Yes We Can

It's a good day. A very good day. We still face lots of enormous challenges as a country (the current recession, the enormous economic divide that preceded the recession, the need for all Americans to have access to health care, the energy crisis and the corresponding ecological crisis) BUT I feel today that the country is ready to face those challenges, to put aside the dog and pony show of the culture wars and work on the needs of the people-- a government FOR THE PEOPLE! What a radical idea.

I'm pretty spent-- physically, emotionally, mentally-- but I wanted to write something today, on this good day, this good day when we, as a country, decided to look towards the future.

peace

Gitmo

It's strange that such a small place should simultaneously house what is best and what is worst about the US military. It's unfortunate that the "worst" is the side taken by both military and civilian authorities. I'm grateful for individual men and women of integrity that represent the rule of law at the risk of their own careers and even their personal liberty. I anxiously await a time when justice and the rule of law are characteristic of the system and not the exceptions.

From the Times:

"Commander Kuebler (pronounced KEEB-ler) is the latest example of a lawyer in uniform attacking the Pentagon’s legal system.

He is no natural agitator. At 37, he is in some ways deeply conventional. Married to the first girl he ever dated in high school, he is a self-described born-again Christian and conservative who has 'never voted for a Democrat.' Tom Fleener, a former Guantánamo military defense lawyer, described Commander Kuebler, saying, 'Take the average conservative guy in the street and multiply that by a million.'”

NYT interview w/ Obama

From the Times online


I like a lot of the NYT's video features online. Since they don't have commercial breaks, they can do longer interviews (this one is about 17 min.), and they bring some of the detail of print journalism to a video format that often works better than print for interviews (or at least works differently). Actually, it's a lot of the same things I like about the News Hour (and do I ever like the News Hour!).

Maybe this will be the year that evangelical voters take seriously the gospel's injunction to care for the poor and not show favoratism to the rich. Probably not, but I can pretend to hope.

OK. I should get back to working on the syllabus for my summer class. I get a fresh crop of summer freshmen on Monday morning. (Can you imagine your first college instructor being ME?!?)

Peace.

Andrewisms

For your reading pleasure: a few smatterings of Andrew's latest:

"Look! A brush tooth!" (Translation: Look! A toothbrush)
"I am a man with a tree on my head" (Indeed, he had a plastic tree on his head)
"Look! A man!" (A bit awkward, since the person is usually standing within earshot).
"Look! A girdle!" ("Look, a girl")
"I'll have a Little Mac!" (Yelled up toward the front of the car after Dad ordered a Big Mac).
"Three minutes, OK? Say sure!" (His typical stall tactic)

I'm sure these are more funny to me than to you...

Politics and Food?

Beyond the demonization of a good cup of coffee.

What's for Dinner?

Here's a taste: "In last summer’s polling, the latest available, Mrs. Clinton scored high among voters who also had favorable views of McDonalds, Wal-Mart and Starbucks."

And why don't republicans like her...?

Very Strange Moment Right Now

They're singing "Shout to the Lord"--the Worship song, the very definitely explicit Christian worship song--on American Idol right now.

Now it's over, and the Coke/Coke Zero legal shtick commercial is on...and I'm left thinking to myself: did that just happen? That was strange. I don't know what to make of that.

Now you can call 1-877-IDOL-AID.

Politics: Too Funny to Resist

By now, most of you have probably seen the Obama YouTube video that was viewed over a million times before Super Tuesday: "Yes We Can."



Now, a new one has surfaced that gives the same sort of treatment to McCain's speeches.



Enjoy.

Religion and Politics: Conservatism

A NYT review of books by Michael Gerson and John Bolton:

Describing the Elephant, Michael Lind

A sampling of the Gerson section:

"Where social issues are concerned, Gerson’s heroic conservatism is actually closer to the Social Gospel Protestant tradition and its equivalents on the Catholic left than to Republican orthodoxies or to the “national greatness” declarations of the neoconservatives....As one might expect, a number of conservative reviewers have been hostile to such a point of view, and with them it is reasonable to ask why Gerson considers himself a conservative at all, inasmuch as his heroes are mostly progressives, liberals and radicals."

Religion and Politics: Progressivism

I thought this was an interesting dual-book review from the Times about religious faith and the Democratic party:

Left Wing and a Prayer, R. Scott Appleby

Here's a sample:
"In short, the Democratic Party’s long string of counterproductive responses to the enduring influence of the religious right has had the cumulative effect of driving away any type of base with the word “faith” attached to it, and opening the door to the Republicans’ shrewd, if cynical, courting of religiously conservative white Christians. It’s been a self-defeating failure, since there are millions of moderate and progressive Christians ready to embrace a reasonable alternative...

