leagues will not have swung a bat since high school (not even in practice. Since the DH is allowed, pitchers on college teams and minor league teams don’t even get to take batting practice). If he plays for a National League team, he will be hopeless in his turn in the batters box.

Let’s abolish the DH and return baseball to the way it was meant to be. Do I think we miss out on the chance to find the next Babe Ruth? No. Babe Ruth was a once in a lifetime (once in many lifetimes) player. Do I think pitchers will prove themselves at the plate if given a chance? Again, no. The typical pitcher batting average in the National League will continue to remain firmly below the Mendoza line (that’s below .200, for those unfamiliar with baseball slang). The DH should be eliminated because it separates teams into “hitters” and “pitchers”, with pitchers looked at as if they are these quirky non-athletes who provide a specialty (like the kicker in football), while the hitters do the “real” ball playing. Pitching is as important as hitting, more so for winning championships, and it’s time we stop demarcating pitcher’s and hitters through the tacky 1970’s DH rule. Like hot pants, disco, and That 70’s Show, the DH is a relic from that bad hair decade, and it needs to go.

The Mets are the New Red Sox

2007-10-05T16:07:00.000-04:00

The Mets are the new Red Sox. The Boston Red Sox are championship contenders, and New York Mets fans have slid into the vacated role of baseball pessimists. Life is upside down right now; Kevin Federline is the good parent; the Republican frontrunner for President is twice divorced and cross dresses; 40 is the new 30; and the Boston Red Sox have become the New York Yankees. Yes, the Red Sox, those perennial heartbreakers, are just three years removed from breaking the Curse, and they’ve become what Sox fans always hated. The hot girl in blue jeans and a tight Varitek T-shirt is now as ubiquitous as her clone in the tight Jeter T-shirt. Theo Epstein throws money around like George Steinbrenner, matching every Hideki Irabu and Jason Giambi spending spree with a Dice-K and J.D. Drew splurge of his own. Curt Schilling’s mouth matches anything blurting from the lips of the Boss. Rooting for the Sox against the Yankees is no longer like rooting for David versus Goliath. It is no longer secretly hoping Screech gets a girl over Zack and Slater. Rooting for the Sox against the Yankees is like rooting for Exxon versus Mobil, rooting for Microsoft versus Dell, Zack versus A.C. You can’t root against your mirror image.

The Red Sox may have turned to the Dark Side. They may have joined Darth Vader and the Evil Empire. But the Force still lives. The Mets are the new Red Sox and the spirit of Obi Wan, Yoda, and Luke now resides in Flushing, New York. This was not always the case. From 1962 until October 18, 2006, we Mets fans lived with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. Mets fans did not suffer heartbreak like the Red Sox. In 1962, the Mets were lovable losers, setting an all-time loss record and residing endearingly in the hearts of fans forever. Most of our history consists of losing seasons, with enough winning campaigns spread throughout to save us the ignominy of Chicago Cubs fans. We had the Miracle Season of 1969, upsetting the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles to win the World Series in only our eighth season of existence. We had the “Ya Gotta Believe” 1973 team, a squad that won its division with a mediocre 82-79, but caught fire in the playoffs, advancing to the World Series before losing to the powerhouse Reggie Jackson led Oakland A’s in 7. We had the 1986 frat-boy Mets, a team so good, anything less than a World Championship would have rendered us underachievers (thankfully the Red Sox prevented that). Until October 19, 2006, the Mets never really broke their fans hearts. They never lost a championship they should have won. The ’73 team was lucky to be there. The 2000 team lost in the World Series to a superior Yankee team. Even in 1988, when we were better than the Los Angeles Dodgers, Dodger pitcher Orel Hershiser turned into God; no one could have beaten him.

As Mets fans, we’d always been playing with house money. Yeah, we had some disappointing losses. But we never blew something we were supposed to win. Until October 19, 2006, Mets playoff races felt like Cinderella at the fancy dress ball. We were not cynical Cinderella, waiting for, expecting, the clock to strike midnight and ruin the party. We were early evening Cinderella; after wearing dirty rags, cleaning the house for our wicked stepmother and ugly stepsisters, and keeping our sanity by listening to talking mice, we were just happy to be dancing. Wearing a beautiful gown and waltzing with Prince Charming was beyond our wildest dreams. Then, October 19, 2006 happened.

October 19, 2006 will forever stand as the day I popped my baseball fan cherry. Considering I started watching the Mets in 1991, this is a long time. But 2006 marked the first time since 1988 the Mets had a real chance of winning a World Series. True, they went to the playoffs in 1999, valiantly battling back from a 3-0 deficit (with Robin Ventura’s grand slam single) to extend the National League Championship Series to six games before falling to the hated Atlanta Braves. And, they had that World Series appearance in 2000. But those teams had just Mike Piazza and smoke and mirrors.

The Mets were far and away the best team in the National League in 2006 (97-65). But come playoff time, veteran pitchers El Duque and Pedro Martinez got hurt. The mediocre (record: 83-78) St. Louis Cardinals pushed the National League Championship Series to a seventh game. The first five tension packed innings of game seven produced a 1-1 tie. But in the sixth, with one out and one runner on base, the Cardinals’ Scott Rolen laid into Mets pitcher Oliver Perez’s fastball, sending it towards the left field bleachers, bringing almost certain death to the Mets season. But like spring and Easter, out of death comes life, and Mets leftfielder Endy Chavez redeemed the season and saved the Mets chances of advancing to the World Series with the Greatest Catch of All Time. When Chavez extended his glove hand an arms length over the fence and robbed a certain homerun, I had absolutely no doubt the Mets would win that game. That catch revitalized the Mets and demoralized the Cardinals. But somehow, someway, with Karma on their side, and probably Destiny, Mystique, Aura, and every other pole dancer rooting them on, too, the Mets lost. My sunny optimism disappeared. This was like a kid finding out the truth about Santa. My baseball innocence died. As a fan, I popped my baseball cherry.

What do you call it when a death redeemed by resurrection is followed by a second death? A tragedy? A farce? It’s like the nerdy pretty girl in a high school movie who suddenly gets popular when she lets down her hair and takes off her glasses. Once she begins enjoying her newfound popularity, she feels that tinge of guilt from alienating her original friends in the geek crowd. Maybe we Mets fans should have shown the proper pity towards lowly Kansas City Royals, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Tampa Bay Devil Rays fans. Maybe we selfishly reveled in our own team’s escape from mediocrity. Maybe I’m overanalyzing. This loss not only ruined the 2006 season, its aftereffects ruined 2007, as well. The September 2007 collapse would not have happened if not for that damned game.

The Mets had a seven game lead with 17 to play, and I just knew they would choke. I knew it. I knew it when the ESPN talking heads had to mention how no team ever blew a lead that big. I knew it when the Philadelphia Phillies swept a three game series, their eighth straight win over the Mets. I knew it when the Mets returned to Shea to close the season with a seven game homestand, 2 ½ games ahead of the Phillies. I knew it on that final Saturday, when John Maine almost threw a no-hitter, the Mets won 13-0 over the Florida Marlins to pull into a tie with the Phillies, and they started dancing as if they already won the division. We Mets fans in pennant races, since that awful Game 7, no longer feel like early evening Cinderella, just happy to be at the fancy dress ball. We Mets fans, since that awful Game 7, treat every playoff-intensity baseball game like we are Cinderella at the end of the night, well aware of midnight approaching, just waiting for the other slipper to drop, the dress to turn back into rags, and the stagecoach and horses to turn back into pumpkins and mice.

The Mets are the new Red Sox. We expect them to turn certain victory into defeat. We expect them to blow a seven game lead with 17 to play, even if that entails the Mets not only going 5-12, but the Phillies catching fire and finishing 13-4. Like Luke Skywalker, we can no longer live comfortably with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. Owen and Beru are dead. The Force is upon us, whether we like it or not. Like the Red Sox of old, we must face the Evil Empire. But, like Mark Hamill, the Mets are poor actors, unable to win anything. If we are to turn into the 2004 Red Sox, we need Han Solo (Johan Santana, maybe?) to appear, and fast. Otherwise, we will face a third straight season of midnight striking too early.

I Hate Baseball...No, I Love It...No, Really Hate It

2007-09-24T16:50:00.000-04:00

“You’re killing me Smalls!”—Ham Porter, The Sandlot

Would you rather a girl lead you on, enflame your deepest passions, then rip out your heart, lacerate every last flow of passion, and drop it, broken, into the dustbin of your soul? Or would you rather she give a firm “no” to the first date request, saving you that later pain and anguish? This is what it feels like today to be a Mets fan (or a Red Sox fan. Their perennially broken hearts are facing another George Steinbrenner induced laceration). The Mets have stood in first place virtually the whole season. Their virtually (sportswriters overuse adjectives, and right now I’m too lazy to think of another one) indestructible lead of 7 ½ games over the Phillies just a couple weekends ago shrunk to 1 ½ before climbing to a barely breathable 2 ½ yesterday. If the Mets are gonna blow this thing anyway, I kind of wish they had just started sucking in April, so I wouldn’t have spent six months getting my hopes up. The last time they won the World Series, I was still wetting my pants; I don’t enjoy wetting my pants watching nervously as this year’s team seduces me.

October 19, 2006 will forever stand as the day I popped my baseball fan cherry. Considering I started watching the Mets in 1991, this is a long time. But 2006 marked the first time since 1988 the Mets had a real chance of winning a World Series. True, they went to the playoffs in 1999, valiantly battling back from a 3-0 deficit (with Robin Ventura’s Grand Slam single) to extend the NLCS to 6 games before falling to the hated Braves. And, in 2000, they advanced to the World Series before losing to the Yankees. But those teams had Mike Piazza and smoke and mirrors. The outfield consisted of Benny Agbayani, Jay Payton, and Timo Perez. That’s right: who? They did better than they should have because of a great manager, Bobby Valentine.

The 2006 Mets were loaded. Star centerfielder Carlos Beltran, star up-and-comers Jose Reyes and David Wright. Great veteran pitchers like Pedro, Glavine, and El Duque. They finished with far and away the best record in the National League (and by far and away, I mean Far and Away, like Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman leaving 19th century Ireland, sailing to America, and heading to the Western frontier). But Pedro and El Duque got hurt just in time for the playoffs, leaving a staff of Glavine and a bunch of unprovens. They still easily beat the Dodgers in the first round and took the NLCS against the Cardinals to a Game 7, winner-take-all for the right to play in the World Series.

_________________________

Western civilization is largely the history of Christian culture, and the overarching theme in Christianity is that of the Fall followed by redemption, death redeemed through the Resurrection. All great literature is imbued with this theme. Every English student studies the basic plot elements in a story. The dramatic action opens with the exposition, and then gets things going with a crisis, which crescendos into the climax. The story goes through the falling action, before ending with the conclusion or resolution. It is much more than coincidence that Western literature follows the template of our Salvation story: God creates the world and mankind (exposition), man messes up the perfect creation and brings death into the world through sin (crisis), God becomes Man to redeem a fallen world (climax/turning point), He is crucified and dies (falling action), but through the Ressurrection conquers death and redeems mankind (conclusion/resolution). Some would say Christianity is a man-made myth that follows common dramatic themes. Rather, the reverse is true. Christianity is the truest story possible; all other literature, fiction and non-fiction, cannot help but follow this template. This truest of stories fills our search for meaning in real life events, personal, political, and—yes—sporting.

As a Mets fan, I sat distraught, witnessing the perfect creation (the 2006 regular season) fall victim to injuries before the playoffs began. The first five tension packed innings of Game 7 produced a 1-1 tie. But, in the sixth, the Cardinals’ Scott Rolen laid into the Mets’ Oliver Perez’s fastball, sending it towards the left field bleachers, bringing an almost certain death to the Mets season. But out of death comes life, and Mets leftfielder Endy Chavez redeemed the season and saved the Mets chances of advancing to the World Series with the Greatest Catch Of All Time (see it here on MLB.com: http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/mlb/ps/y2006/archive.jsp?mode=lcs&series=lcs_b&type=video then click on “Endy’s amazing catch” under Oct. 19, 2006). I had absolutely no doubt the Mets were gonna win that game. That catch revitalized the Mets and demoralized the Cardinals. But, alas, it wasn’t meant to be. The Cardinals won the game on a homer in the 9th. My sunny optimism disappeared. This was like a kid finding out the truth about Santa. My baseball innocence died. As a fan, I popped my baseball cherry.

What do you call it when a death redeemed by Resurrection is followed by a second death? A tragedy? A farce? It’s like the boy who finally gets the pretty girl after years of rejection only she breaks his heart. Why did get his hopes up for nothing? That boy will be wary every time a new girl comes along. As a Mets fan, I went into the 2007 season still stunned by that loss, but guardedly optimistic. Every key player returned. The season played out according to form, with the Mets not playing great, but playing good enough to stay in first place. Until now. There are seven games left in the regular season. The Phillies have six to play. Any combination of Mets wins and Phillies losses adding up to five will ensure another division title. But I cannot remain confident. I feel like Ham Porter yelling at Smalls. “You’re killing me, Mets!” Like pursuing a pretty girl, being a baseball fan is too much pressure. You always expect disappointment, but its just too much fun to stay away.

Bill Clinton: The Best Republican President

2007-09-12T15:59:00.001-04:00

Dostoevsky wrote of the terrible torture of telling a man the date of his own death. Rickey Ray Rector, a retarded man facing the gallows (actually the needle) in 1992, thankfully did not have to suffer this torment, since he was too mentally handicapped to understand his own fate. On the night of his execution, he did not eat his Last Meal dessert, asking the guards to save it for later. That piece of pie was the only thing spared. Rector’s life—and the dignity of a soon to be President—did not survive; for one William Jefferson Clinton made sure to break from the campaign trail to be witness to the execution of a retarded man in Arkansas whose life he could have spared. After all, four years earlier, Michael Dukakis appeared squeamish defending his anti-death penalty stance, and Bill Clinton could not afford to look like another soft-on-crime Democrat.

Rector was no innocent man. He turned the gun on himself after committing murder. But the suicide attempt fell incomplete; he gave himself the equivalent of a lobotomy, leaving himself with the intelligence of a very young child. Yes, capital punishment is a divisive issue, but no one can argue that executing this man was in any way needed to protect society. I just hope that someone got to eat that piece of pie. And I hope this story is an aberration in the life of former President Clinton. But after reading Christopher Hitchens’s “No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton,” I fear this example is sadly axiomatic of the Clinton political machine.

One must always read Christopher Hitchens with a grain of salt (and, presumably a stogie and a glass of scotch). Hitchens makes political enemies easily and often, and avoids the “on the one hand…but on the other hand” triangulations that he paints of this book’s antagonist. Mother Theresa is the “ghoul of Calcutta.” Henry Kissinger is a “war criminal the likes of Pol Pot.” And God…well, to Hitchens, “God is not great,” and his followers are, to put it mildly, even worse. But, Hitchens can’t be painted into easy strokes. He is a fierce secularist and simultaneously a fierce Iraq War hawk. He is a harsh opponent of the Christian Right, but as we see here, just as harsh a rival of President Clinton. And, if Hitchens’s critique of Clinton is correct, Clinton is one of the best Republican presidents we have ever had.

Leftist defenders of Clinton during the Impeachment, Hitchens says, miss the point by saying “it was only a blow job.” Clinton lied under oath. He committed perjury. And, you just cannot separate the personal and the political in Bill Clinton. He is a president who, conveniently, bombed Sudan, Afghanistan, and Iraq in 1998 during heightened investigations of his personal behavior. Maybe the timing of these bombings were coincidence, maybe they were a case of “Wag the Dog.” This is a man who gave the Republicans a victory they could never have dreamed about with Reagan and Bush I, instituting a welfare reform that eradicated 60 years of New Deal social programs put into place by FDR. It is easy to point out the hypocrisy in Republicans extolling the virtue of stay-at-home middle class moms while screaming for single mother “welfare queens” to put the kids in daycare and go back to work. The hypocrisy is taken to another level when a President who has had more than his share of extramarital dalliances, and more than his share of women broaching accusations of sexual harassment, requires of poor women to name the fathers of their babies to remain on welfare. And Mr. Clinton is appalled when the Independent Counsel asks him to reveal his private illicit sex life?

As a high school student during the height of the Starr Report, all I got out of the case was a constant back and forth of “they are smearing Clinton for his personal life” versus “the President is leader of the free world and should be morally virtuous.” Hitchens's polemic does lead this book reviewer (me :-)) to want to read more about the Clinton presidency from other authors. But it also helps this book reviewer (me :-), again) to appreciate the truth that the personal and the political/professional cannot easily be separated, and do effect one another.

The Secret: More New Age Mumbo Jumbo

2007-09-04T14:56:00.000-04:00

Job was a good man. He was righteous in the eyes of the Lord. Yet, his wife and children died, his wealth disappeared, and hideous boils covered his body, leaving him sitting on a dung heap, left to ponder the meaning of his existence while his three self-righteous friends accuse him of sinfulness, since—of course!—anyone suffering misfortunate must be receiving punishment from God for something he did.Job pleaded with God for an answer. ‘Why, oh Lord, must I suffer?’ God gives Job no answer. God points out the simple truth that He, God, is creator of the world. It is His place, and His alone, to know. It is Job’s job (so to speak) to shut up, get on with his life, and keep his faith in the Lord.

If, say, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were to rewrite the Book of Job, they might substitute God’s silent answer with Jack Handey’s response to a little kid’s question about rain, ‘why is God crying?’: “Because of something you did.” Falwell and Robertson, after all, were the guys who blamed 9/11 not on the crazy Muslims who actually flew the planes into the World Trade Center, but on God pulling his providential hand of protection away from America because of the gays, feminists, secularists, and friends.

The response of the American people to these two preachers was a collective ‘what the f*** are they smoking?’ Yet, the wisdom of the Book of Job is lost on many, not just fundamentalist preachers. Just look at the latest New Age mumbo-jumbo, Rhonda Byrne’s New York Times best selling book and Oprah favorite “The Secret.”

The Secret consults great thinkers across the fields of psychology, physics, medicine, philosophy, and education to reveal the hidden truth about the greatest force in the Universe. Is this great force gravity? Is it any of the other laws of physics? Is this great force God, for the religiously inclined? No, it is none of these things. The most powerful force in the Universe is YOU!

That’s right, you are more powerful than gravity, the speed of light, a Nolan Ryan fastball, a teenage boy’s body odor. You are even more powerful than God. There is this mystical thing out there called the Law of Attraction. It says that whatever you are attracted to will be given to you. Let’s say I am attracted to—I don’t know—Jessica Alba. My attraction will send energy waves out into the universe and bring Jessica Alba to me since nothing is more powerful than the Law of Attraction. Are Jessica and I currently together? You’ll have to wait and see; first, there is a book review to finish.

Do you want wealth? Envision yourself being rich, and it will happen. Do you want a nice job? Imagine that cushy desk, fancy computer, and stunning secretary, and it will all be yours. Do you want to improve your golf game? Picture that ball rolling onto the green for a hole-in-one, and you will be the next Tiger Woods.

‘Ah,’ a detractor might say, ‘but what about the people who don’t get what they want? What about the poor schmucks who get what they don’t desire?’ The Law of Attraction is still in play, says Rhonda Byrne. Whatever you are envisioning or thinking about will come to you through the Law of Attraction. A person who loses his job may say he doesn’t like unemployment, but when he was thinking, ‘I don’t want to lose my job,’ his energy field sent out vibes attracting that job loss. You see, the Law of Attraction may be the most powerful force in the Universe, but it has trouble reading certain words in the dictionary. The Law of Attraction does not understand negative words like “no,” “don’t,” “can’t,” and “won’t.”

Imagine yourself walking down the street after a nice meal at the local Mexican restaurant. That pretty girl from your high school class (whom you haven’t seen in years) randomly walks by. You start a nice conversation, catch up on life, but all of a sudden, the beginnings of Montezuma’s Revenge appear. You let out that wet fart. Inside, you say to yourself, ‘please God! Don’t let this one smell.’ But the Law of Attraction does not hear “no.” The Law of attraction hears ‘let this one smell.’ The pretty girl from high school gets a whiff and quickly needs to leave.

Rhonda Byrne has an interesting theory, but has she ever considered that maybe the Law of Attraction—being the most powerful force in the Universe and all—actually CAN hear the word “no,” but people, when they are thinking these negative thoughts, think them in bad English? Maybe that kicker hoping not to miss a field goal is really a Spanish guy who speaks bad English. He thinks, “I no wanna miss no kick today.” Or it could be a factory worker thinking in ebonics, “I don’t wanna be losin’ no job today.” Then, the Law of Attraction would correctly interpret the proper intent of their language by giving them what they didn’t want but couldn’t articulate properly in their minds.

In case you are still wondering, no I am not with Jessica Alba. Maybe I emitted negative feelings, such as “please don’t let Jessica Alba and me be apart.” Or, maybe this Law of Attraction is just a bunch of bullshit, plainly seen when the book suggests that the victims of the Holocaust, somehow, someway, pulled negative energy towards themselves through some deep seated attraction to the Auschwitz ovens.

There is no “Secret” to happiness, success, and wealth. There are no energy fields out there attracting things to you through the subconscious. Sometimes, like in the story of Job, bad things happen to good people. Unlike what Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Rhonda Byrner believe, not everything that happens to us is our fault. Sometimes we need Robin Williams' psychologist character Sean McGuire to tell us, like he told Will Hunting, "It's not you fault."

In real life, you don’t get rich through happy thoughts. You get rich through (mostly) luck and (occasionally) hard work. That pretty girl isn’t going to date you if you imagine it in your head. She will date you if you are good looking, smart and funny. If you’re not, you better start looking lower in the gene pool if you want a mate. There is no magic formula for happiness. There is no guarantee of contentment. You can’t really be anything you want to. Even the holiest people sometimes suffer. Look at Mother Teresa. She felt the absence of God her final 50 years and still went on helping the poor.

People don’t need false dreams. They need a dose of reality. Yes, we should work hard, treat others well, and keep our faith in God. But, even doing that, there is no guarantee of happiness, wealth, or love. The only secret formula is to follow the example of Job; be a good God-fearing person and accept that some things are beyond our control.

Let's End Pointless Teacher Certification Requirements

2007-08-21T10:15:00.000-04:00

“I wish I could tell you that Andy fought the good fight, and the Sisters let him be. I wish I could tell you that - but prison is no fairy-tale world. He never said who did it, but we all knew. Things went on like that for awhile - prison life consists of routine, and then more routine. Every so often, Andy would show up with fresh bruises. The Sisters kept at him - sometimes he was able to fight 'em off, sometimes not. And that's how it went for Andy - that was his routine. I do believe those first two years were the worst for him, and I also believe that if things had gone on that way, this place would have got the best of him.” Red (Morgan Freeman), The Shawshank Redemption

Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) gets sent to prison for a murder he did not commit and spends twenty years in hell, surviving a corrupt warden and gang rapes by the Sisters, finding meaning in life only from the secret escape tunnel he spent every night digging with a spoon and his friendship with wise old prisoner Red. The tunnel finally dug, “Andy crawled to freedom through five-hundred yards of shit smelling foulness I can’t even imagine.” Andy never should have had to go through this, but he did what was needed to reach his happy ending in Mexico and reunion with Red. Fortunately, I’ve never had a run in with any modern day versions of the Sisters, but I think I can relate to Andy’s personal hell. I have to go through my own personal Shawshank—teaching certification—to reach my light at the end of the tunnel: a decent paying job.

I am not “qualified” to teach in public schools. I have a Bachelors degree in Philosophy with a double minor in History and Religious Studies. I have a Masters degree in Theology. I have 125 some undergraduate credits and over 40 grad school credits. I have a year of real teaching experience. I taught 5th through 8th grade religion and 5th grade social studies for an entire school year at a private school where almost every student eventually goes to a private four year college and many go on to Ivy League schools. I have proven capable of doing the job. Yet, I am not allowed to teach social studies in public schools, the majority of which are lesser schools than the place I taught at.

I am no education snob. I do not feel I deserve a teaching position because of my Curriculum Vitae (my Masters degree in Theology from Catholic U is far and away a superior degree than the M.A.’s in Education being doled out by the State of New York, but that is another topic). I believe that public schools should be allowed to hire me based on my merits and abilities.

As someone with a lot of higher education, it is frustrating not being able to find gainful employment; not because I think my degrees should guarantee me work, but because too many jobs require certain degrees or certifications just for the sake of making the company look better. Allow me to explain.

My maternal grandfather spent some time teaching a college class. He never even completed a Bachelors degree. He was hired to teach because—get this!—he could do the job. A generation ago, employees got hired based on their ability to do the job. Now, employees are hired based on how nice their resumes will make the company look. Yes, a person should show some evidence she can perform the required tasks before being hired, but unfortunately companies stick in de facto job requirements for applicants that don’t test whether applicants can do the job but just whether they have the right piece of educational certification paper.

Am I saying a college education is worthless? No. Again, look at my resume. I have two degrees. But college education should not be a modern form of trade school. College, in its traditional sense, is for a broad based education in the liberal arts and humanities. It exists to make you cultured. Trade school in the past was a separate place where people went to train for particular jobs. Today, the two have been merged, forcing college students to choose between narrow parochial degree programs (business, teaching, accounting, etc.) aimed at certain job fields or a broad based education in a humanities field (literature, philosophy, religion, classics) that will get them laughed at for studying something that renders them unemployable.

Of course certain jobs do need specialized training. I want that doctor operating on me to have studied medical textbook after medical textbook. But a job like teaching does not need specialized training. If you can teach, you can teach. If you can’t, you can’t. There are PhD’s who can’t handle managing a classroom, and there are magnificent teachers who struggled to graduate college. The only requirement to be a middle school or high school teacher is mastery of your subject matter. If you are a math teacher, you should know at least all the math that high schoolers will learn. If you are an English teacher, you should know grammar and have a broad based knowledge of literature. Same with the other subjects. The only other “requirement” should be ability to do the job. With this knowledge in your subject matter, either you have the ability to teach and motivate students or you don’t. All those pointless classes and seminars in childhood development and child psychology are not going to help. Either you can relate to kids or you can’t. As a teacher, the only area I need improvement on is classroom discipline, and that will come with experience, not with some inane classes in childhood development that will be outdated in ten years when a new fashionable theory on children is created by the psychologists.

New York State (and many other states) issues these teacher certification requirements not out of a real desire to help kids learn but out of a desire to “show” how much they care about education by making teachers go through a million loopholes in order to teach. New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof said in “Opening Classroom Doors” on April 30, 2006:

“The idea behind teacher certification is that there are special skills that are picked up in teacher training courses — secret snake-charming skills to keep the little vipers calm. But there's no evidence this is so. On the contrary, several new programs have brought outstanding young people into teaching without putting them through conventional training programs, and those teachers have been widely hailed as first-rate.”

The only thing teacher certification does do, says Kristof, is discourage professionals considering a career change from actually becoming teachers due to the loopholes required. The way the system is currently in place, a 35 year old business manager who feels a calling to teach may choose not to because of the requirement for reeducation in the ways of teaching. The real loser? The students, who miss out on learning business math from someone with real world experience.

What am I going to do? I am going to sign up for classes and get those pointless certification requirements out of the way (even knowing that they will do nothing to make me a better teacher; I already know my subject matter and I’ve worked with kids for five summers at camps, one full year as a teacher, and a half year as a substitute teacher). If Andy Dufresne can go through 20 years at Shawshank prison, I can go through my own form of unjust punishment in a world that cares more about image than ability in hiring employees.

Jock Culture

2007-08-19T23:07:00.000-04:00

Nothing in life should last more than three hours. Any activity worth doing can be done in under 180 minutes. Imagine life’s precious moments: a nice movie…a candlelight dinner…a slow walk on the beach…a baseball game…a friendly card game…your wedding…the birth of your first baby…making babies. All wonderful joys, but none should last over three hours. No enjoyable leisure activity remains fun when done consecutively for longer than that time span. Which brings me to my recent week at basketball camp.

I worked at basketball camp, Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 4:30 pm. I earned a paycheck, but I can’t say it was “fun.” Could it be, that after a summer spent at an overnight camp acting silly and playing the role of gym class hero, I had a letdown in the role of refereeing and coaching, barely getting a chance to show off my “skillz” competing against kids half my age and two feet shorter? That’s certainly part of it, but the bigger issue is witnessing the lack of fun in the kids themselves. Summer camp should be silly, laid back, with a rotation and variety of activities. Instead, they play the same sport for eight hours straight, save the lunch break. Silliness time is limited, because as we all know, basketball is SERIOUS (and so are the other sports, as I’m sure campers at various other sports camps hear). The kids are told to work hard so they can play Division I ball and save 35 thousand dollars a year in tuition through that coveted athletic scholarship. Laid back fun must be replaced with SERIOUSness since basketball camp is infested with Jock Culture.

