Review of Sinclair's "Dragon's Teeth"

Dragon's Teeth II by Upton Sinclair
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book (the entire 631 pages of Parts I & II). It is slow-going at first (Part I), but it really picks up in Part II (this book), and is well-worth sticking with it until it does. And once it does, WOW! You just can't put it down. What I think is masterful about this book is that Sinclair manages to describe the horrors of the Nazi rise to, and brutal exercise of, power. The evil and lunacy of men like Goebbels, Goring, Hitler, etc., is not only presented in an unvarnished way, but also with a real sense of disgust and contempt - yet also, amazingly, still finding a way to avoid caricaturizing this brutality and even generating some nuanced picture of a below-the-surface humanity in Nazi Germany in the midst of all this madness through characters like Hugo Behr and Kurt Meissner. Irma was a disappointment in the end, but I think she represented in Sinclair's estimation the reprehensible attitude among many Americans of the day of utter disinterest, or even disbelief, of what was happening in Hitler's Germany in the early years of the Third Reich. Amazing that Sinclair wrote this in 1941/42 and was able to publish this in real time as such a complete indictment of the world's failure to address the atrocities they were becoming aware of. Well deserving of the Pulitzer, in my opinion.


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Visiting Colleges

Well, I have arrived at that moment in life where my kids are looking towards college.  My oldest daughter, whom I affectionately refer to as 'Squirrelly Girlie the Elder," is now halfway through her junior year in High School, which means that over the next 7-8 months she will need to familiarize herself with the college application and admissions process, choose colleges to apply to, and submit applications for admissions and for scholarships.

And given that she has expressed some interest in studying in Southern California, I have taken advantage of my need to visit the Los Angeles area for work to make it also a college visit trip and brought my daughter along.

It has been a very good trip so far -- informative for her, but also interesting for me.  Even though I work at an elite University, it's fascinating for me to see how the admissions process is handled from the point of view of a parent and prospective student going through the process.

Anyway, we've spent the past two days visiting a variety of colleges and universities in the Los Angeles area.  We've been to USC, Loyola-Marymount, Occidental College (where Obama briefly attended), and UCLA (the big state University).  And today (Saturday), our last full day in Los Angeles, we're going to make an unplanned trip out to the Claremont area to see the well-known community of liberal arts colleges that make up the Claremont college consortium (Claremont-McKenna, Pomona, Harvey Mudd, etc.)

It's been a great visit so far, and I hope it has been beneficial for SG the Elder as she starts her foray into the college search process.

GK Chesterton's Orthodoxy - A brief review

Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Chesterton is a witty thinker with some interesting and provocative ideas.  When you first start this book, the freshness of his approach is striking and impressive.  But … it gets old, fast.  His excessive use of paradoxical metaphorical writing is clever the first few times you encounter it; but it wears on you the next 5 thousand times you encounter it.  I mean, really, it seems as if every other sentence is some kind of cutesy parallel inversion of some statement or claim.

His turns of phrase and his witticisms are much too clever by half, meaning his overdoing it in this regard diminishes his arguments after a while.

But enough on the overbearing style of his writing, what about the content?  And here I give Chesterton his props.  His defense of orthodoxy is creative and persuasive … mostly.  I think he makes some good arguments, but I think he is his own worst enemy in the sense that by pounding his arguments so incessantly, he inevitably falls into the trap of making the reader think he is slicing and dicing an argument in so many different ways because there is some weakness inherent to it.  And, indeed, I think there are some weaknesses which cause an honest thinker to question the legitimacy of his claims.

For one, the debater's trick he uses to mischaracterize or unfairly pigeon-hole the arguments of his rivals diminishes his own arguments.  He has a tendency to twist his opponents' arguments to mean things that he can argue against, but which are really not the meanings put forward by his opponents at all.  In essence, he is quite skillful at taking incomplete bits and snippets of an oppositional argument and then using them to set up a more comprehensive intellectual straw man that he then beats down.  In a sense, this debating style is quite effective rhetorically, but it rings hollow and disingenuous in terms of its substance.

I could go into detail and give many examples of what I mean by the above critique, but I just don't feel like it's worth it.  Just read the work and you'll get a good sense of what I mean.

And the shame of it is that his core idea doesn't really need all that rhetorical bamboozling and cleverness.  For those who want to find a fascinating debater's defense (and a novel one at that) of Christian orthodoxy, you'll enjoy this read.  But for those who are looking for an intellectually honest defense of orthodoxy, you might find this read a bit problematic and troubling.


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Moviegoing

Have been to a number of movies over the holidays.  I've seen the latest Hobbit release.  I've seen "Into the Woods." And I've seen the latest Hunger Games flick.  Enjoyed them all, but have to admit to being a tad unimpressed with all of them.

