June 22nd, 2007 — Uncategorized
After being narrowly defeated (5-0) by the Flyers in St. Catharines tonight (but I don’t care; I got some good passes, and fell on my butt significantly less than a few weeks ago), I listened to the CBC’s Ideas. It was about Rene Girard’s “mimetic theory.” Religion on the CBC (and not of marginalized peoples)? I prepared myself for the pooh-poohing, the retreat to relativism, the self-congratulatory debunking, and the tangible avoidance of relevance. Instead, I heard a very engaging Girard expounding his very interesting theory. I will relate some of the nicer points, with apologies to Mr. Girard and anyone else whose views I mangle.
Girard asserted that Christianity was revolutionary among ideologies. Other systems of belief, he said–focusing heavily on the mythology and religions of ancient civilizations–tell stories of communities ganging up on a victim in order to preserve communal peace (e.g., Oedipus Rex). These stories are all from the point of view of the persecutors, the accusers. They emphasize the rightness of punishing of the victim, who totally has it coming.
Christianity and Judaism tell the story from the point of view of the victim, acknowledging the innocence of the scapegoat, or sacrifice, and the unjust brutality of the mob. Christianity was also revolutionary as a story about a god being persecuted but returning to his persecutors with something for them other than vengeance.
Girard added that many people think of Christianity as a popular, or even populist, religion. In fact, he sees it as totally antipopular. It points out what we all know but have “hidden since the foundation of the world”: we are violent and immoral, but we punish others for our misdeeds and call that justice.
The radicalism of an intellectual taking Christianity seriously–in public–is enormously refreshing.
I also heard comments from fanboys and -girls, who seemed to alternate worshipfully intoning Girard’s name with offering to fix the glaring flaws in his theories. Mostly the worshipful intoning, though. One of them said, “People think the opposite of violence is peace, but it’s not. The opposite of violence is order. Order can come from two sources: from coercion, whether legal or physical; or from holiness.” The guy immediately went on to spoil this insight, but I won’t subject you to that.
Another of Girard’s cheerleaders suggested that the crucifixion, widely understood by Christians to be a payment of debt by proxy, is actually something else: Jesus demonstrating that the violence attributed to His father was actually done by us. When the mob killed Jesus, they acted out what we all want to do every time we hurt another human being: hurt God. We make God the scapegoat for all the evils that we ourselves commit. Nevertheless, Jesus came back after being killed and offered us forgiveness instead of vengeance.
Nice messages. Nice thoughts. Nearly suffocated at times (especially by the narrator) under the embroidered throw pillows of intellectualism (lest anyone be accused of actually taking any of this seriously, or having a personal belief in anything; how gauche), but good thinking, nonetheless.
I didn’t agree with everything they said or the way they said it, but it made me happy to hear people debating the re-radicalized notion that Jesus had something important to say and do, and that those who actually read the texts will begin to understand that. Christianity can only be written off or casually dismissed by individuals who are willing to ignore an awful lot of salient and important information.
Related posts
June 19th, 2007 — Uncategorized
So, if I ever get to Squidley’s house on Mr. Bikey, I’ll put the knobbies on. As can be seen from the hot pink line in the picture (below), I discovered a trail linking Filman Road with… um… Filman Road. Okay, so my sense of discovery is a little bit tarnished, but it was fun (if by “fun” you mean “sweating, heaving, panting death”). It’s a little bit steep uphill at times, with lots of loose or not-so-loose sharp rocks.
The really cool part is that it links up to Bruce Trail via a nifty highway bridge (green line). I went as far as the line shows, and then I figured I would be late getting back here for office hours this morning. However, it took me 40 minutes to get there, and only about 10 or 12 to get back. My bike computer says I went about 10 miles (16.1 Kanadian). That feels lame, except for how hard I worked to get up the stupid hill (Filman Trail).
Google Map capture of Filman and Bruce Trails
Notes:
1. There’s a stupid short way steep section at the South end of Filman trail that I couldn’t climb, and I couldn’t descend (tried twice; ungracefully biffed it twice). Stupid trail.
2. I saw much wildlife, including a mole or something, a chipmunk, a hunting kitty, and a deer. The deer was about 10-15m off Bruce Trail in the bush, eating the, um, bush. He was a young buck, with antlers just about to fork, all covered with fuzz, about as long as his ears. He didn’t seem scared of me, although he watched me for a while.
Related posts
June 11th, 2007 — Uncategorized
…so… Alex is in the kitchen with a towel over her head, trying to steam some of the mucus demons out of her lungs. I’m in here with the A/C, trying to ignore the lesser (but still irritating) mucus demons in my head. Brad is at his house, battling his own demons of phelgm and sickness.
