"All I know is, I'm not a Marxist." -Karl Marx

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 15% Conservative, 85% Liberal

Social Issues: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Ethics: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

Radical Ideas

The Episcopal diocese of California will be electing a new bishop this weekend, and three of the candidates are openly gay clergy members. The Episcopal Church of the United States (ECUSA) already has one openly gay bishop, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. You might have also seen his name in the news as a result of his stay in an inpatient alcohol treatment facility in February, 2006. The election of Bishop Robinson to head the diocese has led the Anglican Communion (the worldwide organization of various Anglican Churches) to the verge of schism over the issue of homosexuality. Some ECUSA congregations have even put themselves under the leadership of foreign bishops who support a more exclusive vision of Christianity. Those conservatives who insist that Christ’s servants be of a more traditional moral stripe criticize the supporters of an expanded church for espousing an ideology of “radical inclusivity.”

I recently began attending an Episcopal church in my neighborhood. I went back to church because I wanted to do something that would connect me to the community I lived in, provide an opportunity to work for the “common good,” and perhaps teach me some humility and patience. I figured spending time around unselfish do-gooders might teach me a thing or two about seeing the good in everyone around me. This particular church appealed to me because I knew the reputation of the rector, Anne Fowler, as an activist for social justice issues, such as gay marriage and immigrant rights, and because some co-workers of mine attended and were enthusiastic about the people who went there. Nobody talked about the light of Jesus’ love glowing in their hearts or the glorious joy of salvation filling them with love for mankind. I have found it to be a very open, young, interesting and diverse group of people. At least half the people I’ve met are gay couples, many with adopted or biological kids.

Many of the gay men who attend this church were raised Catholic, and the similarity of ritual and liturgy attracted them to the Episcopal Church. They found their comfort in being allowed to practice and participate without any conflict of conscience. No one here talks about “loving the sinner and hating the sin.” If you have faith in Christ, and practice the one commandment He put above all others (“Love each other as you love yourselves”) you are welcome here. I got the sense from some of the young men I’ve met here that the need for this faith is so strong, that they suffered when they were separated from it by the conflict of their nature with their religion. How can anything good come of the constant message that the very impulse to follow Christ’s commandment was a sin?

Now, I realize that there’s a difference between loving your neighbor and “luvin’ your neighbor” (wink wink, nudge, nudge). There are many forms of love, and the love we are all supposed to feel for each other is different from the love Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee have documented for all the world to see. But there is a common element to them. The love we feel in partnership or marriage is the foundation and model for the love we should try to share with everyone. This is supposed to be the basic teaching of all Christianity. This is the “radical inclusivity” Christ brought to the world.

Categories

So, I just read a column in the Washington Post about Crunchy Cons. This is a new category of conservatives who embrace wacky, liberal ideas like eating organic food and, um, well actually, they didn’t seem to embrace any other liberal ideas other than eating organic food. He’s a right-wing writer who happens to like organic broccoli. She’s a stay-at-home mom who bakes pumpkin bread and pretty much disappears into the background in the story. They’re both converted Catholics who don’t like fags and abortion. Sure, they’ll tell you that they don’t have anything against homosexuals. They just think marriage is a sacred institution reserved for people like them. And don’t you dare read a story about two men getting married to their children. Not while they’re so young and easy to indoctrinate with the right (that is, correct) ideas.

Here’s what the story said to me, in essence: We’ve found a life we like; everyone else should live this way, too. And that just about sums up the problem with conservatism. For all the talk about liberals being dogmatic, politically correct, ideologically rigid fascists and “femi-Nazis” who shout down any attempt at dissent, it is always the conservatives that identify orthodoxy and homogeneity as worthwhile social and political goals.

Take, for example, the current debate on immigration. The argument made against the Spanish version of the Star Spangled Banner is the key to the conservative idea that assimilation is the correct goal of immigration. “We are happy to let you into our country to do the dirty work we won’t,” they say. “But you’ve got to learn English, speak quietly, and become like us.” But what does being American have to do with leaving behind all previous ethnic, linguistic and cultural connections? If “American” means anything, it is that our strength is in an amalgam of the various cultures that comprise our population.