The Hobbit finale was just nothing like the book, so I took exception to that.

"Into the Woods" was visually pleasant and I love Sondheim and the lyrical genius that he produces; but this particular show is a tad on the long side and I found myself getting impatient for the ending with about a half hour of the show remaining.  Meryl Streep was, as usual, outstanding as the witch.

The Hunger Games was nothing more than a very long trailer and prequel to the exciting (I hope!) finale.  It leaves one wanting, which is not how I prefer my movies.

I'd recommend them all, as I think they are worth seeing; but don't expect too much of them.

The Constant Care and Feeding of Old Homes

I love our house; but it's one of those old homes (I think it's close to 70 years old).  And this means lots of regular upkeep and maintenance.

Since this is the first winter holiday break I've had in a while that didn't involve traveling long distances or hosting relatives visiting from far away, I've had quite a bit of time to tackle some of those home maintenance duties.

And I have to say that I have been more productive in this regard than I thought I'd be.

Our house is one of those that has wood slats and plaster walls.  And living on a swamp with the earth constantly shifting underneath us means that we're going to have what are known as "settling" cracks over time in the plaster.  And where the plaster cracks, the paint peels.  So, I've been doing some paint scraping of the walls in our living room, puttying over the cracks, and repainting.  At least one of our living room walls (the one with the most visible need of repair) is now looking crisp and new.  So, I'm glad about that.

But I'm even more happy that I managed to get downstairs in our guest room and make some serious headway in doing some of that finishing trim work and painting that has been just crying out for attention for about 8 years now, since I rebuilt the room following the destruction of Hurricane Katrina. I just had to caulk some molding joints and do some fine trim paint work between door frames and walls (they're different colors, so it's a painstaking and laborious task).  I also painted three doors in that room which had been working just fine, but which were in the unpainted condition in which I first bought them.  And once I get on a roll with such projects, I tend to just add on other little side projects too.  In this instance, I decided to finally build for the room a desk made from an old door that I've had hanging around.  This involved an arduous process of sanding down the old paint off the door, and then repainting the door a fresh color to fit the room colors.  And it also involved building the frame for the door/desk that I can set it down on.  All of which is now done.  I'm just waiting for the semi-gloss paint on the door to dry and then get a piece of glass to lay on top the door, and I can install the door and have the desk ready to go.   I'll take a picture when it's all said and done (hopefully, it won't be another 8 years down the line!!!)

But this is all just the tip of the iceberg; and I hope to continue slowly, but steadily, working on these maintenance items over the next semester.  I'm horrible about before/after pictures (I always forget to take the "before" pictures); but I'll do my best to document the work visually and share it.

I guess I'm also motivated to do all this work because I'm back on a kind of diet (New Year's resolution) in which I'm trying to control meal portion sizes and I'm trying to wean myself from all forms of sweet and sour junk food -- which means I'm going through some withdrawal right now, and working on these home repairs helps to keep my mind off of my cravings.  I see it as a win-win: I'm committed to being healthier and my home is looking better!

Steve Scalise and His Catholicism

So much has been swirling through my head the last couple of days about Steve Scalise.  I am still trying to process it all and collect my thoughts.  There is just so much about this situation that bothers and concerns me.  I'm likely to post more on this in the future, but one of the things that I want to comment on now is the repeated reference by Scalise to his Catholic faith and its unequivocal stance condemning racism.

The reference to one's religious faith as a moral identity marker, especially among conservatives, is nothing new.  But so often, folks who trot out their faith and wear it on their sleeve are the very people who use this as a bludgeon against the rest of us believers who are reluctant to use their faith in such a ham-handed way.

The reason why I, at least, am cautious about bringing up my religion as a baseline argument for social policy is that I find myself often at odds with my faith's position on a wide variety of social issues.  People like me are often accused by religious purists (and I would consider Scalise to be one of these purists), of being a Cafeteria Catholic, because I don't buy they whole package deal of Catholic teaching on all social issues.

But here we have Steve Scalise using Catholicism as a measure of his morality when it comes to the social problem of racism.  If we were to believe Scalise, we should understand that when he says he abhors racism because his Catholic faith instructs him to do so.  But here's the rub:  the Catholic faith also instructs him to support a living wage, to oppose the death penalty, to condemn the intrinsic evil of torture.  But Scalise doesn't adhere to what Catholicism demands of him in these instances.

