Loquats and milk.

Conference on literature and religion at UCI.

2012-01-17T17:22:00.000-08:00

Hey there. It's been a while. Anyway, I'm one of the people organizing this conference and, if you're still reading this blog and this topic interests you, you should come. And if you're not reading this blog and the topic interest you, you should come. And if you're a tumblr-er, tumble this page: http://literatureligion.tumblr.com/

Literature { } Religion

Inaugural Conference for the Study of Literature and Religion.

The University of California, Irvine.

Friday, May 11, 2012.

Studies of the relationship between literature and religion have picked up significant momentum in recent years, with many scholars in the humanities, arts, and social sciences taking a “religious” or “postsecular” turn in their work. This conference seeks to gather scholars across varied disciplines and areas of expertise to explore the wide variety of intersections, parallels, collaborations, ruptures, and inspirations to be found under the rubric of a discussion focused on literature and/or/with/on/of/against/about/in religion.

Without privileging either term or limiting the prepositions or conjunctions between them, UCI’s “Literature { } Religion” conference is conceived with all the broadness that its name implies. We seek extensive engagement with various religious traditions both Western and Eastern, monotheistic, polytheistic, or non-theistic. Papers may include but are not limited to studies of any literary, rhetorical, narrative, or textual aspects of literature and religion. We invite essays on exegesis and hermeneutics; discursive intersections of civil and canon law; ethics and justice explored in religious and secular literature; the poetics of holy writings; political theology; orthodoxies and/or heterodoxies; humanisms; religious art and imagery; literary works about religion; secularization and the post-secular; religious aesthetics; literature as a mode of religious engagement; comparative literary and religious studies; and conflicts mediated through literature and religion. Papers will be 15-20 minutes long to permit time for discussion.

Finally, there will be a plenary session with Professor Jack Miles (UCI), Pulitzer Prize-winning author of God: A Biography and editor of the forthcoming Norton Anthology of World Religions, which will be published in two volumes at almost 4,000 pages in Fall 2013. Professor Miles will share his views and lead a discussion on the relationship between literature and religion.

This conference will take place on Friday, May 11, 2012, at the University of California, Irvine.

Those who heed the call for papers should send abstracts to Brian Garcia (bjgarcia@uci.edu), to whom inquires may also be addressed. Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words, and should arrive before January 30, 2012. Invitees will be notified by March 30, 2012.

Speechless (because immigrants took my speech).

2011-12-14T16:29:00.000-08:00

So, I saw this ad today on CNN. I don't even have any further commentary. I saw this fucking ad on CNN in the afternoon and that's crazy to me.

Democracy in a field of brambles.

2011-11-13T16:57:00.000-08:00

I recently returned to the Old Testament and can’t help thinking that there’s a strong anarchist strain to be found there. I never really thought that before, but I just see it everywhere this time around. There are some obvious moments—Pharaoh’s defeat, Samuel’s warnings against the establishment of a kingdom, much of the prophetic tradition—but even those parts most dedicated to military triumph and the Law end in disaster precisely when a transition is attempted from the taking of land to the establishment of state authority. The very founding of the chosen nation constantly undermines itself in subtly—and sometimes not so subtly—ironic ways.

What’s fascinating is not only that this is in the text, but that it goes largely ignored by Christian anarchists, who, as far as I know, focus almost exclusively on the pre-Pauline New Testament.

Now, it could be said that the Old Testament’s critiques are simply anti-monarchical. Indeed, I think it’s a miracle of human ignorance that the Old Testament was ever used to unquestioningly prop up monarchies, but there’s more to it: inherent in its denunciations of monarchy are important warnings about empire which our not-monarchy has yet to heed. Furthermore, to restrict the Old Testament’s message to ancient feudalism is to miss some of the Bible’s most important points about the nature of power—and thus to prove it obsolete in our time (a judgment which, no doubt, some readers of this blog will find unsurprising and correct anyway).

Seriously, America? This is effective propaganda?

These musings, in pretty much this sloppily-conceived form, have been bouncing around in my mind recently and complementing my general discontent with the current state of democracy in the U.S.; with my disgust at how hard most people will actually try to remain as ignorant as possible as to the origins of their condition; and with my bewilderment as to how the hell it is that a voting public can be so easily duped into repeatedly and enthusiastically accepting the sorts of candidates which make up our elections.

Enter the Book of Judges, chapter 9. Gideon's already refused the throne and denied it to his sons on the grounds that no human king should rule over Israel (see what I mean?), but now he's dead and his illegitimate son Abimelech has declared himself king. In so doing, he kills his brothers; but Jotham escapes and yells the parable of the bramble king from a mountaintop.

I think this sums up the current political landscape rather nicely:

7 When it was told to Jotham, he went and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim, and cried aloud and said to them, "Listen to me, you lords of Shechem, so that God may listen to you."
8 The trees once went out to anoint a king over themselves.
So they said to the olive tree, "Reign over us."
9 The olive tree answered them, "Shall I stop producing my rich oil by which gods and mortals are honored, and go to sway over the trees?"
10 Then the trees said to the fig tree, "You come and reign over us."
11 But the fig tree answered them, "Shall I stop producing my sweetness and my delicious fruit, and go to sway over the trees?"
12 Then the trees said to the vine, "You come and reign over us."
13 But the vine said to them, "Shall I stop producing my wine that cheers gods and mortals, and go to sway over the trees?"
14 So all the trees said to the bramble, "You come and reign over us."
15 And the bramble said to the trees, "If in good faith you are anointing me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon."

from "A Key to the Lock"

2011-08-05T22:11:00.000-07:00

"To sum up my whole Charge against this Author in a few Words: He has ridiculed both the present Ministry and the last; abused great Statesmen and great Generals; nay the Treaties of whole Nations have not escaped him, nor has the Royal Dignity itself been omitted in the Progress of his Satyr; and all this he has done just at the Meeting of a new Parliament. I hope a proper Authority may be made use of to bring him to condign Punishment: In the mean while I doubt not, if the Persons most concern'd would but order Mr. Bernard Lintott, the Printer and Publisher of this dangerous Piece, to be taken into Custody, and examin'd; many further Discoveries might be made both of this Poet's and his Abettor's secret Designs, which are doubtless of the utmost Importance to the Government."

- "Esdras Barnivelt, Apothecary"
(aka, Alexander Pope, reviewing his own work)

Why I went to Italy.

2011-08-04T14:35:00.000-07:00

I've now been home for two days from a fantastic trip. Although in the second week it became a for-pleasure wandering tour of central Italy, I was technically there for "work," attending the conference of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric at the University of Bologna. Since then, several people I've spoken with (some of whom are frequent readers of this blog) have asked to see the paper I presented; so--although it makes me a little uncomfortable to publish this in blog form--I'm sharing it here. Please feel free to criticize as brutally as you feel necessary. I took a methodology that calls for exhaustive research and attempted to reduce it to a fifteen minute-long talk, so I'm aware that it has weaknesses, and would be delighted to get feedback from you fine, intelligent folks.

* * *

Regional Interests, Universal Truths: The Legal Implications of Conflicting Christian Moral Rhetorics.

On March 7, 1850, Daniel Webster of Massachusetts gave a now infamous speech advocating passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, mandating that all runaway slaves must be returned to their masters, and that the law was enforceable in Free Soil states on pain of fines and/or prison sentences. Part of the Compromise of 1850, the Act was viewed by many of Webster’s constituents as a betrayal of northern sovereignty. Abolitionists obviously opposed it, but even many more moderate and more inclined toward compromise viewed this compromise as an encroachment which forced their hand in the most divisive and important issue of the day, with no less than Abraham Lincoln famously alleging a Southern conspiracy to turn the U.S. into one large slaveholding nation. In Webster’s speech, the emphasis was not on the moral virtue of slavery, but on preservation of the Union and the prevention of secession as the primary objective for American legislators.

By contrast, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s reaction to passage of the Fugitive Slave Act and especially to Daniel Webster’s role as an advocate for the Act considers preservation of the Union a worthless goal if the purpose of a nation and its laws amounts to nothing more than the protection of property and the exploitation of human beings as property. Both of these noted pieces of Antebellum oratory make use of an interpretation of human law based on the transcendental Law of God as interpreted in different parts of the New Testament. For considering the use of biblical allusions in each of these famous speeches, I plan to read them through the prism of Steven Mailloux’s rhetorical hermeneutics, in order to show how such a method illuminates the ways in which such oratory is contemporarily and historically interpreted, as well as its effect on the historical interpretation and even canonization of particular works, figures, and movements in American politics.

In favor of the Fugitive Slave Act, Daniel Webster’s March 7 Speech characterizes the Boston Senator “not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American, and a member of the Senate of the United States…a body not yet moved from its propriety…” With the specter of secession looming, Webster follows this self-description by noting, “I speak to-day for the preservation of the Union.” Personally opposed to slavery but generally moderate and accommodating to Southern interests in his policy decisions, Webster lists the opposing factions on either pole of the debate: well-meaning, devoutly Christian Southern slaveholders, whose peculiar institution certainly has its flaws but who are generally misunderstood and mischaracterized by their foes; and Abolitionists, whose radical perversion of Scripture for the Abolitionist cause sows discord and undermines the possibility of a gradual progress which might organically bring about the end of slavery in due time if given the chance. In support of his allegation that the Abolitionists are in fact engaging in little more than anti-Christian rabble-rousing, Webster points to the Book of Romans, chapter 3 verse 8, in which St. Paul admonishes the Christians at Rome not to “do evil that good may come of it.” Webster’s allusion to Paul’s letter—itself an address aimed at heading off an ideological split between Jewish Christians and converted Gentiles—employs a deceptively simple good/evil binary that nonetheless speaks volumes and quickly makes a complex case for his preferred emphasis.

It’s important to remember that Webster’s support for the 1850 Compromise was the result of political wrangling in the North, lifelong opposition to radical measures taken for any purpose, and compromise and cooperation with Southerners, especially the Kentuckian Whig Henry Clay. It is with that in mind that audiences would have heard Webster’s self-identification not as a Massachusetts man or Northerner, but an American legislator first and foremost. By identifying this vocation as one which includes him in an august “body not yet removed from its propriety,” Webster lays claim to a correctness of ethical interpretation based on his position as an elected official, and to the ultimate goal of preserving the institution that allows for election, for debate, and for the democratic tradition on which all of Webster’s most celebrated oratory is predicated. In so many words, Webster proves his mettle as primarily American by showing a willingness to compromise his own personal beliefs for an ultimate national good; and the very possibility of such service, debate, and compromise is itself proof of that national good’s superiority to other more specific moral and ethical concerns. The dissolution of slavery would, it is implied, be good; but the disunion inspired by that good would be the greatest possible evil.

If we accept Webster’s claims, his allusion to the Book of Romans does not posit a purely pragmatic realpolitik approach by which compromise is simply necessary for a chosen outcome; rather, it’s a hermeneutic tool by which the Union and its laws are interpreted as the ultimate manifestation of a shared moral tradition, so that any threat to the Union must be seen as more immoral and more unethical than the alternative.

Interestingly enough, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s argument against the Fugitive Slave Act over a year later operates on the basis of many shared assumptions regarding the status of the United States and its Constitution as the ultimate manifestations of western moral tradition and ethical progress; with one important distinction: that the Act itself represents not the necessary compromise for maintaining the Union but the opening salvo in a dissolution brought about by national participation in an unforgivable immoral act. Formerly an admirer of Webster’s intelligence and oratorical skill, Emerson considers the March 7 Speech an affront to the principles for which Webster once stood and fought, and which catapulted him to regional admiration and national fame. Throughout his best known works, Emerson sees in the U.S. and its Constitution the embodiment of his paradoxical reconciliation of radical autonomy and a collective spirit of progress. In particular, Emerson had long seen in New England the moral beacon of the republic, with Webster as one of its brightest lights and one of its staunchest defenders of a moral and ethical legislature that upheld what Emerson refers to alternately as “natural law” and “first principles.” Drawing on legal precedents taken from British judicial history, Emerson argues repeatedly that the institution of slavery itself is contrary to basic human morality and decency. For example, quoting from Blackstone, Emerson holds that sovereignty is “the antecedent to any positive precept of the law of nature” and that all “should live honestly, should hurt nobody, and should render unto every one his due,” continuing that “No human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this.” Going on to borrow from such notables as Coke, Mansfield, Montesquieu, Burke, and even Cicero, Emerson drives home in no uncertain terms the point that even one so dedicated to the letter of the law as Daniel Webster must acknowledge that legal precedent itself holds to a standard of human decency which transcends the merely political. Political ethics and morality, Emerson argues, must be founded on a universal and incontrovertible moral standard which endures throughout human history. This, the argument goes, is not negotiable, regardless of political contingencies: “Laws are merely declaratory of the natural sentiments of mankind and the language of all permanent laws will be in contradiction to any immoral enactment: And thus it happens here: statute fights against statute…”

To buttress his case, Emerson presents—as the foundation of European and American civilization—the Golden Rule as stated in the Book of Matthew, 7:12: “Do unto others as you would have others do to you.” Here it’s worth noting that my analysis of these speeches consciously omits the voices of staunch activists on the abolition or pro-slavery sides, not to mention the oratory and writing of such important African-Americans as Frederick Douglass and David Walker. This is to underscore that the discourse being examined here is what would have passed for a quite mainstream treatment of the events of the day, with Webster’s and Emerson’s views being those of a prominent legislator and public intellectual, respectively. With the former addressing fellow members of Congress and the latter a series of patrician New England lecture attendees, it virtually goes without saying that, within the context in which these speeches were heard, the subaltern certainly did not speak. Although both personally disliked the practice of slavery, neither Emerson nor Webster self-identified as a member of the abolitionist movement and—even at the height of their anti-slavery sentiments—both evinced varying levels of ethnocentrism with regards to relations between white and black Americans. Even among abolitionists, there were in the Antebellum period debates as to what would be the rights of freed slaves post-abolition, or whether they should even be allowed to remain in the United States at all.

Thus we return to Emerson’s citing of the Golden Rule to ask, “Who are these others unto whom we should do as would be done to ourselves?” In other words, who is a citizen, who is human, and who deserves the benefit of universal human morality? It is an obscene question in the 21^st century, and yet even in the Romantic humanist milieu of the Antebellum period, the 1850 Compromise was viewed in many quarters as the most sensible and least radical option. As such, the Golden Rule as used by Emerson takes on several implications. The primary concern outlined by Emerson is that the Fugitive Slave Law mandates kidnapping. This applied not only to escaped slaves, but to the fact that several legally freed African-Americans at the time were kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South. Emerson does not need to distinguish between the kidnapping of freedmen and that of escaped slaves, since the primary topic of his speech is not the well-being of the kidnapped, but the moral standing of the kidnappers and the fact that it legally intends to turn otherwise moral citizens into kidnappers: “It is contravened by the mischief it operates. A wicked law can not be executed by good men, and must be by bad. Flagitious men must be employed, and every act of theirs is a stab at public peace. It cannot be executed at such a cost, and so it brings a bribe in its hand. This law comes with infamy in it, and out of it.”

Speaking to an audience of anti-slavery advocates occupying various spots on the ideological spectrum, Emerson would have found it rhetorically inexpedient to wade into debates about the status of African-Americans, but could easily find common ground among Northerners who felt that the Fugitive Slave Law imposed immorality upon them through a political act which subordinated their own sense of justice to the commercial interests of the South. Thus is revealed a clash of universalities in the speeches of Emerson and Webster. Both New Englanders claim to want to protect the moral foundations upon which the United States was founded, and in doing so both refer to Christian Scripture for evidence of that foundation. Ostensibly, each speaker uses biblical moral standards as a hermeneutic tool with which to interpret the constitutionality and necessity of the Fugitive Slave Act, and yet they reach opposite conclusions. How is this possible?

I would argue that the use of Christian Scripture as an interpretive tool for positing opposing arguments about the Fugitive Slave Law is itself an example of what Steven Mailloux in Disciplinary Identities describes as “contingent rhetorical beliefs,” whereby the rhetorical heft of the statements used relies not on accuracy of interpretation (which is impossible to determine) or logical validity so much as the “rhetorical force of the ideas hovering around” the terms and quotations in question. So whereas Daniel Webster defends the law based on the need to keep intact the Union and its Constitution, Emerson argues that the law violates natural Law and the human constitution, which chafes against abuse of other humans; thus setting in motion the inevitable unraveling of the Union due to its residing on an unstable foundation—the defense of property rather than human rights, freedom, and love.

Logically, Webster’s is a strong enough argument: the Union must avoid disunity at all costs; disagreements between free and slave states threaten to create disunity; ergo, the Fugitive Slave Act must be passed to effect a compromise which will prevent secession and Civil War. But as Mailloux aptly points out in describing how discourses often traverse the boundaries of their respective disciplines, “For some people a belief can be weakened not logically but rhetorically by the effects of new experiences, including being scandalized by someone you admire who holds a belief you also hold or by being persuaded that the philosophical status you once gave to your belief (that it was true absolutely) is no longer believable.” If applied to the debate at hand, we might consider some of the absolutes to which both Emerson and Webster (and, presumably, their audiences) subscribed: mainly justice and freedom, as insured in and upheld by the Constitution of the United States of America. Quoting from the New Testament is not merely a way of calling attention to the particular statements quoted, but is itself a powerful signal; the New Testament stands as a rhetorically potent trope, a signifier that carries with it associative implications of transcendental first principles, unquestionable moral standards, and the history of western civilization. By signaling such an interpretation of their speeches, both Webster and Emerson build their arguments regarding the Fugitive Slave Law on the foundation of the universally (at least to their audiences) coveted idea of the United States, which itself rests on deeper, more generally universal foundations such as freedom and justice.