What is Jock Culture? Jock Culture is simultaneously sanctimonious, superficial, and full of shit. To be a jock is to see your sport or sports as overly important and meaningful, giving a monk-like devotion to excellence in your game (the sanctimony). This monk-like focus does not extend to a jock’s personal life, though. Off the playing field, he considers himself God’s gift to women, letting the girls fawn over him. The rules at school don’t apply to him; the classroom is not for learning but for building up his cult of personality among his peers (the superficiality). Coaches say they recruit hardworking players with good character, guys who are ‘coachable.’ And, sure, this is true for mediocre and average players, but I guaran—damn—tee any coach will take that next McDonald’s All-American with an attitude problem (the bullshit).

And yet I spent my life being a part of Jock Culture. I was the kid who played three varsity sports in high school, and continued in one at the NCAA level in college. Why did I do it? Well, I was (and still am) good at sports. And, in a high school of only 250 kids, I was guaranteed to make all the teams. But there’s definitely more to it than that. I am at heart an introvert. I have improved vastly over the years, but in middle school and early high school I was excessively shy. Big social events such as Friday night football games and basketball games brought out my social awkwardness. By putting on the uniform and standing on the sidelines, I never had to worry about feeling uncomfortable or out of place in the stands.

Also, you know that tall lanky nerdy kid? That was me. In ninth grade, I was 6’1” and 140 pounds soaking wet. I took advanced math and had always been one of the smartest kids in school. I got picked on all through elementary and middle school; while that started to ebb in high school, the teasing still happened. Add that to getting turned down or ignored by the pretty girls, and I had plenty of need for an outlet (sports) to find some acceptance.

I wasn’t the person to pout or join the gothic counter-culture; I used self-deprecating humor and played along when I got picked on. Yeah, I was the smart kid. But I couldn’t use that as an outlet. Being smart ain’t cool (until you go to college, read Kafka and Kundera, knowingly condescend along with Jon Stewart at the backward red-staters, and join that collection of future professors who are ‘intellectually hip’). I had to join Jock Culture and excel in sports.

Don’t get me wrong. Sports were fun. I tremendously enjoyed high school sports. I wouldn’t use big adjectives (tremendously) to show much I enjoyed them if they weren’t really super fun. But I never took sports too seriously. When basketball player Allen Iverson gave that notorious press conference, answering concerns about his work ethic on non-game days, I nodded in agreement at his incredulous response, “it’s practice! We’re talking ‘bout practice.” In high school football, I always hated those kids who had to hit and tackle at full speed and do all that grunting and screaming and head-bumping with helmets on, as if that would make the coaches put them in more during the games. Now, I wasn’t lazy. I always paid attention to the coaches, practiced correct blocking techniques, ran good pass catching routes, and gave my best at end of practice sprints. But I (rightly, I believe) took it easy hitting and tackling in practice, saving the painful body collisions for Friday nights.

In baseball, I enjoyed shooting the breeze with my teammates in the dugout during our turn at-bat. But in college, there are 25 guys on a team (rather than the 13 or 14 in high school), leaving more bench guys vying for playing time. Guys did that constant baseball chatter (“hey number 9!”; “atta-boy”; “way to give him the cheddar”; “nice poke;” etc. etc. blah blah blah) thinking it would make the coach play them more because of their verbal dedication to the team. And unlike in high school, when we only left the dugout to greet people at home plate during homeruns, we had to line up for high fives after every mother loving run scored. As enjoyable as it would have been to stay in the dugout, I couldn’t look like the one guy who didn’t outwardly care, so I grudgingly trudged myself to the field clap line.

In high school basketball, we had to keep the radio off and act somber on bus rides home from away game losses. We had to think about what we did wrong. After all, basketball is not just a game; it would be wrong for teenagers to shrug off a loss and go back to being…umm…teenagers on the bus. On our home court, the leftover pizza, hotdogs, popcorn, and soda from the concession stand were brought into the locker room for us after the game, to be consumer after our coach’s post-game speech. His speeches were quite instructional. I learned that losses never happened because the other team was better; we were lazy in practice the day before or didn’t try hard enough or didn’t want it enough. All those added F words shouted at high decibels definitely helped me learn this lesson. I also learned to start hiding the concession stand leftover food behind the lockers after losses since coach, after one particular defeat, knocked our post-game snack on the floor in a tirade.

Am I suggesting we eliminate school sports, or at least try to get as many students to go watch the debate team as the football team? No way. Sports are fun, both as a player and fan. You can make friends, build camaraderie, and learn how to work and play well with others. Should we eliminate competitiveness? No way! Competition is part of life, whether you are trying to get into a top college or find a job or win the heart of your dream girl. There is nothing wrong with having winners and losers. What needs to go is this Jock Culture. I am very competitive and always tried my hardest to win. And, I took some losses hard, such as my high school baseball team’s loss in extra innings in the state regional game that would have put us in the final four. Nine years later, I still imagine that game tying two run double I hit traveling an extra three feet and clearing the fence, eliminating the later need for extra innings where we lost it. But, after games, I see no need to follow along with Jock Culture and put on that sad face. The game is over, life goes on. Just like at funerals, sometimes you need a drink and a good laugh with friends when sad times hit. Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out alive.

And during games, I always cared how the team was doing. I didn’t need to yell out stupid baseball chatter and cheer loudly from the bench. I liked to—get this!—save my energy for play on the field. You don’t need to show a stressful seriousness to perform well; sometimes a smile and a laid back demeanor are what’s needed. Aren’t sports supposed to be FUN? Those guys who like headbutt teammates with their helmets, scream and shout, and do all that baseball chatter are like the annoying religious people who constantly need to show everyone how pious and holy they are. You can be holy and prayerful in the quiet of your own home. You don’t need to shout it from the rooftops like the hypocrites who want to be seen. And athletes don’t need to do that outward bullshit so they can be seen by their god, their coach.

As for coaches blabbering on about wanting to sign players who are ‘coachable,’ would they really want a bunch of ‘yes’ men who do everything the coach says, never complaining? Isn’t it better to have players who get upset about lack of playing time, who want to make suggestions to the coach about ways in which the team could be run better?

Again, I ask not for the end of competitive sports. I ask for the end of Jock Culture and a rebirth of some authenticity. We can play hard, try to win, be sad after losses, and still have fun. We don’t need to take sports too seriously and put on that fake effort through dugout chatter and pointless over-aggressiveness in practice. We don’t need to make sports a matter of life and death that should consume hours on end of daytime for practice. We can see them for what they are—just another part of life that we can gain enjoyment from if we keep in its proper perspective.

The Stock Market vs. Sports

2007-08-15T20:53:00.000-04:00

Boy meets girl. Boy asks girl out. Girl says no. Boy asks out new girl. New girl says no. Boy asks out yet another girl. Yet another girl says no. This happens to boy seven times. If boy is a pessimist, he is probably thinking, “I must have fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. I’m cursed. The next girl will say no, too.” If boy is an optimist, he is probably thinking, “I’m due for a ‘yes.’ I guess I gotta slay a few dragons before I get to my princess.”

Which attitude is better: pessimist or optimist? In reality neither. Either the next girl will like the boy, or she won’t. It will have nothing to do with the past seven girls. Think of a coin that comes up tails seven straight times after I call heads. If I were a pessimist, I’d feel doomed to keep flipping tails. If I were an optimist, I’d consider myself due for a heads. The next flip, though, will be 50/50 for heads (or tails). Odds don’t change based on the past.

In “A Random Walk Down Wall Street,” economist Burton G. Malkiel says that the Stock Market is as beholden to chance as that boy’s prospects with the next girl and the coin’s fate of heads or tails. Don’t put your money and trust in the hands of brokers and speculators, says Malkiel. Their guesses are about as informative as the local fortune teller.You can’t tell a company’s future prospects based on past sales. The “fortune 500” companies of 1900 are completely different from the top businesses of 2000. Don’t follow the speculators, either. They tell you to invest based not necessarily on what companies they believe will have good sales, but based on what companies they believe others will start investing in, causing the stock to go up. This leads to false value judgments for companies’ worth’s, ending up in large crashes, such as the tulip-bulb craze in 17th century Holland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania) and the United States’ stock market crash of 1929.

If we can’t “handicap” the stock market like horse racing, how are we to know what to invest in, short of insider trading and a quick trip to the Federal Pen with no passing of “Go” or collection of $200? The trick, says Malkiel, is to diversify your portfolio. But what does ‘diversify my portfolio’ mean? Well, most people, says Malkiel, invest in a variety of stocks that tend to rise or fall at similar times and in similar circumstances. For example, if you have stocks in an auto company and a tire company, if the auto company is going through a bad sales period, this will hurt the tire company, too, since a money losing car company won’t be buying many tires. Most people set themselves up in all-or-nothing spots, putting all their eggs in one basket, so to speak, despite their belief that holding stock in many companies protects them from financial loss.

Diversifying your portfolio means a helluva lot more than just investing in many stocks. It means investing in, yes!, DIVERSE—different—stocks, so that when certain stocks go down in value, you will own other stocks that go up, protecting your overall financial investment. Malkiel’s initial example is a desert island with two businesses, a hotel resort and an umbrella company. Let’s say that during sunny seasons, the hotel does good business, granting you 50% profit, or $0.50 for every $1.00 in hotel resort stock you own, but during rainy seasons, runs at a financial loss of 25%, losing you $0.25 for every $1.00 you invested in hotel resort stock. But fear not! During rainy seasons, the umbrella company turns a 50 profit, garnering you $0.50 for every $1.00 you invested. The umbrella company runs at a loss of 25% during sunny seasons, losing you $0.25 for every $1.00 in umbrella stock you own, but your hotel resort stock balances it all out, granting you an overall guaranteed profit of 12.5 cents for every dollar invested in all stocks, no matter the weather.

Granted, things are more complicated in the real world, where there are more than two companies, and more than just the weather affects the price of stock. But the trick is to set yourself up so that you own stock in companies that are built to profit during periods where other companies you invest in will fail, and vice versa.I think Malkiel’s approach to the stock market can be applied to other areas of life. If I go to a bar, I COULD try to mack it with the prettiest girl in the bar. But if she’s not impressed with the “made in heaven” tag I notice on her shirt or if she’s not impressed with my suggestion to walk by again in case of failure to believe in love at first sight, not only have I lost out on her, but I will probably have killed my chances with her slightly less hot (but probably still very attractive) friends flanking her, upset again that they go unnoticed in lieu of their hotter friend. Instead of chasing that “10,” I should put the moves on her “9.5” friend. This is a virtual ‘can’t lose’ situation. If the slightly less hot friend is receptive, I’ve still done well for myself. And if she’s not, no big deal. Her hotter friend is more likely to be receptive to me since she will see me as mature and concerned with more than looks (true, her friend is pretty, but she is prettier, and she knows it, so if a guy goes for someone else, he MUST care about more than just physical beauty). Or, she will be jealous that I went for another girl, making her HAVE to have me.

Malkiel’s diversified portfolio stock market theory is an excellent strategy for much of life, but--alas--it doesn’t work for everything. It has no value in the world of sports. We may THINK sports victories and losses can be attributed to chance. But we all know that sports are the one area of life beholden to superstition. You may think that no-hitters get broken up because a batter had a good hit or a pitcher threw a bad pitch, but in reality, every no-hitter is broken up because someone, somewhere, broke the taboo against speaking and mentioning that a no-hitter is taking place. You may think the Boston Red Sox went 86 years between World Series Championships because they never had the best team. No, they kept losing because of some curse caused by their owner in 1919 selling a fat baseball player to the New York Yankees. If coin tossing were a sport, the odds of a coin turning up heads (or tails) would not be 50/50. The odds would be biased in one way or another based on whether the head fans kept wearing the same dirty t-shirts they wore when heads first came up or the tail fans mothers promised to tape the championship coin toss but later accidentally taped over the video when they HAD to save the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Thankfully, the stock market is not a sport and not beholden to superstition.

Kiss-Ass Brownnosing Students (We all know them)

2007-06-18T11:04:00.000-04:00

The literature professor begins class with a written quote on the dry erase board:

“To be or not to be: That is the question.”

The professor speaks. “We come, finally, to our goal, our purpose, in this lesson on Hamlet. We are to study, and understand, the eternal question posed in our blackboard quote.”

A male student raises his hand. “Professor, I don’t see a blackboard quote. I see a quote on a dry-erase board, but there is no blackboard in this classroom.”

The professor does not even need to respond. One girl tells this young man to shut up. Another guy, clad in a hemp necklace and Phish t-shirt, appearing more concerned with—yes, to be stereotypical—the bag of weed waiting in his apartment for after class, says, “Dude, you’re not cool.”

The above scenario is fictional, but situations like this play themselves out everyday in college classrooms around the country. And I actually feel kind of bad for this student. There are always guys (and, sometimes, girls) willing and ready to speak out, entirely irrelevant to the class discussion topic, to get a laugh out of the class, to show the professor how witty they are, often in an attempt to impress the ladies. This fictional guy who made the blackboard comment, sadly, falls into the smaller category of awkward guys who can’t pull off a good joke, or even subtle humor, and just hit the ‘what the hell is your problem?’ zone, seen full mode in Super Troopers in the character of Rod Farva. But, at least this guy elicits some sympathy. I have no sympathy for the class brownnoser, or the know-it-all who loves to hear herself speak, or the class idiot.

The class brownnoser is that guy who raises his hand at the most inopportune, the most annoying, times. If the professor has made known his affinity for, say, Steve Carell’s character Michael in The Office, Mr. Brownnoser, you can be sure, will raise his hand and ask the professor’s opinion on Carell’s gay heartbroken Proust scholar character in Little Miss Sunshine, where everyone in the room can tell that he really is not asking the professor a question but bragging to the professor about sharing his artistic tastes. Mr. Brownnoser, having memorized his professor’s CV (Curriculum Vitae), will raise his hand and ask his professor to clarify a point in an essay he wrote in some obscure academic journal, when his real reason for opening his yap, again, is not for a clarification on some point made in a journal, but in bragging that he reads his favorite professor’s writings.

The know-it-all raises her hand all too frequently, not to butter-up the professor, but to butter-up herself. In a class on World War II history, she will be the one to raise her hand not to ask a question or make a real point, but to say how awful she thinks the Holocaust was. “Congratulations,” I feel like saying to her. “I’m glad to see you are against genocide. Now tell us something we don’t all know or agree on.” Sometimes, instead of raising her hand to make a statement showing how great she is, she will actually ask a question. The question will always be along the lines of, “in light of the fact that A is a result of B’s violation of C, following D’s appraisal of E, what would you say about F?” What she is really doing is not asking a question but showing how smart she is.

Worst of all is the class idiot. The class idiot is usually a non-traditional student, someone in her late thirties or forties. After raising a family and feeling a calling to something greater than her current career, she catches the academic bug and enrolls in the local college or university. She will always ask the dumbest questions; questions that don’t even need asking. She is the student who, for example, in a religion class, might say, “But I thought Jesus was a Christian,” after the professor tells the class that Jesus was a 1st century Jew. With a minute or two left in class, and the professor ready to release the students early, but not before his obligatory request for final questions and comments, the class idiot will be sure to raise her hand and keep the other students there past time.

Camp Guggenheim: A Critical Evaluation

2007-06-18T06:23:00.000-04:00

Have you ever gone to a themed ride at an amusement park? You know, one of the ones where the staff member pretends to really be a safari guide or space explorer or whatever the ride experience is. He or (or she) will introduce himself with WAYYYYY too much enthusiasm, asking the group, “Is everybody excited to be here!?” Once everyone yells back “yes!”, the tour guide still isn’t satisfied. He has to yell, “I can’t hear you! Say it one more time,” or something of that variation. I hate That Guy. That Guy can be seen in many roles, such as camp counselor, campus minister, RA, Freshmen Orientation leader, and tour guide. I always feel like saying, “dude, you heard us fine the first time. Shut your trap and get on with the show.”

An experience in late August 2005 caused me think, “wait, I am That Guy.” I had just begun my first year teaching religion and history at St. Gregory’s School for Boys. We began the school year by taking the boys on an overnight trip to Camp Chingakook in Lake George, NY. My fellow teachers and I were pretty mellow guys, but upon arrival, the camp counselors met our students with whistles and horns, quickly screaming and shouting with way too much enthusiasm and excitement. They divided the boys up into groups, ran icebreakers (which were quite unnecessary in context; this was not a group of random kids coming to camp who did not know one another. This was a group of boys who had been going to school with one another for years), and, to make matters rather awkward, forced the boys to hold hands in group activities. At night in the cabins, I overheard plenty of talk from the boys about the counselors. Terms such as “annoying,” “dorks,” and “tools” came spouting from these middle school mouths.

I have never been an RA; I have friends who were RA’s. They were very good at it and really enjoyed it. But I would never recommend being an RA to any incoming college student. There are so many other enjoyable work study jobs; why take a job where you are put in a position of being a behavior monitor (that’s what it is) of your peers? Jobs like RA take a certain type of personality. But this same personality type gravitates to camp counseling and campus ministry, two jobs I have done. And while I certainly did enjoy my time at Camp Guggenheim, a Catholic overnight summer camp for youths 12-15 (and one week 16-18), there are certain things, looking back, that I would have changed about the camp.

I was a little more optimistic (and a little more naïve) as a 20 year old embarking on his first summer on staff. I thought I was going to turn the campers into disciples for Christ. I thought I was going to meet a nice female staff member and fall in love (that never happened). I though Guggenheim would be Disney World and Candy Land rolled into one.

It was a great place, I had a lot of fun, and I made some good friends. One of my best friends is a guy I worked with there who just got ordained. But three years distance from the place gives an opportunity for detached perspective. In hindsight, Guggenheim was a good summer camp. Nothing special. Kids had a good time there; I’m sure kids at the thousands of other summer camps around the country had just as good a time. Guggenheim is unique only in the sense that every snowflake is unique. It’s not the greatest thing since sliced bread (for the record, the greatest thing since sliced bread is cheese whiz).

Did the kids cry from joy at the end of each camp week because of the new friendships they made? Did they cry from sadness at having to leave these newfound friends? Yes, but there is also what I consider the “onion” factor that needs to be weighed. If you see a picture of someone crying, her wet eyes may be tears of sadness. Or they may be tears of happiness. She could have tripped and fell and they could be tears of physical pain. Or, maybe she is cutting an onion and they are the natural tears from an onion’s scent.

Again, maybe the tears at the end of each camp week are natural; or maybe it has a little to do with the emotional onion we camp counselors carved by showing video clips of the week with musical background such as Phil Collin’s "True Colors" and Dashboard Confessional’s "So Long Sweet Summer". I call it cued emotional moments.We cued emotion every Wednesday night for the Penance Service. After three days of fun and games, plus uplifting Mass each afternoon, we tell the kids it’s time to be quiet, act sad, and pull out all those sinful moments to confess. Two hours later, its time to bottle those emotions back up and have fun again at the variety show.During prayer gatherings, the play button on the CD player was a cue to hold hands. I was rather indifferent to the hand holding, except when it was really hot out, the song was really long, and my hands got sweaty. What I really found amusing was the overemphasis on hugging during the sign of peace. Now, I have nothing against hugging, per se. I hug people I am close to during the sign of peace. Some people kiss during the sign of peace (which is also fine; the sign of peace is known as the kiss of peace). I personally feel more comfortable giving a handshake, especially to a bunch of kids I just met that week. And, it was not enough to emphasize hugging during the sign of peace. It had to be drawn out for like five minutes so everyone could hug everyone. The funny part was watching the boys go around making sure to hug all the pretty girls.Again (again, again, again), my goal is not to insinuate that Guggenheim is a bad place. It is a good camp. The kids have fun. The counselors make friends with each other. But there is a danger that places like Guggenheim (and events such as retreats: my personal example is the St. Michael’s retreat LEAP. I would explain more about it, but I would offend a lot of people because of that ridiculous pledge of secrecy about the events of the weekend when nothing really needs to be kept secret about what goes on, save personal tidbits that people share) can build up the group equivalent to the Joseph Stalin or JFK cult of personality. At the end of each camp week, we counselors would profess our love for the campers and tell them to go out into the world as disciples. Maybe this is an exaggeration, but maybe it would have been best if we just said “goodbye.” If we just said, “we’re glad you had a good week, come back next year and make more friends.” I don’t know. I just don't like the idea of "timing" emotions, so to speak. Yes, people need times to be happy, and times to be sad. But you can't put a time schedule on it. You can't tell people that Wednesday night between dinner and the variety show is their time to feel bad about their sins. You can't tell kids that a week at camp makes them ready to be disciples. It has to come naturally. The goals of a summer camp (and I speak as a believing Catholic) should be to give kids a good God experience and a good time. I'm not sure a summer camp with a bunch of untrained college students as camp counselors is the place to open children's emotions. But, feel free to criticize me. I could be wrong.

This week, I embark on a new camp quest. I am working at a Catholic camp in Vermont this summer. I am glad I waited three years to work at a camp again. If I had gone to a new camp in 2005, the summer right after my last one at Guggenheim, I probably would have wanted to make the new camp into a kind of Guggenheim. I would have been that annoying guy who said, “This is the way we did it at my old camp.” Now, I am excited to experience this new camp the way it is. I have no desire to make it into a “Guggenheim 2.” I am content to enjoy this camp for what it is, and to take me experience as a teacher to be a mellower camp counselor. I’m sure I will bring out the craziness for things like “Tarzan,” but I know through teaching that kids like it better when I speak to them calmly and friendly, rather than throw on all the extra fake enthusiasm.

Put Down That Book and Turn on the Darn T.V.

2007-06-14T12:26:00.000-04:00

I like the new Al Gore. His movie on global warming was enlightening, and if his thesis is true (it probably is) he is a modern day prophet. He has transformed from a stodgy condescending presidential candidate into a venerable public citizen. If only he would have stuck to global warming and not tried solve all our country’s problems, like he is attempting to do in his new best selling book, Assault on Reason. He praises the power of the printed word and its ability to inform citizens in public debate (all well and good), before going in a predictable direction and criticizing T.V. as the cause of all our problems. Fear not! There is a silver lining, says Gore. The Internet can save us. The Internet is the new information superhighway.

I know the Internet has lots of useful information. During my junior year at St. Mike’s, one of my friends had a sketchy roommate. Once a week, my friend had a four-hour night class he had to go to. One evening, as he headed to class, he realized halfway there he had forgotten something. He hurried back to the dorm room to pick it up. As he opened the door, he saw his sketchy roommate sitting in front of the computer, wearing nothing but tighty-whitey underwear, dripping with sweat.

A few days later, I was visiting my friend. His roommate wasn’t around, so we decided to check the computer and see what kind of important research he had been doing. His cookies revealed visits to websites on women from Asia. Apparently, he must have been doing an investigative study of the effects of warm climate on females in southern Asian countries, because most of the websites (I assume, I didn’t open any of the cookies) seemed to be information spots for hot Asian women.

So, Al Gore is right. The Internet grants access to a wealth of important information. Who knows how my friend’s sketchy roommate would have researched that project without the information superhighway. My beef is not with Gore’s praise of the Internet, nor with his praise of books. The written word is swell. I just don’t understand why he believes it necessary to criticize T.V.

Ever since the dawn of man, or at least since the invention of T.V., people have been scolding us to stop watching so much T.V., turn off the T.V., and read more books. Usually these people are delivering their message on T.V. Whenever a film is made based on a novel, you can be sure before the credits roll on the movie premiere, someone will start telling us how much better the book version is.

Somehow, the story goes, civilization began falling apart sometime between the invention of moving pictures and the innovation of the small black and white home television. People put away their books, libraries started growing cobwebs, and families that used to have stimulating conversation over tea about the newest Sherlock Holmes mystery now sat mindlessly staring into the idiot box.

Just like the story of the pretty girl who wears glasses and a ponytail who the boys don’t realize is hot until she takes off the spectacles and lets down her hair, the tale of T.V. ruining us is a myth. The cultural curmudgeons like to trot out their gloomy story of a world where humans read books since the dawn of civilization, but the invention of T.V. has slowly but steadily been pushing books to the dustbin of history. This story is not true. For most of human history, the majority of people were illiterate. The written word was not invented until sometime around 5000 years ago. Modern (homo sapiens) man had been around upwards of a hundred thousand years or more before that during what we call prehistory, since history by definition is the story of man since he first began to write stuff down. The humans of old communicated first through grunting, then through speaking. They left information to their descendents through pictures and stone carvings (such as the pictures in the Lascaux Cave, an early ancestor to the moving pictures we now call T.V.).

Even when humans did create written language, it was (by necessity, since Gutenberg did not invent his printing press until the 15th century AD) limited to a small number of educated people. Stories were told, and information was shared, by word of mouth, or through artistic performance. All the great writers and storytellers through history up until the modern age wrote plays or epic poems. Sophocles wrote Greek tragedies meant to be performed on stage. Shakespeare, the greatest writer the English language has ever known, wrote plays intended to be seen more than read. The epic poems of Homer, Virgil, and Dante were meant to be listened to. We are social creatures, and art is best experienced in community. Motion pictures allow the timeless art of public performance to be transposed to the masses in the comfort of their own homes.

I have no problem with books. I read all the time. But we don’t need to condemn television to appreciate books. Yes, there is bad television. Most new sitcoms suck, and reality T.V. is vapid waste of time and space. But not every book is a classic, either. Have you ever read a Dan Brown novel? Some books are better than the movie version; certain books are too long or dialogue oriented to fit well on screen. Some movies, though, such as The Godfather, are better than paperback originals. Some, such as Lord of the Rings, if done well, though not superior to the book, add to the novel as a nice companion piece. Tonight, put down that book, stop trying to show off, join your friends for a few hours, and turn on the darn T.V.

I Was Wrong: The Grand Inquisitor Story Reinterpreted

2007-06-13T12:08:00.000-04:00

In the 1980’s, Madonna was a material girl living in a material world. I was a little boy wetting his pants and watching cartoons. Now, in the 2000’s, Madonna is all grown up and so am I. We no longer live in a material world; I am a Wikipedia boy living in a Wikipedia world.

What does it mean to be a Wikipedia boy in a Wikipedia world? We live in the information snippet age. The Internet grants access to so much info, so much stuff, creating an ever-growing field of important cultural facts and writings to be aware of. But there is just not enough time to really read and become expert in all the important stuff. That’s okay, because Internet sites, most prominently Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that allows users to create and change entries, let us skim the classics of literature, philosophy, and science, giving us just enough sprinkles and hot fudge to confidently take part in the ice cream sundae of intellectual conversation.

Recently I had what Mike Tyson would call an “epithany.” Ever since sophomore year at St. Mike’s, when I first read the legend of the Grand Inquisitor in my Theologies of God class, I have been fascinated with Dostoyevsky’s tale. I’ve read the fable many times over the years, seeing in it a great moral lesson on things such as freedom versus authoritarianism. I even wrote a blog entry on it a while back (http://spidgetales.blogspot.com/2005/11/faith-and-miracles.html). In my “epithany,” I have come to realize I was wrong. I entirely misread the story. You see; The Grand Inquisitor, though often read and taught as a stand-alone narrative, is not an isolated short story. It is a story that takes place in the context of Dostoyevsky’s great novel The Brothers Karamazov. Of course, I had never read the entire novel. Using sites like Wikipedia, I skimmed through plot summaries to catch myself up with the book’s context. To really know something, of course, one (in this case me) cannot just skim Wikipedia; one needs to really read the book.

I began The Brothers Karamazov a month and a half ago. I still have not finished it, but I am almost two-thirds through, and I have long since passed The Grand Inquisitor chapter. In light of what I’ve read in the novel, I am fairly confident I have a better grasp on the old legend. The Grand Inquisitor story, I believe, is far darker than a story of freedom versus authoritarianism, as I had mistakenly assumed. And if I’m wrong again, I can always check Wikipedia to fix my new mistakes.

Friedrich Nietzsche, the great nihilist philosopher, was a contemporary of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. They held diametrically opposed views on religion. Dostoyevsky was an orthodox Christian and Nietzsche an avowed atheist. Yet, they did admire one another and were in agreement on the implications of the Enlightenment. They both agreed with Dostoyevsky’s words: “If there is no God, all is lawful.”

Nietzsche wrote a fascinating book called “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” Zarathustra comes down the mountain and enters the village ranting and raving like a crazy man. “God is dead,” he shouts. “And you killed Him,” he accosts the villagers. These villagers he speaks to are not born again Christians, fundamentalists, or any other pejorative we moderns assign to those we consider backward religious folk. The villagers are atheists themselves. Nietzsche’s prophet Zarathustra is accusing atheists of killing God.

The town atheists are symbolic of the Enlightenment movement. Following the Reformation and the religious wars, thinkers came to the conclusion that we ought not kill one another because of our differences over belief in God. Morality and values judgments to this point had been tied into religion and religious belief. Enlightenment thinkers said that instead of basing morality on what we believe God regards as just, right and wrong should be based on human reason. Through human reason, we can deduce what are the right actions to do.