Now, it's fine if Scalise himself is a Cafeteria Catholic, rejecting the guidance and instruction of his faith and church on such matters.  Who am I to throw stones here?  But what I would suggest is that Scalise be a bit more humble and equally cautious in using a knee-jerk reference to his Catholicism to prove he is not racist.  It's just not believable.  Perhaps he is a "Cafeteria Catholic" in this regard, too; and speaking to a racist hate group, with a wink and a nod, because he relies on their votes, tells us as much.

Happy New Year! The Huck Upchuck is back!

Let this posting be the first of the New Year's Resolutions that follow:

I resolve:

1. To blog again.  My goal is to average one blog posting per day.
2. To tweet more.  One tweet per day.
3. To read 52 books over the course of the year.  That's an average of 1 book per week.
4. To exercise a minimum of 30 minutes per day, even if that exercise is modest.
5. To write at least 100 pages of a book project (whether academic or fiction).
6. To write 12 poems.  That's an average of 1 poem per month.

There's a lot more I want to get accomplished this upcoming year, but I think I'll just stick with these goals for now.

2015 will be an exciting year.  Squirrelly Girlie the Elder will become a High School Senior and will be  applying to colleges.  (Which means that we'll be visiting colleges.)

Squirrelly Girlie the Younger will become a teenager and will be entering the 8th grade, which means applying to High Schools.

My better two-thirds will be looking to ramp up her pottery business, and I'm on board to help out with that.

I will also likely be going in for another knee surgery (most probably to repair a torn meniscus).  But, on the bright side, I might be able to start playing racquetball again.

Also, I think a lot will happen in the realm of national politics, so there should be some juicy political blogging ahead as well.

And, who knows?  Maybe the Saints will pull their act together and make another run at the Super Bowl.

Stay tuned and visit often.

Summer Reading

Long time since last I posted anything.  I guess it's about time I wrote up something, and what could be easier than giving a run down on what I've been reading lately (or at least since I last gave such an update).

I've actually read quite a bit.  One of the benefits from being in multiple book clubs and having an academic career.  But I'm only going to focus on what I read for fun, only throwing in a few of the books I've tackled for school.  If anyone wants to keep up with my reading life in real time, just hunt me down on Goodreads, as I use Goodreads regularly to track my reading progress.

Also, I should say that I've committed myself to reading all the Pulitzer Prize winners for fiction, so that's also given me a goal that has been directing my reading.

The last time I provided an update was nearly a year ago, in September of 2013, so I'll use that date as my starting point.

I'll link each book to its site on Goodreads, and you can find any reviews I might have posted about the book there.

Here goes ...

Warren Moore's Broken Glass Waltzes - "4" star ranking (out of five possible stars) - (This was a crime noir novel that I read on my Nook.  I'm not much for this kind of literature, but it was a book published by a blogger whose writing I have come to like, so I figure I'd give it a go.)

James Martin, SJ's My Life with the Saints - "4" star ranking - (From my spiritual readings book club.  Wonderful, engaging writing.  I really enjoyed it.)

Juan Gabriel Vazquez's The Sound of Things Falling - "4" star ranking - (From another book club.  A great addition to the Latin American literature collection.)

C. Alan Ames's Through the Eyes of Jesus: A Trilogy - "2" star ranking - (Bordering on the lowest "1" star ranking.  Another book for my spiritual readings book club; but one which I didn't pick.  I only read the first of the Trilogy and that's all I think I ever will read of it.  I found it to be less than inspiring and very poorly written.  Out of charity, I won't say anything else about it.)

Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones - "4" star ranking - (From the couples book club.  A hurricane Katrina novel.  Very worthwhile read.  Jesmyn Ward will now be teaching at Tulane University, which is very exciting.)

Miguel A. De La Torre's Reading the Bible from the Margins - "4" star ranking - (My pick for the spiritual readings book club.  Vociferously despised by my more conservative, orthodox brothers in the club.  If you want a radical re-reading of the bible as a testament to its social and political emphasis on solidarity with the poor, this book is for you.  It's sometimes a bit in-your-face, but its liberation theology message is one that really resonates with me.)

Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives - "4" star ranking - (A selection for my men's book club.  Loved it. Unique style of writing.)

Georges Bernanos's The Diary of a Country Priest - (One I have started on and off since college and finally just buckled down and read it.)

[NOTE: I'll have to come back and flesh out the details and links for the following books appearing below that I've read, but I'll just simply list them for now.]

Michael Cunningham's The Hours - (Pulitzer winner for 1999)

Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons - (Pulitzer winner for 1919 and my selection for my men's book club.)

Elizabeth Bowen's The Death of the Heart - (Couples book club pick.)

Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass - (My book club with my youngest daughter.)

Homer's The Odyssey (My book club with my oldest daughter,)

Ernest Poole's His Family - (First Pulitzer winner for 1918.)