But what do we mean when we talk about “universals,” “absolutes,” and “first principles”? Building from Stanley Fish’s antifoundationalist critiques of universalism, Mailloux remarks that “Positive universals are empty and must always be filled in by instantiations that are not universal but local, not neutral but interested, not transcendentally general but politically specific. Positive formal universals can never serve the guiding function they claim for themselves.” Thus we see the rhetorical pragmatism at work in the speeches of Webster and Emerson: far from taking their positions on the Fugitive Slave Act from a democratic ethic based on interpretations of universal or natural Law, their uses of biblical allusion are based on foregone moral conclusions. So even as first principles are rhetorically positioned as preceding the political arguments being made, they are actually selected based on the rhetorical efficacy of the very idea of absolutism and universal Law as a metaphor for an otherwise unreachable Truth. This is not to accuse our rhetors of abject relativism—far from it—but rather to consider the structure of truth claims founded upon abstract principles that are paradoxically both unverifiable and extremely powerful. To quote Mailloux again:

These are practical and pragmatist questions, practical in not being based on universalizing theories and pragmatist in making judgments by looking toward the effects of actions. They are also, I submit, rhetorical hermeneutic questions insofar as the judgments made are based on interpretations of past conditions and future probabilities, and those interpretations and resulting judgments are rhetorically enmeshed in the persuasive arguments, enabling tropes, and grounding narratives of the times and places of their rhetorical performance.

And it is the historical context of the performance—as well as the consistency of the truth claims upon which Webster and Emerson base their arguments—that ultimately dictate interpretations of those speeches for posterity. As mentioned before, Emerson and Webster both operate on assumptions that take for granted such abstract principles as freedom and justice. Both men consider history teleologically, making the case throughout their illustrious careers that the progressive arc of history is toward greater justice and human dignity. And yet, in this instance, only Emerson upholds those principles at the most abstract and affecting—indeed the most pathetic—level. While both make pragmatic rhetorical arguments about the morality of the law as well as practical arguments about the viability of its implementation, Webster uses universal Law not as a centerpiece of his argument but primarily as a precedent to make the case for the necessities of mundane earthly law.

Lest we consider this a foolish decision on his part, context must again be considered. Webster’s speech was made to a meeting of exasperated Congressmen, many from slaveholding states working to diffuse a four year-long conflict between the Free-Soil and slave states; and it worked: the law was passed. Yet in scholarly settings the speech is now considered—if at all—not for its moral strength or even its persuasiveness but for its rhetorical flourishes, clarity, and construction; what Rufus Choate called the “crystal water of the style.” It is mainly regarded with infamy as an example of skillful oratory used to ignominious ends. And so we see an example of a formerly “extreme” position (abolition) taking on the valence of a universally accepted principle and in so doing changing the interpretation of all the tropes used in a speech predicated on the immutability of certain principles.

I consider this an example of what Mailloux identifies as stemming from “events of universal truth-making.” This concept is drawn from philosopher Alain Badiou’s interpretation of Pauline Christianity, which considers Paul’s proclamation of the Word the event that emerges out of a particular situation, which must be named and in its naming develops around itself a truth procedure. Mailloux’s own example in discussing the theory of the event is the September 11 terrorist attacks, an event whose impact had to be universally acknowledged in order for the discourse surrounding it to make sense by standing on a common foundation. To identify at what point Webster’s speech begins to be considered less sensible and less moral in American public discourse than Emerson’s is a difficult task because there are so many individual events that could be said to have turned the tide, and such an analysis requires more historical and theoretical rigor than this short paper allows for. What we can certainly say, however, is that much had not yet taken place in March of 1850 or in May of 1851. Webster’s speech followed the anxieties of the Mexican-American War in a context punctuated by the fear of slave revolts and anxieties over states’ rights; it also preceded the beginnings of more widespread abolitionist sentiment by about a year, and Bleeding Kansas by four years. The election of Abraham Lincoln and Civil War were eleven years away, the Emancipation Proclamation twelve, and the Thirteenth Amendment still fifteen. All of these events—and more—played a role not in relativizing the concept of truth but in constructing it around a shared set of principles drawn from common experience and discourse. As such, they not only shape how we interpret individual tropes within a work, but cause the dominant discourse to view those works themselves—as well as the works to which they allude—as signifiers for ideologies and their valuation as outmoded, progressive, revolutionary, opportunistic or any number of judgments we might apply to them with the benefit of hindsight and careful reading.

Grandma's travel and art review.

2011-07-13T14:04:00.000-07:00

There it is.

In the original Portuguese:
“Florencia é lindo! Vais ver os Michelangelos! O David com a sua pombinha de fora!"

In English:
"Florence is beautiful! You're going to see the Michelangelos! The David with his little weiner hanging out!"

Keep your head up.

2011-06-16T20:52:00.000-07:00

I haven't had time to contribute as much as I'd like, and I'd ideally like to be posting something everyday. But in keeping with a theme running through my May 19 and May 27 posts, it's worth noting that Tupac Shakur would be forty years old were he alive today.

Tupac! Would be forty!

Time does fly, doesn't it?

I can't help but wonder what the cultural and even political landscape would be like had he survived the stupidity that got him killed. Maybe had he lived the world wouldn't have learned its lesson, so it was inevitable that he had to be sacrificed, Jesus-like, for the rest of us to grow up. I personally hate the everything-happens-for-a-reason, let's-reduce-a-person's-death-to-our-own-life-lesson approach, but I suppose it's one way to make sense of senselessness.

It's hard not to dreamily guess at what a Tupac would have to say about these times in which we live. The man was so full of contradictions. For every Hit 'em Up there was a Keep Ya Head Up. For every spittle-hurling vitriolic battle interview a thoughtful expression of compassion and complexity.

I guess those of a mind to believe that there's a point to all this say things like "Everything happens for a reason" to avoid joining the rest of us who can do nothing but shake our heads and sigh.

Fuck the world indeed.

Gil Scott-Heron. April 1, 1949 - May 27, 2011.

2011-05-27T21:18:00.000-07:00

Gil Scott-Heron died today. I don't know yet what was the cause of death, but that's another truth-teller in the grave too soon. At sixty-two years of age, forty-one years after the release of Small Talk at 125th and Lenox and forty after the groundbreaking Pieces of a Man, his words are still all too relevant and--as a nation in general--we have yet to listen. The Godfather of Rap, an unflinchingly prophetic critic of national entropy and persistent injustice, tragicomic to the bitter end. Listen to Gil Scott-Heron. I mean, listen to Gil Scott-Heron. May he rest in peace.

das Man.

2011-05-22T23:26:00.000-07:00

Something about this pisses you off.

"We have shown earlier how in this environment which lies closest to us, the public 'environment' already is ready-to-hand and is also a matter of concern. In utilizing public means of transport and in making use of information services such as the newspaper, every Other is like the next. This Being-with-one-another dissolves one's own Dasein completely into the kind of Being of 'the Others', in such a way, indeed, that the Others, as distinguishable and explicit, vanish more and more. In this inconspicuousness and unascertainability, the real dictatorship of the 'they' is unfolded. We take pleasure and enjoy ourselves as they take pleasure; we read, see, and judge about literature and art as they see and judge; likewise we shrink back from the 'great mass' as they shrink back; we find 'shocking' what they find shocking. The 'they', which is nothing definite, and which all are, though not as the sum, prescribes the kind of Being of everydayness."

- Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, I.4

A letter from Tom Lutz.

2011-05-19T23:59:00.001-07:00

Spread this far and wide.

Dear colleagues and students,

After a year and a half as Chair of the department, I am stepping down. Professor Andrew Winer will be taking my place, for which we should all be grateful.

As my last act as Chair, I would like to share with you my sense of the gravity of the situation we face. I spent most of my academic career doing what most of us do—teaching, writing, reading graduate applications and theses, having office hours, reading in my field, doing research. I didn’t pay much attention to the University and its administration. None of us have that luxury anymore. Budget cuts after budget cuts after budget cuts have left us all painfully aware of how the sausage is made, or not made.

Having served in administrative posts for most of the last five years, I have come to know the budget issues very well. We are now past the tipping point. We are on a rapid downhill slide that will have profound effects for our state, our families, our country, and our world.

In the space of less than a single lifetime, the University of California, Riverside went from being a small agricultural experiment station to being one of the top 100 universities in the world. An incredibly dense and elaborate web of specialists across all fields of scholarship, science, and the arts was developed, and it took enormous efforts by thousands of people over those years to make it happen. In less than the four years it used to take to graduate, it is being destroyed.

Our department is a great example of the breadth of vision and dogged effort that has made Riverside the exceptional place it has been. There are other creative writing programs in the country, but not a single one anywhere with the range across genres and fields, with the breadth of knowledge in world literatures, with the diversity of voices, methods, and styles that we have. And there is not another creative writing program anywhere—and certainly none with our caliber of professors—that is more truly dedicated to its pedagogical mission at every level. The faculty at Princeton is perhaps a bit more famous, but undergraduates there never meet them, much less have access to them in, before, and after class. I have now taught at every kind of school—fancy elite universities, small colleges, Big 10 universities, art schools, and universities abroad. I have never been part of a faculty this student-centered, this concerned about the educational experience and future prospects of its undergraduate and graduate students.

Three years ago I was offered a job at USC, which is much closer to my house, more prestigious as an academic address, and was offering me more money. UCR worked hard and did the best it could to match the salary and I stayed. I stayed because I wanted to be part of this project, I wanted to teach a student body that is over 85% first-generation college students, that comes not from the richest families in California but some of the poorest, a group of students that have a much greater likelihood than not of coming from immigrant families and from families that speak more than English. I wanted to remain part of one of the greatest democratic experiments in history, and certainly one of the few greatest experiments in public education in the history of the human race, the University of California.

If I got that offer today, though, I’m not sure I could turn it down, and in fact, many people are not turning down outside offers these days. There are people who have taught here for more than twenty years considering going somewhere else, somewhere the future is a bit more certain. These are people who are the best in their field—you don’t get such offers unless someone thinks you are among the best in your field—and UCR, and the educational experience at UCR, is diminished each time this happens, each time one of the best of our best leaves for a better job. We can’t blame them—they have kids of their own to put through college, they have research projects that require funding, they know that to teach the most complex subjects effectively, they need to run seminars with 15 students sitting around the table, not 150.

The budget cuts of recent years and the ones we know for certain are coming next year mean a gross deterioration of our school. Those faculty who leave for better jobs are not being replaced. Many of you know Yvonne Howard, who has been the chief administrator for our department since it was founded. This year her job was unceremoniously terminated. Staff people and faculty who retire are not being replaced. Next year students at UCR will have trouble getting the classes they need, and many of the classes they get will be crowded beyond responsible limits. Departments are being forced to abandon optimal class-size limits for classes two, three, and five times that size. The library has virtually stopped buying books. We are on a race to become a mediocre university at best, and if the $500 million of proposed cuts to UC turn into a billion dollars, as they are now discussing in Sacramento, we will be over. The billion dollar cut translates into thousands of classes across the system. It means creative writing workshops with 50 students. It means we will cease to be a real university, and will simply become another community-college-level institution. Then, maybe, after a few years, with tuition at $25,000 or $30,000 a year, we can begin the slow build back into a real university.

Why is this happening? Political demagoguery and corruption. Thirty years ago UC received 9% of the state budget and prisons 3%. Now UC gets 3% and the prison-industrial complex gets 9%. The legislature is taking the money that should be used to educate the best of its citizens and using it enrich the people who make a profit from the imprisoning the poorest. The percentage of the cost of higher education provided by the state has been cut in half, cut in half again, and is on the verge of getting cut in half a third time. The people in the legislature understand the value of public higher education—the vast majority of them have degrees from our state system, and many of them have multiple degrees—all made possible by the legislators who preceded them and had more courage. They do not protect the University for a very simple reason: because they risk a flow of conservative attacks and Tea Party racism if they stick up for anything that is directly devoted to the commonweal.

In my darkest moments, I think the monied interests working against reasonable taxation are doing so because they consciously, actively seek to make sure we do not have an informed, educated citizenry, the better to extract our collective labor and wealth unimpeded. But such intentionality isn’t necessary. Simple, short-sighted, grab-it-now, bottom-line greed explains their destruction of our culture, without recourse to any dystopian conspiracies.

The only thing that has a chance of turning this devastation around is student activism. We in higher education cannot spend millions of dollars on campaign contributions the way the prison profiteers or the medical and insurance and aerospace industries do, so we need to find other ways to provide a political counterweight. We need to make our voices heard. For you students, your own self-interest should be the catalyst, as you will, no matter what happens this year, have trouble finding the classes you need, much less than the ones you want, and the chance you will graduate in a reasonable amount of time is already gone. But you should also think of what this means for your families, your neighbors, your friends, your own kids when they come of age. And think what it means if California reduces its higher education budget to the levels of Missouri or West Virginia—we will become like those places. Because of its education system, a system that, until just a few years ago, has always been considered the best in the country, California has been among the most innovative and significant literary and cultural centers in the country, and because of this education system, too, California has been the economic powerhouse it has been—1000 research and development companies a year are formed out of the UC system, for instance, and four UC inventions a week are presented to the patent office. We had the best educational system because we were willing to pay for it, and our expenditures were among the highest in the nation, too. In a few short years we have dropped into the middle in state spending, and we are fast falling even farther. Only a political movement strong enough to buck the corporate money determining our tax policy can change this downward spiral. Only you can make that happen.

We have been told, from the top, not to expect a return to ‘the glory days.’ This year was not the glory days. This year we already have discussion sections that are not discussions, fewer classes, an exploded faculty:student ratio; we are very far from the glory days. Now that either 500 million or 1 billion more dollars are getting yanked out of the system, your favorite lecturer will be gone. The class you wanted won’t exist anymore. Your student advisor will have 800 or 1000 students to advise instead of the 300 we all agreed was an absolute maximum two short years ago. This is the end of quality. And why? Because a few very wealthy people are protecting their wealth from taxes, taxes considered reasonable not only everywhere else in the developed world, but considered reasonable in America until the last 20 years.

I hope you get angry. I hope you get active. Call and write your legislators, get out in the streets, take back your university, don’t let yourselves be the last people to have even this chance.

Tom Lutz
Professor and Chair, Department of Creative Writing

May 19.

2011-05-19T02:24:00.000-07:00

May 19 is Malcolm X's birthday. El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz would be turning 86 were he alive today. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be 82. Medgar Evers would be 85. Fred Hampton: 63. Bunchy Carter: 69.

All (and many others) were killed within a five year span at the peak of COINTELPRO's efforts to prevent the emergence of a "black messiah." That's not even conspiracy theory--that shit's in the file.

Their truncated efforts fomented the rumblings that Nixon used at the end of the 1960s to seize on fears of integration and black urban migration with the euphemism "Law and Order." That became Reagan's "Morning in America," with its wars on vague concepts and its rancid downward trickles.

But unless you grew up in a disenfranchised community with some sort of minority political agitation, making those connections is just not a valid part of the study of history. If it comes at all, most Americans will only ever get that part in college--and now the motherfuckers want to take that away. Intersections like these are not simple coincidences, folks: UC tuition might jump 32% if tax proposal fails, official says.

Just because we can't point to some back room where one group of scary men in suits pulls all the world's strings doesn't mean the game's not rigged to work in the favor of a de facto aristocracy.

How many investment bankers have you seen in handcuffs?

Maybe Ahab was right when he observed that "This whole act's immutably decreed."

Maybe.

Home.

2011-05-17T23:20:00.000-07:00

Theirs was always a diasporic consciousness of sorts. Their dispersal hadn't been forced per se, but for them existence itself had woven into it a vaguely haunting sense of wandering, of being truly at home nowhere despite putting down roots. It was all the more disconcerting when one considered that, materially, they did have quite comfortably settled homes. They had carried on the old traditions wherever they settled, had built churches and clubs, started businesses, founded societies and sports teams, even convinced local schools to teach the children in the language of their fathers and mothers. They had carved out a niche for themselves so perfect that it was now hardly recognizable as the space to which they had immigrated--it was an island of the old country in the new ocean, a space they'd made theirs, a space they'd made home.

Home was also the old, the real island in the real ocean, the windswept green on bulging hills, the cobblestones and whitewashed homes that had all moved on without them after they left. People often noted that the imitation of the old in the new country had become more authentically old than the now increasingly new old country.

No home was what it had once seemed, no home was comfortably home. And they, these wanderers, were never actually home, were never completely visiting. One foot was always on the platform. But the hills remained, veiled in chill mists so dense that they seemed to muffle the ocean's roar.

All video clips lifted from the vimeo page of Ruben Tavares, whose montages of Terceira turn me into a ball of nostalgic misty-eyed mush.

Ilha Terceira - 24 horas em Timelapse from Ruben Tavares on Vimeo.

Céu Nocturno from Ruben Tavares on Vimeo.

Twilight (Azores) from Ruben Tavares on Vimeo.

(p)review.

2011-05-15T22:36:00.000-07:00

So it's not new--it's from 2006, to be exact--but as I just saw it I have to recommend Byron Hurt's short documentary about hyper-masculinity in hip-hop, Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes (links to the entire film online).

Highlights include Jadakiss's annoyingly stubborn but shrewdly pragmatic defense of all that the film examines, Fat Joe's candid and somewhat touching self-critique, some incisive commentary from Michael Eric Dyson and Chuck D., and an interview in which--when challenged--a bunch of aspiring rappers pull a complete about-face from talking about killing and raping to reveal tragically repressed social consciousness.