"Are Sullivan and Dionne to be believed, or is this the triumph of wishful thinking over political reality?"

Evangelicals in the NYT

I just read an interesting op-ed by Nicholas Kristof in the Times about the changing shape of evangelical politics. I have to say I took some hope from this. Some of it I knew already, but I was surprised to see what topped the list of "issues" in the CBS poll.

Kristof.

Politics and Religion

I know there are two topics that friends are not supposed to discuss if they want to remain friends, but, since we talk religion all the time, I figure it's no big risk to bring politics in behind it. Anyways, here is my plea from a late-primary state to those of you who have super-Tuesday primaries.

This should be no surprise: I want to encourage you to vote in the primary for Barack Obama. There are a number reasons based in foreign and domestic policy that make me support Obama, but here is the main reason-- the core reason-- that I support him (have supported him for about a year now) and think that you should also. This text appears at the top of the screen on Barack Obama's website: "I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about change in Washington... I'm asking you to believe in yours." It is, I know, a little cheesy, but it represents a view of politics and national potential that places the burden of hope-- and thereby earns the right to hope-- on the nation as a whole, on the citizens, on the people, and not on his own shoulders, however capable. He does not claim that he can change the country for us (none of the "stand up for me in the ballot box and I'll stand up for you" tripe); he stands as a voice calling us to live up to our own potential, to listen to our own consciences, to dare to believe in our own ideals. Change in this country, movement towards equality and justice and freedom, will not (cannot) come from the government or the "halls of power"; it must come from the people, our effort, our sacrifices. Barack understands that. He understands the necessity of inspiring the American people to work for justice. He understands that this government of the poeple will only work for the people when it is led by the people.

I know we don't normally talk politics on the blog, but I do feel the urgency of this moment (to paraphrase Dr. King), and for the first time in my life I want to vote for a candidate and not just against their opponent. If you are voting in a Democratic primary, your vote would be well used in support of Barack. I will be voting for him in Texas, but they don't let us vote until mid-March. Even those of you who are Republicans-- I think you should consider crossing over for the primary and voting for a candidate who takes such a sincerely inspiring and sincerely moral position. We all know how rare that is in American politics.

http://www.barackobama.com/

Dmitri's choice

Here is a link to an article on Slate about Vladimir Nabokov's final manuscript... and whether or not his son will burn it according to his father's final wishes.

Dmitri's Choice

A sample:
"Here is your chance to weigh in on one of the most troubling dilemmas in contemporary literary culture. I know I'm hopelessly conflicted about it. It's the question of whether the last unpublished work of Vladimir Nabokov, which is now reposing unread in a Swiss bank vault, should be destroyed—as Nabokov explicitly requested before he died."

Obama and the Fam

OK, this is either a commentary on the unhinged nature of our political system, the unbelievable strength of coincidence, or, my favorite option, proof that the Masons really do have a nefarious plot to rule the world. It is, in a word, bizzare.

From the Chicago Sun Times: "Barack Obama is related to both President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney." Yeah, that's right. Related. The brief article continues: "Obama and Bush are 11th cousins" because "they share the same great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents -- Samuel Hinckley and Sarah Soole Hinckley of 17th century Massachusetts."

And the Cheney connection? "Obama is related to Cheney through Mareen Duvall, a 17th century immigrant from France. Mareen and Susannah Duvall were Obama's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents and Cheney's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents. That makes Obama and Cheney ninth cousins once removed."

Hemingway: "The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio"

"Religion is the opium of the people. He believed that, that dyspeptic little joint-keeper. Yes, and music is the opium of the people. Old mount-to-the-head hadn't thought of that. And now economics is the opium of the people; along with patriotism the opium of the people in Italy and Germany. What about sexual intercourse; was that an opium of the people? Of some of the people. Of some of the best of the people. But drink was a sovereign opium of the people, oh, an excellent opium. Although some prefer the radio, another opium of the people, a cheap one he had just been using. Along with these went gambling, an opium of the people if there ever was one, one of the oldest. Ambition was another, an opium of the people, along with a belief in any new form of government. What you wanted was the minimum of government, always less government. Liberty, what we believed in, now the name of a MacFadden publication. We believed in that although they had not found a new name for it yet. But what was the real one? What was the real, the actual, opium of the people? He knew it very well. It was gone just a little way around the corner in that well-lighted part of his mind that was there after two or more drinks in the evening; that he knew was there (it was not really there of course). What was it? He knew very well. What was it? Of course; bread was the opium of the people. Would he remember that and would it make sense in the daylight? Bread is the opium of the people."

Inflammatory Idea of the Week

Hopefully not too inflammatory.