Janet M. Tavakoli's Archangels: Rise of the Jesuits - (Spiritual book club selection.  Not mine.  Pulpy trash fiction.)

Robert E. Barron's And Now I See...: A Theology of Transformation - (Spiritual book club selection.  Very sophisticated theology and philosophy, but very good.)

Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex - (Pulitzer winner for 2003.  Excellent book.)

Eudora Welty's The Optimist's Daughter - (Pulitzer winner for 1973.)

Robert Graves's I, Claudius - (Couples book club choice.)

Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies - (Pulitzer winner for 2000)

Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlett Letter - (My book club with my oldest daughter.)

Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey - (Pulitzer winner for 1928.)

Jack London's The Call of the Wild - (My book club with my youngest daughter.)

William Kennedy's Ironweed - (Pulitzer winner for 1984.)

John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath - "4" star ranking - (From the Pulitzer Prize winner collection and also  the quintessential American novel classic.  Definitely a worthwhile read.  Odd that I had never read it until now.)

Currently reading and almost finished with:

Thomas Pynchon's V - (Men's book club selection.)

Margaret Ayer Barnes's Years of Grace - (Pulitzer winner for 1931)

Saturday Morning

Saturday Morning

A cacophony of alarm clocks in each room
Buzzing or beeping met with outstretched arms
Blind-slapping "off" buttons.

Sounds of morning life are slowly crescendoing to pleasant pitch.
Chickens are clucking in the yard, clamoring to be uncooped.
The house dog’s tail wags a rhythmic thumping of the hard-wood floors,
      Slowly picking up tempo as dawn’s dimmer switch rises brighter.
The house joists themselves creak awake as they expand with the
      Temperatures of the solar appearance.

But the beds stay filled with the slowed breathing of
Still slumbering bodies,
Blankets nudging up necks,
Heads burrowing deeper under blankets,
Stealing minutes more of sleep,
A few more minutes.
Eyes closed, but pupils still adjusting dilation
Under their lids to the emerging daylight.
Just a few more minutes, please.
Please.

Today this house will not wake early.
It’s Saturday.

Poem: "11th Birthday"

11^th Birthday

Today a birthday, ably made and quite happy, indeed.

This flushed, pink perennial rising lightly from her tousled bed,
Hair in right angles crossing in wispy strands,
Angled dandelion petals poised for flight at the
Hint of the breathy disturbance of morning’s call.

How she floats dreamily to the breakfast table, unperturbed!
Her line of approach a bit akilter, though she
Alights unfailingly on her proper perch, and settles
Softly in nourishment’s nest, eyes still squinting, half-closed.

As for me, a kind of birdwatcher I become,
Observing this wondrous peregrination from
Behind my binoculars, with breath caught,
Held for as long as possible, to prolong the moment
Before she catches my scent and, with a sly eye,
Spies me watching.

Our eyes locked, her slender neck slightly tilted in my direction,
My heartbeat suspended, she
Leans forward
And effortlessly, easily, unhesitatingly, even brazenly
Blows out the birthday candle.

Back on the Blog

Well, my gosh, it's been some 3+ months since I put anything up here.  My last post dates in May of this year, and it's now September.

I think it's quite obvious that I've lost a bit of the taste for blogging.  Well, not just "a bit" but perhaps the most of it.

And I can't really put my finger on the reason why.  Maybe I've just wearied in general of the ideological and political fight that I've always thought as the the blog's purpose.   I do notice that I've also been much less engaged publicly in this fight even on other social media sites.

That doesn't mean that I've sworn off politics or that my views are in flux.  They're most definitely not.  I'm still as fierce a liberal as I always was.  And I still don't shy away from my convictions.  I just don't seem to have the desire to project them as publicly as I have done in the past.

In any case, what drew me back to the blog was more the idea of using it as a creative writing platform than as a tool of political/ideological propagandizing.

Maybe I should start with a brief update of my life since May.  I finished out the academic year at Tulane where I teach.  I prepared for and conducted a six-week summer study abroad program in Costa Rica.  And I returned to New Orleans to work on the slow and tedious job of painting the exterior of my house myself and to prepare for the start of the new academic year.  I also caught up a lot on my reading.  I've become a fan of the "Goodreads" application and program that allows me to chart my reading progress, so if you are really interested in following my reading habits in more detail, you can always check out my Goodreads profile, where you can even find my reviews on many of the books I've read recently.  For now, though, I'll just try to list the books that I've managed to get through over the past year.  (It also helps that I participate in 4 book clubs, which keeps me plugging along.)  Here is my list:

Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man (which is a re-read, and which I'm doing in a bookclub that involves me and my eldest daughter, who picked this book, and which she is still -- supposedly -- working on.)