Again, we see the same thread with the debate over gay marriage. The so-called homosexual agenda and the gay lifestyle are seen as threats to the nice, normal straight white value system. And marriage is an important part of that value system. When gays started to vocally demand access to the privilege of marriage, it caused an uproar. But I don’t think many straight people seriously believe their marriage is any less valid because two people of the same gender can also be married. The conservatives are shaken by the realization that there is no “gay lifestyle.” What shatters the conservative argument is that if they really believe the values they ostensibly promote – equality, personal liberty, self-responsibility – they have to acknowledge that they are keeping company with a much wider spectrum of humanity than they might want to admit.

Conservatives, crunchy or otherwise, are faced with the reality that, for all their talk of fundamental moral values and guiding principles, their ideology boils down to creating a rationale to criticize things that make them uncomfortable. They want to live in a world where everyone is just like them. Sure, they’re open to debate – should we support the war because the world is safer without Sadam, or because if we weren’t fighting the terrorists over there, we’d be fighting them over here? – but don’t go overboard or you’re just one of those relativists with no values.

The COOLEST Month

So, April has been okay for me. Some good, some bad, but overall I'm coming out on top. Finished my second semester of grad school, and I think I will be getting decent enough grades to get me into the PhD program in the fall. I also got the okay to work on a directed study over the summer with my advisor/mentor. I actually hate using that word "mentor," but he is not technically my faculty advisor, so I have to use something to differentiate him from my assigned mentor, whom I haven't even met with since I stared the program.

I'm still dressing like an adult (some would even say "old man") every day at work. And people are starting to get used to it. I'm starting to get used to it, too. I forget that a bow tie isn't something people are used to seeing every day, so when someone on the street does a double take and starts to smile (or smirk) at me, I am tricked into thinking, momentarily, that I know them. Then I remember that they're probably just thinking to themselves that I look like Orville Redenbacker.

I am wondering if all the immigrant staff is going to participate in Monday's May Day action. It would be interesting to see the campus brought to a standstill by all the food service workers on strike. The whole issue brings a question to my mind that I haven't seen investigated much in the media. We all know that America is a nation of immigrants, but the people on the more rigid side of the argument insist that there is this chasm of difference between "legal" and "illegal" immigration. Their ancestors might have been immigrants, but they did it the "right" way. Well, how different are immigration procedures today from 50 or 100 or 150 years ago? I don't think people who showed up at Ellis Island to join the husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters that were already here in, say, 1848 needed to go through the rigmarol that is required now.

My understanding of "legal" immigration in the nineteenth century is that you basically showed up, stated your name and country of origin, declared your intention to become a citizen, and you were in. You still had to go through the process of becoming a citizen, but there weren't the kinds of border security issues back then. Of course, I also realize that at the start of this century, "great" citizens such as Henry Cabot Lodge were fighting tooth and nail to keep America white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant. As recently as 1902, laws were being passed in Congress that barred the use of "Mongolian" labor on public works projects (Newlands Act 1902).

Yikes! Lost track of the time. I gotta go get my hair cut. See you in another couple of weeks.

A Non-Normative Evaluation of Database Design and Utilization

I read. I write about what I read. I try to make intelligent comments about what the author of what I read thinks about what other authors think about what they write. Graduate school is fun. And to think I could make a living doing this.

On the day of my last update, I went to church. It was the very first time I went to church entirely on my own, without being compelled by a wedding, funeral or baptism. It was Ash Wednesday, and I figured, from what I read in my slight research online, that it was an appropriate time to start a relationship with God. I have gone every Sunday since, and a few days other than Sunday. The church is a nice, political, open-minded Episcopal parish in JP. Lots of gay ex-Catholics. Very good music. I go for the company, really.

I never liked the term "Yankee," but then I'm a Red Sox fan

Your Linguistic Profile:

40% General American English

40% Yankee

10% Upper Midwestern

5% Dixie

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

I'm kind of a blueblood snob, but "Yankee" always conjurs an image of Bing Crosby in the movie adaptation of Twain's novel.

Damned internet thingy!