I hope to post some blogs on related matters soon--a reading of Nas lyrics, some words on de-facto segregation and urban decay, polemics against the right's assault on Planned Parenthood, passive aggressive neighbors--but of course that will all depend on how this quarter pans out.

So...stay tuned?

For now I just wanted to post something on here before the weekend's end.

Why I refuse to celebrate.

2011-05-07T01:53:00.000-07:00

"That is a subtle observation on the part of philosophy: you can both love virtue too much and behave with excess in an action which itself is just."
- Michel de Montaigne, On moderation
* * *
"...but if we choose to enjoy things that are to be used, our advance is impeded and sometimes even diverted, and we are held back, or even put off, from attaining things which are to be enjoyed, because we are hamstrung by our love of lower things."
- St. Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Doctrine

* * *

yeah.

I took notes, I sat down, I got tired and frankly lost interest in the whole thing. I was going to compose this long argument about why I think it's wrong to celebrate even a justified death, how it demeans us as a society, how the sudden mainstreaming and approval of our tendency toward ultranationalist necrophilia gives me the creeps, how I don't want to be aligned with people who consider a mosque several blocks away from Ground Zero sacrilege and then go get drunk at Ground Zero and encourage drunken superpatriot college girls to flash their breasts...and so on. But Osama hatefuck fatigue has set in (exacerbated by Obama lovefest fatigue, which in this context is just as irritating), and I think we'd all be better served if I just linked to these remarkably thoughtful pieces by Mona Eltahawy at The Guardian and David Sirota at Salon.com. While you're at it, if you really want to see the depths to which people stoop during a civilization's decline, check this link to a Wonkette article about Osama's Dead merchandise. Maybe you can get your dog a shirt, or treat yourself to a trucker cap.

Or just take a look at the guy in the clip below. And if you don't see layer upon layer of horrifying irony here, may God help you.

Trump, Black King, Poker Face: The Anatomy of A Political Takedown.

2011-05-06T13:15:00.000-07:00

Much has been made in recent days of President Obama’s roast of Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and rightfully so. It was brutally funny. Or was it hilariously brutal? In any case, it’s safe to say that anyone still supporting The Donald’s potential bid for the White House does so quietly and with some embarrassment. As host Seth Meyers noted at the dinner, Trump’s candidacy was—or is it still?—a joke. And although I’m not usually a vindictive person who relishes the humiliation of another human being, I can’t honestly say that I was anything but delighted to watch the smile fade from Trump’s face as he watched his grandiose political aspirations slip away in a hail of roaring laughter at his bombastic stupidity.

Then on Sunday an extra dimension was retroactively added to that verbal trouncing, as YouTubers everywhere returned to the video to re-watch it in light of current events. What one sees in that clip pre-May 1 is an intelligent politician delivering razor sharp punch lines with the cool assurance of a skilled orator holding the higher moral ground in an absurd situation. Post-May 1, it’s an intelligent politician delivering razor sharp punch lines with the cool assurance of a head-of-state staring down his detractors after secretly giving the order to eliminate the nation’s—perhaps the world’s—most vilified foe. Bloggers especially latched onto one clip of Obama laughing heartily at a quip by Seth Meyers about Osama bin Laden’s elusiveness, and the president was roundly applauded for maintaining his “poker face.” I’m not sure what else he was supposed to do, but it was really intriguing to watch amid the collective national fist-pumping over bin Laden’s death.

But why is this so satisfying to me? Am I relishing the fact that our awesome president finally has some points on the Republicans? Am I just really super excited that a terrible dude trained in the midst of a terrible idea died a terrible death during a terrible war, thus proving how fucking awesome America is and allowing me to finally be proud to be an Obama supporter because all this time I’ve felt effete and weak by not being able to express how badass a patriotic red-blooded American I can really be?

Well, no.

It can’t be a vindication of Obama’s policies that makes me smile, because I’ve been generally pretty dissatisfied—if not disgusted outright—with those. Corporate bailouts, our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gitmo, Race to the Top, the severely compromised health care plan, and a host of other letdowns have left me pretty disillusioned with an administration whose campaign stickers I still have by the stack somewhere in my apartment.

And it’s not because Osama bin Laden’s dead. I mean, I’m glad that a planner of and inspiration to mass murder is off the grid, and sure I take some pleasure in the fact that the guy was capped on a non-Republican’s watch. But the Democrats don’t have—will never have—clean hands either, and I’m not about to engage in all this bloodthirsty fist-pumping about how great violence and death are when they’re justified (quick side note about that: what the fuck are you doing, American liberals? Have you only opposed violent rhetoric and stupid jingoism up until now because it wasn’t your team carrying it out? ).

No, what turned my frown upside down was something different, something most Americans would (wrongly) consider a separate issue. What I’ve relished in viewing upon viewing of this smackdown is the complete disregard it shows for the “race card” taboo in American politics. Of course, it wasn’t (couldn’t) be framed that way explicitly, but it was there—it couldn’t not be there, focused as it was on the Birther issue. The Birther movement is a racist movement, regardless of whatever else they try to say and how gingerly the media tries to dance around that fact when they give it airtime. It’s not a coincidence that “Birther” is one letter away from “Bircher”—these are xenophobic nativists and nothing more. President Obama will never be an American to them, just as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson were treated as buffoons—African-Americans are not Americans to these folks, and non-Americans are hardly even people.

But you can’t say that. To point that out would be to “play the race card.” Because the racists are not playing the race card, they’re being “patriots” and “realists,” they’re being vigilant about the Constitution or looking out for American jobs. So the rest of us are supposed to keep our mouths shut. We’re supposed to grind our teeth in silence at Ronald Reagan’s welfare queens, Jesse Helms’s hands, National Security PAC’s Willie Horton ad, John McCain’s Messiah commercials—but to point out the racist implications of each is going too far. That’s playing the “race card.”

So, to get this definition straight: playing on racial tensions and xenophobic fears, enacting racially discriminatory policies, employing racist rhetoric to appeal to a base of disgruntled sheeple is fair game. Pointing out these strategies and calling them for what they are: playing the race card.

It’s a clever metaphor, simultaneously implying a knockout quality and an unfair, forbidden advantage. So it’s both a trump card in the political game and a form of cheating. It’s as though, despite its power to win everything, it’s actually not part of this game, making it shameful to put it on the table. Of course, that’s bullshit. First, it’s incredibly rare that the perceived “race card” actually wins anything. Second, race is always already on the table—it’s only when we identify it that it becomes an issue.

What’s most troubling about this for me is that liberals play along. I think some of this is pure political pragmatism, but there’s something else going on: liberals (actually neoliberals, but let’s call them what they call themselves) relish their little victories. We really wanted to think we’d fixed racism when Obama won the election. We really like the idea that Brown v. Board of Education and the Voters’ Rights Act healed all those old wounds. Explain to a room full of white liberals how crack proliferated in American ghettos, why incarceration rates reveal a new form of Jim Crow, and watch how many squirm uncomfortably if not challenge you outright.

So the race card doesn’t get played not because it’s politically inexpedient. It’s politically inexpedient because half of the “left” in America is drinking the right’s Kool-Aid and allowing itself to be shamed into submission.

And that’s what made me love Obama’s roast of Donald Trump. He didn’t pull any punches and he didn’t leave the race card off the table. He slammed Trump, he mocked Michelle Bachmann for being an abject liar, he slammed FOX News for its idiotic coverage of every sensational tidbit they could scavenge from right wing hacks, and he didn’t let up until he’d essentially destroyed their ability to ever speak again on this issue. It was more than a series of political jokes, it was a rhetorical submission hold.

My reading is certainly open to disagreement, but I would direct detractors’ attention to the Lion King bit and ask that you consider all the implications of calling that the president’s birth video. In one crushing blow (and using a beloved Disney clip!) Obama brutally mocks rumors of his African birth, criticisms of his campaign’s messianic undertones, and questions of his leadership. It’s cocksure, brazen, and—to me, at least—glorious.

As far as I’m concerned, all of this turns on race—John McCain’s “The One” ad, which mocked Obama’s “messiah” status, was little more than a thinly veiled critique of an “uppity” negro. Questions of the president’s leadership are certainly merited, but much of that discourse has adopted the assumptions and rhetorical strategies of the Birther movement, which is pure xenophobia, and a huge segment of our population ate it up.

It’s that segment of the population that Obama’s speech really nailed. If anything, Trump was cancelled out and shown to be a political zero, FOX and Bachmann were called out for the stupidity we knew about all along—those are easy. But without Trump or Bachmann the idiots in our nation will carry on. They’ll find new leaders to spit vitriol and preach hate in the name of Christian love, so who cares about Trump and Bachmann.

What this speech really accomplished was a takedown of a form of political discourse, exposing a powerful ideology as nothing but stupid bigotry. Obama stood before the nation, looked half of it in the eye, and issued a smiling but serious “Fuck you.”

Does that mean they’ll go away? No. But at least I know that, for all the other shit he does wrong, this president can take a stand in the culture wars and be on the right side of history. Whether he’ll continue to do that remains to be seen, but for about five minutes, as the Black King trumped the Trump with a race card, it felt pretty good.

Springtime in the 'vine.

2011-04-27T12:04:00.000-07:00

As much as I love to complain about the county of Orange, the Orange County city of Irvine, and the weirdly orange apartment complex I call home, living here has its benefits. We're close to the beach, not that far from L.A. (which for me also means that I'm close to family), and of course I'm within walking distance of campus.

My favorite thing about Irvine, however, is how the hills look in the spring. After January, February, and some March rains, April around here is gorgeous. Uninhabited parts are covered in tall grasses, yellow and purple flowers, blooming trees. Cottontail rabbits and squirrels abound, stalked by ever-present hawks. The sun is warm but--for now at least--the air is cool.

So every morning for the past few weeks I've started my day by just sitting on the steps of my building and looking out at the little ravine that runs parallel to Anteater Drive. The tranquility of the scene has been compromised this week by repairs to the roofs of neighboring buildings, but I don't care. The smell of tar, the pneumatic pops of nail guns, the guys in bright orange and neon yellow vests sitting down for lunch in the parking lot all just blend into the scene if you're in the right mood. After all, it's not like this is rural North Dakota--we're in Irvine. Strip mall developers won the war a long time ago. You can't take in the bunnies without the roofers, so lamenting encroachment on nature is futile.

It's best to just see it all as one and enjoy the panorama.

Over the past few days a couple of finches have settled into a gap between the steps above my door. They appear to still be building the nest, and I don't hear any baby chirps yet, so I think for now it's just the two of them. Just another starry-eyed, nervous young couple moving into a new home in Orange County. This morning when I came out for my daily sit-down-and-stare session, the finches were apparently in the middle of renovations--as soon as I stepped outside they chirped frantically and perched on a bit of railing just above my head. The female sat still, eying me warily, while the red-chested male hopped back and forth in a furious panic. They both held feathers and twigs in their beaks, as evidence that I'd interrupted them in the midst of moving in. I tried sitting low on the steps and tight against a wall so they'd realize I wasn't a threat, but they weren't having it. Their panic just increased, the female's head shifting from side to side while the male continued his angry dance. Their chirping reached a fever pitch that weirdly blended with the rhythm of the roofers' nail guns.

In the parking lot below, and directly under the panicked birds in my line of vision, one of the roofers argued with his foreman. He held a hammer in one hand and a spatula in the other, the brim of his hard hat exaggerated his nods or head shakes in response to the foreman's scolding. The foreman held a pencil and a clipboard, which he waved around while gesticulating for emphasis, or pointed at a spot on the roof of a distant building to make his case. They didn't appear to be angry at one another, but the disagreement was serious, as evinced by the mounting volume of their protests and the shiftiness of the foreman. As the roofer signaled uncomfortable resistance by crossing his arms tightly and planting his feet, the foreman spoke loudly and with gravity, pointing upward in all directions with both hands, pacing, walking in semi-circles in front of his employee while laying down the law.

Directly above them, the female bird planted herself on the railing and chirped nervously while her mate chattered in anger and repeatedly hopped over her, making it clear that he was not happy about being interrupted during the construction process.

happy thoughts with chemical assistance.

2011-04-11T22:37:00.000-07:00

"Maybe the collapse of academia will be good for us in the long run. No, seriously! Right now we're generally acknowledged to be pretty smart. Think of how smart we'll look thirty years from now. We'll be, like, geniuses--prophets!"

- Friend, whose glass is half full

Sexy shit.

2011-04-11T12:01:00.000-07:00

The "opposite" of the ossature is the intestines, which gets us close to Swift's disgust with the excretions of the body--a disgust, as a significant quotation from Swift in Empson's Some Versions of Pastoral makes clear, that was also linked with sex, because of the way in which the body has economized in localizing the channels of these two functions. This sense of a union between love and filth was the essence of his working credo, that "everything spiritual and valuable has a gross and revolting parody, very similar to it, with the same name." If the "life within" equals intestines, and the "life without" equals a deceptive projection of the skeleton, and the man's love of woman is secretly tied to both, maybe there is no way of making peace with the state of things. One is on the run, like Whitman, but without the "salute."

Kenneth Burke, Attitudes Toward History

image: A Scene from 'Description of a City Shower' by Jonathan Swift.

Edward Penny, 1764.

poesis

2011-04-06T23:55:00.001-07:00

i like these people i like their inkwords

http://www.entasisjournal.com/

If the hat fits...

2011-03-30T00:04:00.000-07:00

"The cool was a whitened degenerative form of bebop. And when mainline America was vaguely hipped, the TV people (wizards of total communication) began to use it to make people buy cigarettes and deodorants . . . or put life into effeminate dicks (uhh, detectives). The white boys slid into all the studio gigs, playing 'their' music, for sure.
So-called 'pop,' which is a citified version of Rock 'n' Roll (just as the Detroit-Motown Sound is a slick citified version of older R&B-Gospel influenced forms) also sees to it that those TV jobs, indeed that dollar-popularity, remains white. Not only the Beatles, but any group of Myddle-class white boys who need a haircut and male hormones can be in a pop group. That's what pop means. Which is exactly what 'cool' was, and even clearer, exactly what Dixieland was, complete with funny hats and funny names . . . white boys, in lieu of the initial passion, will always make it about funny hats . . . which be their constant minstrel need, the derogation of the real, come out again."

-LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), "Jazz and the White Critic." 1966

Decline and/or Fall.

2011-03-28T08:19:00.000-07:00

From The New York Times, an exercise in agonizingly strained optimism: Opportunities and Perils for Obama in Military Action in Libya. How many ways can one find to say "If it works..."?

The Course of Empire: Destruction. Thomas Cole, 1836.

Two fun facts.

2011-03-27T22:54:00.000-07:00

#1
"There are only two things more beautiful than a gun: a Swiss watch or a woman from anywhere. Ever had a good...Swiss watch?"

- Cherry Valance (John Ireland), Red River, 1948

Seeing these sexy dudes size up each other's guns made the Duke feel all funny inside.

At the start of filming for the 1948 Howard Hawks film Red River (which I reluctantly watched and thoroughly enjoyed thanks to the great Roberto), there was concern that John Wayne and Montgomery Clift would not get along due to their matching outspokenness on opposite sides of the political spectrum. They agreed to steer clear of politics on set, but Wayne and Walter Brennan both made it a point to avoid Clift off-camera because he was a known homosexual. Shit really hit the fan when a rumor made it to the Duke that Monty was having an affair with John Ireland, at which point the Santa Ana Airport's namesake actually lobbied to have his costar fired.

So I can be dragged kicking and screaming into admitting that John Wayne made some (some!) really good films, but I maintain that the guy was a complete jerk-off.

Thank you, Public Enemy.

Brave New World.

2011-03-26T11:24:00.000-07:00

An exchange between my father and a friend of his, both of whom were raised in villages on the island of Terceira, upon hearing that their sons (myself and a friend, both of whom were raised in southern California) hung out together on the east coast:

"These guys go to New York easier than we used to go to the city."

"It's true. We hardly ever left the village. Maybe once a month. But we used to have to walk."

"Yeah, I guess if they had to walk they wouldn't make that trip so often."

"You daggone right."

2011-03-25T13:04:00.000-07:00

I think that as a nation we need to be reminded that what's passed for country music over the past few decades is actually a popular offshoot several removes from what the term "country" once referred to. I don't mean this as an argument about authenticity--that's a discussion that tends to give me hives--but merely to suggest that most members of my generation who subscribe to the "I listen to everything but country" position don't know what they're actually missing.

How can you dislike someone who threatens to kick your ass with such a winning smile?

"Pow, you're dead." (1932-2011)

2011-03-23T20:42:00.000-07:00

The Westboro Baptists have come to serve some practical purposes in American society, not least of which is to paradoxically confer honor on their declared foes. If you've earned a Westboro Baptist picket line at your funeral, you're okay by me.

So the fact that they've announced their intention to picket Elizabeth Taylor's funeral shouldn't just elicit anger. Rather, it should enable us to chip away at the patina of celebrity craziness with which Taylor's been tarnished for at least as long as I can remember.

Also: damn, she was pretty!

Many of the people most repulsed by the Westboro Baptists today seem to have conveniently forgotten that for a while back when they lived in Reaganland it was perfectly acceptable and quite common to talk about AIDS much as the Phelps family does now: as God's punishment for the abomination of homosexuality, or at least as the natural consequence incurred by a population for living in sin. And while most everyone else with a high profile was either maintaining a cowardly silence or running in the opposite direction, Taylor came out and voiced her unequivocal support for a segment of the population whose suffering was for most Americans little more than the butt of tasteless jokes.

So child star, addict, alcoholic, home-wrecker, serial monogamist, odd religious convert, narcissist who did and said some crazy things in that long strange second half of her life--whatever. Dame Elizabeth has earned her Westboro tribute, and whatever else one might say about her career or her very public personal life, that gets a tip of the hat from this humble blogger.