Geraldine Brooks's March (which is part of my own literary crusade to work my way through Pulitzer Prize winners for fiction)

Earl Lovelace's While Gods Are Falling (which I read because one of the Ph.D. students in my department is doing his dissertation on Lovelace and so, having witnessed this student's enthusiasm for this Trinidadian author, I was drawn to give Lovelace a go)

Leonardo Boff's The Prayer of St. Francis: A Message of Peace for the World Today (which is the first book in a new "spiritual readings" book club that I organized with my two younger brothers.  I picked Boff's book because of my enthusiasm for the new Pope -- the first Jesuit Pontiff -- and his fondness for Boff on the one hand, and his choice of St. Francis as his papal namesake on the other hand.)

Alejo Carpentier The Kingdom of This World (as part of my participation in a longstanding book club that involves my wife and another couple)

Donald Cozzens's Notes from the Underground: The Spiritual Journey of a Secular Priest (which came recommended to me by my Maryknoll affiliates group, and which resonates with my own sense of place within the Catholic community)

Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow (which was Tulane's freshman book selection and for which I had to moderate a discussion in a Freshmen intro-to-college kind of course -- it's a fascinating and provocative explication on the racial dimensions of our current age of mass incarceration for drug crimes)

Candice Millard's Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President (for one of my other regular men's book clubs) -- it's about the murder of James Garfield and his life and times.

Phillip Roth's American Pastoral (another selection from my Pulitzer Prize winners for fiction, and which was my selection for the book club that involves my wife and another couple following the Carpentier novel)

Ronald J. Drez's Gallant Fighting Sons: The Jesuits, Louisiana, and Their School in New Orleans (which is a history of my high school and which, unfortunately, was a rather dreadful rendition that made my high school seem important only for its athletic achievements)

Richard Russo's Straight Man (which was just a random selection from my library that I had wanted to read for a long time and finally got around to doing)

Willa Cather's My Antonia (which was another random selection from my library that I had been intending to read for a while and finally pushed myself to read -- and which I liked a lot, by the way)

Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (which was my selection for the book club that involves my eldest daughter, but which she never got around to reading.)

Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (which is the first choice in the book club that I established with my youngest daughter -- actually, I'm still reading Through the Looking Glass, but I did finish Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)

Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement (another selection for the men's book club -- this one was my choice)

Those are the books I've actually finished.  I currently am actively reading the following:

Gregory M. Colon Semenza's Graduate Study for the Twenty-First Century: How to Build an Academic Career in the Humanities (school related)

James J. Martin, SJ's My Life with the Saints (the second choice for the "spiritual" book club I participate in with my two younger brothers)

Warren Moore's Broken Glass Waltzes (a book written by a blogger/academic that I came to know by pure chance)

Roberto Bolano's The Savage Detectives (the latest selection for my men's book club)

Juan Gabriel Vazquez's The Sound of Things Falling (the latest selection for the couple's book club)

Michael Cunningham's The Hours (my Pulitzer Prize winner list)

*******

I also plan to be writing more creatively -- both poetry as well as academic research.  And to the extent that I can, I hope to use this blog as a mechanism to spur my creative writing output.  In fact, in my next blog post, which I'll be putting up immediately after I post this, I'm going to upload a poem I wrote recently on the occasion of my youngest daughter's 11th birthday.  I'd welcome and appreciate any critical feedback or commentary on any of my creative writing output, so please don't hesitate to post some comments.  That's about it for now.  Peace.

Conservative Nihilism

Is it just me, or is the obsession that many conservatives have with taking down the Obama administration reaching unseemly and gross proportions?  Are they really to the point where the talk of impeachment is being considered with any measure of seriousness?  Really?!?  And this coming after a Republican administration that actually committed war crimes and engaged in unapologetic torture?

Well, let the prosecution games begin!

While Congressional Republicans start their impeachment games over bureaucratic inter-agency mumbo-jumbo infighting in emails about the Benghazi tragedy, perhaps the Obama administration can start war crimes investigations against the entire Bush/Cheney apparatus.

As to the whole IRS targeting Tea Party groups, well there is a problem at one level in the sense that the IRS needs to be an equal opportunity watchdog against violations of the law.  But all this means in my eyes is that the IRS's mistake is not in questioning the tax-exemption legitimacy of the OBVIOUSLY PARTISAN AND POLITICAL conservative Tea Party groups, but rather not also doing the same to the OBVIOUSLY PARTISAN AND POLITICAL Liberal groups.