Mr. Bikey came today. Yay. I was way too exhausted to ride it to Brad’s, which is probably OK because he sounded too exhausted to get the door if I had shown up. It’s still in the box. I dealt with several student problems today, including the following:
- I don’t really have to meet those prerequisites, do I?
- Instead of actually writing three of my own thoughts, I cut and pasted three of your PowerPoint slides for Assignment #1. With the fonts and graphics.
- Please give me a “Drop Pass” instead of a general withdrawal, because I don’t want to be in your class anymore.
Actually, not too annoying. Alex is a good voice of reason to keep me from being too harsh on the little youngsters. Twentysomethings… what can you do? They’re so cute at that age.
Speaking of punitiveness, my dissertation-mining expedition goes on, with the first article coming back from two faculty (one at UTPA, the other at Ohio State) giving me pointers. They both noticed that I have a teensy bit of bias in the article. I suppose I should cut the sentence that says, “In short, the American public appears to want criminals to suffer ever-increasing levels of punishment even when these measures might be illegal and unethical, and are likely to be ineffective at reducing crime.”
Alex is back. More Daria!
Related posts
June 8th, 2007 — Uncategorized
UPS is giving me grief. Based on my careful analysis of costs, I decided to ship my bike up here (Ontario) for the summer, rather than pay the airline’s extra-big-baggage fee of $70 or so. UPS seemed to be reasonable. They told me it would be $78 or so. I paid it.
Mr. Bikey might get here today. I’m being told by the UPS phone lady that there is an additional $63.48 due for “brokerage fees” to UPS, for their service of getting it through customs (luckily, no taxes or customs duties; yay!). I asked her if the UPS location in Texas should have known that, and she replied that yes, it’s based on my declared value, so they most certainly should have known and informed me. And it’s something UPS charges, not customs or Homeland Security or anything like that. Grr.
This started when I checked the tracking information online today. There has not been a single phone call or door knock (or call through the outside buzzer) from UPS, but this is the online message:
THE RECEIVER DID NOT HAVE FUNDS AVAILABLE ON THE 1ST DELIVERY ATTEMPT.
Yeah. Because we totally had that conversation. UPS weasel person.
The phone lady seemed surprised at the discrepancy between the online message and my reality. She said she’d have the guy call me within the hour (38 minutes and counting). Now, it has cost me $140 to get my bike up here. It will presumably cost me another $140 to get it home, unless I take it by the airline, in which case it will cost me half that. So, about $210 to $280 to have my bike for the summer. My own bike. That I already own. Stupid unexpected charges. Grrr.
In retrospect, I perhaps should have gone with Plan B, which was to find or buy a beater bike up here, and have fun fixing it up for a week or two, then ride it all summer and leave it here. That plan seems like a beautiful dream, now. Oh well. Nothing to do but enjoy Mr. Bikey as much as I can, given the fact that the cost of ownership has gone up.
Related posts
May 29th, 2007 — Uncategorized
Honey, is this you? Oh, whew. But you can see how I might think…
Also, this little item… heh heh. Related for two reasons.
Related posts
May 14th, 2007 — Uncategorized
So I get home from work, after missing Mr. Bikey for the last week, and after ordering some new tires for running around in Hamilton this summer, and I get home just in time to meet the UPS guy delivering my new (albeit kind of cheap) Sette shoes, and I wheel my bike out the door to go for a nice zippy ride in the 95-degree heat, and…
CAHRUNCHA!
Continue reading →
Related posts
May 10th, 2007 — Uncategorized
Here’s the traveling I’ve done this semester. Days I have been actually away from my home (mostly Canada, but one will be Washington, DC) are shown in red. I’ve highlighted 3 days before and after each trip, to indicate an approximate (conservative) estimate of the prep and recovery time needed for each trip (work, housecleaning, etc.).
| J |
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
| A |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
| N |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
| |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
27 |
| |
28 |
29 |
30 |
31 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
| F |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
| E |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
| B |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
| |
25 |
26 |
27 |
28 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
| M |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
| A |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
| R |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
| |
25 |
26 |
27 |
28 |
29 |
30 |
31 |
| A |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
| P |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
| R |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
| |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
27 |
28 |
| |
29 |
30 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
| M |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
| A |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
| Y |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
| |
27 |
28 |
29 |
30 |
31 |
1 |
2 |
And that, perhaps, explains why, in my travel-induced fatigue, I forgot… MY LAPTOP!!!
Notes: 1) I’ve shown Alex’s visit to me in green. Even though it wasn’t MY travel, it was noteworthy. 2) Alex visited me more last semester, so this isn’t a whiny rant about how she never visits me. It’s just a whiny rant about being sick of traveling. 3) This calendar starts with the last 2 weeks of my 4-week visit to Canada over the holidays, and it ends with the first 2 days of my 3-month stay in Canada for the summer.