I was supposed to spend today getting all caught up on my school work. I am taking a comparative constitutional law class, and we are responsible for two case briefings per week, but the professor doesn't want them passed in until the end of the term. At first, that seemed great, but I think I would prefer to have them due each week, because, fool that I am, I am already three weeks behind. Today I was going to get all caught up. So I sat my butt down at my new 14" iBook G4 and promptly started surfing the internet. Facebook, Myspace, Livejournal, Friendster; you name it, I was on it. And everything is more enjoyable on my 14" screen than my old 12" screen. I don't know how I stood it for two years.

I had managed to get my first case brief 3/4 completed when I broke to fix dinner. I was doing the washing up before hand and thinking out a plan to get more writing done tonight and it dawned on me. This professor is going to have seven students pass in nineteen two-page case briefs on the last day of class. And being graduate school, you know a bunch of these over-achievers are going to give him three, four or even five pages on some of the cases. His grades are due six days after we are supposed to turn the briefs in, and he is looking for a ten-page research paper at the end of the term as well. Just how thoroughly do you think he is going to read 266 pages of briefs? I figure I can type pure gobbldeegook and as long as I throw in a few key terms from each case (proportionate accommodation; undue burden; stare decisis; two-part Oakes test) he's gonna check 'em off and move on. Of course, I won't do any less than a completely thorough job on each one. I'm not saying that to boast; it's a fault with me. I'm a wee bit too deferential to authority figures.

In a final note - Deval Patrick, y'all. Nice job. Tom Reilly is another Scott Harshbarger. He's as bland as tapioca and not quite as firm on the issues.

Ketchup

Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Chirstmas, Happy New Year, Happy Hannukah, etc. etc. etc.

Once again, I am wondering what I want to use this "blog" for. What do I have to say, who am I expecting to say it to, why does it matter? When I go so long without bothering, I have a hard time getting back up to speed. I should just convince myself that there is some purpose to this and keep at it.

I am looking forward to 2006, because it is a congressional election year, a gubernatorial election year, and there will be some interesting local races in Boston as well. As much as I prefer academic, theoretical political science, I enjoy the campaigns, too. I just get a little bored with the breathless gossip that passes for journalism these days.

I just finished reading the review of Ana Marie Cox's Dog Days in the New York Times. It's a novel by a blogger about a blogger who writes a novel. It could be a masterpiece and I would still feel ripped off for paying for a book about writing a book about writing a "blog." This is the kind of crap that people assume I am interested in when I tell them I am studying political science. Primary Colors, Wag the Dog, Bill O'Reilly, Anderson Cooper, Ann Coulter, Tim Matthews: all this noise based on the idea that reporting the news and being the news are the same thing. I guess I shouldn't count on pundits to give an accurate portrayal of the media's role in the political process.

But I am sure I will find myself following along in the funny papers as 2006 rolls along. I'll listen as candidates scream at each other over issues of no substance, while being egged on by journalists who care nothing about the process other than that it continues to protect their ability to make a living.

Framed!

Mitt Romney feels that John Adams would be surprised (and, I take it he also means disappointed) that the Supreme Judicial Court found that the Massachusetts Constitution protects the right of homosexuals to marry. Well, Adams would probably be mortified that women leave the house in flip-flops, tube tops and cut-offs, but I hardly think Romney would like to see them outlawed. Adams et al did not write constitutions with the intention of solving every public policy debate once and for all. This is high school civics, and Romney should be aware of it. (Oh yeah, high schools don't teach civics anymore.) The framers did not try to answer all of posterity's questions in one sitting. If they had wanted to do that, they wouldn't have left slavery unresolved so it could tear the country in two seventy years after the constitutional convention. What's true of the U.S. Constitution is true of the many state constitutions. They provide a framework for the process to settle public debate.

This issue among many others, such as abortion,illustrates why the Bill of Rights was not included in the original Constitution and why many framers and politicians of the day did not want to delineate the rights of citizens in a list. They were concerned that future governments would use the inverse assumption (i.e. if you do have the rights we listed, you don't have any others) to hamper personal liberty. At the time many people had the wild idea that all people were born with unlimited individual liberty, and that governments, rather than existing to grant limited rights, existed to determine what few limitations on these unlimited rights could be agreed upon and enacted under common deliberation. They weren't proclaiming commandments, they were providing guidance. That's why constitutions were written on paper, not in stone.