I decided I'd like to know who, if anyone, you guys find interesting out of the field of presidential candidates and, if anyone looks worth voting for in a way more substatial than "at least they're not...", why you find them interesting. This is, of course, just preliminary thoughts about people we won't be voting for or against for months, but I thought it would be interesting to hear what you guys think. That's how democracy is supposed to work, right? Citizens discussing their leaders in the common marketplace of ideas and all that. And since we already fight about religion, why not add politics to the mix. (It would also be a special treat for me and Andy who otherwise only see Republicans on TV or occasionally in business class when we get on airplanes.) We live in the most powerful country ever; we should be doing this kind of thing.

If you don't have any favorites at the moment, what are the factors that will determine who you vote for (or against). What do you care most about in an administration? (This really kind of sounds like an online dating survey, doesn't it?)

Marvin K. Mooney

I'm currently in Amarillo, staying with my folks, and I saw a Dr. Seuss book here that I bought for my niece a few years ago. The book reminded me of a quasi-parody (Geisel helped write it himself) that Art Buchwald published in the Washington Post in 1974. I will refrain from parodying the parody myself, but it would be fair to say that it reminded me of another prominent middle initial...

Richard M. Nixon Will You Please Go Now!

On this day in history...

In 1960 the Ohio Art Company took Arthur Granjean's invention--which consisted of a couple knobs, some aluminium, and a plastic screen--and turned it into the Etch-A-Sketch. Suffice it to say that the guy that drew this puts the sad little doodles of my childhood to shame.

It did not give of bird or bush

So I have what probably qualifies as a mandatory update announcement:

I just got an email from the editor of the Wallace Stevens Journal, and they are publishing my article on Stevens, memorialization and the World Trade Center. It's not the largest journal, but publication counts as a major career milestone in the humanities, so I thought I should share it with you guys. The earliest it would be out will be Spring 2008, but I could (today, if I wanted) start putting it down as a "forthcoming" publication on my CV.

And I am still up 2-0 against Andy in the frolf books. That particular poison wasn't a banned substance until AFTER the match; it was totally legal at the time.

Traber 611 World Frolf Championship Circuit

I had the pleasure of hosting Andy and TEFKAMS in Austin last week (Andy, at least, came for the North American James Joyce conference... I'm not really sure what TEFKAMS was doing here). I think that either one of them could vouch for the comfortableness of my couch and the timeliness of my airport chauffering, in case anyone else might be contemplaing a trip down to bat city for a conference or music festival. The bats, unfortunately, were not as punctual. In fact, they absolutely refused to come out from under the Congress Avenue bridge on Friday night (all 2.5 million of them having a good laugh at all the humans standing around on the bridge for nothing), so we got to stand around with a bunch of strangers and think of all the things we could drop on the boats floating beneath us-- a good time, yes, but not what we set out for that evening. Fortunately, the Blues Allstars are always on top of their game, and we got to hear a very nice set from them at the Continental Club. Good times were had by all.

Now, for the title piece: I once again came out victorious over Andy in our multi-city disc golf competition (known to lovers of silly words as frolf). Andy played a remarkable thirteen holes and led the entire game up to hole fourteen, at which point he self-destructed and I was able-- with some rather skillful tosses-- to recover from the sizable gap created by my erratic play and win with a respectable five stroke lead. That makes the series record Coye 2, Andy 0. He claims that I poisoned his frisbee with a toxic yellow dye that only took effect on the back nine, but such claims are ludicrous, libellous and should be referred to the governing body of the 611 College Town Frolf Gaming Board Rules Committee. If anything poisoned Andy, it was his unprecedented proximity to so much Finnegan's Wake during Friday morning and afternoon. We saw firsthand how the Wake can cause spontaneous self-destruction (an unfortunate question and answer session, to say the least).

The tasty burritos enjoyed by all, the two-stepping skipped out on by Andy, the coffee drank, the women chased, the parking spaces sought endlessly-- all of this must, unfortunately, be left out of the current post (I still have several pages of French grammar to read through tonight), but, needless to say, it was all great. Nous avions un bon temp.

Adieu, mes amis.

breaking and entering

So someone broke into my car today. I have a case number and everything. The cops took fingerprints. Which I find hilarious. I don't know what they thought they were going to steal. They didn't even take my Altoids. Or the sweatshirt in the back seat. I think they might have been after my ice scraper. But I fooled them. I always keep it in the trunk.

I turned in the master's report yesterday, which is splendid. Sort of had my heart broken the day before, which isn't. No worries. A few days, a few more pages written, and I can seek the heavenly bliss of oblivion. Consciousness. Burden. uhg