Wheezy 'n' Breezy

2011-03-21T23:35:00.000-07:00

Are we there yet?

No, and we'll never get there. Wherever we are is here, and there will always be somewhere else. We're just chasing the horizon. There will never be here and here will never be there. We'll never get there, and that's the most important thing to remember. The joy's in the voyage, in the constant chasing and the knowing that it's never to be caught.

Shit, we wouldn't know what to do if we did catch it.

A haunting on the Newburyport/Rockport line, or...

2011-03-21T14:21:00.000-07:00

Friday four pm, Newburyport/Rockport line from Salem to Boston, after a day of maritime mansions museums witches handless wax figures and colonial Newengland homes in biting harbor breezes, coupled like pigeons on the spacious cushioned bench awaiting departure anticipating this last lovely evening of a sweetest week Cambridge Portuguese food followed by a gentle nighttime walk and Greenline back to the Northend a stroll to Caffévittoria for coffee and pastries and peoplewatching, you lazily cock your head right to lean on her shoulder maybe steal a kiss on the neck a nibble of the earlobe but your hatbrim impedes tenderness so you remove it and lean in again longingly nestling, she brushes back your hair caresses your neck kissing your forehead and you can feel the warmth of her gaze as her right hand slips over yours fingers interlocking in your coat pocket squeezing tight as you turn to stare into widebrown longlashed eyes glistening above plumpdimpled coldbitten carnation cheeks the most welcoming of smiles housing a neat file of white teeth interrupted by a wayward speck of ancient errant coastal sand from erstwhile colonies, a laugh a kiss on the lips prolonged with heavy lidded tired eyes closing closed in suspended touch as the train commences chugging picks up speed rumbles louderlouder louderstill almost like a jet engine buildingrisingbuilding to a pitch lurch and jolt beneath your seat.

Head cocked left slowly unlidding eyes suddenly stabbed by lightblade through tiny square window over massive shoulder of baseballcapped collegestudent whose right elbow violates the claustrophobic seat threshold, to your right leatherjacketed Dylaneque computerprogrammer plies his trade on seatback tabletop devoid of smiles or dimples or kisses oblivious to frigid breezes and fugitive sands, no Friday shoulder beneath your head no fingers interlaced with yours on this Saturday three pm flight from Boston to Denver to Orangecounty, only Bostonharbor receding beyond a bulky baseballcapped collegestudent frame, only retreating Massachusettsbay cloaked in mist a cumulus roof over Friday fickle a floor beneath train rumble become jet engine hum on Saturday ascending, longing, ascending.

"This land was made for you and me."

2011-03-09T00:03:00.000-08:00

"Go home!"

In response to the video of their hate speech having gone viral, the purveyors of OC’s ugliest fighting words have gone on the defensive, with Ed Royce condemning hate speech and distancing himself from the nastiest bits of that video while reminding us that the speakers at the CAIR event were deserving of criticism. Deborah Pauly says her words were taken out of context by deceptive editing, and Gary Miller continues to cower in the shadows.

To be fair, Royce’s distancing of himself temporally from the screaming hate-gasm makes sense: it’s clear from the video that the elected officials in question spoke during the late afternoon, whereas the shrieking took place at night.

The problem with using that fact as a defense is that the video has audio, and in it Royce sure seems happy to receive applause from these same people whose beliefs he now claims to find detestable.

But, Royce reminds us, event guest Abdel Malek Ali is himself still a pretty detestable figure; and it’s true that the man’s said some detestable things in his loud and strange career. Yet despite what these speakers and a few fringe right wing blogs and organizations would like to have us believe, neither he nor his fellow speaker Siraj Wahhaj have any links to terrorist organizations.

As for Pauly’s statements, she’s right: the video is heavily edited. So if her words were taken out of context, then it should be easy enough to see how wrong we’ve all been about her. All we need is the full video, or a transcript of her speech.

Interestingly enough, despite the pride Pauly’s shown for participating in the event (see her twitter feed—or, you know, don’t), she’s refused to release a written transcript of her speech. Furthermore, the blogs defending her as having been taken out of context (you can google them, I’m not giving those fools traffic) when she seemed to be advocating the murder of Muslims don’t bother to show her in context.

Why might that be?

Perhaps it’s because the full video (posted below—Pauly starts around 00:43) doesn’t exonerate Pauly of the charge of wholesale Islamophobia. Yes, when she talks about Marines sending “these terrorists” to paradise, one might (but one also might just as easily not) infer that she’s talking about actual terrorists. However, what emerges from watching her entire speech is a sense of just how completely she lumps all Muslims together as a terroristic monolith. If anything, context worsens the impact by making it clear how inclusive her vision really is.

That’s all I’ll say about it. I'm sleepy and tired, and besides, you can see for yourself how the thing unfolds "in context." I have no reservations about continuing to call these people hate-mongering cowards and laughing bitterly at the irony of their freedom jabber.

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.

2011-03-06T03:13:00.000-08:00

"I confess to you, Lord, that I still do not know what time is, and I further confess to you, Lord, that as I say this I know myself to be conditioned by time. For a long period already I have been speaking about time, and that long period can only be an interval of time. So how do I know this, when I do not know what time is? Perhaps what I do not know is how to articulate what I do know. My condition is not good if I do not even know what it is I do not know."

- St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

A Rosinha dos Limões

2011-03-05T10:36:00.000-08:00

A haunting and playful daydream of a fado on one of the genre's seemingly (some would say annoyingly) inexhaustible themes--unrequited love--A Rosinha dos Limões has always reminded me of childhood. This, for me, is comfort music.

The title literally translates to "Rosie of the Lemons," but when I was a teenager in a traditional Portuguese guitar group we used to jokingly call it "Rosie and the Lemons," thus seemingly transforming the song's eponymous protagonist from a lemon-selling peasant girl to the lead vocalist of an arena rock band. I got in the habit of calling the song by its wrong name, and still catch myself doing so from time to time.

It's been in my head lately, so I thought I'd share.

This is the original recording by Max. Below the video I've copied the lyrics in Portuguese and then attempted an English translation, which doesn't quite do justice to the clever simplicity of Max's lyrics. There's almost no attempt at proper versification, and only the slightest hint at puns subtly analogizing the coquettish Rosie with the Virgin Mary. Well, that's how I read them anyway.

I'm no translator.

“Rosie ~~and~~ of the Lemons”

OC = Outrageous Cowardice?

2011-03-03T16:10:00.000-08:00

You should watch the video posted at the bottom of this blog entry. It's difficult to swallow, but I recommend that you take it in. Sit through all five minutes and fifty-two seconds of rabid, uninhibited hate, just so you know what still persists--with enthusiastic support from elected officials--in a region that never sickens of lauding itself for being one of the most tolerant and diverse in the United States.

Listen to demonstrators tell American citizens to "go back home," taunt them by insulting the Prophet Muhammad, accuse them of spousal abuse and child rape.

"All terrorists go to heaven."

Watch Villa Park councilwoman Deborah Pauly stand in front of a fundraiser for women’s shelters and homeless relief and call it “pure, unadulterated evil.” Listen to her refer to its attendees (private citizens, including whole families enduring harassment by a mob of bigots) as “these terrorists” and elicit raucous applause by saying that she knows some Marines who would be "happy to help these terrorists to an early meeting in Paradise.” Remember, many of "these terrorists" are children, nearly all of them American citizens.

"Tolerance is intolerable."

Let Congressman Ed Royce's wisdom wash over you as he maintains that tolerance for those of different cultures and creeds from our own is what's wrong with modern America. See if he convinces you that his condemnation of a fundraiser to help abused women and the homeless is part of a principled stance against an "odious" ideology, a stance culled from "critical judgment" against the paralysis inflicted on Americans by multiculturalism.

Bask in the accolades of Congressman Gary Miller, who showed up just to give everyone a flag and let them know how proud he is of them for employing intimidation tactics on entire families at a charity event, all in the name of not letting "people we disagree with" destroy this fine nation.

"David Duke? Doesn't ring a bell."

Pauly can publicly hint at death threats to private citizens, Royce and Miller can stoke that fire by declaring a lawful assembly an assault on the very principles of a free nation, but Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas is using your tax dollars to prosecute eleven Muslim college students for speaking their minds to a public official.

Does this pass as fiscal or social responsibility?

Congressman Royce should be reminded that nobody has ever successfully protected anything with cowardice, and this is simple cowardice.

Congressman Miller may be interested to know (of course, perhaps I'm giving him too much benefit of doubt) that the Ku Klux Klan also passes out flags and Bibles. They don't wipe away the taint of moronic bigotry.

Councilwoman Pauly should be investigated by the Department of Homeland Security for advocating terrorist acts against American citizens, or at least checked into an asylum.

These people are cowards. They're bullies who take solace in the roar of angry crowds against those whose voices they mute with xenophobic shrieking. And lest anyone object that they don't represent Orange County residents at large, let me note that they quite literally do exactly that. It's their job. These are not wackos on the fringes, these are your elected officials, Orange County, and you're with them or against them.

So pick a side.

Contact Villa Park Councilwoman Deborah Pauly: http://www.villapark.org/citycouncil.html
Or follow her on twitter! Yay! http://twitter.com/YnotDebPauly

Contact Representative Ed Royce: https://royce.house.gov/Contact/ZipCheck.htm

Contact Representative Gary Miller: http://garymiller.house.gov/Contact/

Contact District Attorney Tony Rackauckas: http://orangecountyda.com/home/index.asp?page=43

friendly advice.

2011-03-02T18:06:00.000-08:00

Text message conversation:

"How are you doing?"

"I've got some serious heartburn."

"Ah! That acid reflux! They need to find a cure!"

"Or I can be more careful about what I consume."

"HEALTHY LIVING IS NOT A CURE!"

Ah, the internet.

2011-02-28T21:10:00.000-08:00

Artist Ahmad Sabbagh has his own take on Muammar Qaddafi's claim that he and Queen Elizabeth II are just two peas in a pod.


"To avoid complications, she never kept the same address. In conversation, she spoke just like a baroness." (incidentally, Queen was the first rock band whose music was permitted in Iran. Sometimes the world just hands it to you [and yes, I just put a link in a caption {and a set of brackets inside of parentheses}. What of it?], you know?)

A message from this blog.

2011-02-27T23:02:00.000-08:00

Something's changed around here. According to the Google tracker, my traffic's gone up in recent weeks. In fact, it's gone up dramatically in the past few days. And since I mostly stare in dumb amusement at the map showing where my readers check in from, what I'm struck most by is how geographically dispersed this new readership is. I've got readers in Texas! China! Russia! Belgium! Egypt!

What can it all mean? Are you new readers interested in anecdotes about time spent in North Africa? Do you want to know what I think of labor disputes in Wisconsin? Perhaps you'd like to read one of my few attempts to act like an academic blog.

Oh, God. I hope you're not here to mock! I mean, what if you're reading this right now and snickering at my prose, guffawing at the reductive simplicity of my ideas, the lack of originality in my design? Maybe that's what it is! Perhaps you came here just to see how bad a blog I really am!

Or maybe...

Give me validation!

Maybe you like me. Maybe, right now, you like me. Maybe you really like me!

In any case, I'd love to hear your feedback.

The writing on the wall.

2011-02-25T13:01:00.000-08:00

Traveling around Portugal and southern Spain this past summer was at times like wandering around an open-air live-in art gallery. In some areas, entire neighborhoods were covered in elaborate graffiti by world-renowned artists splashing color on Porto's urban decay or providing some sardonic commentary on the state of Sevillan culture.

Some of my favorite pieces, though, weren't really full pieces at all. Small stenciled messages on national monuments in Lisbon caught my eye throughout my time in the city. Some are especially resonant with the current state of events around the world.

“Nem todos que vão à guerra são soldados.”

“Not all who go to war are soldiers.”

Castelo de São Jorge.


“A fome faz sair o lobo do mato.” “Hunger brings the wolf out of the forest.” Parliament building.

"A fome faz sair o lobo do mato."

This wall in Granada--apparently a giant notepad for anarchists--gets honorable mention for its rumination on revolutionary aesthetics.

Midwest, Middle East...Madison, Tripoli...whatever.

2011-02-24T12:19:00.000-08:00

Gentle reader, to borrow a line from one Mos Def, we are alive in amazing times.

By way of context, and for the benefit of our future selves carelessly clicking through blog archives whilst avoiding more productive work, it's important to consider what filled the news cycle during this penultimate week of February 2011.

Qaddafi will likely be deposed.

A few days ago, longtime Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, in a defiant speech extolling his regime and condemning pro-democracy demonstrations in his oil-rich nation, claimed that anti-government protesters were high on hallucinogens. That's why they're protesting, as he continues to claim, and their actions are punishable by death.

To that end, he's imported foreign mercenaries to sniff out and kill anyone seemingly unsympathetic to his regime, while continuing to blame the ensuing chaos and violence on pro-democracy demonstrators. He's ordered airstrikes and heavy artillery turned on his own people, and has openly vowed to kill anyone who questions his rule. To date, some estimates have the death toll topping 1,000 (the lowest estimates exceed 300), homes have been ransacked, and rape and theft are rampant.

* * *

Walker might be impeached.

Stateside, in Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker has proposed to eliminate collective bargaining rights for union-protected public employees, prompting angry demonstrations even from his former supporters (like the police union) and sending the state into a political tailspin. Unions have gone so far as to agree to all of the governor's proposed fiscal concessions, and yet--under the aegis of balancing the budget--Walker has rejected their proposals and decided to resort to unabashed union-busting.

Some Midwestern authorities have gone so far as to suggest that force--even deadly force--be used to break up peaceful protests in Wisconsin, and Governor Walker himself was caught on tape (thinking he was talking to one of his patrons in the Koch clan) considering employing "troublemakers" to taint the demonstrations, but lamenting that it's just so darned risky.

* * *

Is it clear yet why these two stories make for useful juxtaposition? Good, because into this shit-storm has now stepped the crown prince of foot-mouth himself, Rick "The Ick" Santorum, likening Wisconsin's union-represented public employees to addicts "acting like their drug is being taken away from them."

Santorum will remain a choad.

See what he did there?

Never mind the idiotic insensitivity of such a statement and the cluelessness it reveals about both the issue at hand and the concerns of working Americans: how the hell does a career politician like this even make such phenomenal blunders? Does he not watch the news, does he not realize what he's aligned himself with rhetorically? Does he not understand the comparisons this invites, especially for someone as detestable as himself?

Maybe he doesn't. After all, the man has shown time and again that reality makes his brain hurt.

What makes my brain hurt is trying to understand how this guy is still considered a contender for the presidency. I mean, really, dear reader, if you're one of the five people I know to be following this blog, you're probably a pinko-commie-Nazi-homo-Muslim just like me, but appeal to your conservative friends and relatives and ask how such a thing is possible.

And if I do have any Republican readers, two things:

First, from me to you, as a person who disagrees with your ideology but respects your intelligence: how do people like Rick Santorum continue to loudly represent your party?

Second, from me to you, as a person largely dissatisfied with the Obama administration but who still considers it the least horrifying of all electable options for 2012: please nominate Rick Santorum for president. Please put all your support behind him, stick all the corporate-pandering and fear-mongering resources you can muster in his coffers, dedicate your party machinery to blasting his barbaric yawp over every roof and into every gutter as loudly as possible, give him Michelle Bachmann as a running mate, support their ticket with Sarah Palin rallies and Newt Gingrich interviews and Glen Beck chalkboard syllogisms...

I'm serious. Let Rick Santorum speak. The nation should hear what this dude has to say.

"Good morning, revolution, or good evening, revolution"

2011-02-18T00:01:00.000-08:00

I slept like a log in El Mahalla El Kubra. That's notable because I'm a light sleeper everywhere else and Mahalla's possibly the noisiest place I've ever visited. When we arrived at the apartment that first night it was 3:30 am and one of the neighbors was using a mechanical grinder downstairs. He ground metal until around 4:15 when somebody finally demanded that he stop. It bought the neighborhood a couple of hours of silence before the fajr adhan, when every imam in every mosque in the crowded and densely-mosqued neighborhood of Ghamorheya took up a microphone and sounded his call over the rooftops for early morning prayers.

Ghamorheya, El Mahalla El Kubra, Egypt. August 18, 2010.

But most could sleep through that. The tuk-tuks and their incessant Arabic pop music were another matter entirely, as were the taxis with their customized horns, and by the time the propane salesmen came out banging on tanks with wrenches to compete with the calls of fish and fruit mongers, well, the streets were awake.

But I slept through it all somehow, and did so every day until well into the afternoon despite blistering heat and stifling humidity. Maybe I was just exhausted, or maybe the constant barrage of noise wove itself into the perfect texture so that all was just background and nothing really disruptive could ever break through. Or maybe I was poisoned by the dirty air.

In any case, I slept well in Mahalla. Better than I'd slept on the entire trip. Better than I usually sleep at home.

Still, the night terrors happened. Not that I would have known had nobody witnessed it, but about a week in, as I stuffed some foul and cucumber into a pita bread for lunch, Amo Abdalla cautiously asked, "Brian, what did you dream about that night?"

"What night?"

"The first night you were here. You jumped out of bed screaming."

Real concern, suppressed for a week, peeked through his notorious deadpan. Suddenly it hit me: it had happened that first night.

When we'd arrived Wesam had claimed the couch, insisting that he wouldn't let a guest not take bed, so I had ended up rooming with Amo Abdalla. I fell asleep quickly, but at some point one of my dreams had gripped me. I had probably felt a tickle in my throat from the bubbling of acid reflux due to the fact that I'd recently run out of Omeprazole. That's all it really takes. Most people cough in the night--I wake up thinking I'm choking to death.