I could be disappointed, and it would be okay.

Every fall, there is one day when it goes from summer/fall to fall/winter. The temperature usually hits 70 sometime in the afternoon, then drops 20 or 30 degrees by 8 p.m. Today is supposed to be that day. The cold is finally on the way. I like the winter (until about February) so it doesn't bother me that much. I start looking forward to the bone chilling cold, although I have not been such a big fan of snow since I started having to shovel out a car. Although I promised myself I would go sledding if we got a lot of snow this year.

There weren't any big surprises in last week's election. The May-ah trounced Maura Hennigan, unfortunately. And Patricia White lost. And it looks like Flaherty is safe in his council presidency, although Arroyo made a good showing. Now let's see if Hizzoner tries to make good on his pledge to "get the universities to pay their fair share."

I'm not sure I can make it through the holidays without cable TV.

Happy Election Day!

Get out and vote! I got dressed up nice and everything. I wore my old favorite shirt that I forgot I had and a bow tie. Then I walked the four blocks down to my polling place where I didn't even have to stand in line. There were a few people already in the "booths" filling out their ballots. I miss the old mechanical voting machines, and I am always afraid that my vote is going to get invalidated because I go the tiniest bit outside of the lines. And did you know that November 8th is the latest day that election day can fall on? It is the first Tuesday after the first Monday, so it always falls between the 2nd and the 8th. Congress did this to keep it from falling on All Saints Day (according to wikipedia).

I am still suffering from my cold, feeling congested and a little light headed from blowing my nose so much. I hope I don't get too stuffed up, because I can't take anything for it with all the medicines I am on. Feh. I was in the doctor's office a couple of weeks ago and overheard one of the nurse practitioners talking to a patient who I assumed was an elderly woman by the tone and volume of the conversation. It sounded like she was calling in to ask what she should do about her cold. (How do you get to be an old woman and not learn what to do about a cold?) After a few preliminary questions about fluids and medicines I heard the nurse say, "Oh yes, we call that a 'Hot Toddy.' Sweats it right out of ya."

I'm going to go spread my germs at the campus cafe and get a "Virgin Hot Toddy."

Blatant Time Wasting

It's 1:30 on a Sunday afternoon, and I haven't even gotten one tenth of the reading I need to do for my classes this week done. It's a dreary Sunday afternoon and I feel like wasting it on foolish noodling about on the internet and in front of the TV. I will probably call in sick to work tomorrow, using the slight scratch at the back of my throat and the touch of congestion in my head as an excuse. I'll keep busy then, but today I just want to goof off. Isn't that what Sundays are for?

I went out last night, but I cut the night short. The missus and I just couldn't get excited about being in a loud, dark nightclub all night. I was feeling a little under the weather then - probably the first signs of the cold I am getting now - and we skipped out before the second band even got started. Probably the best thing to do in the long run.

I wish I had a fireplace. I'd toast marshmallows now if I could. Maybe even make s'mores. Tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow is Monday. Monday is a good day to start from scratch.

Trick or...or...or what!? What!!??

My first Halloween with diabetes and I wasn't a very good little goblin. I'm lucky that I don't have too much difficulty managing my blood sugar. I've been going to the gym 3 or 4 times a week for about a month, now, and that's helped keep me in control. But last night I went to bed with a pretty good spike in the glucose levels. Phooey - no more treats for me, and every candy dish I pass is overflowing with chocolate.

This Halloween hasn't been particularly spooky. I think it's because all the leaves are still on the trees. There aren't any creepy shadows following me around. Another thing I've noticed this autumn is a distinct dearth of squirrels. I've seen a few, but nowhere near as many as last year. I literally tripped over them on campus last fall as they dashed from trash can to bench to bushes. This year I have to keep my eyes peeled just to catch sight of one, and they're skittish and shy and skinny. Now, the missus and I are convinced (Yankee weather prognosticators that we are) that you can predict the severity of the coming winter by the girth of these little rodents. Last year they were porkers, and we spent the better part of 5 months under a more-or-less permanent blanket of snow.