And let's not be so dense, people.  We absolutely know that Karl Rove's Super-PAC is, without a doubt, blatantly partisan and political in just about 100% of its activities.  It's laughable to think that Karl Rove's Super-PAC is a "social welfare" organization that would make it a tax-exempt organization.  And EVERYONE knows this.

If conservatives want to cry foul and say that the mean old IRS is only concerned with the illegality of conservative groups, and not also with the illegality of similar liberal groups, they can go ahead and cry foul till they are blue in the face.  But, that STILL doesn't change the FACT of the illegality of these conservative groups when they fraudulently claim tax-exempt status.  The IRS SHOULD be investigating these groups.  And the IRS should also be targeting and harassing liberal groups who play fast and loose with this tax-exempt boondoggle.

You know, the delusional blindness that caused conservatives to make complete asses of themselves during the last Presidential election (remember Karl Rove's embarrassing meltdown on FoxNews?) seems to still be at work here as well.  The average, sane person who looks at what's going on today with the GOP obsession with Benghazi and with the manufactured outrage at the IRS, can clearly discern what's going on and will certainly arrive at the conclusion that the GOP has lost its friggin' mind.

I have never seen such nihilism have such a profound grip on a huge part of a political movement in my entire life.  It's just pure ugly to watch.

The Christian Argument for Marriage Equality

There is a way to engage to Christians on the subject of marriage equality from the perspective of Christianity, even from the perspective of Christian fundamentalists (Christianists), though I never hear anyone discuss this.

So much intellectual energy is spent by marriage equality proponents arguing the justice of civil marriage in a secular democratic polity (which is as it should be); but those lines of argument are never going to resonate with a fundamentalist Christian mentality in which secular civil rights arguments regarding marriage equality simply don’t matter and are always trumped by theological arguments.

So, in a way, I think constantly making secular arguments for marriage equality, as persuasive as they are to a mind oriented towards the virtues of secular civil democracy, to a mind that understands the virtue of the foundational church-state separation idea, is barking up the wrong tree if the goal is to persuade Christianists to rethink their position.

To persuade Christianists of the justice of marriage equality requires making an argument for marriage equality within the theological framework that Christianists value and embrace. I think there is a way to do this.

I am a Catholic, and in my faith tradition, marriage is a sacrament, imbued with a particular and special grace. Catholics (and all Christians, I believe) would hold to the idea that the sacramental grace of marriage is a gift from God available to all of God's human creation. It strikes me that the theological dimensions of Christianist opposition to marriage equality requires an active embrace of the idea of permanently denying gay individuals access to this grace, access to the fullness of God. I believe having to face this idea would make even the most ardent Christianist with an honest conscience a bit squeamish. In essence, if forces Christianists to believe that the theological implication of their stance against marriage equality is not only to drive a wedge between God and his gay son or daughter, but also even to accept their advocacy of keeping the fullness of God away from his children. Fallible and sinful Christianists have to accept the presumption of themselves as the policers of God’s grace. And what God-fearing Christianist would ever presume to be the policer of God’s grace? In fact, presuming as much flies in the face of the entire Christian ethos of forgiveness, redemption, and salvation.

One could develop this line of thinking even more fully and eloquently than I’ve done; but I’ve always thought that this line of argument from within the Christian theological tradition of marriage-as-sacrament would go a long, long way towards changing how Christianists think of the marriage equality debate. In the end, Christianists don’t pay attention to secular, civil rights arguments for marriage equality because marriage, for them, is wrapped up exclusively in theology.  So to persuade them, one has to speak to them in the language of the theological milieu through which they understand the issue.

The debate regarding the secular civil justice of marriage equality is over.  Marriage equality advocates have won that debate. Now it's time to win the Christian theological argument for marriage equality.

War on Christmas?

John Stewart, in typical masterly fashion, just skewers the Christian Christmas Jihadists at Fox News in their annual "War on Christmas" outrage:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The War on Christmas: Friendly Fire Edition
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

I made somewhat similar points back in 2009 in response to a "War on Christmas" poem I received by email. But Stewart's segment is so immensely superior in driving home the absurdity of the "War on Christmas" meme, that I just had to share it. One of my favorite lines: "Christmas is so big now, it's eating other holidays."

Texas Secession

Just a quick thought: Although I think it's pure foolishness and childish sour-grapes whining, there is a movement among some conservatives disgruntled by Obama's re-election to call for states to secede from the Union.  I'd even say that this idea is being treated as a semi-serious thing, at least in terms of its symbolic significance, in some fairly mainstream corners.  In no state has this secession craziness received the biggest reception than in Texas.  Here's my zany contribution to the secession silliness:  Let Texas secede.  This would remove Texas's reliably "red" electoral college votes from the national presidential race and give Democrats an almost insurmountable ability to control the White House.  It will also even the score a bit more in the US House.  Then, when the state's demographic character changes such that a new Democratic and Hispanic majority emerges along with a reliably Democratic electoral college advantage in the state, a "blue" Texas can be welcomed back into the Union, cementing the Democratic party's lock on the Electoral College (and thus the Presidency) long into the future.

