I Am Such A Geek

I found this passionate attack on Marvel Comics post-Civil War Universe rather refreshing.

This intellectual analysis kept me interested.

I want to find and post answers to this list by tomorrow.

Some Christianity That I Just Don't Get

Yesterday, The Evangelical Outpost linked to this post “How To Turn Your Daughter Into A Whore In Two Easy Steps”. Step one is enroll your daughter into a public school. Step two is kick back and watch. According to the self-proclaimed public school math teacher, “[d]ay in, day out, I stand in the halls of my high school and wonder why half the girls are even trying to get a high school diploma–they would have such a promising career as street walkers” and that there is “no way in you know where my daughter would ever go to public school beyond elementary school.” He sums up his stance with a small confession: “I have a problem–I have values.”

Let’s start with step two first. I teach literature, so I’m going to adopt the idea of in media res for this post. His step two is a disaster for anything one’s child does. The conversations and arguments about what is and is not appropriate apparel, behavior, food, drink, friends, music, literature, spending, or worldview are part of parenting. Doing anything as step one and then kicking back to watch is going to lead to disaster.

On a more important level, the math teacher seems to have missed a metaphor. Isn’t it possible that the reason the girls in his school dress like provocatively is that too many Christian girls are in Christian schools? It’s tough to function as the salt of the earth if the salt is in a shaker on the shelf. The whole idea of being the light of the world is that the light isn’t hid under a bushel. Christian schools are the most effective bushels that I have ever seen. Let’s face it, it’s virtually impossible to replace Britney Spears with Rebecca St. James (or whoever the CCM pop starlet of the moment is) if no one except Christians knows who Rebecca St. James is.

On a more general note, the whole public schools cause prostitution, drug use, and foot fungus cant that certain elements of Christianity continually use is tired and useless. On the clothing question, many public schools have dress codes and do their best to enforce them. More importantly, how do the clothes teenagers wear to school differ from the clothes that they wear to the mall or a restaurant or any other public place? Unless one locks up one’s daughter like Rapunzel, I doubt that there’s any way to keep her from seeing her peers dress in ways that this guy disapproves of. By the way, in case the math guy isn’t familiar with the fables, the tower thing didn’t work so well for Rapunzel’s father.

Finally, what’s with the “I have a problem–I have values” snark? I admit that I did only a cursory check of the Bible sites on the web, but I didn’t find any translation that said “by your snark shall all men know you are My disciples.”

I promised myself that I was going to let this bit go, but I can’t, so here comes one more finally. When the people who “work in corporate America, or some job where you’re just in contact with middle and upper-middle class people” are exempt from society’s problems because “you have no idea . . . [that] our society [has] sunk to the level of pond scum, and it shows in the way our kids dress and comport themselves,” I get pretty irate. Aren’t the people who work in upper and middle class America the ones sending their kids out of the homes and to the schools? If they don’t know that kids are dressing too provocatively and coarsening the culture by forgetting common civility, they should. They’re the parents. Apparently, people who work with the poor and the poor themselves have acquiesced in the lowering of our cultural standards and know all about teenage prostitutes because it’s only the “upper and middle class” who have no idea about depravity. I’ll let James 2:6-7 sum up my point that the rich don’t have an exclusive hold on morality. “Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats? [7] Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by which ye are called?” Let’s not help the rich despise the poor any more than they already do.

Christians are called to be in the world not of the world. All posts like this do is give the world the impression that we want out and nothing to do with them. If we all get out, the only faces of Christianity that will be left are the Jerry Falwells and the Pat Robertsons among us. I don’t think they look much like Jesus. Instead let’s do the tough job of working on love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance in our own lives.

Some Stuff That I Enjoyed Reading This Morning

I had an enjoyable morning skimming the following:

This post about elegies

Cory's cutting of an intro to Robert's Rules

Spiderman and U2 together, sort of

A little rant about how we really do kids a disservice when we limit their imagination

This style guide which I should review a bit more because I'm know I'm guilty of dozens of errors

Some satire and some more satire and a little more satire

Some productivity links that I need to checkout.