I am not sure whether the paucity and puniness of this years crop is a good sign or a bad sign. Maybe whatever instinct tells them to fatten up also tells them not to bother reproducing if an even harsher winter is following on the heels of the first.

Phucking Dumb

I know this is so overstated as to be a tautology, but, as an employee of a large university in the Northeast, it never ceases to amaze me how completely unassociated one's level of education is from one's level of intelligence. Of the three people in the "chain of command" above me, one has a master's degree and the other two have PhDs. Yet they are completely incapable of communicating with each other, and make decisions with no thought about the ramifications of what they are doing.

I generate reports that are distributed to the deans, chairpersons and administrative directors of all the colleges, departments and various little affiliated research entities in the university. Six months ago my boss's boss's boss sent me a two-line email that said, in effect, stop sub-dividing all these numbers up into such small entities. Assign everything to the larger departments. On the face of it, it sounds like a great idea. It simplifies things and it creates the impression that the departments are doing more work (because the activity that is being reported is chopped up into larger pieces.) But anyone who knows anything about universities knows how political everything is. I know my boss's boss's boss, and I know there is no arguing with him, at least at my level, but replied to his email with a copy to my boss, essentially saying I would do what I was told but they might want to have a discussion about the effects of such a decision. (I won't get into the whole side issue of how annoying it is to have someone three steps up the ladder from me send emails directly to me asking me to do things without informing my boss and his boss. I spend most of my day explaining to my immediate supervisor why I've done half the things I've done, because he has no idea what's going on.) No discussion happened.

Fast forward six months, and there is a veritable shit-storm of ill will flying around because all the directors of these various entities are no longer seeing their names listed separately in the reports. My boss starts hounding me, and I bounce his boss's boss's email (always save every email you get) to him. The offended party goes to my boss's boss's boss, raises a stink, and all of a sudden I am being told, "No, we didn't mean it like that. We meant keep doing it the way you've been doing it all along, but uhm, make it look a little different or mumble humblecoughsputterewhatever just fix it."

So not only are these people Ph.ucking D.umb, they've got no balls. Makes me want to chuck it all and go into landscaping.

Confidence Man

So, part of the reason I post so infrequently here is that I am constantly flip-flopping about how I will use this blog. The big thing taking up my life right now is graduate school, and I am not sure what kind of friendships I will develop over the next couple of years. I have plenty of things to say about school, fellow students, instructors, etc, but I don't know if I would ever have a reason to make this thing more "public." As it is, I don't think any of my schoolmates, workmates, or instructors would ever connect this with "the real me." I've read a few very interesting stories about blogging issues in academia, and in the course of Googling blogs of graduate students I even came across a published retraction of one blogging students remarks, with a complete removal of the blog. Of course, that student was using a university-provided server and web space to publish a blog that was basically accusing his PhD program of being completely full of shit. You get what you ask for.

I'm in my fourth week of classes, and as much as I lke my schoolmates, it looks like will be keeping more or less to myself. So, this brings me to what I have wanted to write about here for a few weeks (since starting graduate school). I was so nervous on my first night of classes that I almost blew it off and skipped out on the whole thing. I was convinced that I was going to get to class and sound like a complete idiot the first time I opened my mouth. I was sure that I was going to be surrounded by brilliant intellectual prodigies who were going to be speaking an entirely different language. I and my night school, discount BS-with-highest-honors would be exposed for the fraud we were.

Boy, was I let down. The first class didn't reveal too much. The instructor, a professor I knew from working here at the university, gave us a run-down of what the class would involve, what he expected for the assignments, and asked the students to sign up to lead class discussions (the class is a seminar format discussion of interest groups). The students were all young, and asked the same kinds of questions I had gotten used to hearing in undergrad classes:"So, are the readings due on the week that they are listed on in the syllabus, or the week after?" "We're doing a take home final and a paper?" "Can we email our homework?" No Sweat.