(This is actually somewhat close to what St. Thomas Aquinas said. Aquinas taught that man can read the natural law through his heart and know what actions are just and unjust. This natural law, like all of creation, he taught came from God. William of Ockham, however, shifted most of the Church in an unfortunate direction away from Aquinas. While Aquinas had taught that, for example, murder is wrong because life is an inviolable good given to us by God, Ockham taught that murder is wrong because God arbitrarily decided to condemn murder through divine command—the implication being that God could easily change his mind and make good be bad, up be down, etc. The Enlightenment thinkers were not really criticizing a true Christian ethic as embodied in the teachings of Aquinas, but rather the nominalism of Ockham.)

Most people mistakenly pluralize the Book of Revelation, referring to it as “Revelations.” What they should pluralize is “Enlightenment.” It’s not really accurate to speak of THE Enlightenment. What we witnessed in the 17th and 18th centuries is a series of Enlightenments. There is no one Enlightenment thinker. We meet diverse thinkers like Descartes, Locke, Bentham, Kant, and Hume. All claimed to construct a way of seeing morality and making value judgments from below. That is, each claimed to create a universal moral outlook from the viewpoint of mankind, not from God above. Each claimed to step beyond, to step outside of, narrow parochial interests and viewpoints, and create a way of looking at the world from a detached perspective.

The problem with the move to shift morality and value judgments from the realm of the divine to the mind of man, Nietzsche points out, is that each Enlightenment thinker came up with his own slightly (sometimes more than slightly) different perspective. If we shift values from the mind of God to the mind of man, which man gets to be the new God? All the Enlightenment did, said Nietzsche, was transpose the old Christian framework to a new base. The Enlightenment man tries to keep the old God inspired worldview while simultaneously dropping God. This can’t be done, says Nietzsche. When you “kill” God, when you remove God from the equation, you can’t hold onto a world with values. Value and meaning go out the window too. “You have killed God,” shouts Zarathustra. Be ready to accept the implications of your deicide.

Dostoyevsky the man struggled with the question of God his whole life. In his last and greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov, he creates characters with diverging viewpoints to wrestle with the question of God. Our family patriarch, Fyodor Karamazov, a drunken womanizing buffoon, is unsure about the existence of God. He realizes he is a great sinner, and instead of struggling to reform, he chooses to bask in his licentious ways; if he is going to be a sinner, why not go all the way. As he says in Book 4, Chapter 2, “I mean to go on in my sins to then end, let me tell you. For sin is sweet; all abuse it, but all men live in it, only others do it on the sly, and I openly.”

Fyodor Karamazov’s three sons, Dmitri, Ivan, and Alyosha, symbolize the flesh, the mind, and the soul. Dmitri, like his father, delights in sins of the flesh. Ivan received a Western education, and is an atheist intellectual. Alyosha is a kindhearted monk. They are all aware of our fallen world, and the suffering that fills it. Each represents a different response to life on a post Eden Earth. Dmitri dives into the swimming pool of sin; why fight it when you can enjoy it. Ivan tries to detach himself from sin and suffering, and look upon it with scorn from an intellectual distance. Alyosha confronts sin and suffering through a life of self-giving love.

Issues become complicated with the introduction of two women, Katerina and Grushenka. Dmitri offers Katerina money to sleep with him. When Katerina accepts his offer, Dmitri relents out of shame. He lets her keep the money, but refuses to defile her. Katerina feels to indebted to Dmitri, and vows to love him forever for this kind deed. They become engaged.

Dmitri soon falls in love with another woman, Grushenka. This same Grushenka is the love interest of Dmitri’s father, Fyodor. Katerina, herself, has fallen in love with Dmitri’s brother Ivan, and he with her. But she vows to remain true to Dmitri even in his infidelity, to show him how great she is and make him forever indebted to her because of her “suffering love.”

When Fyodor Karamazov is murdered, accusations of patricide are thrown, and questions of guilt are raised based on each brother’s attitude toward life, including supposed illegitimate son Smerdyokov (the son of a local retarded woman pejoratively nicknamed Stinking Lizaveta; the liaison between Lizaveta and Fyodor is speculated but never definitively proven).

The Grand Inquisitor legend takes place in Book 5, Chapter 5. Ivan, the atheist brother, tells his brother Alyosha, the monk, a grand tale. He prefaces the story with an old tale of the Virgin Mary’s descent into Hell. She witnesses the suffering of the sinners burning in the lake of Hell, and pleads with God for mercy on their behalf. God grants the sinners a reprieve from suffering every year from Good Friday through Easter Sunday.

Ivan then moves on to his main story, which takes place in Seville, Spain during the height of the Inquisition. Cardinal Torquemada, the ninety-year-old Grand Inquisitor, is busy burning heretics at the stake. He has lost his own personal faith, but feels that faith is necessary for the people, or they will fall apart in despair. So, he tortures those who question Christianity to prevent the common people from doubting and falling into anguish.

Into this pit of suffering walks Christ. He is not back for the Second Coming, but rather just a visit, so to speak. The people instantly recognize Him. They flock to Him, and He embraces them, performing healings and miracles. The Grand Inquisitor sees this and has Christ arrested. ‘You have no right to come back now,’ Torquemada admonishes Christ. ‘We have things under control.’

Torquemada brings up the three temptations in the desert, when Satan confronted Christ. ‘You were wrong to reject the Devil’s temptation to turn stones into bread,’ says Torquemada. Saying ‘man does not live on bread alone, but on the word of God,’ means nothing to the common people who are starving and need bread, not words of spiritual comfort.

‘You were wrong to reject the Devil’s second temptation, to jump off the Temple and have God send His angels to save you (and reply to the Devil, ‘Scripture says don’t tempt the Lord),’ says Torquemada. The people don’t want to have blind faith; they want to be awed by miracles.

‘You were wrong to reject the Devil’s final temptation, to bow down before him and have power over the people,’ says Torquemada. If Christ had compelled obedience instead of condemning people to freedom, then there would be no heretics raising doubts about the faith and Torquemada would not be “forced” to burn people at the stake to insure happiness.

‘I will burn you with the other heretics,’ says Torquemada. Christ does not respond with words. He instead gives the old man a kiss. Torquemada shudders, then releases Him, telling Him to go and never return.

There are many interpretations of this story. Torquemada is seen as the Russian Orthodox caricature of Catholicism, using hierarchy and power to control the people and compel belief in Christ. The Christ figure in the story is seen as the Russian Orthodox caricature of Protestantism, with its emphasis on freedom of conscience as the path to Christ. We can also see an allegory of Communism (The Grand Inquisitor) versus Capitalism (Christ). In my original analysis of the story, I saw the Grand Inquisitor as a representation of dogmatic faith used to compel people to belief, and the Christ figure as the symbol of freedom. I saw the Christ figure as the hero of the story, representing the noble truth that faith must come freely, not through compulsion. Yet, my interpretation was wrong.

The Grand Inquisitor story is often (mistakenly) seen as Dostoyevsky’s personal view on freedom versus authority. It is seen as an allegory for the endless debates and arguments in religion, government, and public life about how much freedom should be granted and how much freedom should be taken away to ensure security. This is NOT Dostoyevsky’s view. The Grand Inquisitor story is a legend told by Dostoyevsky’s character Ivan, from the point of view of Ivan.

Ivan is an atheist, and in Book Five, Chapter Four: Rebellion, the chapter immediately preceding the Grand Inquisitor chapter, Ivan outlines the reasons for his atheism. He begins in acknowledgement of an understanding of Theodicy. Ivan understands the Christian teaching that God is omniscient and completely good. He understands the idea of God creating humans with free will, that man sinned of his own accord, bringing suffering and death into the world. He understands that God will reward the just and punish the wicked, setting things back in balance. But he cannot accept this viewpoint of the world.

Maybe adults deserve suffering, because “they’ve eaten the apple and know good and evil…and go on eating it still. But the children haven’t eaten anything, an are so far innocent,” says Ivan. He gives particular examples. There is the story of a Turk soldier pointing a gun in a baby’s face. The baby smiles and laughs, holding its hands out to the pistol before the soldier pulls the trigger and blows off its face. There is the story of a general who kept a kennel of hundreds of dogs. A little boy about eight throws a stone at the dogs and hurts the general’s prized hound. The boy was taken from his mother, stripped naked in the cold, and ordered to run. The general sent the pack of dogs after the boy, and they tore him to pieces.

Ivan cannot accept a world in which children such as these have to suffer. Explaining this suffering through free will does not justify it. Even if the general or the Turk soldier get punished, or get sent to the fires of Hell, it still does not take away the cruelty done. Even if that little boy is reunited in Heaven with his mother, still, it does not make sense why he needed to be torn to bits to justify a creation in which humans have freedom to inflict this kind of suffering. “It’s not that I don’t accept God…it’s the world created by Him I don’t and cannot accept,” says Ivan. “It’s not God that I don’t accept, only I most respectfully return Him the ticket.”

Is there a better option for Ivan than traditional Christian Theodicy? Maybe the world would make more sense if we got rid of God, if we built a world based on the reason and rationality of man, as the Enlightenment thinkers attempted to do. Or, maybe there is something missing in Ivan’s indictment. Alyosha brings up this point, pointing to Jesus as “a being in the whole world who would have the right to forgive and could forgive” humankind’s atrocities. Ivan smiles at this question and responds in the following chapter with his story of the Grand Inquisitor.

My earlier reading of Torquemada as the bad guy and the Jesus figure as the good guy is too simplistic. The figure of Torquemada is representative of Ivan. Torquemada and Ivan are both atheists. Neither can understand why God would create a world in which (according to them) humans are burdened (condemned) to a blind freedom in which they must come to faith in Christ with nary a miracle to inspire them (save the handful of miracles recorded in the Bible). With these odds, most will fail to come to faith in Christ, resulting in eternal suffering. Even if the legend of the Virgin Mary’s visit to Hell is true, the annual three-day reprieve from suffering cannot justify the suffering sinners face because God condemned them to blind freedom. The Christ figure in the Grand Inquisitor story is not the good guy, but the bad guy. Instead of giving man bread, miracles, and authority, things that would actually give man sustenance, hope, and order, he condemns man to blind faith, resulting in suffering for the multitudes and bliss only for the small number of devout faithful strong willed enough to keep the faith and make it to Heaven.

The Grand Inquisitor story is not really an allegory about freedom versus security or freedom versus authoritarianism. It is Ivan’s critique of life itself. It is Ivan’s critique of life, God or no God, as seen from the perspective of Torquemada. At the beginning of the story, as I noted, Torquemada is an atheist. He sees himself as one of the enlightened few who is burdened to bear the truth about the meaninglessness of life. If the masses knew the truth, they would despair. It is better to give the people ‘bread, miracle, and authority;’ it is better people believe and go into death and nothingness in a state of happy ignorance than know the truth that there is no pie in the sky. When Jesus comes, it makes the problem worse. Now that Torquemada sees that God is real, the problem of suffering is worse. The free will excuse is not good enough. Free will is not worth it if it condemns humanity to suffering.

Ivan sees only two options. Either there is no God, life ends at death, and existence is a meaningless fraud, or God is a monster for condemning us to suffering because of our free will.

What is the response to Ivan’s view in The Brothers Karamazov? I have not yet finished the book, so I cannot answer. Yes, I’ve skimmed Wikipedia. Wikipedia says Dostoyevsky’s response can be seen in the words of Alyosha’s spiritual mentor Fr. Zossima, and in the way Ivan’s life plays out. But I’ve made the mistake of relying on Wikipedia for background information already. Before an analysis or critique of Ivan’s view, I will finish the book.

Will my response to Ivan be an exhortation for the detached perspective of the Enlightenment? I have to say it will not. While taking Nietzsche’s perspective on a world without God, Ivan embodied the Enlightenment view of remaining detached from the nitty-gritty of life. I’ve already erred as Wikipedia boy of the 2000’s. I will not advocate going backwards further, rejecting God, embracing a purely ‘natural’ viewpoint, and becoming a 1980’s Material Girl.

Getting Punched in the Face at the Public Library

2007-06-05T12:18:00.000-04:00

“The jealous man can forgive extraordinarily quickly (though, of course, after a violent scene), and he is able to forgive infidelity almost conclusively proved, the very kisses and embraces he has seen, if only he can somehow be convinced that it has all been ‘for the last time,’ and that his rival will vanish that day forward, will depart to the ends of the earth, or that he himself will carry her away somewhere, where that dreaded rival will not get near her. Of course the reconciliation is only for an hour. For, even if the rival did disappear next day, he would invent another one and be jealous of him. And one might wonder what there was in a love that had to be so watched over, what a love could be worth that needed such strenuous guarding. But that the jealous will never understand.” Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.” Matthew 6:5-6

Yesterday I got punched in the face at the library. At the public library. I sat at a computer screen in the middle of the main room, minding my business, when what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a fat man (not St. Nick) rudely berating his dear. I sprang from my seat to see what was the matter; the angry man screamed and screamed much blather.

This was no scene from a Clement Clark Moore medley. A short fat man, appearing in his mid 30’s, about 5’6”, 230 lbs, wearing shorts, a t-shirt, a baseball cap, and a mean looking goatee, confronted a woman in the far corner of the library’s main room. Presumable his girlfriend or ex-girlfriend, he began yelling and swearing at her, commanding her to give him the keys to their house. Me and the four or five other male patrons (all appearing in their 50’s and 60’s), glanced eerily at the confrontation, not sure whether to intervene or allow the lady librarians to politely ask him to be quiet and/or leave.

He grabbed the woman, and at this she yelled for the librarians to call the cops. She tried to walk away, but he followed her. Me and the other men got between them. I stood between the man and the woman. The fat ass told me to get out of his way. I stayed where I was. Apparently, this made him a teeny-weeny bit mad. He took a ring out of his pocket and put it on his finger. Now, that’s the sign of a real man.

I glanced around to make sure the woman was okay and the other men were around (yeah, I was concerned for my own pretty face, too). Wham! He gave me a quick bop in the nose with his right fist. It didn’t really hurt. My first thought was, “shit, I better not have a broken nose.” Thankfully, my nose turned out okay, with two small cuts and a little bleeding. Another man wasn’t so lucky; the short fat guy bit his arm.

We noticed a knife on the fat man’s belt and backed away. The woman ran to the back wall. He got to her and grabbed her hair. Fortunately, the cops arrived then and pulled him away.

I didn’t feel personally violated or hurt at the punch. But I pressed charges at the police station anyway. And I hope the man who got bit does too. This is a case of an abusive relationship, and sadly, sometimes the woman blames herself and actually believes the man when he says it won’t happen again. If it takes me pressing charged to get him put away, so be it.

I passed on taking the ambulance to the hospital with the man who got bit. One, I really wasn’t hurt, and two, I had a doctor’s scheduled anyways for later that day. Which I kind of wish I hadn’t, because what I most felt like was going to the bar and having a drink, something that would have to wait for after my doctor visit. Along with this thinking in twos mentality, two things went through my mind all day after this happened:

(1) What makes a man believe he is justified in hitting a woman? This man truly believed that he was in the right. He could not understand why everybody confronted him. Why do women go for these jealous, emotionally fragile, sorry excuses for men? The apologies of this sort of man are not authentic but rather manipulative attempts to allow himself to abuse the woman again.

(2) I know Jesus said we should keep our good deeds to ourselves. We should be good without any desire for reward or honors. We should be like the guy who prays in quiet, not the man who brags about how righteous he is. But I am a flawed human like all others (save Mary and Jesus) since our first parents ate the fruit of the tree. And, I will say that my actions “were nothing; anyone would done what I did if he were in my place.” But, did I like it when a couple of older ladies witnessing the scene complemented me on my bravery? You bet. Will I tell the story about my adventure in the library when people ask me throughout the week how I got this cut on the right side of nose? Damn right I will. Will I tell it in a way where I downplay my actions but secretly hope people are impressed anyway? Yes.

Becoming Famous? No, It Ain't Worth It

2007-05-15T16:23:00.000-04:00

MTV has a TV show called Real World/Road Rules Challenge. It is a competition between former cast members of the reality TV series’ Real World and Road Rules. A show like this exists solely because Real World-ers and other reality “stars” cannot let go of their fifteen minutes of fame. After finding out that reality TV does not turn participants into real celebrities, they latch onto any D or F List event, failing to see obscurity as a more attractive option than fame.

Yes, it is better not to be famous. We live in a narcissistic culture that tells us fame and renown are around the corner. Worse, unlike in the old days (the 1990’s), when you actually had to work hard (Bill Gates; Warren Buffett) or have a special world class talent (pro athletes; movie stars; rock stars) to become rich and famous, nowadays reality TV and the Internet give us the illusion that celebrity is in the grasp of Every Man. People really believe they can become famous by applying to be on Real World and Survivor.[1] People really believe they can become famous by posting YouTube Videos and writing blogs.[2] Even Time Magazine bought into this fad by naming YOU as person of the year, complete with a mirror shaped like a computer screen on the cover.

Reality TV stars are like those weird kids you knew in high school who did things like color their hair purple. They feared not getting any attention, and believed that bad attention is worse than not getting noticed at all. Instead of being unique or special, they blended in with the other outcasts. Even though they had attention, they still didn’t fit in with the cool kids. What they didn’t realize is that being cool is just something you are or you aren’t; unless you are a hot chick in a movie who people can’t tell is hot because she wears glasses and a ponytail, then suddenly lets her hair down and ditches the glasses, you cannot go from being uncool to cool. It just doesn’t happen. Reality TV stars get the same shunning from real famous people. The Real World is not a ticket into the Hollywood inner circle. You need to be famous because of that elusive quality known as “cool;” it can’t come from whoring yourself out to the reality TV executives or coloring your hair purple, depending on whether 15 minutes of fame or high school attention is your goal.

But what about real fame? Isn’t that worth it? Isn’t it worth becoming famous for being a good baseball player or great actress? There are benefits. On a personal level, riches and fame would allow me to wipe out my college loans in one fell swoop. I would take pictures of myself with all the hot babes who throw themselves at me, then mail them to all to all the girls who rejected me and stuck me in the Friend Zone. But, still, this wouldn’t bring happiness. It would just make me a token of whatever it is I’m famous for. Think of the famous people you’ve heard of. George W. Bush is, to the world, President of the United States. And that’s pretty much it. Lebron James is a star basketball player. Simon Cowell is that guy who puts people down on American Idol. Fame transforms you from a well rounded person into a Wikipedia entry.

How many people know me? Know of me? Hundreds, maybe a few thousand. Who am I? I am a son, a brother, a nephew, a cousin, a friend, someone who makes you laugh, someone who is shy, but funny when he opens up. Let’s say I randomly got picked to be on Real World; I would become: Sean Pidgeon, contestant on Real World. I would be a stub on Wikipedia. And this would change me not just to the world, but to the people who actually know me. When someone I know mentions me, she (or he) won’t say, “oh yeah, Sean Pidgeon! He was my camp counselor/teacher/I went to college with him/I worked with him. He made me laugh/we had a lot of fun on that Montreal trip/ you really need to meet this guy/you would love him!” Instead, she will say, “oh yeah, Sean Pidgeon. He’s the guy who flew to the moon with NASA/starred in that Oscar winning movie/played in the NFL. I knew him when he was in college/worked with me in the summer/went to kindergarten with him.” And it would be worse being famous or semi-famous for failure, such as being an NBA benchwarmer or a career minor leaguer or a disgraced politician. Then people would point to an innocuous past event, such as the time you got in trouble for gym class, for a “sign” that you had your failure coming all along.

Leave the reality shows for those kids who color their hair purple. Leave the authentic fame of politicians, movie stars, and sports heroes to the originally cool kids. “Cool” is too much responsibility anyway. Enjoy being anonymous to the world. You are the world already to those you love.

[1] I do not include American Idol in my critique. For one, I really do enjoy AI. And it is a proven talent agency. Singers there do become stars. AI is not, in my opinion, the latest reality fad, but rather harkens back to the old days of variety (think Ed Sullivan Show, or for the younger crowd like me, Ed McMahon’s Star Search).
[2] To be completely honest, I would probably have to include myself.

Can there be Morality without Religion?

2007-05-11T15:10:00.000-04:00

Karl Rove is known (both affectionately and derisively) as the mad genius behind the Bush Administration’s rise to power. He organizes the campaigns to get all wings of the Republican base—rich businessmen and evangelicals—into a sometimes awkward looking marriage; everything that need be done to keep Dubya in power. The recent revelation in a NY Times interview with Christopher Hitchens that Rove is “not a believer” adds an interesting twist to this tale. The man behind the evangelical rise to political power is an atheist.

The blog entry pushing the story on the NY Times Opinionator got the responses flowing. Secular progressives, those most likely to disapprove of Rove in the first place, were in a tizzy. ‘Can we excommunicate Rove?’ asked one atheist, apparently only half in jest. Conservative religious believers responded with comments suggesting that their Republican ‘bad apple’ can be explained away through his lack of faith. One commentator dared ask if we could possibly be surprised that a godless man would lack moral conviction.

The issue of belief vs. unbelief, like any other contentious issue, brings out the same arguments on all sides. Even though the topic at hand was an unbeliever working hard to keep a religiously motivated political regime in power, the debate in the comment area degenerated into the typical argument over whether there can be morality without God. And nothing bristles an atheist more than the suggestion that morality is tied into supernatural religion.

‘No,’ says the atheist, ‘we don’t need God to have morality. I can be a good person without believing in some fairy tale guy in the sky.’ The believer will predictably respond by asking, ‘What incentive is there to be good if there is no God to reward or punish your behavior in the afterlife?’ The atheist is prepared with his smug altruism: ‘Is it not better to do good for its own sake rather than for a heavenly reward?’

The atheist, in his response, misunderstands the statement, best expressed by 19th century Christian Fyodor Dostoevsky (and also believed by 19th century atheist Friedrich Nietzsche), “If there is no God, all is lawful.” This belief—that without God, there is no right and wrong—does NOT imply that atheists can’t be good people. Atheists can be good people, and many are. Yes, some atheists (Lenin, Stalin, Kim Jung Il) are bad, but some Christians are bad too. This belief—that without God, there is no right and wrong—also does NOT imply that people should only be good because God said so. The atheist is right; it is better to be good for goodness sake, as Santa Claus would say. Though, we can’t discount ulterior incentives to be good, whether this or other worldly. Yes, ideally man would refrain from killing his brother solely out of a proper sense of justice. Ideally, we would need no law for man to see that, yes, he is his brother’s keeper. And, I believe, most people would refrain from murder without legal proscriptions. But, we know human nature, and we know that incentives and prohibitions are a necessary part of bringing about proper moral behavior in man, even with the hope that man will someday transcend this and live, as the atheist (and the true Christian) dreams, a virtuous life solely because it is the right thing to do.

What this belief—that there is no right or wrong sans God—does imply is it that without God, right and wrong ultimately have no absolute value. Atheists can be “good” people if there is no God, just as Christians can, but “good” and “bad” will only have any meaning in the sense that an action is relatively beneficial. Good and bad, without God, can only be spoken of in the sense that, when a lion eats a lamb, it is good for the lion and bad for the lamb. Yes, an atheist can be a good person. Yes, it is best to be good for its own sake, not for hope in an afterlife (even if one does have hope for life in heaven). But if there is no God—if this life is the only life and we become nothing when we die—then right and wrong, good and evil, beauty and love and happiness and life all have no meaning.

I am no prophet of doom. I am not warning us; I am not calling America to turn back to God or face a descent into nihilism. Will society collapse? Will people despair in the recognition that a world without God is meaningless? Probably not. Most would not think things through to their end in daily life. Just as most Christians do not give their all to Christ in the manner of St. Francis of Assisi, most people in a world without God would not, like Ivan Karamazov, see things through to their logical conclusion and out of despair, choose to pass on the cup. Life in a Godless world would be fairly similar to a world with God, or to our current world, a world struggling between being a God-filled or Godless world.

The difference would need to be grasped subtly in a view from the distance. This view can best be observed in a glimpse of literature. The novels of Ian McEwan are deeply moving accounts of the way people live today. But in the end, one is not filled with hope at their conclusion. In his novel Saturday, we meet a neurosurgeon, married to a loving wife, preparing himself for a nice family dinner and the return home of his daughter. The backdrop is a London protest of the Iraq War, and he delights in the return home of his daughter while simultaneously fretting over an incident from the early afternoon. At novel’s end, we are relieved at the happy ending for a just man, but we feel a touch of sadness, since it is obvious, both subtly and overtly, that he is missing that relationship with the supernatural in his own life. Despite his proficient understanding of the workings of the brain, he realizes in that day’s events his helplessness to control his world. This fact is a truism for all; the tragedy is he cannot bring himself to turn to God in his own ‘Job’ moment.

The truly committed Christian gives herself completely over to Christ, like the Little Flower St. Therese and St. Antony of the Desert and St. Francis of Assisi. The truly thoughtful atheist sees things all the way through, like Dostoevsky’s fictional Ivan Karamazov, who “respectfully” returns God “the ticket” and promises to give up drinking from the cup (of life) at age 30. Most Christians (me included) don’t let God get too much in the way, and live a normal, this-world-centered, life. Most atheists don’t let their non-belief play too much into day-to-day life, and live normal this-world-centered lives. It’s at the end of the day, I fear, that the person lacking faith, despite his resolute pride, will, like Ian McEwan’s Saturday neurosurgeon, recognize his helplessness at controlling his world, and miss out on turning to He who gives life meaning.

Thank God for the New York Yankees! (Yes, you heard that right)

2007-04-30T18:08:00.000-04:00

“You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your [bleep]in' fingers and say, ‘That's the bad guy.’”—Tony Montana (Al Pacino), Scarface

The Yankees are in last place. Dead last. They lost 7 in a row last week, have currently lost 8 of 9, and stand at 9-14, a .391 winning percentage that ranks them as the third worst team in baseball, behind the perpetually putrid Nationals and Royals. As a Mets fan (and any baseball fan whose favorite team is NOT the Yankees), you would think this would bring me a measure of joy. Instead, I sit in sadness, writing this essay with a heavy heart.

Have I gone soft? Did I become one of those guys who root for all the local teams, hoping the Mets AND Yankees do well? No, I hate That Guy and so should you. There is room in America for many types of people, of all political and religious stripes, but there is no room for someone who can’t make up his mind choosing sports teams. I loath sports bigamists. For all self respecting sports fans (non-Yankees fans), you can breathe a sigh of relief. I still despise the Yankees. I still think Derek Jeter is the most overrated player (and the worst defensive shortstop) in baseball. I still hate that corporate arrogance espoused by all Yankees fans who choose to not hate other teams back, but rather condescendingly pity them. Boston fans know this like no other.

I simultaneously maintain my hatred of all things Yankee while lying in a state of dismay over the Yankees poor season start. You see, it’s not just that I hate the Yankees; I ENJOY hating the Yankees. But there needs to be a reason to hate them. I hate them because they spend way more money than all the other teams, they win 90 games and make the playoffs every year, and their fans condescend to you. I hate them because they act like they are entitled to championships, when I would be willing to trade getting stuck on a deserted island with Jessica Alba just for the chance to see the Mets win one title during my young adulthood. If the Yankees suck (a distinction from the YANKEES SUCK T-shirts, which imply sucking in the metaphorical sense described above; I’m talking literally now, in a wins and losses sense), then they become the Royals or the Arizona Cardinals or the L.A. Clippers. They would be objects of pity, not hate. Hate is enjoyable. Pity sucks the life out of both the pit-ee and the pity-er.

Sports are a metaphor for life (maybe not, but they should be). There are villains in real life, and there are bad guys in sports, real life’s metaphor. The Yankees, Duke basketball, and Notre Dame football serve as the athletic enemies of all things good and sporting. They have much wider fan bases than their geographical bases deserve. But, with other sports teams that have large fan networks extending beyond a team’s natural sphere of interest, they don’t harbor neutral feelings from other teams fans. No true sports fan is neutral to Duke, Notre Dame, or the Yankees. If you are not a direct fan, then you scorn the Blue Devils, Irish, and Bronx Bombers with your whole fiber of existence. Nothing is more enjoyable, save rooting for your own team and seeing your own team win, than rooting against the Yankees, Irish, and Blue Devils, and seeing them lose. Even if, say, you are a North Carolina fan, and you need Duke to beat Wake Forest to guarantee your Tar Heels first place, you will still root for Wake to defeat Duke. If you are a Red Sox fan, and the Yankees have the opportunity to beat, say, the Blue Jays and guarantee your beloved Boston a playoff spot, you will still root against the Yanks out of spite.

The paradox in this desire to see the Yankees, Notre Dame, and Duke lose is that in order to maintain this enjoyable hatred, they must NOT lose. They need to win—early, often, and regularly—or that hatred will recede. No one wants to see the Yankees win, but if they did not have those 26 World Series banners hanging in The House That Ruth Built, we wouldn’t hate them. Every good-hearted college basketball fan would not hate Duke if Mike Krzyzewski did not take them to 3 National Titles and countless Final Fours the past two decades. Deep down, even though we hate them, we wouldn’t really want them to lose.