Related posts
April 28th, 2007 — Uncategorized
After lazily sleeping in (post-double-overtime last night), and then falling asleep some more, I decided to go see the city. My plan was to walk all the way around the old city wall, which I figured would take a few hours. Well, it looks bigger on the map than it really is. It only took me half an hour to go about halfway, even with some dilly-dallying at the Citadel (built way back when we were the plucky underdogs, and this was an imperialist outpost). This whole place is gorgeous, of course. I found that the wall became less exciting after it stopped overlooking the river (which was way cool), so I zig-zagged through the old town for a while. Got some shish-something from a Lebanese take-out, then came back.
Oh. Saw some American tourists talking extremely loudly and in each other’s faces (I know they were Americans; I heard them say “about”). I thought, no wonder people find us off-putting. Then I passed a group of local folks, talking extremely loudly and getting in each other’s faces in French. It made me smile.
The other thing that made me smile was walking through a stationery store. It was very comforting. It was like a bridge over troubled water. A bridge of pens, pencils and niftily-constructed notebooks.
After an hour or so, I realized I really wasn’t enjoying the walk very much. My right knee feels like it’s going to kill me, and the weather is cold, overcast, and freezingly windy. But mostly it’s that I’m just generally dysthymic. Oh, wait. Go back to the overcast part. That’s probably important. Anyway, nothing is very enjoyable, so I might as well come back here and work. As always, there’s a mountain of it to be done.
Maybe there will be something good on TV. Or maybe my sleep cycle is (as always) screwed up, and I’ll get in a spunky mood at 11 pm.
Going back home tomorrow. Can’t say I’m too sad about that.
Related posts
April 27th, 2007 — Uncategorized
Put me in, coach! I can do it!
Quebec city is still a happenin’ place, supposedly. I’m still sleeping. But tonight is hockey, so exploring the wonders will have to wait.
Related posts
April 25th, 2007 — Uncategorized
Here I am in Quebec City. I’m in a freaking gorgeous hotel room with a 7th-floor view of Old Quebec, the river, everything past the refineries up to the hills. Beautiful. I was feeling a little disappointed that my honey’s commitments were keeping her from coming here (which was the original plan), until now.
Because I’m nasty sick. Sore throat, can’t talk, can’t sleep, can’t breathe half the time; I’m a fountain of phlegm. It’s comforting that I don’t have to inflict that on anyone else.
I went to the conference opening reception, on the 23rd floor of the Hilton. It made me want to be healthy enough to ditch the conference and go walk around the city, especially the old walls and what looks like a fort. But I feel lousy. What I really want is to ditch the conference and huddle in my luxurious bathtub, running bath after bath of newly-hot water.
In other news, some of you may have heard that Sheryl Crow and her buddy Laurie David decided to make a scene with Karl Rove at a press dinner the other night. And she has proposed a toilet paper usage ban, to save the environment. Continue reading →
Related posts
April 17th, 2007 — updates
So I got this package from Pricepoint, and it has my real life non-I-beam seatpost in it, and some boots for my forks (maybe prolong their life; I have seen their mortality… ::shudder::). It came while I was gone, so I had to go get it from UPS (which is on Upas Avenue… no laugh required).
Turns out it’s a bit of a ride. Google maps didn’t plot my actual route (Jackson instead of McColl; it has a bike lane in both directions. w00t!), so I painted it in with orange fuzzy. I’d say I got my exercise for the day. It was a delightful day for riding, too. About 70f, and breezy (as always). The trip was around 8 miles each way. Not bad. I did it in about an hour, so that’s, um, a 16 mile-per-hour average. Anyway…
Why did I spend 15 minutes doing this? Now I need to go home and continue icing my knee. But class goes until 10 pm. [/whine]
Related posts
April 13th, 2007 — Uncategorized
Rio Bravo (Rio Grande): US-Mexico Border
I’ve been reading this book by some researchers I work with (sort of). It’s Chad Richardson & Rosalva Resendiz. The book is “On the Edge of the Law.” It’s a sociological look at life in the Rio Grande Valley, with lots of interesting information about immigration (legal and illegal), etc.
This whole area of inquiry is teaching me things I did not know before. For that matter, I did not know they were known by anyone. But they’re things I’ve wondered about, and things that get tossed around in rhetoric during political campaigns. Perhaps a sampling of some of this information….
March 14th, 2007 — Uncategorized
Ice, Ice, bab… never mind.