Whatever the cause, I jumped out of bed screaming and awoke Amo Abdalla. He asked if I was ok and if I needed anything. I asked for a glass of water, and he obliged. I drank the water in a quick gulp and went right back to sleep as though nothing had happened, and Amo waited a week for the right moment to assuage his concern because he didn't want to embarrass me or make me feel uncomfortable.

I recently talked to someone about these persistent nightmares that have knocked me out of bed since I was a teenager. They're not nearly as persistent as they once were, and I have a handful of theories as to why that might be. I was told that I shouldn't read the news before going to bed because it makes me agitated. That might be so.

Recently the news I've watched and read has nearly all been about the goings-on in Egypt. It was nerve-racking at the end of January, and at points downright horrifying. Then it became hopeful, joyous, and inspiring. I don't think I've been having night terrors, but maybe someone will correct me in a week.

So as a compromise between my penchant for current events and my apparent need for less depressing fare, here's a touching video of Amo Abdalla paying tribute to his people. This keeps me tuned in and makes me smile.

Good night.

To Egypt: Abdalla's Address from Wesam Nassar on Vimeo.

Or good morning.

My wedding day.

2010-11-13T00:05:00.000-08:00

Last night I dreamed that I awoke in a room, on a couch, surrounded by four or five of my lifelong friends. We had apparently been out drinking the night before. We were in my house (but, of course, it wasn't my house). As I rubbed my eyes, one of my friends grabbed me by the shoulders and excitedly shouted, "Today's the day!" It was my wedding day. I had to get washed up and ready for my wedding. I was elated and a little nervous about my wedding. I showered, put on a tuxedo, massaged some gel into my hair. The phone rang: it was my mother, calling to make sure I had remembered to shave. I hadn't. There was no shaving cream in the medicine cabinet, and only a leg razor next to the sink in the bathroom. After some deliberation, with time running out (I was reminded repeatedly by my friends that I was late), I decided to try scraping off my stubble with the leg razor and no cream. It didn't work, and I cut myself. Time was up. I had to go. I half-jogged out of the bathroom to the car waiting for me outside. It was a long jog--my dream house's driveway was enormous. As I jogged I tried to remember my fiancee's name, but couldn't. I started to get a little nervous, imagining how embarrassing it would be to show up at the church and stand at the end of the aisle if I couldn't at least remember the name of my very-soon-to-be wife. I imagined the scenario, but couldn't complete the image in my mind, because I simply couldn't remember what she looked like. Now I was worried. Getting into the car, I strained my mind as hard as I could but found it impossible to conjure even the most vague image of the woman I was about to marry. While my friends popped corks around me and passed flasks joyously, internally I found myself slipping into sheer terror. Trying to jog my memory, I thought of important moments in our relationship--the proposal! Yes, how had I proposed? But there was nothing. I had no memory of ever proposing to this nameless, faceless fiancee of mine. I started to sweat. What was I doing? Should I be getting married? How could I simply forget these things? I started to hyperventilate. My friends kept celebrating.

And then I woke up--in a very bad mood.

One day you'll understand.

2010-10-20T16:15:00.001-07:00

"No, truly, despair is not something which only occurs in adolescents, something one grows out of with no further ado--'as one outgrows illusion'. Though people don't do that either, even though they are foolish enough to think they do. On the contrary, one quite often comes upon men and women and elderly people who have illusions just as childish as those of any adolescent. But what is ignored is that there are essentially two forms of illusion: that of hope and that of recollection. The adolescent's illusion is that of hope, that of the adult recollection."

-The Sickness unto Death, Søren Kierkegaard

Shit matters.

2010-10-09T20:11:00.000-07:00

"See, I put it this way: for me, philosophy is fundamentally about our finite situation. We can define that in terms of--we're beings toward death. We're featherless, two-legged, linguistically-conscious creatures born between urine and feces whose bodies will one day be the culinary delight of terrestrial worms. That's us. We're beings toward death. At the same time, we have desire, while we are organisms in space and time; and so it's desire in the face of death. And then of course you've got dogmatism, various attempts to hold onto certainty, various forms of idolatry. And you've got dialog in the face of dogmatism, and then of course structurally and institutionally you have domination and you have democracy. You have attempts of people trying to render accountable elites: kings, queens, suzerains, corporate elites, politicians--try to make these elites accountable to everyday people. So philosophy itself becomes a critical disposition of wrestling with desire in the face of death, wrestling with dialog in the face of dogmatism, and wrestling with democracy--trying to keep alive very fragile democratic experiments--in the face of structures of domination."

Cornel West, interviewed in the film Examined Life

The gift that keeps on giving.

2010-10-07T14:48:00.000-07:00

Tea Party darling and Delaware Republican senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell denies any connection with the occult, which just makes it all the more impressive that she came up with an opening line this magical.

Two things I've learned in Spain.

2010-07-10T12:57:00.000-07:00

1. I don't speak Spanish as well as I thought.

2. People are are really mean in Sevilla. They're disproportionately gorgeous, and their city is phenomenal, but Lord almighty are they hostile.

Granada, however, is nearly perfect. That's all I have time for now. I hope to update this soon, with pictures and all, but we're basically homeless and only have internet access in tea houses. Good times so far, though. Lots of seafood, nice people (except for the aforementioned snobs), etc.

Tripping.

2010-06-14T13:46:00.000-07:00

I guess an update is in order: I passed my qualification exams.
Also, I'll board a plane to Boston in five days, and if everything goes according to plan, I won't be back until the second week of September. Stay tuned, because I plan to post updates and photos from the many stops on our trip (although we did get a creepy e-mail from one embassy demanding that we promise not to take any pictures).

Personal health care timeline.

2010-06-09T14:41:00.000-07:00

December: I visit the doctor and tell him I have acid reflux and have had it since I was a teenager. I tell him I've learned to live with it and have improved my situation by maintaining a healthy diet, staying active, and taking Omeprazole. He says that's all well enough, but fifteen years is a long time to be suffering from the same heartburn. I can't disagree with that, and I'd really prefer to not have to take medication every day, so we schedule an appointment with a GI specialist.

January: The GI specialist tells me I should have an upper endoscopy done. United Healthcare tells me that will cost me $300 ($200 deductible plus $100 copay). I ask the specialist how necessary this procedure is. He says it's imperative that we get my quirky digestive tract figured out once and for all. Again, there's no way I can disagree, so we schedule the thing. Every step of the way I'm asking someone else, "So this isn't going to cost more than $300, right?" All answer affirmatively. At Hoag Memorial, I pay the $300 up front before they anesthetize me and shove a tube down my throat. A week later, the specialist calls me back to tell me my results. I have acid reflux, he says. I should continue my current dietary practices and keep taking Omeprazole. For a split second I consider channeling John Goodman's character in Barton Fink and exclaiming, "I said that already, you should pay me $300!" But I don't. I've learned to see doctors and hospital billing departments as co-conspirators in one big swindle, and largely consider my own interaction with them as a gamble. I treat it like blackjack in Vegas: I only took $300 to the table because that's what I was prepared to lose. At least I know I won't lose anymore.

March: I receive a letter from Pacificare telling me that they're denying payment of my January claim. Upon calling, I find out that the whole thing was somehow billed to a no-longer valid Pacificare account I had when I worked at a bank many years ago. I give them the correct account number and they tell me not to worry about it.

April: I get two new bills: one for the facility and one for the IV drip. The former is for $640, the latter for $212.10. I call on both in a panic, and the representatives tell me that--though they're now at least working with the right insurance company--they still have my account numbers wrong. I give them the correct account numbers and, again, they say it's all taken care of.

June: I get the same two bills. I call on the $640 and magically upon the customer service rep hearing my voice it gets reduced to $38. I don't understand how I owe $38, but at least it's not $640, so I just pay it. The $212.10 is more complicated. United Healthcare says they never received that bill, despite it saying in bold type "INSURANCE DENIES CLAIM." I call Newport Pathology, and am told that they did bill United, but that my account was canceled in 2002. That's impossible, I say, since I didn't even get this account until I started grad school in 2007. They ask for my account number. I give it to them. They say it's not valid. Yes it is, I say, and every other office has taken it except yours. Am I reading it off the card, they ask. Yup. Is that the policy number? No, it's my subscriber number--policy number is... Oh, well, that's the number we submitted before that got rejected. Makes sense, I say, since you're the only ones who ask for that number. They say I need to tell United that they actually did get the bill but that it was rejected mistakenly. So I call United again (each of these calls involves at least a ten minute wait) and they repeat that they never received the bill, adding that Newport Pathology probably doesn't know how to bill student insurance accounts, which have a different number of digits than regular ones. I get a fax number to give to Newport Pathology and call them again. I explain the whole thing, insist that the person on the line take down all the numbers on my card despite her insistence that I'm reading my card wrong and that there must be a nine-digit subscription ID or policy number somewhere (seriously?), and give her the fax number to contact United. She tells me I can call back in two weeks to find out the status of the claim. I tell her I'll be out of the country by that time, that the whole point of getting the fax was supposed to be that it would be taken care of immediately. That's the best she can do, I'm told. I grumble a halfhearted thank you and hang up.

Here's what really gets me: despite a persistent condition that requires minimal attention, I'm healthy. I don't think it would be right to whine that a visit to the doctor confirmed that I'm in good health, which is why I didn't complain about the initial $300. But I would not have agreed to the procedure if it had cost $1100, or even $500. Furthermore, this isn't the first time I've had to deal with this sort of thing. In fact, it happens more often than not with my insurance. This is an insurance plan, by the way, that doesn't cover physicals and whose doctors appear to have no interest in preventive care. Why does this bother me so much? Because cancer is extremely common among men in my family. As I approach my thirties, I would like to be able to get myself checked in the necessary ways before turning up with lumps and weight loss and lethargy. But in addition to not being insured for that sort of thing, I don't trust these glorified drug dealers, and I have neither the money nor the time to do this dance every time I have a question or concern. So I just don't go to the doctor, and though I know it will eventually bite me in the ass, I don't know what else to do.

image: Marriage à-la-mode III: The Inspection, by William Hogarth (1743)

"Simulacrum in Slow Motion"

2010-05-31T13:18:00.000-07:00

By Wesam Nassar:

Simulacrum in Slow Motion from Wesam Nassar on Vimeo.

Fate is just Destiny with heartburn.

2010-05-26T15:19:00.000-07:00

I'm not one to panic. I could draw up a long list of problems that I have in dealing with pressure, but freaking out is not one of them. This isn't a skill I ever acquired, it's a twist of luck and I'm thankful to the gods for blessing me with it.

For the past nine months I've been preparing for my qualification exams, which will take place starting tomorrow. All this time I've imagined that today would be hectic. I thought I'd be over-caffeinated, tearing my hair out, trying to get one last book in, reviewing and regretting every life decision that led me to this particular node on the historical continuum.

As it turns out, I'm either really good at facing down the inevitable or completely naïve about what I'm walking into. Right now I feel like a seventh grader who's agreed to a fight after school--it's going to happen, so fuck it. Let's get this over with.

If one can get into a certain mindset, inevitability can be comforting. Its restriction can be liberating. I can't do a whole lot now that will make me any smarter than I was twenty-four hours ago, and knowing that made today the most serene, contented day I've had in close to a year.

I'll tear out my hair tomorrow. Friday I'll over-caffeinate. Next Wednesday I'll try reminding myself of some theoretical detail that will add flavor to a conversation with my advisers.

But today I played racquetball and sat on a park bench watching a Labrador run in circles for an hour.

...and then Just Do It.

2010-05-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

I don't mean to endorse Nike, but this commercial (directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu) definitely succeeds in touching a nerve. I'll be in Portugal during the latter stages of the tournament, so the shots of flag-waving crowds while Ronaldo sets up for a free kick...

Q: How pumped am I about the World Cup? (scroll down for answer)

A: Pretty damn pumped.

Enjoy Coca-Cola.

2010-05-20T11:39:00.000-07:00

OK, so let's grant that geometry teacher Gregory Harrison is not actually a threat to national security and that he doesn't really condone assassination (no matter how perfect an angle one is presented with). Might we not assume that his job description implicitly requires him to not be an idiot? I think this violates that rule. But then, what do I know?

Time tell, but epistemology won't: update.

2010-05-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in previous posts, I attended and presented at UCI's Time Will Tell, But Epistemology Won't conference last Friday, which was a really unique event. As a combined tribute to Richard Rorty, celebration of his archives, and assessment of his legacy, the conference provided the opportunity for interdisciplinary discussions between people in fields that you don't usually see together at academic conferences: librarians, technology and information studies experts, philosophers, literary scholars, and students in all these areas. It was one of those intimate all day conferences in which almost everybody attends almost every talk, which personally I like, though there's always the risk that it will get tedious. Fortunately, this one was not tedious, loaded as it was with excellent talks.

Our panel was titled "21st Century Scholarship," which ended up being a little ironic in light of the fact that ours was probably the presentation most focused on materials found in the paper--rather than the born digital--archives. Not content with our inadvertent portrayal of the 21st Century Scholar as a Luddite, audience-members pressed us to contrast our experiences with the paper and digital archives, resulting in a conversation about the writing and revision process, searchable content, and the future of the humanities. It was (dare I say it?) fun.

Highlights for me included meeting Mary Varney Rorty--Rorty's widow and literary executor--as well as talks by Christine Borgman, Ian Bogost, and Michael Bérubé. For those interested, Prof. Liz Losh's blog has several posts detailing the talks given at the conference, while both Bérubé and Bogost have posted blogs about their experiences at (and before) the conference. As an added bonus, Losh's blog includes a link to Bogost's paper, which I highly recommend.

I'd love to say more, but I've got about an hour to come up with something interesting to tell my class about Heart of Darkness and write a letter that will convince the Algerian government that I can be trusted to take a train across their fine nation.

Oh, and my qualification exams are one week away.

There's no place like home...there's no place like home...

"God is a distant - stately Lover - "

2010-05-15T12:36:00.000-07:00

357

God is a distant—stately Lover—
Woos, as He states us—by His Son—
Verily, a Vicarious Courtship—
"Miles", and "Priscilla", were such an One—

But, lest the Soul—like fair "Priscilla"
Choose the Envoy—and spurn the Groom—
Vouches, with hyperbolic archness—
"Miles", and "John Alden" were Synonym—

Emily Dickinson

image:

"Dolly Dingle Paper Dolls," by Grace G. Drayton, courtesy of mainememory.net

The Lithedale Bromance

2010-05-13T07:22:00.000-07:00

"He expands and deepens down, the more I contemplate him; and further, and further, shoots his strong New-England roots into the hot soil of my Southern soul."

Herman Melville,

"Hawthorne and His Mosses"

Conference on May 14 at UCI: Time will tell, but epistemology won't

2010-05-12T19:01:00.000-07:00

Click on image for more information, or scroll down for the schedule.

“Time Will Tell, But Epistemology Won't: In Memory of Richard Rorty”

A Celebration of Richard Rorty's Archive

May 14, 2010

Humanities Gateway 1030, UC Irvine

Irvine, California

Rorty’s Legacy 9:00 - 9:30 AM

Elizabeth Losh, UC Irvine: Welcome
David Theo Goldberg, UC Irvine: Opening Remarks
Mary Rorty, Stanford: Memory, Ethics, and Literary Custodianship in the Era of Computational Media

Michelle Light, UC Irvine: “Designing the Born-Digital Archive” 9:30-10:00 AM

Cultural Politics and the Born Digital, Michelle Light, Chair 10:00-11:00 AM

Dawn Schmitz, UC Irvine: “The Born-Digital Manuscript as Cultural Form and Intellectual Record”
Mark Poster, UC Irvine: “Digital and Analogue Archives”
Erin Obodiac, UC Irvine: “Digital Immunity”
Tom Hyry, UCLA, Respondent

Break: 11:00 - 11:15 AM

Christine Borgman, UCLA: “The Digital Archive: The Data Deluge Arrives in the Humanities” 11:15-11:45 AM

Rorty, Philosophy, and The Question Concerning Technology, David W. Smith, Chair 11:45 AM - 1:15 PM

Iain Thomson, University of New Mexico: “Rorty, Heidegger, and the Danger and Promise of the Technological Archive.”
Mark Wrathall, UC Riverside: “Responding to Rorty: Heidegger's ‘Academic Parochialism’ and the Technological Age”

LUNCH

Margaret Gilbert, UC Irvine: "Rorty and Human Rights" 2:15-2:40 PM

Rorty as a Public Intellectual, Jonathan Alexander, Chair 2:40 - 4:45

Ian Bogost, Georgia Tech: “We Think in Public”

Steven Mailloux, Loyola Marymount University: “Rhetorical Pragmatism and Histories of New Media: Rorty on Dreyfus on Kierkegaard”

21st Century Scholarship from Ali M. Meghdadi, Brian Garcia, Tae-Kyung Timothy Elijah Sung, UC Irvine: "Content Confronts Context"

Break: 4:45-5:00

Closing Speaker: Michael Bérubé, Pennsylvania State University: “Reading Rorty Rhetorically” 5:00-6:30

Reception: 6:30-7:00

Yes, but did the press corps LOL?

2010-05-11T07:29:00.000-07:00

From an article in the New York Times about new plans for oil drilling oversight:

"The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, announced the changes Tuesday morning over Twitter."

That's pretty grave.