The common man’s hatred of all things Yankee, Duke, and Notre Dame does not come just from their constant winning. It’s the way they win. There are other good basketball programs, such as Kansas, Kentucky, and UCLA. But Duke coach Krzyzewski can’t just win, he has to go on every commercial and rub it in our faces that he does things the “right” way, that he recruits true scholar athletes, and he gets all the clean cut polished McDonald’s All-Americans to sign with his program.

Nebraska, Penn State, and USC all have great football programs. But Notre Dame is hated because they are ALWAYS on TV, they are always played up in the media as college football royalty, and they always get to go to whatever bowl game they want, without the requirement to join a conference like every other major program in the country.

The Yankees can’t just win multiple pennants. We must constantly be bombarded with their “aura” of greatness, and we can’t go two commercial breaks without hearing about Babe Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, and Jeter.

So we don’t hate the Yankees just because they win. We hate them because of those other “qualities” that are rubbed in our faces. But, the catch is, they have to win, or else they would be an object of pity. All those annoying Yankee traits, such as not allowing the players to have facial hair, and no names on the jersey (as if that makes them better than other teams), would be still engendering nothing more than pity from us if they didn’t win. We can see this with Notre Dame. Hatred still exists, but it doesn’t seethe like Yankee or Duke hatred. Notre Dame hasn’t won a National Title in almost two decades, and hasn’t been relevant since the Bush I administration. Duke’s last title in 2001, and the Yanks last in 2000 are at least fresh in our minds. They are close enough to keep that hatred fueled.

In the 1990’s Duke won back-to-back titles with Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley, and Grant Hill, and the Yankees won 4 titles in 5 years with the emergence of Derek Jeter and Joe Torre. Thankfully, this first decade of the 2000’s has been a reprieve from the horrific ‘90’s. Duke and the Yankees have been right where we want them to be. Duke is always ranked number one most of the season, and gets a top seed in the NCAA Tournament, only to lose in the Sweet 16, letting us bask in the glory of watching Coach Krzyzewski crying, hugging his token graduating white All-American senior (the role played in 2006 by J.J. Redick). The Yankees always sign the big name free agent who isn’t quite right for the team, and coast to the playoffs, where they choke and get upset before the World Series, leading George Steinbrenner to do his annual re-evaluation. They are good enough for us to hate, but not quite good enough for them to rub it in on us. But this year—2007—might ruin that.

Duke had a mediocre season and got upset in the first round in a game that really shouldn’t even be considered an upset. The Yankees have pitched 4 rookie starters and look like they will be lucky to get out of last place, let alone make the playoffs. If Charlie Weis can’t finally return Notre Dame to national title contender, there will be no one left to hate. This is a real existential crisis. We need our sports villains. The Yankees are That Guy at school who always gets the pretty girls. You know who I’m talking about. Billy Zabka played That Guy in The Karate Kid and a host of other ‘80’s teen movies. He is That Guy who goes to the gym with his hair perfectly gelled, and looks at himself flexing in the mirror. He is That Guy who always has that smile on his face that says “I know I’m getting the girl tonight, so me being nice to you is my way of looking down at you because you aren’t me.” We might think we’d be better of without him, but we need That Guy as an object of hate (and we know, realistically, if he wasn’t around, the pretty girls still wouldn’t go for us. They would conveniently happen to be in that period where they are “taking a break from dating”). But, here’s the caveat: we want That Guy to get the pretty girls. We want him to get all the pretty girls except for one. We DON’T want him to get the pretty girl we like (in case you couldn’t tell, I’ve been using the “Royal We” for some time now. By “we” I mostly mean “me”).

If That Guy couldn’t get the pretty girls, there would be no reason to hate him. He would be the Royals or the Clippers. And if he were the Royals or Clippers, and he did get the pretty girl, we couldn’t possible be mad. It would be like—you guessed it—seeing the Royals come out of nowhere to win the World Series. True, I would be disappointed like every other season the Mets don’t win it. But, it’s nice to see an underdog win and it’s always nice to see the Yankees NOT win the World Series. Sports fans collectively felt this in 2006 when the Tigers erased a decade of mediocrity with a trip to the World Series. So no, we don’t want to see That Guy go without. We want him to get pretty girls, just not the pretty girl of our dreams. And what if he does get the pretty girl of our dreams? What if That Guy ends up on top of the world, like the 1991-1992 Duke Blue Devils or the 1996-2000 Yankees? We can pray that he made a deal with the devil and has to pay some sort of price. As painful as it is to have seen the Yankees win the World Series 4 times in 5 years, it has been an utter delight to see them give up their team-first philosophy, buy me-first superstar free agents, and start losing every year in the playoffs. As awful as it was to see Duke go to all those Final Fours, every basketball fan can take solace in the fact that Duke superstars end up sucking in the NBA. Hello, Christian Laettner? If That Guy does get the pretty girl of our dreams, we can always hope he gets fat and bald and still wears his Varsity jacket at the 20-year class reunion.

The catch: there is always a fine line that must be balanced. The object of hatred (The Yankees/That Guy) must be good enough and obnoxious enough to warrant loathing, but not good enough to rub it in. But, even this does not suffice. If the Yankees continue this streak of going to the playoffs and losing, they will become the Buffalo Bills and Atlanta Braves, objects of laughter, not hate. As much as it hurts to see them win the World Series, they need to win another one soon, or risk declining as an object of hate. Then again, maybe that is good thing. Yankees fans seem to enjoy our hatred of them. What could be better than having the opportunity to give them some condescending pity, a taste of their own medicine?

The Death of Words

2007-04-14T11:24:00.000-04:00

A beautiful woman walks down the street. Her radiant smile accentuates her wavy hair, brown eyes, shapely curves, hourglass figure, and perfect breasts and butt. That freckle on her left cheek sends me into a deep blush (you can tell I’m not a romance novelist). She is flanked on one side by a Rachel Dratch look-a-like, and, if I’m not mistaken, on the other side by a cross between Rosie O’Donnell and Roseanne.

“That woman in the middle is beautiful,” I say, mouth wide open, salivating like Pavlov’s dog at the ring of a bell.

“What about her two friends?” asks my female companion.

“They fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.”

“You are so judgmental,” huffs my female companion. “How can you call the one girl beautiful and not the other two? You are only looking at outward appearance. It is inner beauty that matters.”

The above conversation is fictional, but similar discussions happen all the time. One person will describe as beautiful someone’s outward appearance, while another will say that it is inner beauty, what the eye cannot see, that really matters. Yes, in the deepest, ‘truest’, sense, it is inner beauty that matters. But if we start using words in their ‘truest’ sense, they risk losing descriptive power and become meaningless.

We all know the word “gentleman.” Gentleman comes from the Latin “gentiles,” meaning a man from a good family. It later came to be a descriptive word for a man of noble rank or honor. Unfortunately, not all “gentlemen” acted virtuously or treated others honorably. Because of this, people began to say that the mark of a ‘true’ gentleman is not his official title or rank, but the way he treats others. While this is ‘true’ in the deepest sense, the unfortunate result is that now the word “gentleman” is nothing more than a synonym for nice guy. It no longer has descriptive power.

Similarly, the word “Christian” faces this same danger. In its descriptive sense, “Christian” is a word we apply to one who believes in Jesus Christ and the teachings of Christianity. Rightfully, it is pointed out that any ‘true’ Christian is a good person who serves others. But again, focusing exclusively on the ‘truest’ sense of the word can lead to “Christian,” like “gentleman,” becoming a synonym for nice person and no longer helpful in describing any particular person.

Why do we take previously descriptive terms such as gentleman, Christian, and beauty, strip them of their outwardly descriptive power, and find their ‘truest’ sense by turning them into synonyms for internal characteristics such as ‘good’ or ‘honorable?’ For, there are many descriptive words that become synonyms for value judgments. Old-fashioned rarely means “antique” or “from the past.” It now means “not as good as the things we use now.” “Medieval” no longer means “from the Middle Ages.” It means “bad” or “intolerant” or any other negative term you can think of. “Modern” and “current” no longer mean “pertaining to the present day.” They are synonyms for “good” or “worthy.”

I think it is a combination of relativism and conceit. Because of moral and cultural relativism, we no longer believe in any absolute value for concepts such as “good” or “bad.” God forbid we say one thing is better or worse than another. In reality, we cannot escape making value judgments. If we never decided that one thing is better than another, we would never make any decisions. So, to be fashionable, we substitute words like “modern” to describe the things we like and call those awful traits “medieval” and those backward people “dinosaurs,” because what can be further in the past (meaning what can be worse)?

Don’t take it from me. Take it from a great classic author (Yes, classic means in the past, but things from the past can be as good as, if not better than, modern things). C.S. Lewis, in the book “On Stories and Other Essays on Literature,” writes a great essay titled “The Death of Words.” For a better understanding of this issue, I recommend you read it, since he is a far greater and far more entertaining writer than I.

Don Imus and Rutgers

2007-04-13T10:12:00.000-04:00

Last week, radio shock-jock Don Imus tried to be funny by calling the national runner-up Rutgers women's basketball team a bunch of "nappy-haired ho's." He got fired, first by MSNBC then by CBS radio, and has done a constant stream of mea culpas. to help our national healing, the Today Show has brought out Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Whoopi Goldberg, Spike Lee, Tavis Smiley, and Cornel West to give their two cents.

I haven't been sure what to think about this, but African American sportwriter Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star (and formerly of ESPN) has some great words to share. I encourage you to read his column: http://www.kansascity.com/182/story/66339.html

Get Anyone to do Anything, by David Lieberman, PhD

2007-04-13T09:55:00.000-04:00

What do women want? What do men want? David Lieberman, a man I never heard of, but a nationally recognized leader in the field of human behavior, told me (in his book) how to make people like me, how to get girls to be attracted to me, how to get people to listen to me, how to get people to do what I want, and how to win in gambling. And if I found his book at Barnes & Noble instead of the public library, he could have made $12.95 off me too.

Familiarity does NOT breed contempt, says Lieberman. We like someone more if she is around all the time. We like people who show an interest in us. And, we like people who talk to us when we are in a good mood, since it causes us to associate them with happy feelings. If you want to be liked, go up to that charming fellow, compliment him on his fashion tastes, and take your coffee break at the same time and place each day… but only on days he is smiling.

That is all well and good, but I think most of us knew that anyway, from experience. The fun part is Chapter 2, “Get Anyone to Find You Instantly Attractive.” This chapter I shall parse point by point. These are the six points: “Emotional Arousal,” “Walking Styles,” “Gazing into a Person’s Eyes,” “The Law of Contrast and Association,” “Self-Esteem and Attraction,” and “Reciprocal Liking.”

People get turned on, says Lieberman, when they engage in adrenaline building activities, like watching scary movies and riding roller coasters. If you hang out with a pretty girl (or boy) when she is doing something like this, you will automatically be more attractive to her. We are also turned on by youth, so if you walk like a young person and have good posture, this won’t hurt. Make sure, too, to gaze into the other person’s eyes. Do this and she will be instantly smitten. These all seem fine; the youth one is true for sure (I was attracted to 18-22 year old girls my freshman year of college, and I still am), I never thought about the adrenaline thing, and the eye gazing thing seems like it might be a little stalker-ish.

Point four, the “Law of Contrast and Association,” is where Lieberman gets interesting. How should I meet girls? Should I hit up the bar scene with four or five of my studly buddies, hoping to entice a beauty’s eye with attraction by association? No, says Lieberman. Bringing good-looking buddies makes you look bad in comparison.

Maybe I should go clubbing with a group of ugly friends. Would that catch a babe’s eye by making me look good in contrast? One would think so based on the previous example, but ugly friends in reality make you look worse than you are. It’s bad to go chick-hunting with Zack Morris and A.C. Slater, and it’s just as bad to look for chicks with Screech Powers.

What is the right approach to meeting women? Leave the friends at home, says Lieberman, and go out by yourself! Or, if you have to bring a wingman or two, make sure they are in your range. Nobody too handsome or too ugly.

Of course, this applies only to bringing friends of the same sex. If a guy is going to hit the town with female friends, not only can they be extremely attractive, it is best for them to be. This will make other girls find him better looking.

Point five is all about self-esteem. But, not in the way I would have thought (I have been told in real life by girls who rejected me that I don’t have enough confidence and self-esteem). Lieberman does NOT say that boosting your own self-esteem will make you more attractive to others. What he does say is someone with low self-esteem is more likely to be attracted to a person she meets. Why do you think there are so many rebound daters?

Of course! I need to seek out women with low self-esteem. The emotionally stable ladies don’t need me to make them feel good.

Point six, the final point, “Reciprocal Liking,” I completely agree with. When we find out that someone we find attractive is interested in us, we automatically find this person more appealing. This is definitely true for me personally. In high school, I had some crushes on girls who never gave me the time of day, but every romantic interest since then has been a girl I initially found pretty who, after meeting me, was nice to me, friendly, and showed an interest in getting to know me and stay in touch with me (The flip side, for me personally, is that if an unattractive person shows interest, I will still not be attracted to her).

Based on this chapter, this is what I now must do to get a girlfriend: leave my guy friends at home, call up my attractive female friends, bring them to an amusement park, walk with good posture, find a pretty girl with low self-esteem, gaze into her eyes and invite her on the roller coaster, then seal the deal by saying, “I like you.”

Once I do this, will I live happily ever after? Not so fast, says Lieberman in Chapter 4, “Get the Instant Advantage in Every Relationship.” If you are too available, she will leave you for someone more mysterious. People want what they can’t have. So make yourself distant. Always let her know that there are many other fish in the sea just waiting to be caught. She is more likely to keep vying for your love knowing she can be thrown back in the sea if need be.

Guys, if you want a girlfriend (and girls, if you want a boyfriend), follow this advice: leave your same-sex pals at home, call up the good looking opposite sex friends, go some place where you can get an adrenaline rush (or bring a case of Mountain Dew), strut like you mean it, meet that pretty person with low self-esteem, stare into her eyes, and give her a Mountain Dew or Red Bull. Make sure you finish the night by professing your undying love with the caveat that you will always keep your options open. This, my friends, is the path to true love.

Positive Attitudes

2007-04-12T11:08:00.000-04:00

We all know John Belushi’s samurai sandwich server, Will Ferrell and Cheri Oteri’s cheerleaders, Will Ferrell’s James Lipton, the Coneheads, the Ladies Man, the Night at the Roxbury boys, Wayne’s World, and Chris Farley’s motivational speaker Matt Foley. Some became real bad movies, some didn’t. But they were all recurring skits on Saturday Night Live. Sadly, the talent and writing have gone way down on the show, almost to the point of unwatchability. One of the few watchable current sketches is a recurring skit called Debbie Downer. Rachel Dratch plays Debbie, always ready with a depressing response to any joyous news brought by friends, followed a trombone-played “wah-wah.”

“You’re enjoying your day
Everything’s going your way
Then along comes Debbie Downer

Always there to tell you ‘bout a new disease.
A car accident or killer bees
You’ll beg her to spare you, ‘Debbie, Please!’
But you can’t stop Debbie Downer!”

We all know a Debbie Downer. We probably know many. This got me thinking…you know, in an introspective sort of way: “Am I a positive person?”

I just read a book called “Get Anyone to Do Anything,” by David Lieberman, PhD. I will discuss the book in greater detail in a later blog entry, but a key point in an early chapter on getting people to like you is the insightful comment: people like positive people. We like to be around, and we like to become friends with, positive and happy people. Which brings me back to my question: Am I a positive person?

When I am around people, playing games, having discussions, eating dinner, and everything else people do together, I am positive. I always smile and make people feel comfortable. But, when I write (which I do a lot, probably too much; most of my writing I don’t even post online), I tend to be negative and critical. I point something out, and critique or make fun of it. Why is that? Why do I turn critical when I put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard)?

I think when it comes to the written word it is natural to find conflict. Conflict drives narrative. Especially in fiction, we like to see a problem followed by either a resolution or a complete fall. The protagonist is attacked by bad guys, or is in love with the meathead’s girlfriend, or even does something himself to cause problems, and the story plays out through his quest to resolve the conflict. We close with a happy ending, a tragedy, or stuck in neutral with an option for a sequel.

Even in non-fiction, conflict drives narrative. It is much easier to write about what’s wrong with the world than to glowingly praise the pretty daisies in the backyard. It need not be this way, though. If we look hard enough, there are many things to praise. In my opening anecdote, instead of getting a jab in about the demise of SNL, I could have praised the show’s ability to keep churning out skits week after week.

Beginning now, I will make an effort to write more positively. Even though you won’t see it, I will have a smile on my face as my fingers hit the keys. I will look for the good in situations. I will compliment people as much as possible, even if I have to occasionally give backhanded compliments (example: ARod’s purple lips aren’t that big when compared to Barney the Dinosaur’s)

Short Stories

2007-04-11T12:04:00.000-04:00

I will continue to post blogs on this site, but I have added another blog where I will post short stories and other assorted items. The link to the site is http://seanshortstories.blogspot.com/

By short stories, I mean short stories. I will make sure that each story can be read somewhere between 5 and 20 minutes. If a story is too long, I will cut it into parts and post it separately.

Enjoy!

The Ugliest Baseball Player Ever

2007-04-05T11:28:00.000-04:00

I could talk all day about ugly professional athletes. The Major Leagues, the NFL, and the NBA are filled with them, to the point I could write an ugly athlete essay without even mentioning the WNBA. I even wrote about this subject a year ago in my blog entry “Ugly as Sin” (http://spidgetales.blogspot.com/2006/04/ugly-as-sin.html). But when we talk ugly, 1950’s baseball player Don Mossi takes the cake. I would describe him to you, but I’ll instead let baseball writer Bill James do the honors:

“The Man Who Invented Ugly” by Bill James. From his Historical Abstract

“I always kind of identified with Don Mossi. Don Mossi had had two careers as a major league pitcher, one as a reliever and one as a starter, and he was pretty darn good both times. No one who saw him play much remembers that, because Mossi’s ears looked as if they had been borrowed from a much larger species, and reattached without proper supervision. His nose was crooked, his eyes were in the wrong place, and though he was skinny he had no neck to speak of, just a series of chins that melted into his chest. An Adam’s apple poked out of the third chin, and there was always a stubble of beard because you can’t shave a face like that. He looked like Joe Torre escaped from Devil’s island…

Don Mossi was the complete five-tool ugly player. He could run ugly, hit ugly, throw ugly, field ugly and ugly for power. He was ugly to all fields. He could ugly behind the runner as well as anybody, and you talk about pressure…man, you never saw a player who was uglier in the clutch.”

The Dubious Babe Ruth Homerun/Strikeout Ratio Analogy

2007-04-05T11:00:00.000-04:00

Babe Ruth hit 714 homeruns. He reigned as baseball’s home run king from the day he passed the previous mark in the early 1920’s until Hank Aaron passed him in 1974. To this day, Babe Ruth stands at an impressive third on the all-time list. Along with his 714 homeruns, he struck out 1330 times.

Motivational speakers and others who know absolutely nothing about baseball bring these two stats up when advising people to move beyond their failures and strive for success. “Look,” they will say, “Babe Ruth struck out almost twice as often as he homered. This means the Babe saw every two strikeouts as a step toward his next homerun. Think of your failures as steps on the road to success, too.”

The assumption implicit in this analogy is that offense in baseball is comparable to, say, offense in basketball. A made jump shot or lay-up is a success, and a missed shot an equivalent failure. Similarly, in baseball, the analogy maker assumes, a homerun must be the sign of success and a strikeout the sign of failure. In the absolute simplest terms, a homerun is a successful end result of an at-bat for a hitter and a strikeout is a failure. However, they are not proportional and to say that someone who strikeouts more than he homers fails more than he succeeds is simply not true.

A homerun hit is a successful at-bat. It certainly is the most successful at-bat a player can have in any one trip to the plate. Yet, there are plenty of other ways to succeed at bat. A single can drive in other base runners, or set the hitter up to be driven in by the next batter. Doubles and triples do likewise. The most underappreciated offensive stat, the walk, puts a hitter on base just as solidly as a single. Even a batted out such as a grounder to the second baseman or a deep fly ball to center can advance other runners and not be entirely futile. There are many ways to succeed. Would we conclude that the hitter who hits one homerun, four singles, two doubles, yet strikes out three times in twenty trips to the plate has failed more than he has succeeded because his strikeouts triple his homerun output? No way.

And, to label the strikeout as the epitome of failure is untrue, as well. It is just one, among many, ways of making an out. A batted ball to a fielder results in an out, too. When no runner is on base, an out is an out is an out, whether the batter strikes out, grounds out, or pops up. A batted out is only superior to a strikeout when it advances a runner. Sometimes, a strikeout is less damaging than a batted out. It is better to strikeout than ground into a double play. Plus, a strikeout uses up more of the opposing pitcher's stamina than a groundout on the first pitch. As a former pitcher myself, known for wild streaks, I would rather the batter weakly hit the first pitch than have to attempt to throw three out of six pitches over the plate for strikes and risk a walk.

The truth is every player strikes out more than he homers. It is the rare player who even has a season or two with more homers than K’s. Yet, there is a truth to the notion that a batter fails more often than he succeeds. A great hitter is seen as someone with a .300 batting average and .400 on-base percentage, which means he hits safely (gets a base hit; a batted ball that the fielders are unable to put him out on) only 3 times every 10 at bats and reaches base safely only 4 times every 10 times to the plate. Every player fails at the plate more than he succeeds. If a motivational speaker wishes to use a baseball analogy to show how even the greatest players fail more often than they succeed, the correct analogy is hits to at-bats, not homeruns to strikeouts.

Should Non-Believers Teach Religious Studies?

2007-04-04T13:35:00.000-04:00

In 1971, Jerry Falwell founded tiny Lynchburg Baptist College in Lynchburg, Virginia. Today, that school, now known as Liberty University, has grown into a school of 9,558 undergrads and 4,192 grads (if Wikipedia stats are correct) and competes at the Division I sports level, even sending its basketball team to the NCAA Tournament a few times. The goal, according to Falwell, is to turn Liberty into the Evangelical counterpart to the Catholic Notre Dame University. Liberty wishes, like Notre Dame, to rise beyond the status of religiously affiliated school and rank also as a premier academic and athletic school. In addition to developing a steadily rising athletic program (don’t think Liberty won’t jump from the mid-major Big South Conference to the ACC or SEC if it ever gets the chance), Liberty is seeking out professors with PhD’s from top-notch academic institutions as a way of cementing its legitimacy. But, what happens when a PhD from a Yale or Harvard does not believe in the tenets of the degree he was awarded?

Marcus Ross, according to the New York Times article “Believing Scripture but Playing by Science’s Rules (2/12/07),” received his PhD in Paleontology from the University of Rhode Island. He turned this degree into a professorship at Liberty University, helping Falwell “show” the world that Liberty is serious about hiring top-notch faculty. But, Dr. Ross is a creationist who believes in a less than 10,000 year old earth. Is it appropriate for a professor teaching college students about the age of dinosaurs to believe that the earth was created millions of years after dinosaurs were proven to go extinct?

Ross, in his dissertation, accepted the findings of science in describing the disappearance of the mosasaur at the end of the Cretaceous era 65 million years ago. He gave his dissertation advisors what they wanted to hear in order to get his degree, even though he believes that what he studied in grad school is bullshit.

Is it right for someone to teach a subject to students that he regards as false? Thankfully, we don’t see this happen much in fields of science. One would be hard pressed to find more than a handful of creationists teaching evolutionary biology, paleontology, or a number of other fields that go on the notion that evolution happened. But, unfortunately, this academic dishonesty is prevalent in Religious Studies, Biblical Studies, and Theology.

Sadly, Divinity Schools and Theology departments are riddled with professors who deny the Virgin Birth, the historicity of the miracles of Jesus, or His Resurrection. They see the Bible as solely riddled with mythology, parables, and metaphor. Are these the right people to mold the minds of the next generation of Protestant ministers and Catholic priests? Notre Dame professor, and known Catholic dissenter, Fr. Richard McBrien noted the NY Times story on Ross by raising the fear of fundamentalist Theology students getting degrees and infiltrating the teaching ranks. Yes, that is a risk; but the bigger risk comes not from the handful of fundamentalists who deny any form of biblical criticism. The greater risk comes from the John Shelby Spongs, Elaine Pagels’s, Robert Funks, and Jesus Seminar people of the academic world who take biblical criticism too far to the point of denying any real religious truth claims; truth claims that are the entire reason for studying religion in the first place.

It is no more appropriate for a non-believer to teach Religious Studies than it is for a creationist to teach Biology, Paleontology, or Archeology.

Why Baseball is (Still) Better Than Football and Basketball...and Always Has Been Better Than Soccer

2007-03-28T14:33:00.000-04:00

Scanning through A.M. radio yesterday on my drive home, I had to stop on blowhard Sean Hannity’s Fox radio show. The topic was the wussification of American boys through youth league soccer. No argument from me here; soccer is gawdawful to watch (sorry Europe). And while World Cup soccer players are incredible athletes, probably more so than pro baseball, football, and basketball players, the idea behind mass youth soccer leagues is not great athletics but rather the idea of building up self-esteem through a sport where (while the good athletes will still stand out) the bad athletes won’t look so bad kicking the ball around, as opposed to Little League, where their deficiencies show in dropped pop-ups and swing-and-miss strikeouts.

Again, no quibble from me over the awfulness of youth soccer. My quibble is with Hannity’s suggestion of American football as the rugged individualistic antidote to soccer. Football is great; I played it, I watch it. But we have a better All-American game; a game truly steeped in our nation’s history: baseball.

This time of year, with the Super Bowl still fresh in mind, and the specter of college basketball’s March Madness front and center, it is easy to overlook America’s greatest sport, the sport that represents America’s truest values.

Sorry Sean Hannity, but your “football as symbol of rugged individualism” does not hold. Football, sad to say, is more symbolic of authoritarian communism (for those of you reading this from your far-from-reality socialist college classrooms, the only type of communism to ever exist is ruthless authoritarianism, but that is topic for another day). The rugged individualistic sport is basketball. Would this then make basketball America’s true pastime? No. Rugged individualism is not really the true American ethos. Baseball retains the title of national pastime by avoiding the extremes of both authoritarian communism and rugged individualism, offering us an American symbol of democratic togetherness where both team (community) and player (individual) shine.

In football, the coach is a Stalin-like dictator. Each player is just a pawn on the chessboard. Players at different positions, such as kicker or linebacker, don’t even really play the same game. The offensive lineman, for all his hard work, has not a statistic to quantify his value to the team. All hard work is solely for the collective.

Basketball is rugged individualism as ruthless capitalism. It is a team game, but it focuses on the individual. When we think basketball, we think not of great teams like the Celtics of old, the Showtime Lakers, or the 90’s Bulls; we think of Magic vs. Bird, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Lebron and Carmelo and Dwyane Wade. It is always and only the star players who are called upon to take the game winning shot. It is about finding Jordan (in the early 90’s) a supporting cast to win him a title; it is about (now) finding Lebron a supporting cast. It is all about the individual rising up, and the role player staying in his place.

Baseball, the truly American sport, is democratic togetherness. It is a truly team sport, but one where the individual, any individual, can shine. Every player plays both offense and defense. Depending on where the ball is hit, any player will have the opportunity to make the big catch. On offense, when it is time for the big hit, does the coach send up his best player? No. Whoever’s turn at-bat it is will swing. All nine players have an equal shot of being the player to swing for victory. This is America at it’s finest: each player has an opportunity, and it is up to him to do with it what he can to make the whole team better.

As for soccer, the top sport in Europe and Latin America? The mindless running around of kids kicking at the ball in suburbia with all those soccer mom minivans in the parking lot symbolizes the coming anarchy to Europe with its own demographic collapse. As for Latin America? They also love baseball, so there is hope.

Gambling: The NCAA's Best Friend

2007-03-13T12:45:00.000-04:00

During my senior year at St. Michael’s, the student online magazine, the Echo, ran an NCAA basketball pool. It was free and open to all students. The student with the winning bracket would win a gift certificate or something like that. I don’t remember. The Echo posted the brackets of all the students who entered. After the first weekend of the tournament, my bracket was doing great. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to win, because someone in the SMC athletic department noticed, and forced the Echo to take down the brackets of all NCAA student-athletes.

I don’t blame the athletic department. I blame the NCAA for its asinine rules. No NCAA athlete is allowed to gamble on any other NCAA or professional sporting event. Somehow, by taking part in a free NCAA tourney bracket, or if had done a few $5 pools with my friends (which I of course would never do—wink wink), it would make me a cheater. Somehow, gambling on the Division I NCAA basketball tournament would have compromised my ability to play fairly at the Division 2 NCAA baseball level. The only people who should be banned from betting on the NCAA tournament are Division I basketball players, coaches, and officials. That is it.