Nice day. Topita and I have mostly vegged out. She’s sick :(, but otherwise things are good. We saw a completely freaky but awesome documentary titled manufactured landscapes. Afterward, I told Alex I wanted to go burn all my stuff and live in a tent. I feel guilty for my professorial affluence. And for the toxic chemicals and heavy metals enclosed in this laptop, which will eventually be sent to a poor village in China to poison rivers and children who recycle the parts…
In the media department, I was sucked in by HMV today, and bought Amelie and Brazil. Also, I had a freakish encounter, where I saw a woman who looked so very, very much like my ex-girlfriend Laney that I kind of freaked out and froze in gawk-eyed stare mode for a minute. I think I creeped out the unfortunate stranger.
Continue reading →
Related posts
March 10th, 2007 — Uncategorized
Yesterday was memorable. Mostly for good reasons. Daytime was a blur, but in the evening we had Squidley over for some mac & cheese and coleslaw. He provided the very delicious apple pie. It was yum. Then we played a game of Settlers of Catan, in which my honeylovemuffin opened a rift in our marriage that will last for eons by depriving my two pathetically small settlements of needed resources to compete with the squidley menace on my borders, so she could build up the already-thriving society she had created through sheer luck, and crush me (and squidley) like a bug.
Then xenologue, squidley, urbanepleb and I headed to Toronto to see Flotilla, a completely awesome band created by Xenologue’s brother and his girlfriend. Continue reading →
Related posts
February 22nd, 2007 — updates
So this nice lady named Vera had a post on Craigslist that asked if anyone had a cheap or free bike. She’s dealing with a family situation, down here in South Texas supporting her Dad, and she is without bike. She has many things going for her, that give her points with me and/or Alex:
- She’s Canadian
- She has cool tattoos
- She loves bikes
- She’s helping out her family
And, she was really nice when we met her. So how could I say no? Plus, the bike fit her much better than it fit me, so the bike is now hers.
I am happy thinking of someone who really needs it (even if it’s only for a month or so) zooming around McAllen on it. Also I’m happy thinking of spending my weekends for the next few months combing through thrift stores, garage sales and pawn shops looking for another bike (that will fit me better this time). :)
That is all.
Related posts
January 14th, 2007 — photos, updates
1/12/07 Really Big Paper Airplanes in CLE
Yesterday I flew home. Yaaaaay. Uneventful, like I prefer my air travel to be. I got out of the airport here in McAllen and just breathed the warm, humid air. Aaaah. That was nice. Everything was strangely OK. No crises that I know of. The semester starts in a couple of days, and I’m not ready. Church was good, except that most of the problems that existed when I left are the same as they were (I mean with my calling). Good to see people again. I miss Alex, I gained weight on vacation (hm… sitting on my butt, nearly all day, every day, and eating too much; OK; it makes sense). I have no motivation to do anything constructive. So I’m not.
Related posts
January 13th, 2007 — Uncategorized
Amanda in a lovely Montreal chapel
In 3 hours I get in a car, then in 5 I get on a plane, then in about 12 or 14 or so, I get home to Texas. Hmph. Going home is highly overrated.
Related posts
January 12th, 2007 — Uncategorized
Amanda’s Head and the Biodome in Montreal 1/06
The news is very strange. Sometimes it seems like I’m supposed to read a secret message in the disparate, sometimes disturbing, stories. Of note:
~ Bush is pushing ahead with his 21,500-troop “surge,” despite the fact that the war has suddenly become unpopular with even some of his strongest congressional supporters.
~ Former President Carter has sanctioned terrorism in his bestselling book by urging Palestinians et al. to make it clear that they will stop terrorist acts when “the ultimate goals” of an internationally-sponsored peace accord “are accepted by Israel.” So, I guess he’s saying they should keep up the terrorism until they get what they want.
~ The Duke Lacrosse alleged-rape case got more confusing, now that the defendant has changed her story significantly.
~ Ecuador will be a socialist state within the year.
~ Canada is in the free-for-all, with terrorists arrested in Ontario and the discovery of false Canadian coins with RF transmitters inside them (I knew it! Those coins were always just a little too cute…)
~ Last but not least: certain gadgets highlight exactly what cell phones are, in their little microprocessing heart of hearts.
In other news, I am a very, very slow Scrabble player. I did not realize it took Alex and me until 2 a.m. to finish our game.
Score:
Alex - 329
Me - 324
Grrrrr.
Related posts
January 11th, 2007 — Uncategorized
red means hold it right there.
The photo is Alex in our NYC hotel (hers, her roommate’s & mine), demonstrating the funky lighting that came standard in the funky bathroom. A cockroach or two also came standard.
In other news, boy am I tired. It’s surprising how exhausted you can get, sitting around and doing nothing for days on end.
Related posts
January 10th, 2007 — Uncategorized
Stairs at Museum in NYC 5/06
In this post: missed Temple appointment, delicious dinner, scary book leading to survivalist mentality, worms in cat’s butt.
Continue reading →
Related posts