2010-05-07T07:10:00.000-07:00

"This is the third of my novels, and it depends on two very uncertain contingencies, whether it will not be the last;--the one being the public opinion, and the other mine own humour. The first book was written, because I was told that I could not write a grave tale; so, to prove that the world did not know me, I wrote one that was so grave nobody would read it; wherein I think that I had much the best of the argument."

James Fenimore Cooper,

Preface to The Pioneers (1823)

Bigots and brains.

2010-05-05T15:36:00.000-07:00

Last week, Iowa psychiatrist and Republican Congressional candidate Pat Bertroche advocated tagging illegal immigrants with microchips.

This week psychologist and Christian crusader against the disease of homosexuality, George Rekers, got caught with a male prostitute. It's like clockwork with these family values guys.

In his own defense, Mr. Rekers told the popular gay blog Joe. My. God. that he was--like Jesus--hanging out with a sinner so as to convince him of the error of his ways and nurse him back to spiritual health. That doesn't exactly match the original story that the good doctor didn't know "Lucien" was even gay, that the young man was hired as a "travel assistant" to carry luggage, but I guess Rekers could have come to the realization of what had happened and then clicked into salvation mode. I suppose that he might have initially missed the fact that rentboy.com is a website for finding "rentboys." And hey, maybe he thinks it's normal for a luggage carrier to advertise that he has a "perfectly built 8 inch cock (uncut)."

I'm sure this is just a big misunderstanding.

Notes on the State of Arizona.

2010-05-04T16:19:00.000-07:00

Surprising no one by openly expanding its crusade to attack legal as well as illegal immigrants, Arizona will apparently be giving the boot to teachers with heavy accents and bad grammar. I look forward to seeing how Arizona decides which accents are heavy enough to qualify for job termination, which colloquialisms are "ungrammatical" enough, and how to enforce this without making it too obvious that they're just rounding up brown people.

On the other hand, the Phoenix Suns, or Los Suns de Phoenix, get an enthusiastic "hell yes" from this inconsequential peanut gallery inhabitant. Thank you, Robert Sarver. As much as I hate the use of Cinco de Mayo as an excuse for anything, any time your team wears these jerseys, I'm rooting for "Los Suns" against the bigotry of their own home state.

The terrorists don't win this time.

2010-05-03T14:46:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if we can necessarily consider this a triumph for the Obama administration, but it's probably the best result of the war in Afghanistan thus far (plus it makes a strong case against Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell).

"If you wanna live here, learn it!"

2010-05-02T22:05:00.000-07:00

If Tim James (see below) had been the governor of California in the mid-eighties to early nineties, I would never have had a ride home from school. So, from personal experience, I can think of at least one problem Alabama's fixin' to take on if it adopts measures that don't consider how and why people immigrate but instead punish those (legal as well as illegal) who are already here.

And then there's Iowa Congressional candidate Pat Bertroche, with this genius idea, which I'm pretty sure betrays a misunderstanding of how pet microchips work, but certainly betrays a lack of basic human decency:

I think we should catch 'em, we should document 'em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going. I actually support microchipping them. I can microchip my dog so I can find it. Why can't I microchip an illegal?

Oh, America. We just don't learn anything ever, do we?

all illustrations lifted from http://www.latinamericanstudies.org

It bears repeating.

2010-05-01T17:01:00.000-07:00

Wu-Tang is for the children.

Here's what you should do...

2010-04-29T22:04:00.000-07:00

You should go to this conference at UCI on May 14 (if that kind of thing interests you). It's being held to celebrate the opening of the Richard Rorty Archive. Since a couple of colleagues and I worked on cataloging that archive, we were asked to put together a short panel presentation. As the lineup is a little intimidating, it would be nice to see some friendly faces out there. Click on the image below for more information, including the schedule.

“Time Will Tell, But Epistemology Won't: In Memory of Richard Rorty”

A Celebration of Richard Rorty's Archive

May 14, 2010

Humanities Gateway 1030, UC Irvine

Irvine, California

My profoundly shallow take on Ukrainian politics.

2010-04-28T20:42:00.000-07:00

Say what we might about the nastiness of American politics lately, Congress is relatively civil. Sure, calling opponents baby killers and liars is pretty indecorous, but it doesn't hold a candle to the rowdy shit-talking that constitutes a British Parliamentary proceeding.

Maybe we were just scared straight by our own deadly potential. After all, Aaron Burr capped Alexander Hamilton over an unflattering newspaper article. I like to imagine the aftermath of that incident being a truce in American politics similar to what took place among rappers following the murders of Tupac and Biggie. One of these days some ambitious grad student will unearth sheet music and lyrics to the 1804 version of "I'll Be Missing You," featuring Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.

Of course, by the Jackson era, youngsters would have come to regard any peace negotiated by their powder-wigged elders as pussified dithering, and after a couple decades of macho posturing something was bound to happen.

Sure enough, in 1856 Charles Sumner went and opened his damn mouth, and for his trouble was nearly caned to death in the Senate chamber by Preston Brooks while Laurence M. Keitt (aka Ice-T of the Confederacy) stood by wielding a pistol to discourage any would-be interventionists.

The point is that clowns like Joe Wilson and Randy Neugebauer might be annoying, but they're no gangsters. Just dumb guys whose brain-mouth filters need to be replaced.

Or maybe that's not actually the point. I was supposed to say something shallow about Ukraine, right?

Oh, yes. Ukrainian politics--these dudes are wild. When was the last time you saw American politicians respond to a vote they disagreed with by hurling eggs, smoke bombs, and fists at the opposition? Never, you say? Well then, feast your eyes on this debacle.
But the best part of this whole thing is the consistency of news coverage anytime the Ukrainian political situation gets hairy. I noticed this a few years back and always look for it when I hear that the Ukrainians are mad about something. What I mean is this: no matter what the issue, no matter what her involvement, it seems that no report on Ukrainian politics is complete without a photo of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko doing something. Seriously, anything, as long as she's on camera.

And, well, I appreciate that.

Live, from America's anus.

2010-04-27T15:29:00.000-07:00

I complained about this recently and then rejoiced over the governor's rather unsatisfactorily reasoned but still welcome veto. Well, the steaming turds that comprise Oklahoma's legislature have voted to override the veto to pass a law which states that, if a woman wants to undergo a perfectly legal procedure, she must publish private information to a government database, subject herself to medical advice with a clear political agenda, and consent to an invasive, medically unnecessary procedure. The law also protects doctors from malpractice lawsuits that might be brought against them for failing to inform pregnant women of fetal birth defects, with the intent of protecting doctors whose purpose for lying is to lessen the likelihood of choosing abortion.

image: detail from Examination of a Witch by TH Matteson (1853)

This will be on the test.

2010-04-26T20:18:00.000-07:00

Breezy: Without Emerson there's no Walden.

Wheezy: Yeah, Thoreau wouldn't have had an axe.

"They did not even take the train"

2010-04-26T16:54:00.000-07:00

This is old, but it's still one of my YouTube favorites so I thought I'd share. It's a better story than half the stuff on my reading lists.

"where the wind comes sweeping down the plain"

2010-04-23T10:51:00.000-07:00

Are online sex offender registries morally and ethically wrong? It's one of those questions I hate considering because part of me wants to say yes but, frankly, I've always felt a little uncomfortable arguing in favor of that particular brand of criminal. So I won't; but I will say that modern equivalents of the pillory seem contrary to the freedom laundry list that politicians love to rattle off when declaring American superiority to every other nation in the world.

Whatever, though. They're sex offenders, right? Rapists, child molesters. Fuck 'em. But what if we started putting non-criminals in the stocks? People who have broken no laws, but may have transgressed the principles of a particular segment of the population? What if we just disregarded law altogether and prioritized the legislation of morality? And what if said legislation was enforced by public humiliation? And what if that public humiliation was accompanied by physical violation? Something like--just letting the imagination run wild now--vaginal probes?

Nonsense. Measures like that would never be enacted. Not in America. Not in the 21st century. Nah.

**UPDATE: Bill vetoed by the governor**

Honest Abe knows fashion.

2010-04-21T21:05:00.000-07:00

Abraham Lincoln's 1842 Temperance Address does not convince me to stop drinking or to take up the cause of temperance, but it does include this rhetorical gem:

But it is said by some, that men will think and act for themselves; that none will disuse spirits or anything else, merely because his neighbors do; and that moral influence is not that powerful engine contended for. Let us examine this. Let me ask the man who could maintain this position most stiffly, what compensation he will accept to go to church some Sunday and sit during the sermon with his wife's bonnet upon his head? Not a trifle, I'll venture. And why not? There would be nothing irreligious in it: nothing immoral, nothing uncomfortable. Then why not? Is it not because there would be something egregiously unfashionable in it? Then it is the influence of fashion; and what is the influence of fashion, but the influence that other and people's actions have [on our own?] actions, the strong inclination each of us feels to do as we see all our neighbors do? Nor is the influence of fashion confined to any particular thing or class of things. It is just as strong on one subject as another. Let us make it as unfashionable to withhold our names from the temperance cause as for husbands to wear their wives bonnets to church, and instances will be just as rare in the one case as the other.

And now for a beer. Where'd I put that church bonnet?

Methuselah killed Social Security.

2010-04-20T09:43:00.000-07:00

There's a lot going on in this article, much of which is unsettling despite its ultimate optimism: people are living longer and eating up resources without contributing to society; part of the proposed solution is to delay retirement age to account for increased life expectancy and combat ageism that keeps the old out of the workplace. Right enough, I think, except that one of the current issues making it difficult for young people to get work is that retirement-aged folks are staying in or returning to the workforce. But these are issues for people with more capacious brains than mine. What really got me was this:

"Of all the people in human history who ever reached the age of 65, half are alive now."

Shit.

Papa-Paparazzi

2010-04-19T08:01:00.000-07:00

Qualification exams are coming up, so there's not much time for any extracurricular activity these days. But I did want to quickly note that Iran recently held a military parade to celebrate National Army Day, an event held to show that (a) the Iranian military and its leadership are not to be trifled with, and (b) they belong in Lady Gaga videos.

Iran

Gaga

Iran

Gaga

Iran

Gaga

Iran

Well, you get it.

How to say "fuck you" in Puritan

2010-04-09T16:23:00.000-07:00

"Is this the Worst thy terrors then canst, why
Then should this grimace me terrify?
Why cam'st thou then so slowly? Mend thy pace.
Thy Slowness me detains from Christ's bright face.
Although thy terrors rise to th'highst degree,
I still am where I was. A Fig for thee."

- Edward Taylor, "A Fig for thee Oh! Death"

Playing doctor.

2010-04-05T13:46:00.000-07:00

My inner right ear hurts. It radiates down the right side of my throat and the whole right side of my head is sensitive, like when you have the flu, but only in that small area. I tell this to the doctor. She asks if I have a history of chronic ear infections. When I was child I got quite a few, but not as an adult. She asks if I've had a fever recently. No. Have I been swimming? No. Sore throat? Nope. Any rashes? Negative.

She checks my ear and says I have tiny ear canals. That's not symptomatic of anything, she's just letting me know. She checks my throat and asks if I've had my tonsils removed. I answer no and she checks again. This time she sees my tonsils and says that they too are smaller than the average. That's two remarks about the diminutiveness of body parts to which I've never given much consideration. I'm a little hurt.

Finally she says there's nothing wrong with me. But there is, I say: my ear and one whole side of my head hurt. She says that I might have shingles. She doesn't actually get this from a new look at anything on my person, it just seems to occur to her mid-conversation. A flash of inspiration. Shingles, out of nowhere. Am I sure I haven't had any rashes? Positive. But there's a red line across my forehead. I hold up the hat that I wore in. She gives a slightly abashed smile, but only retreats from the shingles speculation enough to open the field to viruses in general.

I might have some kind of virus, and it might show itself over the next few days. But it might not. Not that we have any idea what to look for besides symptoms of shingles, because we're not sure what it is. We're not even sure if there's anything. It could be (her words) transient ear pain. Just passing through.

This conversation is quickly becoming a contender for the single least informative exchange I've ever had in my life.

I think a shrug should be part of the doctor's repertoire. I realize that I shouldn't be annoyed by her inability to decipher the secrets of my aching scalp by looking into my tiny ear canals, but it's really hard when what I get is a litany of vaguely defined, barely explained possible diagnoses that amount to one big who-the-fuck-knows. She should just be allowed to shrug. And I should be prepared to take that as an answer.

But I suppose she's not allowed to do that, and I probably wouldn't be satisfied with it as an answer. So we drag this out for fifteen minutes and in the end I have no answers. My ear still hurts. I pay my $15 copay (a dollar a minute!) and go home. My roommate asks me what's wrong with my ear. I shrug.

image: Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, Vincent van Gogh, 1889

Speaking of Walden...

2010-04-01T20:48:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I planted kale and fava bean plants. I've been harvesting and eating the kale for a few weeks now, but today I noticed for the first time that the beans are beginning to sprout. I also somehow cut my finger while gardening. I didn't feel anything, but when I finished watering the plants I noticed there was an ugly gash on my index finger. Walking home I bled all over my just-picked kale.

* * * * *

Also, as I was shown by a couple of friends recently, it turns out that UCI's campus is made to be seen on moonlit nights in the spring. I've lived here for about three years now, and I've certainly been on campus after dark, but never really thought to tour campus at night. It's a whole different world when empty. It's a strange place, and I highly recommend checking it out in these conditions. I swear, in my mind, this still relates to Thoreau.

Thoreau as blogger.

2010-04-01T17:05:00.000-07:00

From Walden, chapter 1:

“We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were any body else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience.”

"Revenge! Revenge! Sweet is Revenge!"

2010-03-26T19:36:00.000-07:00

When I compiled my exam reading lists, one of the things that made both my friends and my committee members cringe was the overwhelming presence of somewhat obscure religious—mostly Puritan—texts. Thankfully, I never shared that sentiment (I chose these texts, after all). This may seem strange to most, but I was actually excited by the prospect of making fire-and-brimstone sermons part of my daily required reading. Furthermore, the Puritan section of my lists includes captivity/conversion narratives, apocalyptic poetry, and some of the documents used to justify the Salem witch trials. Scoff if you like, but I love that stuff.

What people often forget (or don't realize) about these texts is that although they were primarily dour religious, political, and didactic treatises, they were also popular entertainment (as were, unfortunately, the executions they sometimes inspired); and they were often written much like the pulp fiction and horror novels that were their cultural descendants. So although these works can only lead one to the conclusion that the individual Puritan's existence must have been a gloomy one indeed, they've left us an incredibly entertaining legacy if you only know where to look.

I'm currently reading Increase Mather's Remarkable Providences, which makes the case for interpreting natural events as signs of God's displeasure. It was written in 1684, eight years before the good people of Salem, in part based on Mather's formulation of Satan's methods, went completely bonkers. His Puritan rock star son, Cotton Mather, later wrote Wonders of the Invisible World to defend the use of "spectral evidence" in the Salem witch trials.

Whereas Cotton's book (written after the fact) attempts an erudite defense of his controversial methods, Increase is still trying to diagnose the problem based on anecdotal evidence. The result is basically a collection of crazy ghost stories with scenes like the following, found near the end of a twelve page-long catalog of "Providences" that bring to mind either that dinner scene from Disney's Beauty and the Beast, or Marx's introduction to commodity fetishism. There are no dancing candlesticks or acrobatic tables in this sampling of Providences, but it does make me wish someone in the past had thought to make a record of Vincent Price reading Puritan witch stories.

All this while the Devil did not use to appear in any visible shape, only they would think they had hold of the Hand that sometimes scratched them; but it would give them the slip. And once the Man was discernably beaten by a Fist, and an Hand got hold of his Wrist which he saw, but could not catch; and the likeness of a Blackmore Child did appear from under the Rugg and Blanket, where the Man lay, and it would rise up, fall down, nod and slip under the clothes when they endeavoured to clasp it, never speaking any thing.

Neither were there many Words spoken by Satan all this time, only once having put out their Light, they heard a scraping on the Boards, and then a Piping and Drumming on them, which was followed with a Voice, singing, Revenge! Revenge! Sweet is Revenge! And they being well terrified with it, called upon God; the issue of which was, that suddenly with a mournful Note, there were six times over uttered such expressions as, Mas! Mas! me knock no more! me knock no more! and now all ceased.

image: The Rev. Increase Mather, oil portrait by John van der Spriett, 1688.

My favorite literary genre.

2010-03-24T23:07:00.000-07:00

One of my student evaluations for this past quarter complains that I'm too politically conservative. That's a first. It's sort of ambiguously worded, but I think the complaint is actually that I avoided stressing my own liberal biases and this student (presumably of my own political stripe) would have liked me to be a little more forceful with my leftist interpretations. So take that, Michael Savage.

I also had a student directly address the administration (as "you guys"), requesting that they order me to relax my attendance policy and give students a "five minute cushion." The funny thing is that I did give them (at least) a five minute cushion, I just never announced it. Now I'm tempted to announce a five minute grace period next quarter and then not honor it, just to see if I get an evaluation commending me for my generous attendance policy.

Don't let me down.

2010-03-24T00:36:00.000-07:00

According to the widget that lets me read the readers of this blog, one of the search terms that leads people here via google is "perennial disappointment." This has yielded exactly one visit, which lasted 0:00 minutes. It appears that, in this case, google led to exactly what was requested.

"It is later than you think!"

2010-03-22T23:40:00.000-07:00

It turns out that my new favorite Congressman and countryman once removed is remarkably quotable. He also said that the health care bill is the Democrats' way to "lay the cornerstone of their socialist utopia," to which I say...wait, wait, I can't...stop...laughing.

My personal favorite response to Nunes's tribute to Cold War genre fiction has been the evil socialist role-playing that erupted on this message board.