The NCAA decries gambling as some sort of evil that is corrupting the integrity of its game. Yet, they know damn well that the popularity of college basketball is due to gambling. The reason the 64 (now 65) team tournament is so popular is because the games fit into neat single elimination brackets. People tune in to watch a first round 8-9 game not because they care about the two teams involved (save alumni and fans from the two schools), but because they want to see if their picks turn out correctly. The NCAA makes $1 billion per year from CBS. Why does CBS pay so much to televise the games? Because they get great ratings. Why do they get great ratings? Because everyone and his mother has money on the tournament, inducing interest. And it is that $1 billion the NCAA gets from CBS, plus millions from ESPN, and the millions from all the networks that televise college football (another sport whose popularity is partly due to gambling), that the NCAA uses to pay for championships and events in the dozens of money losing sports that other student-athletes play (such as myself, a former baseball player). Without gambling, there would be nothing more than local competitions between area colleges throughout the USA. The NCAA should stop its moral grandstanding and admit that gambling is what makes college sports both popular and financially viable.

American Idol musings

2007-03-08T15:57:00.000-05:00

Susan Sarandon. Maureen Dowd. Brian Williams. One is a famous actress, another is a “witty” New York Times columnist, and last is the replacement for Tom Brokaw on the NBC Nightly News (who I might add is kicking Katie Couric’s ass in the ratings). What do these three have in common? They all attended Catholic University, my grad school alma mater. Other semi-famous alums, other than almost every other archbishop in the country (it is The Catholic University of America), include Terry McAuliffe and David Gillespie, the head of the 2004 Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee, respectively. More ancient alumni include Wally Pipp, 1912 CUA graduate and starting first baseman for the New York Yankees, until a random day in 1924 when he got sick, and was replaced in the lineup by a guy named Lou Gehrig, who would go on to play in 2130 consecutive games.

I am pretty damn proud to be an alumnus of such a celebrity making institution. And we can add one more celebrity, even if her fame will be of the fleeting 15-minute variety. Antonella Barba, a CUA student, is one of the final 16 contestants, and one of the final 8 girls, on American Idol. I never knew her personally when I was at CUA, but I remember seeing her in the dining hall. As I’ve told many people, she is…well…noticeable. And, she didn’t even stand out. There were a number of beautiful girls at Catholic University. It is a great place to go and learn.

Her time on American Idol will be coming to a close soon. Tonight, two guys and two girls will get voted off. She is definitely beautiful, but this is a singing competition. There are five girls who blow the rest of the candidates out of the water. I did not vote, but if I did, those five would have gotten my vote. Out of Antonella and the two others, I don’t know which of the three I would include to advance. But, one of the five girls with incredible voices deserves to win. The next American Idol will not be a Catholic U alum, but I can take solace that CUA is prominent on the New York Times editorial page, NBC news, and politically charged movies.

Thoughts on the Supposed Tomb of Jesus

2007-03-07T12:26:00.000-05:00

In Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Zarathustra comes down from the mountains and scolds the people for acting happy and frivolous. “God is dead,” he sternly tells them. “And it is you, all of you, who have killed him.” Zarathustra’s words shocked the people. These people were not Christians. They were atheists, having long since given up faith in God. Why would Zarathustra scold them? Shouldn’t he be scolding the few remaining Christians scattered around? He scolds the atheists because they are not willing to really let go of God. They say they no longer believe, but they still live as if there is a God, acting as if their lives have meaning and as if the moral rules they attempt to follow still apply. “You have killed God,” Zarathustra implores. “You can’t hold onto your old ways of life. If you are going to give up God, you must go all the way, and accept a world without meaning, purpose, or virtue.”

Nietzsche was one of the few honest atheists. Unlike the Richard Dawkins’s, Daniel Dennett’s, and Sam Harris’s of the world who rejoice in the supposed death of God, thinking themselves truly free to shape their own lives, Nietzsche sees the Enlightenment all the way through to its logical conclusion in a postmodern world devoid of meaning. Without God, life is ultimately pointless. You can’t let go of God and hold onto a view of life inexorably tied into a world with a God.

Recently, Titanic director James Cameron teamed up with scientists and archeologists to do a documentary on the discovered tomb of a man named Jesus who lived in first century Palestine. The goal of the documentary is to show that this might be the tomb of THE Jesus and his family. Other names encrypted on the tomb include Joseph, James (the supposed brother of Jesus), two Mary’s, and a Judah. The great hypothetical secret is that this tomb contains the bones of Jesus Christ, his parents Mary and Joseph, another Mary who was his wife, and his son Judah.

If these really are the bones of Jesus Christ, there are vast implications. Some theologians would say it doesn’t really matter. They say our faith is in the person of Jesus, the example he set, his revolutionary teachings, and the faith in the hearts of the early disciples. But that is baloney. Christian faith is a faith in the Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a faith that Jesus of Nazareth really is God made Man, and that Jesus, after his crucifixion, really did rise, body and soul, from the dead and ascended into heaven. Christian faith is a faith in the empty tomb. If those really are Jesus’ bones, then Jesus never rose from the dead and 2000 years of Christian history are meaningless. I’m not mincing words. There is no way around this. If those really are the bones of Jesus, the entire Christian religion is a giant fraud. The faith of every Christian who has ever lived is in vain. The faith of the two billion Christians alive today is meaningless.

If those really are the bones of Jesus, then the four summers I spent working at a Catholic summer camp are a waste of time. The friendships I made are still valuable, but the mission of the camp that I believed, the spiritual service we were providing to the campers, is a lie if the bones of Jesus are really still on earth. The friendships and experiences I had at Catholic University I hold dear, but the courses I studied and the degree I earned would be rendered obsolete if that tomb really has Jesus’ bones.

If those bones really are the remains of Jesus Christ, then life is meaningless. People can throw out all the vague sentimentalism they want. They can say what really mattered is that the disciples had faith in the message of Jesus, and that is how we can say Jesus is risen. We can say that Jesus’ command to love gives meaning to life, since what is greater than love? But, that is not enough. The whole point of the Resurrection is that love is stronger than death. If Jesus stayed dead after the crucifixion, love does not win; death does. Some would say that we can live on in the memories of our loved ones, who will in turn live on in the memories of their loved ones. But, eventually the sun will explode, the solar system will die, and the universe, scientists say, will either expand until everything cools to absolute zero and all elements will die, or the universe will collapse in on itself until there is nothing again, just like before the Big Bang. Besides, as Woody Allen said, no one wants to have eternal life by living on in the memory of others; we want eternal life by continuing to live after we die. The Resurrection tells us that love is stronger than death, that after we die, we will be raised to new life. Not a metaphorical sort of life, but a real living and breathing eternal life.

Most scholars have weighed in, saying that the possibility of the tomb really containing THE Jesus’ bones is a fantasy. Those of us with Christian faith have nothing to be worried about. But, if it really were Jesus’ bones, the implication would be that Nietzsche is the greatest prophet in world history. Considering Nietzsche was Hitler’s favorite philosopher, that is a scary thought. In a world with no meaning or purpose, ‘scary thought’ would just be an opinion, anyway.

Anecdotes

2007-03-03T10:53:00.000-05:00

An anecdote is a brief story, often used to entice a reader into an essay, article, or larger story as a way to lead or transition into the main thesis, which in itself may not be enticing enough to draw the reader in as an opening. For example, if someone argued that it is morally imperative, for the sake of the American family, to eschew our commercialist lifestyle for a more eco-granola lifestyle, I might open a critique of this viewpoint with an anecdotal story about meeting a nice family at McDonald’s. If you read my writing frequently, you probably notice that I use anecdotes a lot, probably more than I should. This essay below consists of a series of anecdotes. Each anecdote leads to what appears to be the thesis of my essay, but it in itself turns out to be just another anecdote leading to yet another believed thesis that is sadly yet another anecdote. Enjoy!

Satire is, according to the Official Scrabble® Players Dictionary: Third Edition, the use of derisive wit to attack folly or wickedness. Satire works best when it lampoons persons and things that take themselves way too seriously. Comedic movies such as The Naked Gun, Airplane!, Police Academy, and even Hot Shots are timeless works of movie humor because of the way they satirize serious dramas that came before them. Sadly, the movie spoofs that we are bombarded with nowadays neither poke real fun at nor offend the current crop of dramas, horrors, romances, and epic pictures. They are boring and dull us to death. What the producers of movies like Scary Movie, Date Movie, and Epic Movie don’t get is that it is not enough to have actors dress up in similar costumes to the characters they are spoofing. That is not satire; it’s just plain old referencing. Good satire creates characters of its own independent of the movies it spoofs, such as Leslie Nielsen’s cop in Naked Gun.

That said, one of the current crop of spoofs does get one thing right. Not Another Teen Movie, a spoof of high school movies like American Pie and Varsity Blues, is generally as bad as the rest of the “Insert Genre” Movie crop, but it nails a current movie truth with the introduction of an African-American character who calls himself the “token black guy.” This lampoons the practice in film of making sure there is a minority figure in a group of white friends who can act as the comic relief. The “token” character is inserted because of a concern for diversity, however it is easy to mock this practice because the implicit idea in the creators of shows and movies is that putting a “token” in the cast in some way really alleviates real racial problems in the world, when in reality, at best it does nothing and at worst it mocks true attempts at diversity.

We see this in more than just movies. Check out any college brochure for a lily-white campus such as St. Michael’s (my alma mater), and there will always be minorities in every picture, even though minorities are about two percent of the SMC college population. This “token”-izing goes beyond just race. It goes into all facets of our lives and relationships with others. The term That Guy (which I wrote on earlier: http://spidgetales.blogspot.com/2005/10/dont-be-that-guy.html) came into existence because we all know That Guy who always gets drunk or That Guy who doesn’t know how to answer ‘what’s up?’ with a simple ‘not much, you?’ or That Guy who always shows up to work late. The NBC show The Office resonates because of its many average characters that identify with traits of people we know.

Are people really so simple that they can be stereotyped into particular roles? The racial and sexual stereotyping of old, though still with us in remnants (and, in the cases of differences between men and women, are often very true, despite the derision of feminists), have to an extent given way to personality and characteristic stereotyping. There is the ‘dumb blond’ stereotype, the ‘hotheaded redhead’ stereotype, the ‘drunken frat-boy,’ the ‘meat-headed jock,’ the ‘comic relief’ guy, the ‘fat chick who is loose because she wants attention,’ the ‘snobby prep,’ the ‘frumpy middle-aged woman,’ the ‘absentminded professor,’ and many others.

No, individuals are not so simplistic as to be boxed into narrow categories such as these, but as humans, we think in narrative. We think in story. Our religious and cultural beliefs are passed down as narratives. We use narrative to make meaning out of our lives. And, since our lives are always intertwined with others, we give stereotypical characteristics to the people we interact with to make sense of our own lives, and to find meaning and direction in our own lives. A young adult may, for example, see his football coach as the token dictatorial Vince Lombardi type as a way of seeing his high school sports career as a defining moment in shaping how he grew from a ‘boy’ to a ‘man’.

We even think of ourselves as belonging to, or embodying, certain roles, in order to see our life narrative as not simply individual, but tied into the narrative of the communal whole. I have ‘performed’ many roles over the years. In Little League, I was the gawky uncoordinated kid who struck out every time. In middle school, I was the smart nerdy kid who always got picked on by the cool kids. In high school, I was the star baseball player and the guy who the social studies teacher always called on to read, because I read with passion and used proper inflection while most of my classmates read in a dull monotone. In college, I played baseball and got involved in student activities, which lead to me being ‘the well known guy who everybody liked’ (seriously. If Facebook was around during my undergrad years, I would have had about 800 people on my friend list under St. Michael’s alone). At pretty much every life stop, I have been the funny guy who makes everyone feel welcome. And, sadly, at pretty much every life stop as well, I have been the guy who girls love to hang out with, who makes them laugh, who they can have great conversations with, but is somehow not quite worthy of taking them out on a date and getting a kiss goodnight.

Because of that last role I play in the narrative of life, I have become as close to an expert as there is on the dreaded ‘Friend Zone.’ I know what it is like to get the ‘just friends’ talk. The ‘you are a great friend, but that is it’ talk, and the ‘I like you as a friend’ talk, and the best one of all, the ‘I don’t want to ruin our friendship by taking it to the next level’ talk. Are there times in the past where I wish the girls would have just said, ‘Sean, when I mean I don’t want to date someone I am friends with/someone I work with, I just mean you, because I would definitely date the right friend/coworker’ or ‘Sean, you are just not good looking enough for me’? I always used to say ‘yes, I’d rather just hear the awful truth’ and thought of the ‘you’re a great friend’ speech as a euphemism (to see my old essay on euphemisms, click here: http://spidgetales.blogspot.com/2005/11/euphemisms.html).

And, maybe it is a euphemism. But not all euphemisms are bullshit. Some are. I have gotten a couple letters already from places I applied for jobs that said “while we are sure all the applicants were more than qualified, we have chosen the candidate we feel is best for the job.” Bullshit. Maybe that candidate was best, but how the hell do you know that all the applicants were qualified? But, the ‘just friends’ speech is not really a euphemism. It results from this innate sense in all of us not to hurt others. We don’t want to hurt people’s feelings. If the stakes were turned, and it was girls I am not interested in asking me out, would I come right out and say, ‘sorry, you are not good looking enough,’ or ‘your personality sucks’ or ‘I don’t like the fact that you have already hooked up with dozens of guys,’ depending on whether I am turned off by her looks, her personality, her loose morals, or a combination thereof? No. I would be polite and friendly about it, try to deflect the issue as much as possible, and throw out euphemisms and half-truths such as ‘I’m not looking for a relationship right now’ or ‘I don’t want to ruin our friendship.’

It’s only natural to be polite and friendly to a fault. Sadly, this leads to false hopes and even bigger hurts when things don’t work out. I wish I could go back in time and visit my 10th grade self. I would say to 15-year-old me, “Sean, you’re making a mistake. Don’t ask the prettiest girl in school to be your homecoming date. She is going to say no. Learn your place in the school’s social status line. And, if you do make the mistake and ask her out, don’t be fooled by the ‘I’ll think about it’ answer. She’s trying to be nice and didn’t want to hurt your feelings right away. Later she will tell you she’d rather just go alone.” I would warn the 16-year-old 11th grade me, “Sean, save yourself from getting yelled at and swore at by the coach, save yourself from getting stuck on the bench most minutes of each game. Skip basketball and go out for bowling instead.” (I’ve chronicled my high school basketball incident here: http://spidgetales.blogspot.com/2005/10/i-begin-basketball-coaching.html)

Not only is it stupid to wish I could go back in time and give myself that advice, but it is redundant. I told myself the same thing when I lived through it. Intuition told me I was stepping out of my league in the dating department, especially as a 15-year-old who had never asked anyone out. Going for the prettiest girl the first time you try and date is like stepping up to bat against Roger Clemens before playing Little League. And, I knew going into the basketball season in 11th grade things weren’t going to work out. I was on Varsity during preseason in 10th grade, but got dropped to JV before the regular season to get more playing time. My JV coach moved up to Varsity and brought up two other guys, but not me. I knew then I wasn’t in the long term plans, even while I averaged 16 points per game on JV. No, surprisingly, those events really don’t bother me anymore. One, they happened in high school, and nothing from high school can truly be considered real life. And two, the real heartbreaks are not those events that you know deep down won’t work out. They are the things that you really believed would work out, but didn’t. For sports metaphors, think of the Boston Red Sox standing one out away from their first World Series championship in 68 years in the bottom of the 10th inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, or the New York Mets losing Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS after Endy Chavez made the game saving catch that seemed to shift the momentum.

I can think of a few examples (and will share a couple) of this type of empty feeling in my life. They don’t happen during the event, but sometime after. There comes a point where you just feel that knot in your stomach, knowing that something isn’t right. Things didn’t turn out the way they were supposed to. And not only that, they were completely out of your control. There was nothing you could have done to fix the problem. The first example takes place my senior year of high school during baseball season. Junior year, I finally got really good at baseball, making All-League, getting 32 hits, and hitting my first homerun (a grand slam, no less). We were a Class D school, playing in a league with all B and C schools. Our record was only 7-16 since we played against larger schools, and we got a low 9 seed in the Class D sectionals. We won four in a row to win the Section 2 championship, before losing in the state regionals, a game before the state final four. I went 11 for 20 (.550 average) during the five games. I was sad we lost, but ready for senior year. Again playing against B and C schools, we went 8-13. But, we were left out of the Class D sectionals, event though we crushed the top D seeds during non-league regular season games. I was upset. I started slow that year, but hit my stride, hitting 3 homeruns, including one my final home game. I really felt that this was the year we were meant to win states at the D level. I was going to lead my team to a state title, but my chance was taken away not by another team beating us on the field, but by an uneducated sectional committee that could not understand strength of schedule. The other empty feeling moment happened the final summer I worked at a certain summer job. A few days before the end of summer, one coworker had to leave early. This person hugged me goodbye and left, and at that moment I felt empty. I felt that things did not go the way they were supposed to, the way I believed they would earlier that summer. When this person was hired to work there with me, I thought we really connected, and I took it as a sign that the final role I had always played in the narrative of life would be going away. But it didn’t, and there was nothing I could have done to make things turn out any different. I hope life is going great for this person and that this person is happy, as I do for all my friends I worked with there and all my friends from high school, college, grad school, and all other walks of life. But would I mind if someday, I end up rich and famous, with supermodels on each arm, and this person sees me and feels a little jealous and wishes that she had taken the opportunity to be the one on my arm? No.

Are these examples of things to regret? No. They are events that I could not have changed, no matter what I did. Regrets are for things like robbing banks. If I did something that stupid, I would sure as hell regret it sitting in my prison cell. Regrets are for actions you could have done differently. We should regret not trying out for the high school soccer team. We should regret not asking the pretty girl to prom. We should regret not applying to our dream college. We should regret not sending a resume to that great company. Hell, we should regret not trying out for American Idol. At least the people we laugh at in the early episodes went for their dream. If they didn’t, there would be no one to mock on Fox television, and there would be no Randy, Paula, and Simon to satirize on SNL. Most of the fun in blowhard TV personalities such as Dr. Phil, and now Simon, is seeing them lampooned in sketch show satires.

Satire is, according to the Official Scrabble® Players Dictionary: Third Edition, the use of derisive wit to attack folly or wickedness. Satire works best when it lampoons persons and things that take themselves way too seriously. Comedic movies such as The Naked Gun, Airplane!, Police Academy, and even Hot Shots are timeless works of movie humor because of the way they satirize serious dramas that came before them…

An Inconvenient Poop

2007-03-02T13:12:00.000-05:00

As I sat on the john this morning, I thought of Al Gore. I did not think of the book I was reading or the snow and freezing rain coming down outside the window (living in the woods on the river, I can leave the blinds up when doing my bathroom thing) or the load I was getting off my…umm…mind. I thought of Al Gore.

Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth won an Oscar for teaching us about the dangers of global warming caused by environmental degradation. Unlike the last time he got the most votes for something, this time he actually got his reward. As individuals, we can each do our part to save the earth by recycling, driving less often, and drinking more beer to save water. Attractive girls can do their part by wearing less clothing, saving our natural resources from unfortunately being turned into excess garments. But, individual efforts are not enough. Corporations need to change their policies to be more eco-friendly. Unfortunately, when this gets in the way of profits, profits always wins out. This is why the government sometimes steps in and makes environmental laws.

These laws are needed; otherwise we would never see stars at night, even in rural areas. But sometimes environmental protection and conservation goes to far, actually causing more damage than just sitting back and doing nothing. A case in point is low flow toilets. One way, environmentalists believed, to reduce excess waste (pun definitely intended) is to require low flow toilets that use less water when you flush. The problem is these low flows don’t send enough water to get everything down into the sewage. Which brings me back to my morning on the john and my thoughts of Al Gore.

I thought of Al Gore as I flushed and the brown would not make its way down. I remained appreciative of Al Gore’s environmental warnings as I thrust the plunger into the hole, clearing a pathway to flush again. There are many ways we can work to counteract the threat of global warming. But ‘energy-efficient’ toilets is not one of them. I find myself regularly using two or three courtesy flushes each visit to my favorite seat in the house, for fear of using the plunger again and again.

I will continue contemplating the duality of man as I think of ways to smuggle an old-fashioned high flow toilet from Canada while dreaming of a day when the environment is saved from the danger Al Gore predicted if we don’t act. Before I craft plans, I must make a return visit to my favorite seat in the house. My two cups of coffee have run through me, and it is time for another inconvenient poop.

Implications of Gay Marriage

2007-02-12T09:59:00.000-05:00

England allows gay adoption. This fact is not a big surprise. I would assume that all western European nations would today. Even the United States allows it, and the U.S. is one of the most conservative western democracies. What is unique is that in Britain, adoption is not just an option for gay couples who desire a child. It is a requirement for all agencies and organizations that work in the adoption field to grant custody of foster children to gay couples. The Catholic Church, home to service organizations such as Catholic Charities, requested an exemption. Part of Catholic Charities mission, along with feeding the poor and providing services to help the destitute get back on track, is placing foster and orphaned children with adoptive parents. Until now, Catholic Charities would only place children with married couples and with single persons not living with a significant other outside of marriage. Claiming that homosexual relationships go against the organization’s core beliefs on moral life and the family, Catholic Charities asked to be exempted from the new requirement based on religious freedom clauses. After much deliberation, Parliament ruled against Catholic Charities. Either Catholic Charities must include gay couples in their regular rotation of placing children, or Catholic Charities must opt out of adoption services.

Issues of gay rights and gay marriage are very divisive. Conservatives argue that granting rights to gays undercuts traditional moral values. Liberals argue that in a pluralistic society, one set of values should not impede people’s rights in the public sphere. The argument for gay rights seems fair enough. Granting certain rights does not prevent persons morally opposed to those rights from abstaining. Alcohol is legal, but those morally opposed to drinking have a right to refrain from drinking and have a right to create personal living and business atmospheres that reflect their beliefs. A non-drinker can open a restaurant that does not serve alcohol. If the issue of gay rights were that simple, the public debate would be over, traditional values types could avoid ‘dens of sin’ at their own discretion, and gays could live as they please. But, as the case over gay adoption in England illustrates, the debate is not so simple.

A good parallel is the civil rights movement in the 20th century (wow, is the 20th century that long ago that we can now refer to it the way my teachers referred to the 19th century in the late 90’s, when I was in high school?). Before I make this comparison, I must clarify. While those in favor of gay rights compare their plight to that of blacks in the mid-20th century, and see their cause as a continuation of the civil rights movement, I am not making this comparison in the same fashion. That type of comparison is one that ipso facto turns off a number of readers from the start. Liberals who compare the gay rights movement to the civil rights movement need to realize that conservatives look at this comparison about as fondly as liberals look at pro-lifers comparisons of abortion to slavery and Roe V. Wade to Dred Scott, or, as fondly as everyone but the most hard core PETA activists look upon the comparison of animal butcher factories to the Holocaust. My comparison is one that draws an analogy to potential conflicts in religious freedom.

What is religious freedom? The 1st amendment grants each person the right to believe and worship as he pleases. A person may belong to any church he wishes or no church at all. It is not the state’s role to interfere with religion or favor any one religion over another. However, like any right, religious freedom is limited. If your faith calls you to perform human sacrifice, the government will rightly prevent you from full religious freedom. However, there are cases where religious freedom allows you to avoid some of the laws of the land. A Quaker may opt out of military conscription because of the Quaker faith’s deeply held tradition of pacifism. Children are required by law to stay in school until age 16. However, Amish children are granted an exemption, because it is custom for Amish girls to finish school around age 12. When the Civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, Brown Vs. Board of Ed, and other persons and actions led to the collapse of the morally poisonous Jim Crow laws, many churches were supportive of equal rights, particularly black churches. Some very conservative churches, and some really conservative Christians, such as Bob Jones, still opposed equal rights. They believed that God somehow deemed certain races inferior, and declared that the Bible forbade interracial dating and marriage (despite the fact that Biblical proscriptions against intermarriage were based on religion more so than race. The worry was dilution of the faith. These rules were not universal, but particular to specific times and places). With religious freedom, these bigoted churches had the right to remain prejudiced. However, they lost any real role they had in American society. Like the Ku Klux Klan, they retained their right to exist based on 1st Amendment principles, but would never receive government help and support in services, unlike mainstream groups like Catholic Charities, because of their practices of discrimination. It is good that racist and bigoted churches and organizations lost any moral authority they may have had. But, should churches and organizations opposed to some gay rights lose their place and standing in public life? That is the big question.

A popular condescending comment towards opponents of same-sex marriage often goes along the lines of, “what’s your problem? We’re not forcing you to marry someone of the same sex. We’re not forcing your religious group to sponsor or support same-sex marriage. We are just asking for it in the public sphere.” If it were only so simple. Yes, no religion will be forced to perform gay weddings. But, marriages that take place in churches, whether Catholic or Protestant, and in synagogues, whether Orthodox or Reform, are recognized by law as civil marriages. A day could come when the government decides to only accept as valid civil marriages those that take place in “non-discriminatory” churches. Churches that receive funds for non-proselytizing social services could see their government grants disappear based on anti-discrimination laws if they still retain moral teachings in opposition to gay marriage.

Is this all part of the inevitable march to progress? Like religions that performed human sacrifice, or religions that discriminated against women, or religions that oppose gay rights, will they eventually die out or change based on growing standards that become enshrined into law? Much of this owes, I believe, to a misunderstanding of the word discrimination. The verb ‘to discriminate’ is not in and of itself negative. We discriminate all the time and must to function well. A driver who cannot discriminate between red and green lights won’t be on the road very long. Discriminate means to tell the difference between things. There is just discrimination and unjust discrimination. Discrimination against gays comes in two forms (maybe more, but dualism, if not a realistic descriptive term for real everyday life, works great in writing and in making analogies): discrimination against them because of who they are and discrimination against them because of what they do. The military ban on gays is one based solely on who they are. Laws against gay marriage are bans based on what gays do. Comparing the plight of gays to the plight of blacks in the past century is a bad comparison because blacks were discriminated because of who they are, and gays are discriminated against, save cases such as the military ban, because of what they do.

None but the worst bigot would call for gays to be banned from engaging in personal relationships. Gays, like straights, should be allowed to do as they please in private with other consenting adults. All people have the right to the most loving or debaucherous sex they please, so long as it is consensual. But civil acknowledgment of marriage, one type of sexual relationship out of many (I could mention others such as polygamy, swinging, friends with benefits, etc.), means that the government is saying that marriage is good for society. It is beneficial for a man and woman to marry. People can sleep around, or shack up, or do whatever they please without civil penalty, but the government will not grant benefits or a special title to these activities because they are not good for society.

The question remains: is same-sex marriage good for society? Is it a basic right that gays deserve? I cannot pretend to have a full answer for it, independent of religious motivations. It is obviously better for someone who is going to engage in a homosexual lifestyle anyway to make it monogamous. But, should that be granted equal status with straight marriage? Discrimination against gays based on who they are (military bans) is obviously immoral. But, is discrimination—in this case a discrimination that does not subject gays to ghettos or jails or any civil penalty, but just leaves their legal personal lives unrecognized—against gays based on what they do just or unjust? To rephrase that, is the government correct to tacitly endorse the notion that the marriage commitment between man and woman is superior to all other sexual relationships, even granting that those other relationships can take place without civil penalty? I sound like a damn lawyer. I’m not going to give an answer, but people on both sides of the debate need to realize that there are far-reaching implications going into areas such as religious freedom and the way children are taught in schools. It’s much more than a question of granting people private rights.

A couple random interesting and totally unrelated links

2007-02-01T12:28:00.000-05:00

I have a confession to make. Actually, it's more of statement; a sad admittance. Earlier this week, Barbaro died. In case you are drawing a blank, it should be noted that Barbaro is a racehorse. He is not just any racehorse--he won the Kentucky Derby last year. All the horseracing people talked about how he was going to win the triple crown. Tragically, he fractured his leg in a later race, and we have spent the past year being bombarded in the sports pages with stories of Barbaro's on-going surgeries, his strong willed rehabilitation attempts, and the debates over whether he was nearing the point where they would have to euthanize him. Unfortunately, there were no interviews with the horse himself, so they statements about his bravery are only conjecture.

With all this talk in the sports world about Barbaro's recovery attempts, one would think that horse racing is still a popular sport that people care about, like in the 40's and 50's when the big three were baseball, boxing, and horse racing. Sadly, Barbaro just died, and those insensitive people in charge of the Super Bowl will allow the game to go on during what should be a period of national mourning. The NFL cancelled games when Kennedy was shot and after 9/11, so why not now?