And then I had to go to work

A Short List of Stuff I Believe Today

It’s not about you. The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. (Rick Warren)

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all. (Ecclesiastes 9:11)

Rivalry is better than envy. (Mongo Proverb)

An intelligent enemy is better than a stupid friend. (Senegal Proverb)

Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young. (Albus Dumbledore)

It is difficult/to get the news from poems/yet men die miserably every day/for lack/of what is found there. (William Carlos Williams)

Fiction is a necessity; literature is a luxury. (G.K. Chesterton)

A Quick Post

One of the best lines that I’ve read recently comes from Pascal”s Wager: The Man Who Played Dice with God. James A. Conner, the author asserts, “Perhaps genius begins with deprivation.”

Baseball and Presidents

The recent dust up caused by a group of historians naming George W. Bush as the worst president ever makes me think that the rating system of "Great," "Near-Great," "Average," and "Poor" needs to be changed, especially when it comes to living ex-Presidents. Therefore, I propose that Presidents be compared to retired major league baseball players. I willingly grant that this system will increase the number of arguments because baseball fans, the most statistic conscious and verbose fans of all sports, will weigh in and argue about both the Presidents and the MLB retiree, but isn't that the point.

I will start by offering a couple of suggestions. First, George Washington is Babe Ruth. Washington was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of hearts of his countrymen." He set the standard that is used to judge future Presidents. I readily admit that Ruth's personal life might not live up to Washington's standards, although Washington apparently came home with the sunrise rather frequently as a young man. Ruth, however, set the standard by which future stars are judged. He was a great pitcher before he became the home run king.

Abraham Lincoln would be Hank Aaron, the guy who passed Ruth's stats and who is undeniably great. If Wills assertions are correct that Lincoln turned the founders on their heads by placing the ideals the Declaration of Independence over the specifics of the Constitution, then Aaron is even a better fit. Aaron was as quiet of a superstar and home run king as Ruth was boisterous.

On to our current President. I have to go with Dave Kingman. Kingman hit 422 home runs in his career. Bush had some home runs after 9/11, and even if I opposed the war, toppling a dictator should count as a home run. Kingman also struck out grandly and often. Bush mishandled Katrina and the occupation of Iraq. His civil liberties assault is a major strike out.

More arguments, baseball, political history and no absolutely correct answers. What could be better?

Random Musings and Notes For Future Posts.

1. This Joseph Bottom post makes sense.

2. I teach in the humanities. I love teaching literature because it's a place for those for whom the world doesn't seem to work. People on the fringes or in the shadows can find friends and a place to call home as they read. No one knows what to make of us because the humanities are not practical. We don't teach people to read tech manuals, and those stories and poems really get in the way of making money and conformity. Whether it's Huck deciding to go to hell and treat Jim as a full human or the X-Men trying to survive anti-mutant hysteria, the basic idea is that conventional morality is usually conventional but not necessarily moral. I need to do more with this idea, but I really think that professors and teachers in the humanities have to do more to defend and expand the teaching of the humanities.

3. Money magazine listed the 50 best jobs in America. They ranked the jobs based on the level of stress that each created, the amount of flexibility that the job allows, the amount of creativity that the job requires, and the difficulty of each job. Teaching's stress level and difficulty would probably rank a B. The creativity and flexibility that it allows are probably at a D.

Musings About The Past Week

I didn't post every day. I have to work on that.

Wednesday was a day when everything went wrong. I couldn't utter a coherent sentence to answer a simple question. The notes that I had carefully put together turned out to be rather sloppy. If I had been a baseball pitcher I would have given up 4 homeruns on 4 straight pitches unless I decided to aim at a hitter's head to break the streak. Wednesday reminded me that I try to teach. If doctors practice medicine and lawyers practice law, it seems presumptuous to claim that teachers teach. The best I can do is try.