As one commenter said, I'm not terribly thrilled about the bill's contents (it's not socialist-utopian enough!), but given the hysteria against it I can't help gloating. I just really can't wait until campaigning Republicans are forced to explain which parts of the health care bill's most instant measures they actually want to repeal. There won't be federal funding for abortion, and mandatory health insurance won't take effect until 2015. That leaves the Republicans to take shots at such totalitarian measures as regulations that prevent rejecting people with preexisting conditions, prescription aid for seniors, and a provision that allows college students to stay on their parents' insurance for a few more years.

Even some conservative strategists acknowledge that they've gotten themselves into an impossible political bind. (Best part of Frum's column: the first sentence, where he says that this bill's passage represents conservatives' "most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s." Unless he's talking about the Civil Rights Act, Frum's got to be referring to the Social Security Act of 1965, which established Medicare, the protection of which has been one of the more confusing talking points for health care reform opponents for the past year. I mean, it's just too delicious. I can't help thinking the Democrats are going to screw this up somehow, but for now it's a lot of fun to watch)

So get ready for the crazy, because someone's going to start flinging shit. If I were a Democrat, this would be my campaign poster:

"People, you know, begin to act crazy."

2010-03-21T21:45:00.000-07:00

**Quick update: since no footage has emerged showing John Lewis or Barney Frank enduring this alleged abuse, many online debates about this topic center on whether it actually happened. Although I'll take Frank's or Lewis's word over that of an angry mob, this objection can't just be dismissed. However, I'd like to point out that Nunes's comments (below) don't speculate as to the veracity of his colleagues' claims, but instead simply defend the foaming at the mouth of raging crowds. So, just for the sake of argument, let's suppose that this particular incident didn't happen as claimed. There is still plenty of documented evidence of these protesters employing xenophobic speech acts which--when perpetrated by angry mobs--would constitute a serious threat to their chosen targets. And that is what Devin Nunes defends in this interview.**

I've never written to a member of Congress, but this morning I saw this and damn near lost my mind.

So, fully expecting to be ignored by the honorable representative from California, I've decided to make this an open letter. For all five of you.

Dear Congressman Nunes,

I write you today as a fellow Portuguese-American resident of California to address your recent appearance on C-SPAN, in which you defended the aggressive actions of some Tea Party protesters toward your own colleagues as an expression of free speech and a reaction to "totalitarian tactics." Putting aside for a moment the fact that these two sorts of action are mutually exclusive—rendering your defense incoherent—I would like to point out that your stated position on this matter contained some glaring inaccuracies and baffling inconsistencies, and carries with it some dangerous implications.

The first problem is your generous interpretation of the First Amendment. One might assume that a man in your position would be familiar with the limitations of our freedom of speech, often illustrated by the cliché that nobody has the right to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater. The point, of course, is that nobody has the right to speech which puts others at risk of physical harm. Now, I don’t dispute anyone’s right to an unfortunate vocabulary, but there is quite a difference between friendly conversation amongst bigots and a hostile crowd yelling “Nigger!” and “Faggot!” at vastly outnumbered targets. Furthermore, no stretch of the imagination would lead to the conclusion that the First Amendment extends its protections to spitting on anyone.

Perhaps you're right that the actions of a few overzealous demonstrators should not color our view of 20,000 angry tea drinkers (and such generalizations being null, we can also discard as nonsense your broad comments about the strategies of “the left”), but it is well within living memory that those same words were commonly hurled by angry mobs at people who ended up at the ends of ropes. Just as yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater would create an unsafe environment for the theater’s inhabitants, it is entirely fair for an African-American and a homosexual to feel seriously threatened by even a handful of people yelling the terms that you seem to think are protected under the First Amendment just because 20,000 people didn't chant them in unison.

If I may expand a bit on the issue of nonexistent theater fires, it's interesting to note that there is more to that example than the practical issue of causing panic. It's generally assumed that yelling “Fire!” in a theater which is actually on fire would be constitutionally protected, even though it's just as likely to cause panic. There is, then, a second component at work, which we might consider a moral component: panic is not the issue per se, but rather unwarranted panic based on a false alarm, which puts people at undue risk of physical injury.

This brings me to the other statement you made with which I take issue: that this exercise of free speech was a reaction to “totalitarian tactics.” Again, let me reiterate my desire to steer clear of the laughably dissonant image of 20,000 people exercising free speech on the Capitol steps of a nation in the grip of a totalitarian regime. That will not be the topic of this letter, so I'll refrain from commenting on how ridiculous it is. I do, however, wonder what exactly you mean by “totalitarian tactics.” I can understand opposition to the health care reform bill, and I would be willing to listen to anyone with legitimate arguments as to why it constitutes bad policy, but I have a difficult time understanding how exactly any of this is being carried out through the modus operandi of totalitarian regimes. I have heard folks describe reconciliation as overreaching, and I can see how it might cause frustration for people who disagree with the measures it enacts, but surely it's no more “totalitarian” now than it was the three times it was used during the Bush administration. So as I pick through my limited knowledge of the proceedings in Washington, I can't help wondering whether your accusation of totalitarianism amounts to much more than that dangerous and dishonest alarm sounded to cause panic among theater-goers.

You see, Congressman, when I think of “totalitarian tactics,” I think of the stuff my parents and grandparents left behind in Salazar’s Portugal: secret police, intimidation of dissenters, rampant censorship, secret interrogations, unaccountable torture, invasion of privacy—some of which, come to think of it, resemble tactics that you supported when you voted for an extension of the PATRIOT Act or against Congressman Holt’s Amendment to HR 2647. So I would like to know how you reconcile these baseless accusations with your own actions in the legislature.

As mentioned before, I write to you as a Portuguese-American. If the disingenuous statements of politicians always prompted me to write letters, I would never get anything else done; and your words matter to me primarily because you're a person representing the interests of my community in a district in which I have many friends and family members. I am an avowed member of that “left” which you so glibly wrote off as some silly fringe group, but I have supported Republican candidates in my hometown. I have also worked closely with them for shared goals (political and otherwise), and although we agree on precious little, I think you would be hard-pressed to find one of them who would deny my dedication to the community or my passion in pursuing a more just and functioning democracy.

It is as a Portuguese-American that I would like to express my disappointment with your C-SPAN interview. Rather than denouncing the actions of extremists you defended them based on an incorrect, selective, and dangerous interpretation of one of our nation’s most cherished liberties. You deceptively implied that acts which threaten the safety of individuals are excusable so long as they're only carried out by a small group of people. You deliberately mischaracterized the actions of your own colleagues in an attempt to incite panic over a threat that does not exist, just to pander to the heightened rhetoric of the most insane factions of your party. As an American, I'm concerned—but that's nothing new. As a Portuguese-American, I'm embarrassed and ashamed, and I hope that in the future you will word your opposition with a little more nuance and a lot more prudence.

Sincerely,

BJG

High-fiving myself.

2010-03-14T00:59:00.000-08:00

Today I booked three one-way flights. The first will take me from Los Angeles to Boston, the second from Boston to Terceira, and the third from Terceira to Porto. At some time in the near future I'll book a return flight from somewhere a few thousand miles to the east, but for now all I know is that a good chunk of this summer will be spent in Portugal. And that, dear readers, is overwhelmingly good news.

Calm down, Nate.

2010-03-08T15:51:00.000-08:00

"America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash–and should be ashamed of myself if I did succeed. What is the mystery of these innumerable editions of the ‘Lamplighter,’ and other books neither better nor worse?–worse they could not be, and better they need not be, when they sell by the 100,000."
- Nathaniel Hawthorne, whining.

And that's why nobody's ever heard of this Hawthorne guy. Say what you will about sentimental fiction, these "damned...scribbling women" knew how to start a novel with flair. Do you need a sick ass visual aid to let you know just how wicked sentimental this story's gonna be? No, seriously. Are you ready for this shit? . . . Bam!

I don't know about you, but I'm ready for the second coming. It's getting didactic as fuck up in here.

image from Susan Warner's 1850 novel, The Wide, Wide World

This morning on Prairie Home Companion.

2010-03-07T16:03:00.000-08:00

I didn't catch the whole show, but I think they said it was Bad Joke Day. Some of the bad jokes were hilarious, and one of their songs included the line: "You say the Democrats don't stand for anything, but that's not true, we do stand for anything."

More beautiful ghosts.

2010-03-05T01:59:00.000-08:00

I don't have a story for this one. Just a perfect song.

Getting warmer.

2010-03-04T08:45:00.000-08:00

Holy shit: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/science/earth/04climate.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

"'Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant,' the resolution said, 'but rather a highly beneficial ingredient for all plant life.'"

At least these folks aren't shirking the responsibilities that come with their commitment to creating a more stupid world. Go big or go home, I say.

"You know you better watch out"—A Feeble Tribute to Beautiful Ghosts

2010-02-26T23:22:00.000-08:00

Prompted by a friend's thoughts on high school reunions, I got to thinking about my own high school experience and (as happens to me at least once a year) reliving parts of it via old music. That about sums up why I don't know anything about what the kids are playing on the gramophone these days: I'd rather just listen to Wu-Tang.

That is, rather than seeking a nostalgic link to the past, I really still love Wu-Tang's early material. If anything, I've grown to appreciate artists like the Wu-Tang Clan, Outkast, and Biggie more over time than I ever did in high school; while bands in which I was excessively emotionally invested at one point (I'm looking at you, Nirvana) now tend to bore me. Seriously, it's embarrassing.

This isn't a review of mid-nineties hip hop or an analysis of why for me it's so much more enduring than examples from other genres during that period, but a preface to an admission that for me one artist does have the power to evoke heart-wrenching nostalgia.

The chosen one is Lauryn Hill in 1998-99. I was a fan of the Fugees and had enjoyed Wyclef's The Carnival, but The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill just hit me in a really deep place. It was released a few weeks before the beginning of my senior year, and throughout the 1998/99 school year her music was everywhere. 1998 was a big year for "crossovers" in hip hop--it followed Sting's participation in a tribute to Biggie, it was the year of the ascendancy of Puff Daddy and Will Smith, the year that ODB made his way onto the soundtrack of a Warren Beatty film--but Hill managed to have virtually universal appeal without sacrificing quality or vision. It's just a gorgeous album, and I play it on a loop every time I return to it but it has yet to get old.

I've confirmed in many conversations that I'm not alone in this, nor am I alone in the main qualification of my devotion to the L-Boogie cult: the Lauryn Hill of Miseducation had ceased to exist by the year 2000. This nostalgia for music that absolutely saturated the air during the formal end of my childhood is only strengthened by the wistfulness that results from wondering what the fuck happened to this staggeringly beautiful and talented woman.

So let's chalk this nostalgia up to unrequited love and perennial disappointment as leitmotifs in adolescence, in the songs on this album, and in the life of its creator. I loved her, she was way out of my reach, but I secretly wished her well, and in the end she fell apart. Yes, I'm hokey and melodramatic. I still love The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, and I'm still in love with Lauryn Hill in her 1998-99 incarnation.

"the real masters"

2010-02-22T23:22:00.000-08:00

"The farmer imagines power and place are fine things. But the President has paid dear for his White House. It has commonly cost him all his peace, and the best of his manly attributes. To preserve for a short time so conspicuous an appearance before the world, he is content to eat dust before the real masters who stand erect behind the throne."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Compensation"

Cold, dead hands.

2010-02-22T13:10:00.000-08:00

Fun fact of the day: national park rangers are the most frequently assaulted federal employees in the U.S. I'm guessing that this is because their job largely consists of playing buzzkill to prevent forest fires and other destruction resulting from douchebag revelry. They're also tasked with stopping poachers. They're also unarmed.

Those are just a few reasons why it made perfect sense to pass a law allowing people to carry guns into national parks, effective today, as part of HR 627, more popularly known as the Credit Cardholder's Bill of Rights.

Yeah. They did that.

Why I ♥ the internet.

2010-02-18T14:27:00.000-08:00

The internet is useful. This is, I think, pretty generally accepted. Yet, despite my own dependence on the utility of this wondrous series of tubes for pretty much everything, I think I only really love the internet at its most useless. The frivolous internet has the capacity to delight me in three ways: by providing hilariously wrong information, by answering questions I would never care to ask, and by informing me of my membership in communities I would never seek on my own. Does any of this improve my work or my quality of life? No. But sometimes it improves my day.

Here's what I mean...

I found this gem of wikipedia vandalism a few days ago and captured it before the fact police got to it:

Jonathan Edwards (October 5, 1703 – March 22, 1758) was a preacher, theologian, and missionary to Native Americans. His sermons such as "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" inspired his parishioners to coin what has now become an American colloquialism: "Ain't no sermon like a J. Edwards sermon, 'cause dem J. Edwards sermons don' stop."

I also found this blog, which is dedicated to a largely unpopular food which I've always quietly enjoyed: http://www.sardinesociety.com/

And finally, did you know that Andy Griffith once played Sir Walter Raleigh in a film titled The Lost Colony? Neither did I, but I do now.

An excerpt from "A Conversation with My Younger Brother, High School Counselor"

2010-02-11T23:31:00.000-08:00

B. What are you up to?
K. Just left a trustee's luncheon. Basically listening to rich white people talk about educating poor brown people. What are you doing?
B. Reading about rich white people converting poor brown people to Christianity.
K. Same shit.
B. Yup.

"And love he loves..."

2010-02-05T00:11:00.000-08:00

I'm currently teaching John Dryden's Marriage a la Mode as part of a literary drama survey course, and it's been about as much fun as I've ever had teaching anything. This stems largely from the play's incessant bawdiness, but it's also due to a really handy fusion of genres and forms that practically constitutes a survey on its own. It's rare that any work makes it easy to get students excited about the ways in which form and content complement one another, but Marriage a la Mode seems to pull it off.

Then there's the context of the play, which is just as entertaining. If work always consisted of teaching students about libertinism in King Charles II's court, my job satisfaction would be off the charts. Not only does it loosen things up a bit, but it allows for those intensely satisfying lessons in which you actually explode the myths to which your students want to remain loyal. Marriage a la Mode is about marriage. It was written in the seventeenth century. Given those two facts alone, some students try their damnedest to just sit on their hands and repeat platitudes about how things have changed, how marriage was "before" versus how it is "now," but Dryden doesn't let them.

But the greatest joy of all may be that the play is dedicated to John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, which gave me an excuse to have them read some of his poetry. If Dryden forces them to realize that society's views on marriage haven't deteriorated since the Restoration, then Rochester makes it clear that no 21st century rapper, reality star, or myspace celebrity can do filth like a libertine. We read the "Satyr on Charles II" and then discussed censorship, sex, and the evolution of swearing. It was a good day.

I' th' isle of Britain, long since famous grown For breeding the best cunts in Christendom, There reigns, and oh! long may he reign and thrive, The easiest King and best-bred man alive. Him no ambition moves to get renown	5
Like the French fool, that wanders up and down Starving his people, hazarding his crown. Peace is his aim, his gentleness is such, And love he loves, for he loves fucking much. ---Nor are his high desires above his strength:	10
His scepter and his prick are of a length; And she may sway the one who plays with th' other, And make him little wiser than his brother. Poor prince! thy prick, like thy buffoons at Court, Will govern thee because it makes thee sport.	15
'Tis sure the sauciest prick that e'er did swive, The proudest, peremptoriest prick alive. Though safety, law, religion, life lay on 't, 'Twould break through all to make its way to cunt. Restless he rolls about from whore to whore,	20
A merry monarch, scandalous and poor. ---To Carwell, the most dear of all his dears, The best relief of his declining years, Oft he bewails his fortune, and her fate: To love so well, and be beloved so late.	25
For though in her he settles well his tarse, Yet his dull, graceless ballocks hang an arse. This you'd believe, had I but time to tell ye The pains it costs to poor, laborious Nelly, Whilst she employs hands, fingers, mouth, and thighs,	30
Ere she can raise the member she enjoys. ---All monarchs I hate, and the thrones they sit on, ---From the hector of France to the cully of Britain.

Wole Soyinka and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o at Loyola Marymount University

2010-02-04T16:53:00.000-08:00

A good friend of mine is helping organize this talk, so I wanted to help spread the word. Apparently Ngũgĩ and Soyinka, despite a long friendship, have never actually participated in a public forum together. So if you're in L.A. on Monday, maybe you'd like to come check it out.

(click on image to see full-size flyer)

You're welcome, Part II

2010-02-03T17:58:00.000-08:00

"Among the islands of Polynesia, no sooner are the images overturned, the temples demolished, and the idolators converted into nominal Christians, than disease, vice, and premature death make their appearance. The depopulated land is then recruited from the rapacious hordes of enlightened individuals who settle themselves within its borders, and clamorously announce the progress of the Truth." (Herman Melville, Typee)

"We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people — the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world." (Herman Melville, White Jacket)

* * * * * * * * *

A group of American missionaries goes to Haiti in search of orphans to save (with every connotation that little verb can muster). They pick up thirty-three children and head to the Dominican Republic, but are arrested at the border for having taken the children without documentation or without verifying that the children were even orphans. Are these folks kidnappers? (see story here)

Well, to put it plainly, to evaluate the situation based on the act itself rather than on the internal world of these missionaries' thoughts, yes. Yes, they are kidnappers. But what of the world in which they fancy themselves God's elves? What of their belief that they were on a mission ordained by Christ, that they never had any intentions of trafficking children, that they were actually doing good? Must this be taken into account? Again, I say yes; but maybe not in the way Idaho's Central Valley Baptist Church would like.