Maybe the Super Bowl organizers are right. Maybe we honor Barbaro best by moving on with our lives. I know that you, dear reader, are sad, but I will go back to normal living. I found a couple of interesting stories on the internet, one funny and one serious. The first is a photo-essay of media day at the Super Bowl by ESPN's Bill Simmons (his story is also the place where I learned of Barbaro's tragic death): http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/mediaday07/part1 . The second link is to a very serious article. It is about the stem-cell research issue and controversy (I know, really random and strange transition). The essay is by a professor or neurobiology and anatomy at the University of Utah. It is in First Things Journal. Yes, First Things comes from the conservative perspective, but the article is good. It raises questions about whether embryonic stem-cell research, regardless of the moral and ethical issues in play, really does hold any realistic hope of finding cures: http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=5420 .

The Guardian: My movie review

2007-01-31T13:34:00.000-05:00

In An Officer and a Gentleman, Richard Gere went flight school and clashed with drill sergeant Louis Gossett, Jr. He fell in love with the local girl Debra Winger, who he met at local military bar, lost his best friend, proved his manhood and gained mutual respect with Gossett in a boxing match, and ended the story happily ever after, graduating from the Academy, sweeping the girl off her feet, and letting love lift him up where he belongs. Tom Cruise did the whole pilot thing again in Top Gun, meeting the pretty girl at the bar who takes his breath away, clashing with almost everyone in the Academy, losing his best friend (poor Goose), and took Richard Gere one better in showing off his manhood by actually flying in a real fighter mission. This past year, it was pretty-boy Ashton Kutcher’s turn to be the tough military recruit who clashes with his instructor in The Guardian.

The first two thirds of The Guardian are pleasantly enjoyable. Kevin Costner is the aging star Coast Guard rescue diver. When (cue drama police) a rescue mission fails, and his whole team dies, Costner goes into an anguish that gets worsened by his wife’s decision to leave him and the Coast Guard commander’s decision to reassign him to train the new recruits.

The top recruit is star swimmer Ashton Kutcher, who plans on breaking all of Costner’s records. Why is an All-American swimmer with scholarship offers to Ivy League schools trying out for the Coast Guard rescue team? You’ll find out halfway through in one of those emotional scenes. Why, Ashton wonders, is a great diver like Costner assigned to the menial task of training new recruits? Don’t worry, Ashton will find out in one of those male bonding moments.

Ashton meets a girl at (yup) the local Coast Guard dive bar. A crisis comes in the boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, Ashton clashes with Costner but eventually bonds, Costner goes back to regular rescue diving, and Ashton graduates. He and the girl agree they had a fling not meant to be. So far we have a decent movie, and this would be a nice, realistic ending.

Did the movie end or did it get the Hollywood treatment? What do you think?

I’ll offer hints at the rest of the film through a series of questions. Did Ashton get assigned to Costner’s diving team? Do they go on a rescue mission together? Does Costner see that Ashton is a great rescue diver, and grudgingly admire him? Does Costner realize that he doesn’t quite have it any more and decide to retire?

Don’t stop yet. It gets better. Does Ashton get sent on a very dangerous mission that requires more divers to come in and rescue him? Does Costner, though retired, randomly happen to be in Coast Guard headquarters to hear about the crisis? Does the Coast Guard commander, realizing he needs one more diver to join the rescue team, ask Costner to come along? Does Costner say yes? If he said yes, do he and Ashton end up as the last two people being pulled up by the metal extension chord on the helicopter? Is their combined weight too great to keep it from breaking? Does Costner let go and fall to the sea, allowing Ashton to live? Does Ashton show up at the girl’s classroom (she’s a teacher), tell her he wants more than a fling, and kiss her before the credits and the uplifting song come on?

We’ve all seen this movie before. It goes by many different names, whether we call it An Officer and a Gentleman, Top Gun, Annapolis, or The Guardian. It’s more enjoyable to watch with your buddies, so you can laugh at the final scenes, than with a girl, who will probably call you insensitive while she is bawling her eyes out.

The God Delusion: My Book Review

2007-01-22T16:25:00.000-05:00

Book Review: The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins

“When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing. They will believe in just about anything.” Chesterton

In “The God Delusion,” Richard Dawkins sets out an epic quest to vanquish the forces of theism any and all places they may be found. To the sophisticated theologians who he in advance sees reading his book and smugly adding, “But I don’t believe in an old white bearded man in the sky, either,” Dawkins is quite refreshing in saying upfront that he doesn’t believe in any God, no matter how traditional or postmodern He is conceived. In this, he freshly brings to my mind his English writing forebear, ex-atheist and Christian convert, C.S. Lewis. Lewis recoiled at those who wished to look ‘deeper’ than the outward sign of baptism to find ‘true’ Christians, a task that in the end renders the descriptive word ‘Christian’ into a meaningless colloquialism for ‘good person.’ Likewise, Dawkins has no time for those who would turn the word ‘God’ into a synonym for any force or perceived power that they believes guides their life, as if broadening the word ‘God’ would undercut Dawkins’s critiques of belief in the Deity. If language is to help us, it must not be reduced to nonsense. For the sake of understanding, let’s leave words in their plain meaning of descriptive explanation of concepts, and avoid finding the deeper and truer senses of words that render them useless.

Following his clarification of terms, Dawkins sets out to disprove God through a study of science, particularly his own field of evolutionary biology. His task leads him to offer a hypothesis of how we could have evolved to become believers in deities, an explanation of why he believes we (both non-believers and believers) do not take our moral advice from the Bible, and a dissection of why he believes religion to be not just a harmless false pastime but an active evil needed eradication.

Imagine yourself in the middle of the desert. You come upon a pocket watch. Could this watch have come together by chance? No way. There is obviously a designer who put the pieces together to form the watch or at the very least gave the instructions to those who did build the watch. This is the basic argument from design; when we look out into the world, the places and organisms seem too complex to have come into existence without an intelligent designer.

The sun appears to go around the earth, but we now know this is not the case. Perception is not always reality. The perception of design is another falsehood. It may seem that complex organisms must come from intelligence, but in fact, Dawkins says, intelligence in an endpoint of development, not the starting point. The basic question is; is Intelligence the force propelling creation (theism)? Or, is any and all intelligence we see the end product of a process that goes according to natural scientific laws without and intelligent design (atheism)?

Dawkins here is recasting the old grade school atheist’s question; “well, if God exists, then who created God?” He can’t comprehend, despite his intelligence, witty writing style, and vast evolutionary biology knowledge, that religious people believe that there is a Being who has always existed and it is He who is behind the whole of creation we see. That is not the part of his book that needs real quibbling with. It is in his exposition of morality that he falls far short.

Dawkins points to old Levitical and Deuteronomical laws and regulations that we rightfully don’t follow today in order to point out that we don’t get our morality from Scripture. Our modern morality, he says, comes from purely Enlightenment sources. He unfortunately fails to see that Enlightenment moral principles are the attempt to adopt Christian morality and dress it up as if it came from their own analysis based on reason. Yes, Dr. Dawkins, our morality really does come from Scripture. We do not arbitrarily pick and choose it based on time specific Old Testament (or New Testament) laws, rules, and regulations. For example, the practice of masturbation, called onanism by those who want to show off their vast vocabulary with a biblical phrase, is not condemned by Christianity because of the sin of Onan. Onan, because of cultural custom, was required to marry his dead older brother’s widow Tamar. Any children begotten would be considered sons and daughters of his dead brother. Not accepting this, he chose to spill the seed outside of Tamar. His “sin” was not masturbation, but not living up to his cultural duty; a cultural duty we now rightly regard as a societal anachronism. Christianity condemns practices such as what is wrongly called onanism—and other practices such as fornication and idolatry—not because of specific condemnations scattered throughout Scripture (though they may be present), but because of general theological themes present throughout the Bible. The Church does not condemn gay marriage because of that famous “homosexuality is an abomination” phrase that rightly should be seen in its historical context of other laws requiring such absurdities as the stoning of indolent children. It condemns gay marriage because of the beautiful theological truths present, for example, in the Genesis creation stories that teach how man and woman are created for each other, and man is not complete without his companion. The Church may also condemn practices not appearing Scripture, such as abortion, nuclear war, and drive-by shootings, because she reads the implicit theological messages the Bible is richly filled with.

Dawkins is passionate in his crusade to usher the world into an enlightened age devoid of theistic belief, but, like the 1960’s predictions of the Death of God, the writings of Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and friends will fade into obscurity and people mystifyingly (to the cultural elites) will remain religious, until the next generation of atheist prophets pop up again.

Quiver: a Mad Lib tale of romance and seduction

2007-01-22T15:21:00.000-05:00

We all know a romance novel when we see one: We see a paperback cover with a beautiful vixen yearningly gazing into the eyes of an artistically drawn man in the image of Fabio. Great literature, romance novels are not. Not only do I believe that I could write one of those cheesy sleazy romance novels, I believe you can too. Below is your very own Mad Lib romance novel. Pick a word for each number, then, when you are done, transfer your words to the short story below. Some of the numbers, such as “1”, “4”, “5” and a couple others, appear more than once. Remember, no peeking at the story in advance. Most important, have fun! Oh yeah; one more thing: our story is titled Quiver, because that’s a word that sounds like it belongs in dirty romance novels.

1: verb, ends with –ing _________________

2: any color (red, green, turquoise, yellow, etc.) ______________________

3: verb, ends with –ed ________________________

4: adjective ________________________

5: any color (red, green, turquoise, yellow, etc.) ______________________

6: adjective ________________________

7: verb _________________________

8: verb _________________________

9: adjective _____________________

10: noun _______________________

11: place (river, planet, New York, Tokyo, basement, etc.) _____________________

12: verb ________________________

13: verb, ends with –ing _______________________________

14: adjective _________________________________

15: noun __________________________________

16: adjective ______________________________

17: verb, ends with –ing ___________________________

18: adjective ______________________________

19: adjective ___________________________

20: body part __________________________

21: adjective ____________________________

22: adverb ____________________________

23: body part _________________________

24: verb __________________________

25: verb ___________________________

26: adjective, ends with –ness _______________________________

27: body part __________________________________

29: adverb, ends with –ly ______________________________

30: verb, ends with –ed _________________________________

31: an amount (example: ounce, inch, meter, etc.) ____________________________

32: a state of being (example: happiness, nirvana, sadness, contentment, pleasure, etc.) __

33: a word of agreement (example: yes, okay, yeah, etc.) __________________

34: clothing item _____________________

35: a size (example: big, small, ginormous, tiny, large, etc.) _____________________

36: an object (example: bat, hammer, truck, toy, etc.) ______________________

37: sleeping place (example: bed, couch, floor, backseat, etc) _____________________

38: verb ____________________________

39: a geographical location (example: cave, crevice, tunnel, alley, etc.) _____________

40: verb ______________________________________

41: noun __________________________________

42: verb, ends with –s ____________________________

Quiver

Veronica quivered in delight at the appearance of a 1_________ man with dark 2__________ hair. She was 3____________ by his 4_________ 5___________ eyes. His 4___________ 5__________ eyes and 6____________ 7___________ unbuttoned shirt beckoned her to come closer and 8______________ him.

“Veronica!” the 1__________ man, the man of her dreams, was calling out to her, as if she was the most 9___________ woman in the world. No; it was much 10___________ than that. She had been placed upon 11_____________ to please his every 12____________. “I am 13____________ in 14__________ anticipation, my 15__________.”

“Come 16______________ to me,” excitedly exclaimed Veronica, struggling to hold inside her 17___________ arousal and anticipation. “Take my 18____________ body in your 19 _____________ arms and ravage me.”

The 1______________ man swooped his left arm around her 20________________, leaving free his right to roam 21______________ over her body. He kissed her 22_________________ while using his right hand to caress her 23_______________. Veronica felt a tingle with the 24__________ movement of his tongue, dancing in 25_______________ with her tongue, reveling in the growing 26___________ in her mouth—and down there. She reached her 27_____________ down his 28____________ chest, stopping to revel and delight in his equally 28_______________ abs, before reaching his manhood. She 29________________ stopped.

“Is something wrong?” asked the 1_______________ man, showing 30__________ concern. “My only desire is to pleasure every 31______________ of your body. I will bring you to 32______________ over and over.”

Veronica gently kissed him, as if to say “33_________! Continue!” She unzipped his 34______________ and reached her hand inside. She was delighted to grab hold of his 35______________ 36__________________. The 1____________ man gently laid Veronica on the 37________________. He 38____________ his erect 36_______________ inside her 39_____________________. Veronica quivered in ecstasy as she felt his 36_______________; his manhood; his life; moving inside of her. She reached greater levels of 40_______________ than ever before.

The next morning, she awoke, and the 1______________ man was gone. There was a box of 41_______________-covered candy and a note. Veronica’s erotic 42________________ had just begun.

Country Music: All that need be said

2007-01-19T11:28:00.000-05:00

One of the current hit songs of country music has this refrain:

She let herself go
On a single cruise
To Vegas once
Then to Honolulu

She's taking a cruise, I see. To Vegas once. Then, to Honolulu. Last time I checked, Vegas is not only inland, but it's in the desert.

A Day in the Life of an Unemployed Twenty-Something

2007-01-17T10:56:00.000-05:00

Most workers dream of retirement. I can picture it now; some well compensated Wall Street broker is sitting in his office, surfing the internet, pretending to work, and dreaming of that retirement pension twenty years down the road. He daydreams of sleeping in each morning, having his cup of coffee and doing the crossword at his leasure, maybe hitting the gym, stopping at the local diner to chat with his buddies, and taking his wife on Caribbean vacations two or three times a year. They never stop to think about the downside; retirement will not happen while he is somewhat young and vibrant. It will come around age sixty, along with the creaky knees and decreased energy. And, as boring as he may imagine his job to be, it does give him something to do each day. Little does he know that retirement, sitting around the house all day, gets boring.

Unlike this Wall Street worker waiting for old age to retire, I have the pleasure, just having passed my 26th birthday, of living the retired life now. That's what I call it. I am temporarily retired, self-employed, any euphemism that comes to mind to block out the truth of my real situation. Strangely, boredom has yet to set it.

My current unemployment began right before Christmas. The hustle and bustle of the holidays saved me from thinking too much about my situation. Driving home to visit my parents, helping around the house, celebrating Christmas, and going to Vermont for my birthday and New Years, all helped me ignore my current malaise. It has now been two weeks since the New Year ended (should I say began?). Life is back to normal. The process of settling into semi-retirement has begun.

What do I do to keep myself busy? Lacking internet access at home (I stay pretty thrifty; I get the basic $9.95/month cable with about 20 channels for TV), I have spent a lot of time at the local libraries, job searching online. I have visited some local businesses and schools to submit my resume. As I've come to learn, it's a lot harder to ignore a job searcher in person than online. I have done plenty of housework. Along with the regular cleaning, vacuuming, sweeping, dusting, and laundry, I insulated the basement. This many day process allowed me to listen to two interesting books on tape; I Am Charlotte Simmons and The Red Tent. I have done a lot of regular reading, too, including Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, Garry Wills' What Jesus Meant and his What Paul Meant. I am currently reading Barack Obama's new book (if he is going to be the next President, I might as well learn about him). I'm not always Mr. Studious or Mr. Academic. For sure, I've played my fair share of video games and watched my share of TV. I completed a whole season of Madden in just the past two weeks. Each morning, I wake up with the Today Show. I feel like I am friends with Matt, Meredith, Al, and Ann. And, don't forget guest anchor Natalie Morales. She is pretty hot.

On the more impressive side, I am learning to do some real cooking. With all this extra time on my hands, I cut up tomatoes, peppers, and onions, and make my own spaghetti sauce. I am eating more fruits and vegetables, and laying off the processed foods. I have even begun writing a book. I began it this past summer, but stopped after 30 pages (single spaced), since I moved up north and had many changes in my life. I picked up writing again about two weeks ago. I have 83 pages so far. No, it is not a memoir or anything like that. It is fiction. A novel. I have no idea how to go about looking to get it published. It's just something to do for now. We'll see how it goes. But, again, this is just a summary of what's going on. What does a typical day look like for me?

I wake up around 7am each morning, and turn on the Today Show. After about 20 minutes of watching in bed, I get up, make my coffee, clean any left-over dishes, have a banana, and head down to the basement where my computer is set up. I write for about an hour. I shower, put on nice clothes, and hit the local area, resumes in head, ready to find a job. After visiting a place or two, I go to the post office to get my mail, then head to the libary to check email, internet surf, job search. I read the magazines and newspapers, maybe sign out a book or two, then, if need be, hit the grocery store. Usually I'm home by dinner time. I watch the news, cook something, have a beer or glass of wine, then do some reading. I head downstairs again to write a little bit. Once I get tired, I head back up to watch a little TV, play a game of Madden, then head to bed to watch Leno, the Daily Show, Colbert, and do a little reading before passing out.

Tomorrow, hopefully things change. I have my first interview. It is for a substitute teacher position. This won't be an everyday thing, but it will be something. It will give me some variety in my life. Maybe there will be some cute female teachers. Maybe some of the students (no, I am not interested in jailbait; keep reading) will have some older sisters in college they can introduce me to. This week, I haven't visited any sites for employment. It has been cold and snowing; I would rather just wear ski pants outside. Plus, I haven't shaved in forever and am sporting a starter beard. The beard will be gone tomorrow, when I begin anew. Wish me luck!

Evolution and Intelligent Design

2006-12-26T11:46:00.000-05:00

“Darwin made it intellectually acceptable to be an atheist.” Richard Dawkins

Imagine walking through the desert. Your journey involves an endless array of cacti, adobe clay, and other features common to this terrain. After hours in the afternoon sun, you begin to tire. As you sit and reach into your backpack for a bottle of water, or perhaps your fanny-pack, if you are that guy, you notice a pocket-watch on the ground. You pick it up and observe. The watch is wound and running. The second hand ticks away, one second at a time, of course. The hour and minute hands match the time that your digital wristwatch is showing.

How did this watch get here? Could the many pieces of the watch have developed over time, randomly adapting and evolving to intricately fit together in just the right way to form the pocket-watch you are holding, in the same way the cacti and the desert hills and valleys have developed over time into their current forms? Of course not. The thought would never enter your mind. You came across an intricately formed pocket-watch. It could not have formed randomly. There must have been someone who came up with the idea of that watch and either put it together himself or arranged for others to put it together.

The story above represents, in simplest terms, the argument for intelligent design. Trying to go beyond the so-called “evolution vs. creationism” debate, ID (Intelligent Design) Theory argues that the world we inhabit gives off evidence for a designer. Whether each species came into existence separately (as creationists would argue, along with the belief in a less than 10,000 year old earth and Fred Flintstone-style rides to work on dinosaurs), or each species develops and evolves from earlier species, modern organisms are so complex, it implies a designer. Take, for example, the human eye. If each part did not develop and evolve just so, “Helen Keller” and “Stevie Wonder” jokes would be “humankind” jokes. To be more precise, look back at the example of the watch. A pocket-watch is so intricate; it would seem to be ridiculous to argue that it could have formed by random mutation of its varied parts. Or, if you will, a television, or DVD player, or car, or airplane. None of these could have formed randomly. Are not, argue ID proponents, the natural world and the many species, particularly homo sapiens, too complex to have developed randomly, without a designer?

The argument from design for the existence of God has been around long before Charles Darwin visited the Galapagos and wrote On The Origin of Species. The watchmaker example was popular in the 19th century, and is used currently by those who accept the scientific arguments for Darwinian evolution, but also believe that a designer—God—is behind creation. Yet, there recently has been a spat of books released by figures such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris, seeking to establish the implausibility of a designer or creator of the world. Along with this comes the implausibility of religious belief in a creator.

What seems so is not always so. Our eyes tell us that the sun goes around the earth, rising in the east each morning and setting in the west each evening. We know now that this is not true. It is the earth that revolves around the sun, spinning itself, causing our night and day. We still speak of the sunrise and sunset, knowing that it is a metaphor, as we know the phrase “right hand man” is a metaphor for a corporation’s number two worker. Yet, we realize that our eyes deceive us. Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and company tell us that the appearance of design, like the appearance of a sun that circles the earth, is an illusion, too. The complexity of a given species is not a true sign of design. It is a product of evolutionary trial and error. Those traits that benefit a species’s survival get passed onto the next generation. Over time, the more beneficial traits work together to form the modern species we see today.

What room is there today for God in a world come alive through random chance? What room is there for meaning and purpose? Dawkins and friends are not new in calling for a reexamination of our beliefs and suppositions about meaning and purpose in the world. Ecclesiastes arose in a biblical Israel that claimed God’s blessing and protection behind it. No, God is not blessing us, Ecclesiastes said. Life is vanity. What is happening now has happened in the past and will happen again. We all have the same fate: death. Nothing ultimately matters.

Nietzsche called out the Enlightenment thinkers. He saw through their bluff—the view that we can substitute man in the place of God as the arbiter of values and continue living as if this were just a change in semantics—and not only kept his hand in, but raised the stakes. Man is just as much a product of his environment as the constructs of God he creates. There is no standard to measure values and meaning. If we can no longer point to God as the designer of meaning, what right do we have to give to man to decide? And, if we assign this task to man, which man gets to decide? Each person has his own prejudices that would disqualify him.

Religious believers are at a crossroads. Like the Jews of the Babylonian Exile, we face a crisis of faith. During the period of the Judges and the unified Kingdom of Saul, David, and Solomon, the Israelites believed that periods of good fortune were the result of faithfulness to God, and periods of suffering arose when they neglected their duty to God. When Babylon conquered Judah and deported the Jews, a crisis of faith arose. Either God had abandoned them, or they needed a new conception of God. Maybe God is not so simplistic as to be understood as punishing the bad guys and rewarding the good guys. Maybe, as the book of Job suggests, bad things do sometimes happen to good people.

Why is this so? God answers Job’s pleadings, the pleadings of a just man unjustly hit with misfortune, not with an outlined response, but with a declaration. “Did you create the world?” God asks Job. “I am the master of the universe, not you. I have a greater purpose that you could not possibly comprehend. You just have to trust me, Job. Things will work out.”

Is God, then, some sadistic author who has created evil and suffering to give himself a better story, a dramatic tale? No, say Christians. As hinted at by Paul, who speaks of Christ as the new Adam, and elaborated by Augustine, Christians believe in the idea of Original Sin. God created the world good. In the beginning, mankind had community and happiness. Mankind was not a puppet of God. God made man free, and with this freedom came the ability to choose to obey God or disobey God. For whatever reason, man chose disobedience, and as a result, brought suffering on himself. We suffer because we sin. Sin does not have a direct relationship, like previously believed. The good sometimes suffer more than the wicked. But, we all suffer, and inflict suffering on others, because of our sins.

The discovery of Evolution by Darwin sent a shock down the religious world. If Adam and Eve had not literally been placed in the Garden of Eden by God already formed, but had evolved from lower life forms, what happens to the Christian story of sin followed by redemption? Sin, it is pointed out, is consent of the will to disobey God. One must have the capacity to reason in order to commit sin. The beasts of old acted on instincts, and were thus incapable of sin. A lion that tears a giraffe to shreds is not sinning, but following its primal instinct. Once evolution produced intelligent beings, the capacity to choose evil became present. When those first humans capable of reasoning chose disobedience, this brought sin, suffering, and death into the world.

This theory accounts for the presence of sin. But, not all suffering comes from sinful actions. For every man murdered by another, there are many more who die from sickness and disease caused not by sin, but by nature. Suffering and death were not brought into the world by the Fall. They are integral to the way the world works. Species’s survive by preying on other living creatures. Even herbivores survive by taking the life of living plants. The world was not a perfect one that fell with the Fall. It is one that by its very nature is imperfect. What, then, do we make of God?

The earliest forms of religion accounted for this reality by holding belief in a multitude of gods and goddesses, each more powerful than man but none all powerful or filled with complete goodness. Some modern day theologians, like Harold Kushner, argue that God is good, and cares for us, but does not have the power to stop evil, death, and suffering. Others, like Episcopal Bishop Spong have abandoned theism, and speak of God as a vague force of spiritual grounding to help us through the day. And, these gods offer intellectual solutions, but these gods do not help us with the biggest problem: what happens we die?

Thinkers such as Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris take the God issue seriously. They understand the implications, and choose to sign off on the God proposal entirely. Like Dostoevsky’s famous rationalist skeptic Ivan Karamazov, they cannot believe in an all-good, all-powerful God in the face of the evidence. What, then, are believers to do? We are back in the situation of Job. We know that sin was brought into the world by us, not God. But suffering and death? They are not the direct product of the sin of man. Are they from God? I don’t know. Sin is incompatible with God, but suffering and death may have a greater purpose that we are unaware of. Or, maybe suffering and death, though not brought about by us, were brought about by the sins of the fallen angels. We don’t know. We have to trust God, He who created the heavens and the earth, and accept that we cannot comprehend His complete vision. We must trust that God has a plan for us. We can take solace, unlike Job, who was born to soon, in the Incarnation, in God’s gift of self to us in the person of Jesus Christ. God may not take away our suffering, and—for some what is even worse—may not even give us an explanation for our suffering, but He is with us in our suffering. He took our sins and suffering with Him on the cross, and has redeemed us. The design we see in the formation of the world may be an illusion, but the design that God has for each of us is no mirage. Even without full evidence, we are called to go beyond the rationalistic stoicism of Ivan Karamazov and offer the selfless love of his brother Alyosha Karamazov.

The Solemnity of the Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ

2006-12-25T11:22:00.000-05:00

The Solemnity of the Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ

And now God says to us what he has already said to the world as a whole through his grace-filled birth: “I am there. I am with you. I am your life. I am your time. I am the gloom of your daily routine. Why will you not bear it? I weep your tears—pour out yours to me, my child. I am your joy. Do not be afraid to be happy, for ever since I wept, joy is the standard of living that is really more suitable that the anxiety of all your paths, for when you no longer know how to go any farther, then you have reached me, foolish child, though you are not aware of it. I am in your anxiety, for I have shared it by suffering it. And in doing so, I wasn’t even heroic according to the wisdom of the world. I am in the prison of your finiteness, for my love has made me your prisoner. When the totals of your plans and of your life’s experiences do not balance out evenly, I am the unsolved remainder. And I know that this remainder, which makes you so frantic, is in reality my love that you do not yet understand. I am present in your needs. I have suffered them and they are now transformed, but not obliterated from my heart…this reality—the incomprehensible wonder of my almighty love—I have sheltered safely and completely, in the cold stable of your world. I am there. I no longer go away from this world. Even if you do not see me, I am there.”

Karl Rahner, S.J.

What I want to be when I grow up

2006-11-10T11:47:00.000-05:00

As a kid, I only wanted to be two things when I grew up: a garbage man and a baseball player. Before I started Kindergarten, I would sit by the window everyday, waiting for the garbage truck to stop at my house so I could revel in what I believed my future to be, hoped my future to be, before my very eyes. I was disappointed most days, though, because my parents never told me the garbage truck only came once a week.

As a 10-year-old in the summer of 1991, I became a Mets fan, particularly of my favorite player HoJo (Howard Johnson), a consistent 30-30-30 man (30 HR’s, 30 SB’s, 30 errors). I finally had a new future career; I wanted to be a baseball player! This would stay my dream through college, though my reasons would change. In Little League, I wanted to be a baseball player because I idolized the pros. In high school, I dreamt of being a Big Leaguer and getting all the girls. In college, I just wanted to be a baseball player because I was a Philosophy Major and I couldn’t think of anything else to do with a Philosophy Degree.

I never saw myself becoming a teacher. I never took an education class in college or grad school. My year teaching at St. Gregory’s just fell in my lap. There are many joys of teaching—making a difference in children’s lives, getting to act like a kid again at recess, making fun of many of my students who were Yankees fans, going to happy hour with my co-workers—but one of the things I really enjoyed was having a good amount of free time to freelance write. My new dream, my new “this is what I want to be when I grow up” is a writer.

Writing is a different challenge than being a baseball player. To make it big time in sports, you have to have a lot of talent. You need to be one of the best in the world. Writing is a little different. You have to be good, and if you are exceptional, if you are a Shakespeare or a Dante or a Dave Barry, you will make it no matter what. But for those of us who fall into the “we’re good, but we are a dime a dozen” category, we need that big break. We need something else to get us into the spotlight first, then allow our writing to flourish. Would celebrities like Maria Shriver get publishing deals for children’s books if they weren’t who they are?

Becoming a well known and well read writer is probably as much a pipe dream now as being a pro baseball player was as a teenager. But, when I go to Sports Illustrated’s Webpage, I am given hope. One of SI’s columnists is a college student at Florida State named Jenn Sterger. She writes advice columns and first hand accounts of attending sporting events. She is an entertaining writer, and very well may be a talented writer, but why does she get to write for Sports Illustrated over a number of equal peers? Last year at a Florida State football game televised by ABC, the camera spanned the stands and caught Sterger and some friends dressed very scantily. The commentators made a joke about high school boys around the country applying to attend FSU, college students looked her up on Facebook, and she became an instant C-list celebrity. Appearances in Playboy and Maxim turned into a regular spot as a guest columnist on SI Online.