The next week, we held the first class discussion, and by the middle of the class, I had the same feeling I had when I was in many of my undergraduate classes. I was frustrated that people were focusing on each other's opinions, instead of the thought processes that were used to arrive at the opinions. Everyone was trying to upstage each other with topical knowledge of the latest political scandals, and partisan sniping, but no one really knew whether the book we had read for class used rational choice theory or game theory or pluralist concepts of influence or neo-Marxism, etc. And finally, one young woman spoke up and said the word "like" five times in one sentence: "I was, like, surprised to, like, find out that that stuff, like, still goes on in, like, Congress after all the, like laws and stuff that were passed."

Talk about mixed emotions. On one side of my brain, I cringed at the butchering of the language and the complete lack of eloquence; on the other side, I was relieved to find I was in no danger of being laughed out of class, unless it was for being the teacher's pet.

Ooooh! October!

Every year, I have this problem with the month of October. I constantly type Ocotber, instead. Pretty minor problem, I grant you, but it gets to be wearisome by the end of the month. I am not a particularly swift typist, I don't use the correct fingers on the correst keys most of the time, and I am never sure how I am actually supposed to operate the shift key. Sometimes I am tempted to break out my old Sears electric (a gift from my older brother) and bang away for practice. I would type October over and over until I got it right ten times in a row. It's fun to just say "October over and over" over and over.

I love October in New England. If the missus and I do pick up and move to Montana, I think October is the only month when I will miss the weather. But even with the brilliant colors, the crisp fall air, the whiff of wood smoke and the slight scent of salt water in the evening breeze, I end up congested and watery-eyed from allergies. I am not sure that deciduous trees affect me more than evergreens, but since it is always the height of the foliage season when I suffer the most, it's a safe bet.

I also like October because it's spooky. Oooh! spoo-kay! Boo. I like ghost stories. Especially New England, haunted forest type stories. I think I am going to try and freak out my office-mate with the one about the widows in the mansion.

Toot toot!

So what, exactly, is so stressful about Kate Moss's life that she has to turn to drug use to get through the day? I'm baffled. All that walking, and posing, oh my.

Other than that I still don't have much to say. Too busy with schoolwork. Maybe I should sneak off to the loo for a little toot, eh?

Oh how things have changed!

Well, maybe things haven't changed that much. I graduated, and started graduate school. Now, all of a sudden, I am busy and reading and writing and trying to fit time in for the missus's birthday and the in-laws' birthdays and some kind of social life and exercise and oh yeah, I have a job, too, don't I?

So I haven't had time to put together anything intelligent to post here. Soon, though. I promise. And it won't be the lyrics to some song, either.

Perspective

I am awe struck at the destruction being reported and humbled by the power of weather. My last class this summer was an earth science class studying natural disasters. We spent quite a bit of time on hurricanes and the lead-up to Katrina was that much more interesting to me because of it. I was surprised to see her increase so dramatically after crossing the Florida peninsula into the Gulf, but I was informed enough to know that it is warm water that gives hurricanes their energy. And I knew that the storm swell caused by the large low-pressure area over the eye would be catastrophic to a city almost entirely below sea level. I can't imagine the helpless feeling of seeing everything you have washed away, or not knowing what has happened to your stuff or, God forbid, your loved ones.

That being said, I am even more upset with what I am reading and hearing and seeing over and over, and the way it is being reported. The constant, breathless, absolutely worthless updates that have been coming over every media outlet for the past 24 hours have done nothing to help the situation.

Also, Biloxi, Mississippi, mayor A.J. Holloway might need a little perspective. He was the one who referred to this as "our tsunami." I appreciate the devastation and the horror of so many dead from a natural disaster. But the December, 2004 tsunami killed at least 150,000 people. To provide the perspective, know this: the population of Biloxi is just under 51,000. Imagine all of Biloxi wiped out, then multiply that by three. That was the tsunami. Not that 80 or 100 dead isn't tragic. But 150,000 is mind boggling.

Move along...

Nothing to see here. I’m just setting up and testing my MacJournal software to get it ready to update from home. One funny thing about MacJournal software: the built in spellchecker doesn’t recognize MacJournal as a correctly spelled word.