For the record, I fully buy the story of the missionaries. I do believe that they acted with the best of intentions, and that their enthusiasm and naivete blinded them rather than that their Christian mission is a cover-up for some nefarious plot. And maybe the children had a darker future awaiting them in Haiti than they did in a Baptist-run orphanage in the Dominican Republic or in the custody of adoptive parents in the U.S. This viewpoint was partially validated when it emerged that some of the kids actually were not orphans, but were handed over to the missionaries by their own parents, who were promised that their children would be educated in America and placed in loving homes with swimming pools. So this will not be a commentary on if or how these people should be punished, because frankly I don't have an opinion. What they did was illegal, but was done with the best of intentions. You can't take children out of a country without proper documentation, but some of them were handed over by their own parents. So it's all criminal and beneficent and bad and good and on and on and on...we have courts to address those questions.

What bothers me is not the difficulty of finding an answer to these legal and ethical questions, but the mindset that would justify such actions in the first place. What bothers me is that the real problem resides in the very term thrown around in an attempt to exonerate these do-gooders for their do-gooding: Faith.

Understand, when I criticize faith I don't mean to criticize people of faith (though I think that label is unfortunate for reasons I'll soon disclose) or religion per se, but rather a particular brand of faith that subordinates ethical coexistence to unethical but well-intentioned behavior, and opens the door to a form of imperialism that can always revert back to an ethical standard derived from a plane unavailable for assessment by non-believers.

It's a deficient version of the paradoxical faith of Abraham as conceived by Kierkegaard. In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard describes the faith paradox as being predicated on the "strength of the absurd." After decades of barrenness, God has not only granted Abraham a son, but promised that this seed shall give rise to a great nation. Since Abraham has absolute faith in the word of God, he doesn't question the order to kill his son, but, on the strength of the absurd, believes that he can both obey the order and get his son back in some undisclosed way. Furthermore, in obeying the word of God, Abraham here must disregard the ethical--he must reject the social world and exist only to obey God. He can't explain his actions, since they are justifiable only on the strength of the absurd and are simply unjustifiable to the world at large. To the earthly world beyond himself, Abraham is, at the moment he reaches the top of Mount Moriah, no more than a premeditated murderer. That God stops him at the last second does not justify the silent preparation and intended execution (for it had to be intended, otherwise it wouldn't constitute an act of faith and then Abraham would just be some guy).

Kierkegaard calls this rejection of ethics in the service of the absolute the "teleological suspension of the ethical," and if you don't have God whispering in your ear or thundering down at you from the mountaintops you can still teleologically suspend the ethical if you really think you're working toward a godly end. And therein lies the problem with those religious factions who value blind faith over less nihilistic versions of religious observance, like piety, for example. Any post-biblical version of blind faith must be deficient for two reasons: first, Abraham is an example that can't be emulated--otherwise, again, he wouldn't matter. Second, the "knight of faith" (as Kierkegaard refers to Abraham) is not viewed as such by his contemporaries, because of his suspension of the ethical--the very thing that makes him an exemplar of godly action would render him a criminal in his own age. To commend or excuse unethical behavior based on the faith of the transgressor makes no sense, since we don't have access to his revelation, and if we did, his actions wouldn't be exceptional.

So what does this have to do with these missionaries in Haiti? The problem is not that these individuals conceived of themselves as having received orders directly from God (although some have made statements eerily close to such a claim), but that the U.S. as a whole operates with this City on a Hill mentality that always justifies itself based on some hazy endpoint by which we consider ourselves essentially better than others. How is it even debatable that taking thirty-three children from their home country without documentation, without verifying whether they're all actually orphans, without getting permission from any of the three nations involved, would be a case of child trafficking? It's really only debatable if there's some essential difference between these kidnappers and real kidnappers. So when they say "we are not kidnappers," they can't possibly mean that they didn't take children without permission; what they can mean is that they aren't Ukrainian pornographers, Thai pimps, Mauritanian slave drivers, etc. What they mean is "we are Americans," and that's supposed to be a valid defense. Still, no one in their right mind would deny that such actions--even if committed with the best of intentions--have massive potential for now giving the green light to "real" traffickers. And yet every day on every channel defenders of these people's actions are taken seriously when they defend them not on the grounds that their violation of the law was a mistake, an idiotic and arrogant move that they regret, but that they didn't violate the law because they acted in good faith.

By this absurd logic a surgeon could retroactively excuse operating with blunt instruments if he just claimed belief that those instruments were somehow better than whatever else was available. And that's exactly the mentality with which we so often excuse our actions*. Take the horrors of Blackwater (whose CEO, by the way, saw himself as a Christian crusader) in Iraq and how they're so often handled by defenders of the Bush administration. They're not murderers, they just made some mistakes. That those mistakes actually include murder doesn't make them murderers. Why? Because they had the right idea, and so did we when we hired them. So although I'll reiterate that I believe the Central Valley Baptists acted with the best of intentions, I'd also add that those intentions are only any good within an all-too-prevalent ideology which dictates that the job of charitable Americans is not just to help the less fortunate survive and get back on their feet, but to save them from themselves and to do so by converting them to our clearly superior ways.

*Of course, this situation in Haiti is an isolated and highly unique incident; this kidnapping isn't part of American policy in that region, nor is it the modus operandi of the vast majority of Christian missionaries. However, it is indicative of an underlying sense of entitlement drawn from the popular (and almost exclusively Christian) notion of American exceptionalism. Would the conversation about this issue be so polite and receptive to their defenders if the missionaries had been Venezuelan? What if they represented a mosque instead of a church? I don't think it would.

IS IT SUMMER YET? (for grownups)

2010-02-03T09:37:00.000-08:00

I don't think the bad impression of a children's book in my previous post gave me quite the ironic distance I had hoped it would, so I might as well admit a sappy affection for this little pile of basalt in the middle of the Atlantic. It's a beautiful place, and I still have lots of family there. There was a stretch of time when I visited almost every year, but I haven't been back since 2003 and I miss it terribly. This year my cousin is getting married, and I can't wait to get my ass on a plane to the islands.

But wait! There's more!

I'm taking a close friend of mine with me, and then after that we'll be visiting his family--in Egypt. We're trying to make this an overland trip and, although it's shaping up nicely, there have been some kinks in the planning process. So if you know anything about traveling in--or if you have any friends currently residing in--northern Portugal, southern Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, or Libya, I'd love your input.

Around late June or early July I guess this will become a temporary travel blog. Stay tuned.

IS IT SUMMER YET? (a children's book)

2010-02-03T00:23:00.000-08:00

This is a bird's eye view of my family's hometown, the village of Altares, from atop the Pico Matias Simão...

...which looks like this from my cousin's house.

You can also see my cousin's house from Pico Matias Simão!

The center of Altares is this church...

..and it's located in the county of Angra do Heroismo, whose seat is a city of the same name. Isn't that neat?

This is all located on the island of Terceira...

...which has roads lined with hydrangeas...

...where sometimes herds of cows interrupt traffic...

...and summer festivals interrupt everything.

Next to Altares is the village of Biscoitos. That's "biscuits" in English!

In Biscoitos we like to swim in the Belo Abismo (that's "the beautiful abyss" in English!)...

...unless it's winter.

In fact, it's probably best to stay inside with some friends during the winter...

...but it can still be really pretty outside.

I think Terceira's my favorite place in the...

...whole...

...wide...

...WORLD!

So why haven't I returned since 2003? Because, kids, I'm a graduate student. That means that I actually volunteered to not have any fun! Silly, isn't it? But guess where I'll be this summer?

Paying dues, eating cheese.

2010-02-01T13:07:00.000-08:00

It may not be as apparent through this blog as it is to anyone with whom I hold a conversation of longer duration than five minutes, but I'm extremely fond of my hometown. Since I don't harbor the same affection (or any affection at all, really) for my current city of residence, and it's only about thirty miles away from home, I usually spend weekends at my parents' house.

My parents live across the street from the center of our little Portuguese enclave, a social club that was built in 1923 and has served the Portuguese (mainly Azorean) community in southern California in more ways than I can begin to explain here.

Though not technically the centerpiece of the club--which has two large dining halls, four bars, a courtyard with a large gazebo for concerts, a chapel, and an arena--and certainly not its raison d'être, the most frequently used part of the Portuguese hall (as we locals call the club) is the sports bar. It's not hyperbolic to say that I grew up in this bar, although I would quickly add that the images of dysfunction and misery likely evoked by the statement "I grew up in a dive bar" don't apply. Perhaps some other time I'll go into detail, but for now suffice it to say that I'm a better person for having spent my childhood there. On weekdays, though the rest of the club is closed, the sports bar is open from early morning until about noon, then opens again in the evening. Mostly middle-aged and old men go there to play cards and dominoes, to have a few drinks (in the morning it's usually coffee, as the place has a killer espresso machine, but some guys throw back a brandy or two on their way to work), and to catch up on the latest news. They argue about soccer, they find out who's died locally or back in the old country, they sell candies for their grandkids' school fundraisers and sometimes buy fresh fish if someone happened to get out on a boat that morning. The bar is also the club's de facto center of business. If you owe money, if you need a note passed to the management, if you have a complaint or need to rent one of the halls, there are people in charge of that stuff but many people go through the bartender first.

This weekend I had business to take care of. I haven't paid my membership dues for 2010 yet, so before coming home I wrote a check to take to the hall when I got in. Over the course of the weekend, I forgot to take the check over, and come Monday morning I found myself preparing to head back to my apartment without having paid my annual fee. So around 8:30 am, knowing the bar would be open, I walked across the street to drop off the check.

On my way in I nodded to the usual suspects crowded around a square table slapping dominoes and yelling, the usual guys smoking in the bar's doorway, and the same men standing at the bar as usual--one with an espresso, the other with a glass of wine. Behind the bar there was a sign that read "Queijo de Cabra: $3." That is, "Goat cheese: $3." The sign was probably part of a dinner event that had been held over the weekend and hadn't been taken down. That such a thing would be advertised on a Monday morning, for some reason, struck me as amusing. When the bartender asked what I wanted, I joked in Portuguese that I wanted goat cheese. A funny older man with impressive mutton chops, he wryly answered, "Just one?"
"No, no, I guess you better make it two," I chuckled.

Before I could change the subject and reach for my check, the phone rang. The bartender held up a finger for me to hold my thought, and ran to the other side of the bar to answer the phone. A friend of mine walked in for his morning coffee and we started up a conversation, which was interrupted shortly thereafter by the bartender. "Is that all?" he asked, gently setting down a styrafoam plate covered with plastic wrap. Underneath the wrap were two six-inch wide, one inch-thick, white disks of wet, delicate goat cheese.

For a second I thought about telling him that I was just playing, but on second thought it really wasn't a funny joke and I had six dollars in cash on me. Besides, I love that cheese. So instead I paid, thanked him, dropped off my membership check, and took my two little delectable disks home.

Hey there.

2010-01-31T15:21:00.000-08:00

Yesterday a friend informed me that, since I've linked to her blog, five of my readers have migrated over to read the tales of her Parisian escapades. This delights me for three reasons: First, her blog is a lot of fun and certainly deserves its audience. Second, I had no idea such information was traceable, and promptly set about finding a similar module for my own blog so that I can better track the demographics of the people of Bloglandia. Third, it appears that I have at least five readers! That's excellent news!

So, to anyone reading this, hello and thank you for stopping by. I will try my best not to bore you, but if I do, you may notice that to the right of the page there's a list of blogs by people with intelligent, funny, interesting, and useful things to say. Check them out (and then maybe come on back later).

I'm avoiding work, so here's a list.

2010-01-29T09:41:00.000-08:00

Following up on the previous entry's postscript, I'd like to submit for your perusal a list of things experienced in the past week that make me want to punch Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor in the face*. Let me know if I've neglected to mention anything important.

- the Republican Party.
- the Democratic Party.
- mealy apples.
- ~~my loud neighbors and their weird schedules~~.
- the shoddy construction of my building, which makes my neighbors seem louder than they actually are (I can hear them pissing).
- Julia Roberts.
- The Castaway, starring Tom Hanks.
- students who want to talk about Ayn Rand.
- the Portuguese national soccer team's inability to win a major tournament despite consistently having some of the best players in the world.
- Ed Hardy clothing and the people who wear it.
- Newport Beach bars and clubs.
- Irvine. The whole thing.
- Pat Robertson.
- Rush Limbaugh.
- broken traffic lights.
- Che Guevara t-shirts.
- Che Guevara t-shirt parodies.
- people who get visibly offended by Che Guevara t-shirts or Che Guevara t-shirt parodies.
- Glenn Beck.
- Keith Olbermann.
- Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
- the fact that my iPod is broken.
- stomach issues.
- sleep issues.
- car issues.
- money (or lack thereof).
- health insurance deductibles.
- John Boehner's "tan".
- Eric Cantor's smug, stupid face.

*disclaimer: I don't actually want to punch this clown in the face. He just happens to be a perfect distillation of everything I hate about our species.

Fleeting thoughts on the State of the Union.

2010-01-28T22:06:00.000-08:00

Say what you will about Barack Obama, the man can give a speech. It's fair to consider myself in an unhealthy relationship with our forty-fourth president at this point--he keeps letting me down, but when I hear that voice I just keep coming back. You don't understand, he's just under a lot of stress. Sometimes he says things he doesn't mean and, well, nobody's perfect. I'm putting too much pressure on him. It's my fault.

What struck me about this speech was the persistent tone of indignation--he called out the Republicans for hypocritical, cynical nay-saying; he called out the Democrats for cowardice; he (indecorously, perhaps) called out the Supreme Court for selling the nation out to corporate interests. He was funny, aggressive, earnest, ambitious.

The problem, of course, is that calling them out won't make the Republicans any more honest; it won't make the Democrats less cowardly; it won't reverse the Supreme Court's ruling in the Citizens United case.

It was a great speech, though.

P.S. I'd like to nominate Eric Cantor for most punchable face in Congress.

You're welcome.

2010-01-28T21:30:00.000-08:00

My parents (neither one a native English speaker) don't like saying "you're welcome" because to them it sounds arrogant. That's not to say that they pass such a judgment on anyone who uses the expression, or even to say that they never use it themselves; they just can't bring themselves to say it without some level of discomfort.

Quirky as I initially found this fact, I realized that I don't say it much either. It feels cumbersome compared to "my pleasure" or the entirely informal "no problem," and I always find myself stumbling over the syllables like a shy little boy. Maybe I inherited a dislike of the phrase from my parents. Maybe I just inherited the set of values--or quirks--that make it so awkward for them.

My dad's explanation for his dislike of the phrase in question has to do with humility: by saying "You're welcome," the person receiving thanks acknowledges his/her entitlement to recognition for an act of kindness, and in so doing creates a two-tiered system with the obliged at bottom.

As opposed to the Portuguese/Spanish version my parents are used to ("de nada," which translates roughly into "it's nothing" or "think nothing of it"), "you're welcome" implies a commitment. If one is to "think nothing of it," the transaction is terminated almost as quickly as it began; but to what does the giver "welcome" the recipient? More charity? Whereas "think nothing of it" humbly rejects accolades, the acceptance expressed by "you're welcome" seems self-aggrandizing.

Maybe it's far-fetched to extrapolate from this the notion that a polite idiom would have a sinister effect on the way English speakers give and get thanks, but there's something a little creepy about the self-congratulation involved in some of the louder American efforts to help Haitians, isn't there? In the weeks following the earthquake, every hour on CNN was filled with reports on Haiti that shared time with the network's anchors and correspondents lauding themselves for doing such a great job.

Understand, I don't mean to denigrate the good that people have done, only to comment on what I think is a disturbing undercurrent of charity in general and American charity in particular. CNN's sentimental, self-congratulatory drama annoyed me a bit, but it's a superficial sort of annoyance. Much more disturbing and telling in this regard (as Naomi Klein of course has already pointed out) is that amid all the good deeds and goodwill, the harbingers of disaster capitalism have been licking their chops since day one. And that's not just my opinion. So, you're welcome, Haiti.

Unsent letter from Emerson to Thoreau.

2010-01-23T14:42:00.000-08:00

My dear Henry,
A frog was made to live in a swamp, but a man was not made to live in a swamp.
Yours ever.
R.

"that is where you go to die"

2009-12-22T10:41:00.000-08:00

Horace Miner's 1956 essay, "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema," satirizes western anthropologists' othering characterizations of "primitive" cultures by painting Americans (the "Nacirema"--sorry, I guess that's a spoiler) as a superstitious people whose cultural practices are based on the belief "that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease." I remember reading this essay in an anthropology course early in my undergraduate studies and finding it wildly amusing.

Recently I returned to Miner's essay and was reminded that it has this to say about health care among the Nacirema:

The latipso ceremonies are so harsh that it is phenomenal that a fair proportion of the really sick natives who enter the temple ever recover. Small children whose indoctrination is still incomplete have been known to resist attempts to take them to the temple because "that is where you go to die." Despite this fact, sick adults are not only willing but eager to undergo the protracted ritual purification, if they can afford to do so. No matter how ill the supplicant or how grave the emergency, the guardians of many temples will not admit a client if he cannot give a rich gift to the custodian. Even after one has gained and survived the ceremonies, the guardians will not permit the neophyte to leave until he makes still another gift.

Oh, those Nacirema. Will they ever learn?

On my dullness.

2009-12-21T21:13:00.000-08:00

From the Philadelphia Bulletin, 28 Dec., 1884:

"I am a young woman, twenty-one years old, and am called bright and intelligent. I fear I have seriously impaired my mind by novel reading. Do you think I can restore it to a sound and vigorous condition by eschewing novels and reading only solid works?"

I am now in full list-reading mode, and my list is about 2/3 novels. Maybe I should scatter the "solid works" around in such a way as to remain "bright and intelligent."

illustration: La Liseuse, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, 1772