During the week we got an email politely castigating us for not taking attendance properly or effectively. I know that attendance is part of the job, but I never thought it was worth an email. During the past 10 years, we have gotten emails or memos about all sorts of administrative tasks that were not being done properly. I don't recall a single email encouraging me to learn more about my subject matter or to try to each better. In fact, I don't recall a single department meeting devoted to learning to teach better. I have never worked in a business, but I wonder if every memo and meeting is about administrative details.

I found some good comic book blogs. This post is really good.

I was reminded that the electronic hand dryers really suck.

The singer/songwriter Pink seems to be the same sort of enigma that all humans are. She writes and sings a song that urges girls to think about being President of the United States, but then there is this article. (I got to watch videos with my daughter this morning. I don't get much time with her, so two hours of VH1 Countdown is really fun.)

Introverts and the Kingdom

First, I think this post should be taken as an example of a work in progress--some ideas that aren't fleshed out. Perhaps, as this Crooked Timber post suggests it's just "a repository for [a ]transient thought. . . "

With that caveat, I'll start rambling. I'm an introvert, a member of the misunderstood group described here and here. Even worse, I'm an introverted Intuitive Thinking Perceiving (INTP) person described here and here. In short, I like to stay away from people.

Much of this angst, if that's the right word, has come about as a result of bits of reading that I've done. Several bloggers who give advice about starting successful blogs claim that a blog roll is necessary to show that one is part of the internet community. Don't get me wrong, I plan to add a blogroll as soon as I can, but it strikes me as odd that the internet which has been described as a digital Wild West has no room for voices crying in the wilderness.

In John Fischer's Confessions of a caffeinated Christian , Fisher explains how he has trouble looking past the coffee cups to engage in conversation with other coffee shop denizens. He vows to keep trying.

All of this got me to wondering. Is a possible for the introvert to live the moral life of the golden rule. If all we want is to be left alone, can we do any good by treating others as we want to be treated? If people will know we're part of the kingdom of God because we love our neighbor as ourselves, can we ever show that we're part of the kingdom?

Re-read paragraph one for a conclusion.

Top 4 Blog Quotes Of The Day

Listed in order of preference.

From Bookslut: To be fair, I can see where "hell" and "damn" would shock the people of Reno, Nevada. When you're driving down the street, minding your own business, looking out the window at a drunk businessman having oral sex with a transvestite heroin dealer, and Sophie B. Hawkins' "Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover" comes on the radio, it's all you can do to not swerve off the road in abject shock. (To be fair, this one came from 4/14/06, but I didn't surf much over the weekend, so I just saw it today.)

From Crooked Timber: Hitlery turns US soveriegnty over to the UN and they implement Sharia law using unstoppable black helicopters? I’m not being snarky here; I really want to know. (Snarky is such a wonderful albeit underused term)

From The Bull Moose: This morning, the lead story in the New York Times may stir the slumber of our sanguine sophisticates, (Gotta love the alliteration)

From Andrew Sullivan: Maybe Hillary should choose a kind of doting, proud father figure-- not someone as old and daft as Senator Byrd, but along those general lines. Or she could cast her number two as the loyal, devoted, supportive mate that her real husband has never been but that every ambitious woman dreams of having. This might be a job for John Kerry. They could hug a lot, and then he could stand aside -- and down a step -- and nod and smile and give her the thumbs-up sign while she orates horizonward about her 'vision.' (Ambitious women really dream of having John Kerry?)

A New Start

I tried to write a blog once before. It failed. I spent $80 over two years for nothing. Nonetheless, I think that I should try again, even if I do little more than make lists or respond to quotations from things that I have read.

I guess that I'll start slow but try to write daily.

Top 5 Events From The Past Two Weeks

I think that this article "The Seperation of Church and Hate" by John Fischer is pure genius.

The Minnesota Twins are on a 5 game winning streak.

Discovering the Hipster PDA

The preview to Marvel's Civil War Mini Series looks good.

Some generals are finally explaining why Rumsfeld must go.