This American Dream, the dream of going from rags to riches, from anonymity to fame, is fostered by much of today’s literature and film. For every Lord of The Rings or Chronicles of Narnia, we see ten movies about the nerdy guy getting the pretty girl, or the girl who is somehow ugly because she wears glasses and a ponytail getting a makeover and suddenly becoming hot. Reality television gives the façade, or better yet, the mirage, of a society where nobodies can become important. And yet, people speak of writers like Tolkien and C.S. Lewis as bludgeoning our minds with escapist fantasy.

No, it is not the fairy tales and magical world stories that are escapist. None of us really believe that we can become a hero by battling dragons and using magic powers. The real escapist fantasies are the reality shows and rags to riches sagas that have just enough of a grain of authenticity to give us false hopes and false dreams.

While I wait for my shot at writing fame (my fantasy is that I foil a bank-robbery or something by just happening to be in the right place at the right time, landing me guest spots on Leno, Letterman, Colbert, and the talk-show circuit, giving me the opportunity to make known my writing to the world, leading to few celebrity girlfriends before settling down as a columnist for the NY Times), I will sit by the window, waiting each day for the garbage truck to come, in the hopes that today will be the day the garbage men visit. Who knows, maybe someday I will fulfill my boyhood dream and fill out an application.

Politically Correct Little Red Riding Hood

2006-11-02T11:29:00.000-05:00

I found this on Facebook. If the author wasn't anonymous, I would give due credit. Anyways, Enjoy!

So, what if Little Red Riding Hood was re-written to conform to today's politically correct standards? This funny little story will either amuse you to no end, make you fear for our future or... both! Enjoy!

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

There once was a young person named Little Red Riding Hood who lived on the edge of a large forest full of endangered owls and rare plants that would probably provide a cure for cancer if only someone took the time to study them.

Red Riding Hood lived with a nurture giver whom she sometimes referred to as "mother", although she didn't mean to imply by this term that she would have thought less of the person if a close biological link did not in fact exist.

Nor did she intend to denigrate the equal value of nontraditional households, although she was sorry if this was the impression conveyed.

One day her mother asked her to take a basket of organically grown fruit and mineral water to her grandmother's house.

"But mother, won't this be stealing work from the unionized people who have struggled for years to earn the right to carry all packages between various people in the woods?"

Red Riding Hood's mother assured her that she had called the union boss and gotten a special compassionate mission exemption form.

"But mother, aren't you oppressing me by ordering me to do this?"

Red Riding Hood's mother pointed out that it was impossible for women to oppress each other, since all women were equally oppressed until all women were free.

"But mother, then shouldn't you have my brother carry the basket, since he's an oppressor, and should learn what it's like to be oppressed?"

And Red Riding Hood's mother explained that her brother was attending a special rally for animal rights, and besides, this wasn't stereotypical womyn's work, but an empowering deed that would help engender a feeling of community.

"But won't I be oppressing Grandma, by implying that she's sick and hence unable to independently further her own selfhood?"

But Red Riding Hood's mother explained that her grandmother wasn't actually sick or incapacitated or mentally handicapped in any way, although that was not to imply that any of these conditions were inferior to what some people called "health".

Thus Red Riding Hood felt that she could get behind the idea of delivering the basket to her grandmother, and so she set off.

Many people believed that the forest was a foreboding and dangerous place, but Red Riding Hood knew that this was an irrational fear based on cultural paradigms instilled by a patriarchal society that regarded the natural world as an exploitable resource, and hence believed that natural predators were in fact intolerable competitors.

Other people avoided the woods for fear of thieves and deviants, but Red Riding Hood felt that in a truly classless society all marginalized peoples would be able to "come out" of the woods and be accepted as valid lifestyle role models.

On her way to Grandma's house, Red Riding Hood passed a woodchopper, and wandered off the path, in order to examine some flowers.

She was startled to find herself standing before a Wolf, who asked her what was in her basket.

Red Riding Hood's teacher had warned her never to talk to strangers, but she was confident in taking control of her own budding sexuality, and chose to dialogue with the Wolf.

She replied, "I am taking my Grandmother some healthful snacks in a gesture of solidarity."

The Wolf said, "You know, my dear, it isn't safe for a little girl to walk through these woods alone."

Red Riding Hood said, "I find your sexist remark offensive in the extreme, but I will ignore it because of your traditional status as an outcast from society, the stress of which has caused you to develop an alternative and yet entirely valid worldview. Now, if you'll excuse me, I would prefer to be on my way."

Red Riding Hood returned to the main path, and proceeded towards her Grandmother's house.

But because his status outside society had freed him from slavish adherence to linear, Western-style thought, the Wolf knew of a quicker route to Grandma's house.

He burst into the house and ate Grandma, a course of action affirmative of his nature as a predator.

Then, unhampered by rigid, traditionalist gender role notions, he put on Grandma's nightclothes, crawled under the bedclothes, and awaited developments.

Red Riding Hood entered the cottage and said,"Grandma, I have brought you some cruelty free snacks to salute you in your role of wise and nurturing matriarch."

The Wolf said softly "Come closer, child, so that I might see you."

Red Riding Hood said, "Goddess! Grandma, what big eyes you have!"

"You forget that I am optically challenged."

"And Grandma, what an enormous, what a fine nose you have."

"Naturally, I could have had it fixed to help my acting career, but I didn't give in to such societal pressures, my child."

"And Grandma, what very big, sharp teeth you have!"

The Wolf could not take any more of these specist slurs, and, in a reaction appropriate for his accustomed milieu, he leaped out of bed, grabbed Little Red Riding Hood, and opened his jaws so wide that she could see her poor Grandmother cowering in his belly.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Red Riding Hood bravely shouted. "You must request my permission before proceeding to a new level of intimacy!"

The Wolf was so startled by this statement that he loosened his grasp on her.At the same time, the woodchopper burst into the cottage, brandishing an ax."Hands off!" cried the woodchopper.

"And what do you think you're doing?" cried Little Red Riding Hood. "If I let you help me now, I would be expressing a lack of confidence in my own abilities, which would lead to poor self esteem and lower achievement scores on college entrance exams."

"Last chance, sister! Get your hands off that endangered species! This is an FBI sting!" screamed the woodchopper, and when Little Red Riding Hood nonetheless made a sudden motion, he sliced off her head.

"Thank goodness you got here in time," said the Wolf. "The brat and her grandmother lured me in here. I thought I was a goner."

"No, I think I'm the real victim, here," said the woodchopper. "I've been dealing with my anger ever since I saw her picking those protected flowers earlier. And now I'm going to have such a trauma. Do you have any aspirin?"

"Sure," said the Wolf.

"Thanks."

"I feel your pain," said the Wolf, and he patted the woodchopper on his firm, well padded back, gave a little belch, and said "Do you have any Maalox?"

What Could Have Been; Should Have Been

2006-10-22T10:19:00.000-04:00

Never have I been less excited about a World Series than now. I know that Game 1 was last night. But I am still in shock, in denial, from Thursday night. It never should have come to a game 7. This was our year. At least, our year in the Lesser League. This was our year to get to the World Series. Anything more than that would be gravy. I can accept losing to the Tigers. But, not this.

I called my dad after the catch ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCtjcS5iaTY ). Later, I found out he didn't answer because he was in a bar watching the game, too. I was jumping for joy, cheering at the top of my longues. I may have been by myself in my secluded river house, but I was there in spirit with all the other fans. There was no way were going to lose after the catch of the year. Even if FoxSports was dumb enough to cut straight to commercials, and Tim McCarver called Endy "Eric", we weren't going to blow it after that.

The big hit that was supposed to follow in the bottom of the inning never came. We let them hang in, and the baby Molina brother beat us...

Yes, we are a young team. Probably a year away from competing with the American League Champion, anyway. All our young starts are coming back: Jose! Ho-Zay, Ho-Zay, Ho-Zay, Ho-Zay. David Wright, too (although he's fast approaching Jeter status in the rate of ass-kissing and the number of man-crushes the announcers have on him). The young pitchers Oliver Perez and John Maine look good, Mike Pelfrey should be ready to join the rotation, and they will be anchored by Glavine and Pedro, when he's healthy. But, I am still in shock from that fucking called third strike curveball to Beltran that I saw coming. To steal a song from the Counting Crows and change a word:

A long October
And there's reason to believe
Maybe this year
Will be better than the last

Weekend at St. Mike's

2006-09-20T14:04:00.001-04:00

CLANG! That is the sound of a Sean Pidgeon fastball sailing over the batter, catcher, and umpire’s head, colliding full throttle with the backstop fence. Well, the sound is not exactly like that, but “clang!” is the damn closest approximation our beautiful English language affords us in describing an event that must be seen to be appreciated.

CLANG had been in hibernation for over three years, since I formally retired from organized baseball following that final St. Michael’s versus Middlebury game my senior year of college in May 2003. This past weekend, though, the time came. It was time to break out the cleats, the flip-up sunglasses, my Wal-Mart imitation UnderArmour, and take to the ball field. For, Sunday September 17 marked the first annual alumni baseball game at St. Mike’s.

A game summary is not what I offer you, dear reader. One can find that in the New York Times, USA Today, or, if not there, in a random paragraph tucked into the corner of page 8 of the Burlington Free Press sports section, underneath the high school Cross Country results. What I give you is a few tidbits of observation.

(1) St. Mike’s decided to schedule Alumni Weekend and Family Weekend for the same weekend. I don’t know; maybe enrollment is too high, and the administration believes parents will pull their children out of school after watching the way we alumni behave, stumbling around Winooski and Burlington.

(2) There are a lot of very attractive young women on campus. Really, a lot. I couldn’t keep my eyes on the baseball field during the alumni game. Where did the college recruiters find them? And, where were all these pretty girls from 1999-2003, while I was a student? Apparently, admissions standards have been raised.

(3) I, Sean Pidgeon, the holder of one official at-bat as an NCAA Baseball Player (a ground out to 2nd; yes I remember), get sent up to the plate to hit. And, hit I do. A curveball hit me square on my leg, sending me into a number of hops on my jog down to first base. Rumor out there has it that my at-bat is circulating on video via the internet.

(4) With over 1,000 days rest, my arm was very fresh. The ball was popping out of my hand. Like always, I still had no idea where it was going to go each time I let it rip. I vary between blowing a fastball by a hitter and plunking a hitter in the back. My 2/3 of an inning on the mound went pretty well, I think. Two walks, a pop up, a grounder back to me, causing me to hesitate over whether to throw to third or first for a force out (I settled on third), and two or three pitches sailing to the backstop.

(5) It was great getting together with old friends this past weekend, having a few drinks and a few laughs. I need to do things like this more often.

Faith and Reason MUST go together

2006-09-20T11:19:00.000-04:00

“Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them.” Blaise Pascal

“We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith. Only thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today.” Pope Benedict XVI, speech at Regensburg

“I am sorry if you were offended.” “I am sorry that you are so thick skinned.” “I am sorry if my words were misconstrued to make it seem like I actually meant what I said.” We see variations of these apologies all the time, especially in the world of sports or entertainment, where someone makes a boneheaded, racist, or sexist statement, and quickly has to save face. Recently, it was a drunk Mel Gibson uttering some not so nice things about his Semitic friends who he thinks run the world. Earlier, Keith Hernandez commented on the proper place of women somewhere in between the dugout and the kitchen. The later apologies are about covering their own asses and saving face more so than actually being sorry.

Many have been quick to say that Pope Benedict’s apology for his speech in Regensburg was like that: A fake apology. He need not be sorry at all, though. What he said was right on the money. The comments on Islam were more than incidental, but not the focal point of his speech. The thesis was the proper relationship of faith and reason, a point missed both by Islamic radicals who used and urged the use of violence in response for dare suggesting that Islam is not a religion of peace, and by secular Westerners who pooh-pooh the Pope for not being politically correct and speaking positively of a religion that they secretly loath and despise anyways.

Faith without reason, faith not informed by reason, Benedict says, descends into violence, bloodshed, and intolerance. In an honest critique of Islam, Benedict asks whether that religion is equipped to go through an internal Reformation, since the Koran, the holy book of Islam, calls for conversion by the sword. Unlike the Bible, which Christians believe to be inspired by God, though written by humans and subject to human interpretations, the Koran, to Muslims, was written directly by God and handed straight to the prophet Muhammad. There is not much room for ambiguity. If Islam is to grow up, to become peaceful, it must go through a reformation that Benedict is reasonably doubtful that it is capable of doing.

To go on calling Islam a religion of peace, as President Bush is wont to do, as he goes on bombing the snot out of Islamic countries, does not get at the heart of the problem. And, neither does the option preferred by the West; a replacement of faith with reason, or at the very least, the cigarette smoker solution. Yes, just like we tolerate smokers so long as they go outside to have their smoke, and when finished, they may rejoin polite company, the Secular West does the same with religion. It is okay to have your personal spirituality and beliefs, but keep them to yourself, and put it away when you want to join in the civic conversation.

The Enlightenment that the West went through was necessary. We needed to end the wars of religion and compulsion of faith that would be alien to Christianity’s founder, who never harmed a person in his life (a certain Prophet of another religion did quite a bit of killing and warring, but I won’t get into that. I have talked negatively about his religion enough). However, the divorce of faith from reason, and the subjugation of ultimate questions to the private realm does not benefit society. Christianity, as Benedict says, is a faith grounded in reason, a faith that worships the Logos, the Word of God. It is no accident or coincidence that the term St. John uses to describe Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, is the same Greek word that means “reason” or “rationality”. We worship a God of love who is also a God of reason.

To quote Ryan T. Anderson from First Things magazine, “Benedict was challenging both those who have relegated religion to the realm of personal superstition and thus embraced agnosticism or atheism, and those who have pictured God as will detached from reason and thus embraced a version of Islam that can condone violence and terror. Benedict was arguing that both have failed to appreciate the true grandeur of man as a participant in the being of God and thus failed to grasp the centrality of human reason.”

Pope Benedict's remarks on Islam

2006-09-18T14:25:00.000-04:00

Last week, Pope Benedict XVI caused quite a ruckus when he quoted from a 16th century Christian who had said Islam may not exactly be the most peaceful religion in the world. Obviously, the Pope made a mistake. It’s not good to criticize Islam or to accuse Muslims of sometimes being violent. When you say that Islam is not peaceful, it gets some Muslims mad and makes them act violent and use violence to show that you were wrong to accuse Muslims of being violent.

The lesson, as always: Don't say the Islam is a violent religion, or some Muslims will get mad and use violence.

Party of Death

2006-08-22T10:53:00.000-04:00

The early 5th century saw the beginning of what historian Edward Gibbon would call the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Why would this empire, the greatest the world had ever seen, at one time stretching 1000 miles, begin to show cracks? It had survived over a millenium, and had been an empire for four centuries. What was the problem?

Emperor Constantine had sanctioned Christianity a century earlier. Followers of the civic pagan gods increasingly blamed the demise on Christianization of Rome. After, it could hardly be a coincidence that the barbarians were at the gates soon after Rome had given up asking protection from the pagan gods. Right?

St. Augustine, hearing these fears and rumblings, decided to respond with his extended work that would come to be called De Civitas Dei (City of God). Augustine said, no, Christianity is not responsible for the fall of Rome. The civic pagan rites were flawed in their own right. And, even if Christianity was responsible for the impending fall of Rome, it would not matter. For, it is not Rome that we are to see as our salvation, but rather the Heavenly Kingdom promised by God.

There are two "cities", Augustine says: The City of God and the City of Man. The City of God includes all of the angels in Heaven, the souls of the virtuous people who have died and gone to Heaven, the faithful members of the Church who are still alive on earth, and, possibly, virtuous living humans who are not members of the Church. The City of Man includes the fallen angels, the souls of the wicked who have died, as well as wicked men and women still alive on earth. The City of God is not to be strictly identified with the Church, since there are baptized members of the Church who are not virtuous, and there maybe people who are not members of the church but are nonetheless virtuous. The City of Man is NOT to be seen as Rome, or any other particular human community, since there are citizens of Rome who are virtuous and are part of the City of God. We need to see Rome, and any other human society, Augustine says, for what it is: a city that we are citizens of, that we should work to make virtuous, but ultimately only a temporary home on our way to our heavenly reward. Work to make society better, while at the same time remembering our human existence on earth is not the be all and end all.

The late Pope John Paul II coined the phrases "culture of life" and "culture of death" to describe those in our society who respect and protect human life versus those who, for whatever reason, deem some humans as inconveniences who can be disposed of for some 'greater good.' To cut through the euphemisms, what the Pope meant was those who support or condone abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty (when other means of protecting society are available) are contributing to a 'culture of death' that treats human life as below things such as pleasure or subjective happiness. Recently, author Ramesh Ponnuru wrote the attention grabbing title, Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1596980044/sr=8-1/qid=1156259289/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-8551716-7195300?ie=UTF8 ). The title is polemic, and it doesn't help that he has a blurb praising the book by Ann Coulter on the cover, but his writing and arguments are careful and reasoned. His two main theses points are:

(1) Roe V. Wade was a poorly handed doown case, Constitutionally and ethically. People do not really understand what is says. In effect, it leaves abortion legal for all 9 months, since it leaves it to the whim of the doctor to determine whether the fetus has a claim to life in the final two trimesters (what do you think an abortion doctor would say?). Further, our Constitution is silent on the issue of abortion, and implies nothing in any way or form about it, despite all this talk about "penumbras." Would it not be better to let the legislatures deal with such a divisive issue than have a Supreme Court rule down from on high, with the authority of a Constitution that says nothing in any way about the issue? The fact that the issue was taken out of the hands of the people, unlike in European countries where national consenses have formed giving some leeway to pro-life and pro-choice forces, leads to the divisiveness in our nation over the issue.

(2) The Democratic Party has largely become the abortion party, alienating its traditional bases of the working class, unions, Catholics, African-Americans, and others, by putting support for legal abortion as the number one objective of the party, the one issue among all issues that no Democratic with aspirations for high office can stray from orthodoxy. Also, just as Rome cannot be seen strictly as the City of Man, the Democrats cannot be seen strictly as the Party of Death, since there are a number of Republican pro-choicers, and there are Democratic pro-lifers, but the Democrats, sadly, have largely embraced the abortion cause.

Is Ponnuru right in painting the Democrats as the 'Party of Death'? Wilfred McClay, writing on the First Things blog on August 21 (http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=418 ), does not "find much merit in the idea that there is a 'party of death' at work in American politics." He sees it as a wrong formulation, for "our biotechnological enthusiasts are nothing if not partisans of life, infinitely extensible." It is based on the idea that each of us should be able to have mastery over our lives, and "manufacture a world [we] can live in without let or hindrance." But, we are not in complete control. We live in communities, where we have responsibilities to one another. We are called to care for the helpless, to, as Mother Theresa said, give until it hurts. Let us close with some final thoughts from McClay's blog entry:

Life is unfreezable, and complete independence is a sterile fantasy, incosistent with our human nature. That nature speaks to us continuously of the organic interdepency of things, of a world churned and roiled by the endless process of aging and decay, and the miraculous generation of new life out of them--the ebb and flow of what the ancients called "generation and corruption." The recognition of these things, and the acceptance of our place in them, is precisely why we care for the infirm and the weak and the hopeless among us, rather than feed them to the sharks, particularly when they are flesh of our flesh, and we of theirs.

Love and Marriage--Words of Wisdom

2006-08-12T13:22:00.000-04:00

I haven't been writing a lot on my blog lately. For those who know me, you know I've been really busy and I have a lot going on in my life right now. This isn't really anblog entry; it's some words and wisdom on love and marriage througfht the ages. Enjoy!

I recently read that love is entirely a matter of chemistry. That must be why my wife treats me like toxic waste.

David Bissonette

When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let himkeep her.

Sacha Guitry

After marriage, husband and wife become two sides of a coin; they justcan't face each other, but still they stay together.

Hemant Joshi

By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you geta bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

Socrates

Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us from achieving them.

Dumas

The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is, "What does a woman want?"

Sigmund Freud

I had some words with my wife, and she had some paragraphs with me.

Anonymous

"Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go toa restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft musicand dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays."

Henry Youngman

"I don't worry about terrorism. I was married for two years."

Sam Kinison

"There's a way of transferring funds that is even faster than electronic banking. It's called marriage."

James Holt McGavran

"I've had bad luck with both my wives. The first one left me and thesecond one didn't."

Patrick Murray

Two secrets to keep your marriage brimming.
1) Whenever you're wrong, admit it,
2) Whenever you're right, shut up.

Nash

The most effective way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget once...

Anonymous

You know what I did before I married? Anything I wanted to.

Henny Youngman

My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.

Rodney Dangerfield

A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong.

Milton Berle

Marriage is the only war where one sleeps with the enemy.

Anonymous

A man inserted an 'ad' in the classifieds: "Wife wanted". Next day he received a hundred letters. They all said the same thing: "You can havemine."

Anonymous

First Guy (proudly): "My wife's an angel!"
Second Guy "You're lucky, mine's still alive."

Anonymous

People Who Should Be Fazed Out

2006-08-02T13:17:00.000-04:00

A few months ago, sportwriter Bill Simmons wrote a column for ESPN.com Page 2 listing people who, in his words, “have a little too much power.” Some mentioned include bouncers at bars, and, I think, local pool lifeguards. I couldn’t find the link to this particular column, but it was written long enough ago that you would need to be an ESPN Insider (i.e. pay money) to read it, anyway. Along with “people who have a little bit too much power,” a side corollary that could go with it, I think, is “people who should be fazed out.” Here is my initial list. It is by no means in any order or comprehensive. I may add to it later as I think of more wastes of oxygen.

1—That guy who works at a summer camp or works in some rec. program or entertainment area where a group of people gather to have him lead the activity. He is the guy who always opens with a variation of “Is everybody excited to be here!?” After the audience gives their first cheer, he has to obnoxiously yell out, “I can’t hear you! Let me hear you again.” Shut up. You heard us fine the first time. You’re not cool.

2—The pimple faced teenage lifeguard guy who thinks he’s cool because he works with hot college girls, even though he has a Trekkie’s chance with a supermodel with them. He’s the guy who always has to blow his whistle and give you the, “Sir, that is not allowed in the pool/lake” routine, when you are breaking some innocuous rule like “no splashing.” Shut up, I’m an adult. I don’t care if you are the lifeguard, stop condescending to me like I am a kid.

3—The muscle-bound, hair slicked meathead lifeguard guy who is constantly preening, flexing, and talking to the hot girls at the beach, but is not afraid to interrupt himself to lecture you about splashing or having your beach chair too close to the pool. Please, go away. This guy is even worse than the pimple faced kid, because you can at least feel sorry for the pimple faced kid since he is just trying to show off and impress the girls.

4—The muscle-bound, hair slicked meathead guy who works at the gym. He also constantly preens, flexes, and makes the rounds with girls working out. Of course, he makes sure to come over and lecture you when you are not doing an exercise or lift exactly right. Hey buddy, I know I am shortchanging myself, being lazy and doing the lift a little wrong. I’m not doing anything unsafe. Stop trying to show off. Just go away. Go be Billy Zabka somewhere else.

5—That guy who comes up to you in the supermarket, bookstore, train-station, airport, or wherever else you may be alone at the time, and asks if you have found Jesus.

6—Guys who don’t flush, and guys who don’t wash their hands.

7—Guys who incessantly talk about their fantasy sports teams. Trust me, I don’t want to know. The only person who cares about your fantasy team is you.

More to come later…

Jon Stewart Vs. Stephen Colbert

2006-07-26T17:54:00.000-04:00

As a Mets fan, it is exciting to see the season the team is having. The Mets are running away with their division, are the heavy favorites to win the NL pennant, and have a realistic to shot to win their first World Championship since that crazy alcoholic coke snortin’ team of 1986 (for a true appreciation of that team and that season, read The Bad Guys Won, by Jeff Pearlman. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060507322/sr=8-3/qid=1153410989/ref=pd_bbs_3/103-2731034-7671857?ie=UTF8 ). The only sad part is that they are doing it without their star player of the past 8 seasons, and the greatest hitting catcher ever, Mike Piazza. Is this another example of the Ewing Theory, where a team gets better when its star player gets injured or leaves via trade, retirement, or free agency? I don’t think so, because for the previous two seasons, Piazza had faded into an average to mediocre player. His replacement, Paul LoDuca, is a veritable upgrade. But, Piazza still has enough name recognition and occasional hints of greatness in him that it does allow us to open up the Ewing Theory as a suggestion.

The Ewing Theory is not just for sports. It can be applied to the world of entertainment, as well. A prime example would be the Daily Show. Host Craig Kilborn (and previously a SportsCenter anchor, as well) left for network TV, taking the Late Late Show on CBS, before fizzling out and giving way to Craig Ferguson. However, Kilborn’s replacement on the Daily Show, Job Stewart, took the show to new levels, winning late night Emmy’s over Leno and Letterman, and giving our nation some serious social satire. Stewart got so big that his “correspondents” began branching out. Steve Carrell had memorable supporting parts in Bruce Almighty (as the tongue twisted news anchor) and in Anchorman as Brick (“Would you like to come to the pants party?”, “I love lamp”, “LOUD NOISES!”), before starring in The 40 Year Old Virgin and the TV show The Office. Lewis Black became even more famous as a comedian. And, Steve Colbert branched out to start his own show The Colbert Report, airing after The Daily Show.

Colbert’s show is a spoof on Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor. Colbert plays an ignorant know-it-all right wing pundit. He never comes out character, giving “heat” to his liberal guests, for example, asking Tim Robbins, “why do you hate America?”, and making suggestions such as keeping gay marriage legal in Massachusetts, since it’s a bunch of liberal tree huggers anyways, that way we can keep it contained there and out of the rest of the country. Colbert even stayed in character when he spoke at the White House Correspondents Press Dinner, causing President Bush to become visible uncomfortable as he “praised” him with lines such as, “you never change your mind, sir. Your beliefs are the same Wednesday as they were Monday, no matter what happens on Tuesday.” (To see Colbert’s speech, click here to read the speech: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/30/1441/59811 )

This cannot be an example of the Ewing Theory, since Colbert has not taken over for Jon Stewart, but I believe that Colbert has surpassed his mentor in social satire. Jon Stewart has allowed the political events of our nation since the 2004 election to affect him. It may be justifiably so, but the Daily Show has changed. The humor is still there, but Stewart seems to think he is now a political commentator. Take, for example, his appearance on CNN’s Crossfire over a year ago. He mocked Tucker Carlson and company for being talk show fodder and not real journalism. The criticism was probably justified, but Stewart was being himself, not his character from the Daily Show. Stephen Colbert never would left character, remaining his ignorant right wing alter ego, keeping Crossfire light, with laughs thrown in.

Jon Stewart’s show is still good, although he has lost a focus of what he wants Daily Show to be. Where he used to keep it light, he is trending towards going “Garafolo.” His conservative guests are never given a fair chance, with not so much an intellectual exchange, or even debate, but more Jon Stewart out to get them, with humor strategically inserted at times when the guest would best be able to respond intellectually. Liberal guests turn into a smug-fest between Stewart and the guest. Again, this may be because our current crop of politicians (i.e. Bush) are inept and causing serious damage, as opposed to the previous crop (i.e. Clinton) who were easy to make fun of because of their foibles (i.e. enjoyment of overweight women), but ultimately harmless and actually effective at running government. Yet, Colbert’s strict satire better gets at the heart of this Republican administration’s flaws than Stewart’s dalliance in a serious journalism/intellectual humor balance.

What Happened To Britney Spears?

2006-07-20T10:16:00.000-04:00

The Fall of 2003 brought a lot of changes in my life. The previous four years had been amazing. I had attended St. Michael’s College, in beautiful Vermont, surrounded by the Green Mountains, with a rotation of colorful fall foliage, white covered winters, and breezy springs. I had made amazing friends and began to form my own worldview on life. Now, I was in Washington, DC, at Catholic University, in the beginning stages of grad school. It was a culture change, being in an urban setting where I had to lock my doors and regularly heard police sirens outside my window and the occasional gunshot. I missed college and my friends. I made some really good new friends, but was still very lonely. Because of this, I made many excursions into the heart of the city, exploring and learning my way around. My favorite part of DC was probably the National Mall, which is not a shopping mall, but the giant strip of grass that goes between the Capitol building and the Washington Monument, surrounded on both sides by the Smithsonian Museums, and often populated by a collection of tourists looking around and residents getting a break from work.

The beginning of the school year also coincides with the beginning of football season. Each year for the last several, the NFL has opened the season by having one game on the Thursday night preceding opening Sunday. That year, the opening game was the New York Jets vs. the Washington Redskins, at the Redskins home stadium. Since DC was the site of the first game, the NFL put on a big, commercialized, extravaganza on the National Mall. Up by the Capitol was set up a huge stage, and each giant patch of grass stretching back to the Washington Monument was roped off. There were giant projector screens set up stretching all the way back for the people way back near the Washington Monument who could not see the stage. This event was called “Operation: Tribute to Freedom”, with a collection of singers coming on stage including Good Charlotte, Aretha Franklin, and Aerosmith. Soldiers got to be up front, with a soldier getting to announce Joe Theismann and Joe Namath coming on stage, and a soldier getting to announce each band or singer to perform. Of course, we saw an African American, a Latino, and a woman, so they could fill every token. Out of all the performers in this Vanilla Pepsi sponsored commercial patriotism, the biggest star of the night was Britney Spears.

One may wonder now how Britney could be a bigger star than Aretha or Aerosmith, but this was the heyday of Britney’s fame. She was an absolute star then. Also, an absolute knockout. I was lucky enough to be one of the few out of the 70,000 or so on the National Mall to get up within 50 feet of the stage. In person, Britney was stunning. She is the best looking woman I have ever seen in my life. Now, 2 ½ years later, she is washed up, tabloid fodder. She went from big time star to washed up seemingly overnight.

Reading Bill Simmons’ mailbag on ESPN.com (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060714 ), I was alerted to some corollaries. One of his readers made the comparison to Doc Gooden, the Mets phenom who at 19 years of age struck out 276 batters and won the rookie of the year award, following that up the next season by winning the Cy Young award. He never returned to his early greatness, within a few years receding into an average pitcher before hanging on to mete out a pretty good career, far short of the greatness that was expected. Another reader made the comparison to Counting Crows, who started out with a couple hit albums, before fading into oblivion, popping up occasionally, like with their song that was in Shrek 2, but otherwise being irrelevant.

As a Mets fan, I am too young to remember Doc Gooden’s unhittable heater and curve, and as a Counting Crows fan, it is sad to see them never blossom into what they could have been, but at least I can say I saw fleeting greatness one muddy night in DC.

Only the Good Die Young

2006-07-19T21:08:00.000-04:00

“Only the good die young.”—Billy Joel

Billy Joel popularized this sentiment in song and verse. We lose all the good people early, while we’re stuck with the grumpy old bags. Obviously, we have some nice examples of good people biting the bullet early. Think Jesus Christ and Ann Frank. And, there are bad people out there who refuse to die. Think Fidel Castro and George Steinbrenner. Of course, I’m sure there are many bad people who died young (Jeffrey Dahmer) and good people who lived to ripe old ages (Mother Theresa, St. Antony the Hermit). What Billy Joel, and anyone who uses this phrase, could really mean, I think, is that the people who leave us early don’t have the chance to mess things up with us. There are people we rarely see who we miss, who we might otherwise not think so fondly of if they were always around. Think of the t-shirt that says “How can I miss you if you never leave?”

We recognize this impulse with our beloved sports figures. We’d rather they retire early, even if we miss watching them perform, than see them hang around too long as shells of their former selves. Think Babe Ruth hobbling around that final season with the Boston Braves, Muhammad Ali getting pounded in the late stages of his boxing career, Michael Jordan unable to will the Washington Wizards to the playoffs, let alone a championship, Barry Bonds limping around the outfield with his oversized head, flailing and missing at pitches he used to deposit into McCovey Cove. On second thought, I enjoy watching Barry Bonds struggle without the cream and the clear. It’s the others we cannot bear to watch disintegrate.

This impulse even causes us to wonder if classic tragedies may even be for the best. Romeo and Juliet never were able to stay together because of family politics and fate, but who knows, maybe if the Capulets and Montagues got along, Romeo and Juliet would have grown sick of each other after a decade of marriage. Juliet may have grown impatient with Romeo always going to the bar after work, coming home late, and never helping with the dishes. Or, maybe Juliet would have cheated on Romeo, causing him to leave her. Then, they would have split up and grown old and bitter, instead of dying young, always having the memory of what was and what could never be.

Maybe our daydreams and fantasies are better when they don’t work out, and we wonder about what could have been. The tragedy that prevents the dream come true may be less sad than the dream come true not being what we expected. This brings to mind another cliché, “be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.”

This is probably why dating advice columnists in magazines like Maxim tell you to chat with a girl for a few minutes, get her number, and get out of there. If you stick around too long, you are bound to do something stupid to cause her to lose interest.

We all want the perfect ending. There will always be that aura of mystery about figures like James Dean and Roberto Clemente, who died young and tragically, or Sandy Koufax, who retired early and stays in mostly seclusion. They don’t come back into the public eye to tarnish their image, like Joe Namath did with Suzy Kolber, or William Shatner does every time he appears on anything (Click here to see William Shatner sing Rocketman at the 1978 SciFi awards; he was actually trying to be serious. Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN3MGN899yE&search=William%20Shatner ). It’s a weighing of possibilities. Do I give up the chance to further my legacy, or do I go for it and risk ruining what I already have? It’s the internal debate that happens every time a person weighs whether to attempt to take a friendship with a member of the opposite sex to the next level. Do I risk the friendship for something more, knowing that if a romantic relationship does not work out, it may be hard to go back to being just friends?

Is it better to fly swiftly into and out of people’s lives, leaving a good mark and then going, having them wish you could have stuck around longer, being a “good” one who “dies young”, or is better to stay awhile in people’s lives, allowing others to experience the good and bad, to let others see your flowers and your warts, to see fully the real you? I don’t know. But, the later is probably better. We will be revealed in full before our Creator at the end, so why hide it all now?

African Christianity

2006-07-19T10:32:00.000-04:00

We often look at humanity from a Western worldview, especially when it comes to our religious viewpoints. Recently John Allen, the National Catholic Reporter’s correspondent to the Vatican, had an interview with a Catholic theologian from Uganda. Here is the transcript (and here is the link to Allen’s weekly column: http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/word/ ):

To unpack some of this, I sat down with Fr. John Mary Waliggo of Uganda, a widely influential African theologian and currently a member of his country's human rights commission. Waliggo is an enormously appealing figure, with a ready smile, an infectious laugh, and a salty tongue. In Padua, he led a group of Africans who decided to create a steering committee for a new society of African ethicists.

How can Africa influence the global church?
For one thing, missionary congregations today come to Africa and recruit, so they have many African members. If you really looked into it, you'd find the percentages are enormous. There are also many other Africans priests and sisters serving abroad in various places. Right now, the local church in Africa usually has no idea who these people are or what they're doing, it has no contact with them. I think a critical moment will come when these Africans begin to connect with one another, to form a network, to become aware of the voice they already have.

What will they use that voice to say to the rest of the church?
First, racism will be challenged.
Second, Africans can stimulate theological development. Theology in Europe and North America is not creative enough anymore, and so they get renewed when they read theology from India, from South Korea, from Africa. Our theology is a little bit more dynamic.

For example, we have much to say about inculturation, offering new models for theological reflection … Jesus as proto-ancestor, the idea of the dead living among us, the emphasis on active participation by all in the community. There's also African liberation theology, which includes African feminism. It's a theology that departs from injustices to Africans and by Africans. It keeps the government dancing, because they don't quite know what to do with it.

There's the theology of remembering. We Africans have our own Exodus story in the form of the slave trade, which is a story we must always remember. The past is part of us, it's a big instrument in forming our future. We also do a very historical sort of theology, such as what we should learn from the Rwandan genocide. If you forget this sort of thing, you are naïve.

Our theological style is very concerned with narrative, expressing teachings in story. Our people listen better when you give them a story. This means using local expressions and rituals, linking the gospel to their story. Everything is brought into the story, the animals, the plants, the whole environment. It's a way of doing theology that's almost dead in the West, but it's very Biblical.
As Africans move around the rest of the church, they will carry this way of thinking and teaching with them. If I'm called to Munich or somewhere else, I won't stop my way of doing things.

What else is a distinctive contribution of African Catholicism?
We have refused to leave our cultures and traditions behind. We believe that the old wine and the new wine must be mixed together. Jesus did not come to destroy, but to create. Christianity is in general something additional to what the people already believe, not its complete replacement.

What do you think when you see Catholics in the north discussing matters such as whether the correct response should be "and also with you" or "and also with your spirit?"
Is it a priority for you? Look, I was part of the fight to get rid of Idi Amin, when my country was bleeding. I went into exile for five years, but we finally got rid of him. I wrote four books on the political education of our people. I came back, and fought against [Milton] Obote, who was no better than Amin. I had to go into exile again, to Kenya, but we got rid of him too in 1986.
I then became the General Secretary for writing the new Ugandan Constitution. We went up to all the villages to consult the people, including women, people with disabilities, everybody. It took six years to do it, but in the end the constitution is full of Catholic social teaching.
I'm now a commissioner on the Human Rights Commission. I visit the jails, and if I say so, I can get somebody released within 48 hours. The idea is to be sure that people aren't just tossed in jail and never heard from again. This isn't just me. The chair of the AIDS commission in Uganda, for example, is a Catholic bishop. We believe that theology must be relevant. It has to contribute to the constitutions, laws, and policies of the country. We see our role as social change agents, as people who work and unite themselves with the poor who are struggling. We do theology for them, to help them to have life to the full.

What sort of question does interest you? To me, the important questions are, 'How are your kids fed?' 'How do you get along with your Muslim neighbors?' I don't invent the questions, I find them in the community.

Is it true that Africans are more traditional on sexual morality?
Yes, it is true. There's a basic cultural value in our heritage in which sexuality is sacred and respected. We talk about it in very clear terms. Things such as homosexuality are not just seen as sins, but as perversions. They're seen as hideous, they make you an outcast from your clan and village. If a man impregnates his sister, or if he has sex with another man, this is a kind of social sin which people believe will bring misery on the entire village, so he'd better just go away. This is what the people believe, and [as a theologian] you can't isolate yourself from society.
The presence of Muslims is also very important. If you're a homosexual, they come to stone you. Those who practice traditional African religions would stone you too. The Catholics isolate you. If everyone agrees to that, who are we to reject it?

We've had too much armchair theology in the church. We want to be synthesizers and prophets of the people.

Do you think there will be a rupture in Catholicism on these issues, as in the Anglican Communion?
If it's pushed, it would be a big split. But the church generally tries to avoid sensitive issues which simply divide it, and I don't think it will come out "soft" on homosexuality.

What about abortion? I identify with the victims of suffering, and no one is more speechless, more voiceless, more silent, than the unborn child. To me, it's like defending the blind. If I see someone attacking a blind person, I will beat him with a stick. This is my attitude to attacks on an unborn child too.

So by Western standards, your views are in some ways quite "liberal," in other ways "conservative."
I suppose you always fit 50 percent. But in the end, we remain accountable to our people. We don't want to be like our dictators, pursuing their own ideas and their own interests.

Conservative Granolas? Yes, Meet the Crunchy Cons

2006-07-13T21:08:00.000-04:00

“Take out the granola! It’s raining hippies. Left and Right.” Anonymous

The scene: Mesopotamia, 3000 BC. We are at the dawn of civilization, in one of the first cities, along the Euphrates. Igor and Qahog are sent by Donald Trumpatomes to irrigate the water from the river to the city. Then that annoying guy wearing the first ever pair of Birkenstocks tells them to drop their shovels, disdain the Man and soulless city life, and head off with him to the country, where our ancestors lived a “real” life gathering berries and spearing an occasional wooly mammoth.

Ever since there has been cities, and especially since industrialization, there have always been doomsayers telling us that city life squashes the human spirit, and we need to head for the country and drop all these mindless technological toys that we bog down our lives with. Usually, we associate this with the Left. In the 60’s, we had the anti-war hippies telling the world to mellow, smoke weed, and make love not war (said lovemaking as such must have been pretty nasty, considering they never showered or shaved). Nowadays, we think of granola types, in their Birkenstocks, suggesting we leave the cities for the hills, go hiking, and explore nature.

A twist in this idea has arrived with a recent turn by some conservatives to embrace this granola outlook on our culture. Conservative writer Rod Dreher, who writes one of the conservative columns for Beliefnet.com, has recently come out with a book called Crunchy Cons. I must confess that I have yet to (and probably won’t) read it, but moral theologian Gilbert Meilander has written a fine review of it in the May 2006 edition of First Things (http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0605/articles/meilaender.html ).

Meilander begins his review with a personal story. He commits what would probably be a serious sin in the eye of Dreher by going to Burger King for a quick bite to eat. Noticing a family with two young boys of about eight and ten talking about baseball and the Cleveland Indians, Meilander joins in, being a Tribe fan himself. He ends up getting a Hershey Pie and sticking around longer in conversation. This was a nice family, a type of family that in Dreher’s book in criticized for being overly materialistic.

Meilander praises Dreher for pointing out the pitfalls that do exist in our society and culture, but questions Dreher’s conclusion that it is necessary to recuse oneself from the city life and live more granola. Granted, Meilander concedes, a granola lifestyle can be a morally exemplary lifestyle, however Dreher is wrong to claim that this is the only way, or the best way to live. Meilander admits early on that he is “pro-choice” when it comes to lifestyle choices such as what types of food to eat, and what places to live, and that Dreher, while right to criticize excesses of our culture, is wrong to highlight one good way of living as the ideal.

The problem, Meilander says, is that Dreher is encouraging parents to raise kids to be dissenters, rebels, and rabble rousers. There is a time and place for dissent and rabble rousing, but ultimately a parent’s job is to raise his children to be, first and foremost, good people, not rebels against society. Meilander concludes by noting that he has a lot of hope for the two nice boys he met in Burger King, but is concerned about the kids who are being raised to be rebels.

Anthony Sacramone continues the discussion of this “head for the hills” mentality in the July 12, 2006 edition of First Things online daily blog (http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=302 ):

Among several books I intend someday to write, one stands out: The Great Indoors: Why Going Outside Is Vastly Overrrated. Now is probably the time to pitch it—contrarian cant at its finest—given all the hugga-mugga over Crunchy Cons and the various websites supported by sundry disciples of Wendell Berry, who believe consumerism, free markets, and technological obsolescence are destroying our souls, families, and communities.

This concern is an old one. And the solution—high-tail it for the Ozarks—is also old. I believe Aristophanes was the first to give it dramatic form (while side-swiping poor old Socrates at the same time): Abandon the cities, abandon false patriotism, abandon the quack sciences and gimcrack philosophies that threaten old religion; abandon the battlefields, politics, and sausage salesmen.

But, as Sacramone rightly points out, people are just as susceptible to sin and vice in the country as in the city, even if it is in smaller quantities. “As for greed, envy, lust, and all those other black arts for which the city is a synonym, you can’t tell me Farmer Jones doesn’t practice them in spades, simply on smaller luxuries, more primitive needs, and stockier women. So instead of keeping up with the latest E: True Hollywood Story, he’s only keeping up a new pair of bib overalls, because he won’t be outclassed by that wise-acre who runs the general store.”

As for me, I am leaving the urban, city life of Albany to head up to the beautiful St. Lawrence River, away from cable TV, the internet, and the daily newspaper sports section. But, only for the weekend. I will be back Monday or Tuesday to continue my mindless, technological comma-induced, city life.

All-Star Game

2006-07-11T20:37:00.000-04:00

Manny Ramirez hit two doubles and a single in Saturday’s Red Sox game, and played all 19 innings of Sunday’s game.

One is inclined to see this as just something the average ballplayer would do, or in the case of a superstar like Manny, actually rather pedestrian. But one would be deceived, because Manny was playing injured. He is so injured in fact that he is opting out of tonight’s All-Star game because of a sore knee.

**Quick little side note: When did “one” become the serviceable term for a generic person we refer to? It’s the pretentious gender neutral way of speaking of some unknown solitary example person, for those who don’t want to offend the politically correct police while at the same time wishing to avoid the grammatically incorrect singular “they”. Alright, back to my column.

Manny is not the first professional athlete to somehow come down with a mysterious injury right before his sport’s All Star game. The Pro Bowl in football is legendary for players pulling out with phantom injuries. We shouldn’t even count that because the Pro Bowl couldn’t be any more irrelevant if it was a WNBA game. The NHL All Star game has a tough time mattering when hockey doesn’t even matter. The NBA All Star game has no defense in it, but it does have some importance. All Star weekend isn’t the Black People Super Bowl for nothing. But, the one All Star game that matters, the Mid-Summer Classic, when baseball is the only sport going on, is the baseball all star game. Yes, it is just a glorified scrimmage, even with it affecting home field advantage for the World Series. Home field rarely matters in the playoffs anyways. The All Star game used to matter because of National and American league rivalry. That no longer exists, but the players honored by being picked should show up.

I know, they could use the rest. But, part of their job is entertainment for the fans and ambassadorship of the game. It’s the equivalent of your regular 9 to 5 worker who has to go to annual company party, or go to some regional business meeting. No one enjoys those galas predicated on bullshit, nothing really is accomplished at these events, but it’s part of the job. If you receive the “honor” of being picked to represent your company at some night meeting, you just go. And, if it’s an overnight business trip, there’s always the hotel bar after the meeting and the possibility of some extra-curricular fun :-)

Why Bad Things Happen to Good People...Part 2

2006-07-11T16:53:00.000-04:00

(Make sure you read part 1 below before reading part 2)

The book of Hosea in the Old Testament is a rather tragic story. Hosea was a good man, a prophet of God, always faithful. Hosea married a woman named Gomer, who was a prostitute. He loved her, and hoped he could change her, but she was continually unfaithful to him. Every time Gomer strayed, Hosea forgave her, and welcomed her back into his house. Yet, she would fall back into her sinful ways, betraying Hosea each time. And, each time, Hosea forgave her, and embraced her. Hosea’s relationship with Gomer symbolizes God’s relationship with the people of Israel during the time of Hosea, and God’s relationship with all of us. Most of us have faith in God, and make some time for God, but often we put other things such as money or sex or booze first, and treat them as our gods, ignoring God. God always forgives us and is always striving to repair the relationship with us.

There are times we are faithful to God, and times we stray, before realizing we have sinned, and returning, begging for forgiveness, like the Prodigal Son. The underlying problem may be not that we reject God or hate God, for most of us believe somewhat in God and want some sort of relationship with God, but that, no matter how much we love God, have faith in Him, and honor Him, there is always other things and people that come before God, that we love more, that we love most.

There is a person I know. He is smart, funny, fun to be around, laid back, relaxed. He is tall, has nice dark brown curly hair, and beautiful eyes and eyelashes. He is nice, but not too nice where you get sick of it. At times he can be annoying, but he is never boring. He was in the popular crowd in high school, played three sports, was a star in two of them, but was friends with everyone in class, and was liked by the not so popular kids as well as the popular kids. In college, he was involved in campus activities and played a varsity sport. He was one of the most well known people on campus, and well liked by everyone. He was often the life of the party. He fits in great at his job, is liked by his colleagues and those he is in charge of. Women like him too, think he is great fun to be around, but he never comes first for them. There is always some other guy who is better when it comes to dating. He is firmly stuck in the friend zone.

Just as this guy is liked by women, but not enough to be “the one”, God is liked by most people, but people are unwilling to put God first in their lives. It could be that this person, like Hosea, was given a certain set of circumstances so he could see what it is like for God to be rejected, to not be placed first, or to be an example for others see by analogy what we do to God, whether it be being unfaithful to Him or just giving Him a lukewarm faith, where other things always come before Him.

Why Bad Things Happen to Good People...Part 1

2006-07-11T16:13:00.000-04:00

Why do bad things happen to good people? This question has been asked ever since the ancient Hebrew people came to realize that there is one God who is all powerful and all good. People have written books on this subject since time immemorial. One of the more famous, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, by Rabbi Harold Kushner, written by a man whose son suffered from a tragic disease, is full of heart, emotion, and wrestling with God, however his argument is flawed since his answer attributes a lack of power to God, i.e. God allows bad things to happen because He is incapable of stopping it. Two better books to grapple with the problem of evil are The Problem of Pain, by C.S. Lewis, and Making Sense of Suffering, by Peter Kreeft.

Why do bad things happen to good people? As much as we grapple with this question, it is a rather new question. Ancient cultures before the Jews discovered monotheism never faced this question. For them, there was not just one God, who is all powerful and all good. There were many gods, with varying degrees of powers, and varying degrees of virtue. The religious and the ethical were separate. Ancient cultures were not unethical or immoral, they just believed that good or bad behavior solely had to do with our relationship to others in society. Ethical behavior was not of concern to the gods. One’s responsibility to the gods was to perform the proper religious rituals. When the ancients saw some people suffer and others prosper, their initial thoughts were not, “those who suffer must be bad people and those who prosper must be doing good.” Instead, they thought along the lines of, “those who suffer are not honoring the gods properly, while those who prosper are performing the right rituals.”

When Yahweh revealed Himself to the Jews, they came to know that there is just one God, a God who created us and loves us. Early on, the people of Israel believed that when they suffered, when other nations defeated them in war, it was because they were somehow unfaithful. When Israel prospered, they believed that they were faithful to God. However, when the Jews lost their homeland, and were deported in the Babylonian Exile, they needed a new understanding. Either God had completely abandoned them, maybe they had destroyed their relationship with God beyond repair, like a husband who has been unfaithful to his wife, or they needed to come up with a new understanding of their relationship with God.

The book of Job symbolizes this new understanding. Job is a faithful servant of God. As such, he has been rewarded with land, property, prosperity, a beautiful wife, and many children. Meanwhile, up in Heaven, a mysterious figure known as the Advocate (often interpreted by readers to be the Devil) makes a wager with God. The Advocate points out to God that it is easy for people to follow Him when things are going good. If people really had faith, they would stick by God even when they suffered. God told the Advocate that he could cause suffering to Job, and see if Job would remain faithful.

Job’s fortunes began to change. His livestock died, he lost his land and property, his wife and children died of diseases, and he was left with boils all over his body, sitting on a dung heap. If that wasn’t bad enough, his three best friends mocked him, and accused him of being a bad person, since they thought God only punished bad people. Despite all this, Job remained faithful to God. To be sure, he wrestled with God and struggled with his understanding of God, but he kept his faith. The message of the book of Job is that God, even though he created us and loves us, and is all powerful and all good, never causes but sometimes allows bad things to happen to good people. Evil and suffering began because of Original Sin, because the first humans, whoever they were, chose to put themselves before God. God may not take away all of our sufferings, but he is always there with us. And, in the person of Jesus Christ, God is fully present in our sufferings, taken them all on Himself to bring us to a final redemption back to what we were originally intended to be.

Maybe the better question is not, “why does God allow us to suffer?” but rather, “what is it like for God to constantly be rejected by those who He loves and gave life to?” Books of the Bible such as Hosea explore this theme. More on this in a later blog…

Khalil Gibran

2006-07-09T22:27:00.000-04:00

"Every beauty and greatness in this world is created by a single thought or emotion inside a man. Every thing we see today, made by past generation, was, before its appearance, a thought in the mind of a man or an impulse in the heart of a woman. The revolutions that shed so much blood and turned men's minds toward liberty were the idea of one man who lived in the midst of thousands of men. The devastating wars which destroyed empires were a thought that existed in the mind of an individual. The supreme teachings that changed the course of humanity were the ideas of a man whose genius separated him from his environment. A single thought build the Pyramids, founded the glory of Islam, and caused the burning of the library at Alexandria.

One thought will come to you at night which will elevate you to glory or lead you to asylum. One look from a woman's eye makes you the happiest man in the world. One word from a man's lips will make you rich or poor."

Khalil Gibran, Broken Wings

We have all the tools to keep us connected that our forefathers never could have dreamed of. Cars and airplanes allow regular visitations between friends thousands of miles apart. The telephone and the internet allow direct connection with those not in our presence, the cell phone extends this connection to all times and virtually all places. Yet, do we take the time see what we do to those who really are around us, when we leave the guest in our living room to check and see who is signed on to our buddy list on our computer? Do we see our friends’ hopes and dreams, joys and sorrows, when we ignore them across the booth in the restaurant to answer our cell phones?

Every action I perform has an effect on someone else. Many people that we meet, we only see that one time. I wonder what their impression of me is. I wonder if I have uplifted them, or hurt them, or barely made an imprint at all. I wonder if they ever look beyond how I have changed them to see me, to see beyond the generally relaxed, goofy, at ease outlook I put on the situation to see how I really am feeling at the time.

Our feelings, our outlook on life, our hopes and expectations can change in an instant. When that person you are thinking about calls or emails, elation ensues. When you don’t hear back for awhile, doubt and yearning go through you mind. Yet, it could just be random, the person deciding to send a message just to say hi, like I often do to my friends.

Okay, I am rambling again. That passage above by Khalil Gibran comes from his short book Broken Wings, written from a first person perspective about a man’s first love, Selma, who was betrothed to another. This passage was from one of the middle chapters. It caught my eye, and I am still trying to make sense of it, what it is really saying. Any thoughts? Feel free to share. You can post comments on my blog anonymously.

Nothing Good Ever Happens After 2 AM

2006-07-08T10:02:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite TV shows is the CBS sitcom, How I Met Your Mother (for more on this show, see me previous blog: http://spidgetales.blogspot.com/2006/05/how-i-met-your-mother.html). In an episode earlier this year, Ted is sitting home all night, waiting for his girlfriend, who is in Europe, to call him back. Ted’s friend Robin, who he still has a crush on, is back home in her apartment. She just had a bad date with a guy, is lonely, and has feelings for Ted, too. Ted receives a phone call at 2 AM. He thinks it might be his girlfriend finally calling, but it is really Robin, who is lonely and asks Ted if he would like to come over. Ted says yes, but his friends tell him on the phone that it is not a good idea, because nothing good ever happens after 2 AM. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out what happens next: Ted shows up at Robin’s apartment. Robin asks about the girlfriend, Ted says he broke up with her. They start making out. Ted says he needs to freshen up in the bathroom first, where he is really going because he feels guilty and wants to break up with his girlfriend on the phone for real before going forward with Robin. Only, he can’t find her number on his phone because he grabbed Robin’s phone by mistake. When he walks out of the bathroom, Robin tells him that his girlfriend just called. Ted now has two women pissed off at him…

I guess, once it gets to be 2 AM, you are better off going to bed, because something dumb is bound to happen if you if you go out, when chances are, you are already a little tired and a little drunk. I faced this dilemma, myself, on Thursday night. My friend Matt from college was in town for the night. We headed out from my apartment around 7:30, and visited about 9 or 10 places, before catching a cab back home. We went in, sat on the couches. It was 2 AM. Matt was surprised and excited to learn that the bars in Albany stay open until 4 AM. We could have crashed and went to sleep, but there is a dive bar named Mcaffrey’s down the street.

The saying about nothing good after 2 AM did not ring true this night. We sat next to a couple late twenty something guys and girls, along with their two hot 19 year old friends who were out past their bedtimes (the 19 year old girls were drinking sodas. 1—I tell you this because it’s true, they really were obeying the rules, and 2—I do not want some cop reading this and shutting down my new favorite bar). These guys had been coming here since they were 15. It was the only place to let them in when they were minors, so now they continue to patronize Mcaffrey’s out of respect. ‘It’s not that we won’t go to other bars. We just won’t not come here.” Matt and I thought we were gonna conclude the night with a beer or two, but no, we joined the crowd for shots. “Hey bah-ten-duh! Come ovuh here.” Other than the token leather skinned 40 to 50 year old lady in the nasty looking tube top who was their by herself, drunk, and horny, it was a good time. The real loneliness, at bars, I think is in the afternoon crowd.

Yesterday, I went to one of my favorites at 4:30. A real hick, biker type bar, but it has cheap drinks, a pool table, and dartboards. I got talking to a couple of the regulars. For some reason, the conversation steered towards relationships and marriage. Both guys looked to be in their 50’s. One had just gotten out of jail for drunken driving and being lumped in with a murder conspiracy or something (although, he says he was wrongly convicted for the second charge). He had a beer and a shot in front of him, but his buddy was going to drive him home. This guy, we’ll call him Guy #1, was on his second marriage. When the hot bartender came to replace to so-so looking bartender (I think is a rule: save the hot bartenders for prime time), he asked if she had gotten a boob job done. She said yes, but did not oblige Guy #1’s request touch them and feel them out. #1 got a little mad at me when I would not stair at her “fine looking ass” when she walked away. Guy #2, the designated driver, had on sweatpants shorts that had probably been sweatpants that he had cut down, kind of like homemade jean shorts, except not. He had an orange t-shirt, tucked into the sweatpants shorts, with the sleeves half cut off, plus gray hair, with the pony tail tied back, making it look like a Davy Crockett hat. He had been married, but “the bitch left me 22 years ago! If I had to do it over, I would have cheated on the bitch. Then at least she would have had a reason to leave me.”

I kept thinking that I would never want to be them in 30 years. One of the interesting things about alcohol, and bars, is that they do not make you happy. If you are already happy or in a good mood, they can enhance that feeling. But, if you go over a certain point, you will still end up feeling like shit. And, if you are in a shitty mood already, alcohol, and the bar scene, just makes it worse. It’s not so much the 2 AM thing as your attitude and demeanor. The 2 AM probably rings true often because we’re usually tired and groggy at that hour.