MBH Pottery at the Palmer Park Arts Market

Well, it's once again that time of the month when my lovely bride will again be out at the Palmer Park Arts Market setting up her booth to sell her pottery. The market will be running this post-Thanksgiving weekend for both Saturday and Sunday, from 10am-4pm. My B-2/3 has been hard at work all month and has added significantly to her inventory of pieces. The weather for both days looks to be beautiful, so if you want to support a great cause and pick up some wonderful pieces of handmade, high quality pottery as wedding gifts, birthday presents, Christmas or Hannukah gifts, or any other kind of gift, please do come out to the Arts Market this Saturday and/or Sunday at Palmer Park on the corner of Claiborne and Carrollton Avenues and look her up. Of course, as usual, Michele will also be doing live demonstrations at her pottery wheel, so please come out, enjoy the market, and stop by to visit Michele to see how pots are thrown (and hopefully not at you!)

What I've Been Reading

Since I last wrote an entry on the books I read (which was back in February of 2012), I've since racked up pretty solid list of reading accomplishments.  Here's the list, which I'll just mention now and perhaps I'll write up some reviews of the books down the road.  But if you've read any of these books, please feel free to leave a comment on what you thought on any of them and I'd be happy to engage in a comment exchange with you:

William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (a re-read for me): Grade A+. [All I need to say is that Faulkner is a genius.]

James Agee's A Death in the Family: Grade A [One of the best depictions of dealing with grief in reaction to an unexpected and sudden death that I've ever read.  Also a Pulitzer winner.]

Elaine Dundy's The Dud Avocado: Grade B.  [I picked this to read because the title intrigued me.  And it's a fun read, with some clever writing moments, but nothing that truly stands out as exceptional.]

Dan Baum's Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans: Grade B-. [Most folks find this work interesting and well-written; but I weary of the essentializing of New Orleans in ways this book does.  It's not alone in this practice, but I just get more and more turned off by depictions of my city through the kinds of lenses that books like this one provide.]

Sybille Bedford's A Favourite of the Gods: Grade B. [The writing is good and the storyline is interesting, but it's a kind of genre piece of European aristocratic casualness that doesn't resonate with me.]

Teju Cole's Open City: Grade B. [It tries much too hard to be contemporary literary hip.  It also has a bit of hip pretentiousness about it that doesn't appeal to me; but the idea of writing reflections that come from the meanderings of a Manhattanite through the streets of the city is an intriguing one.]

Paul Harding's Tinkers: Grade C-.  [Another Pulitzer winner, but one that I just never did get.  I couldn't ever find meaning in the story and at times the plot seemed to be very labored and forced.  There were a few redeeming moments, but none that could save the book.  Not sure why it won the Pulitzer.]

L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: Grade C+.  [Since it's a timeless children's classic, I thought I'd give it a go.  It's an easy read, but a bit too simplistic.  The story is not as engaging or clever, and lacks the kind of human touch, as is the Judy Garland movie.]

William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!: Grade A+.  [Again, all I can say is that Faulkner is a bona-fide genius.]

Michael Chabon's A Model World and Other Stories: Grade B.  [I love Chabon, but this is not his best work.  It starts out very slowly, but the stories pick up and gather momentum in the second half when it really turns into a bit of a novella.  I think Chabon is a much better novel writer than a short story writer.  But, I do admit, as usual with Chabon, the writing itself is superb in style.]

Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray: Grade B.  [Another classic I just had to pick up.  I can see why it would enter the realm of the classics for its kind of radicalness in its day; but the story itself, though quite unique in its premise, does fall into a bit of that late 19th, early 20th century tediousness.]

John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces (another re-read for me): Grade C-.  [Another Pulitzer winner that I don't think deserves the award.  I remember thinking it to be funny and clever when I first read it years ago in college; but having read it again as a more seasoned middle-aged guy, I found it to be just crude and vulgar.  I rarely got a chuckle at all at the gross and absurd shenanigans of Ignatius Reilly and his awful cast of supporting characters.]

Herman Melville's Moby Dick: Grade B+. [I finally got to this American classic and can now click it off my literature bucket list.  I read it in its complete, unabridged form.  It's remarkable for its depiction of whaling and of the anatomy of the sperm whale in such fine detail.  The plot of the Pequod's voyage and Ahab's drama is only about 15% of the novel, and it's o.k., though not as good as one is always led to believe it is.  Nevertheless, I do think Melville is a great American writer and this work is worthy of being read.]

Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl:  Grade B+.  [I'm usually not one for crime/mystery novels; but this one is well-written, clever, and fun to read.  But I do have to say that the character personalities are quite disturbing.]

Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge: Grade A-.  [Another Pulitzer winner and a collection of short stories.  Well-written and very well-developed characters.  I think it deserved the Pulitzer.  The themes of the stories can be depressing, but the way the stories are told comes across as gentle and warming, even if they are not necessarily fun stories.]

Heinrich Boll's The Clown: Grade B.  [A Nobel winning author.  This is perhaps his most famous work.  It's heavy going and can be tedious at times, but you can definitely appreciate the talent of the author.  The main character and the plot can be wearying to contend with, but the theme of the oppression of conventional religion is interesting in its portrayal.]

Resolution Update

OK.  The moment of truth has arrived.  It's been ten months and 18 days since I made my New Year's Resolution.  It feels like forever.  What a rollercoaster so far.  And it's not over yet!

But, I am pleased to say that after my workout today, when I stood on the scale at the Gym, I weighed in at 169.6 lbs.  So, it would appear that I've hit my target and fulfilled my New Year's Resolution (and thus won my bet), except ...

1.  I haven't had independent confirmation of this, which I will need to do.
2.  It was immediately following a fairly rigorous workout, so I imagine that it involved maybe a couple of pounds of water weight loss, which I may have (and probably did) gain back a bit as I rehydrated throughout the day.
3.  It was a weigh-in with just my shorts on.  Add on a shirt and some socks and I would have probably tipped the scales at slightly over 170 lbs.
4.  And perhaps the scale at the gym is slightly off, though it's been my measure the whole year and so I feel that I can fairly count on its accuracy (or at least its consistency) in charting my weight loss progress.

Nevertheless, I know that I'm basically there, and it's perhaps just a matter of days before I can weigh in solidly under 170 lbs in a random weigh-in at any hour with basic clothing on.

But these are just minor quibbles.  I will remain disciplined and continue with my diet and exercise regimen until I get to that point, even if it takes a couple more weeks.  I'm not worried.

But I do think it merits (and you're probably waiting for) some visual accountability.  Well, here's a picture from today:

And compare it to my picture from last January 1, 2012:

I think it's pretty clear that it's quite a transformation.  Once I get independent confirmation of reaching the goal, I'll post that information here on the Upchuck along with some full body shots from January 1 compared to some full body shots on the day of my triumph!

Resolution Update

Last January 1, I made just one single New Year's resolution.  It was to get my weight down to 170 lbs by the end of 2012.  If I fail in that resolution, I have to do something that would, to me, be extremely psychologically and emotionally painful.  (Click the link to read what that is.)

For a while, I was keeping regular weekly updates as to my progress on this resolution, even posting weekly pictures of myself as visual evidence.

Along the way, I kinda gave up on the blog and so my Resolution Updates went by the wayside along with it.

However, I have not forgotten this resolution, and I am still intent on meeting it, though I haven't reached it yet.

Here's kinda how it's been since the last I posted on this subject...

If you check the archives of my Resolution Updates, you'll see that at one point I got as far down as 170.6 lbs (on March 7), but never crossed that 170 lbs threshhold completely.  I certainly didn't get independent verification at the time.  Since then, my weight has fluctuated more or less between 175 lbs and 185 lbs, and my diet/exercise regimen was inconsistent and spotty.

I really think that my ideal weight is probably in the 175-180lb range; but that's no matter, because I agreed to get down to 170 lbs, and I will honor that pledge or pay the piper.

As late as a month ago, I was hovering in the 183-185 lbs range.  But knowing that my time to reach my goal of 170 lbs was drawing to a close, and knowing also that the holiday feasting season would soon be upon me, I resolved again to tighten things up and have been pretty disciplined in getting back on a careful and healthy diet, as well as a regular exercise program.

I will be posting visual evidence tomorrow of where I am, but I can report now that my last weigh-in was 171.4 lbs.  And I've resolved to stay disciplined until I hit my goal and have it independently verified, even if it means that I have to forego diving into that succulent turkey I'll be deep frying this coming Thanksgiving Thursday.  We'll see what tomorrow's weigh-in brings.

Sometimes, I think that I have subconsciously kept myself from reaching my goal too early, even though it was well within reach as early as last March, so as to make sure that I made at least some modicum of effort to stay on top of my weight all year long.  And I'm glad, in the end, that it has worked out this way, because even as my weight started inching up again at various points throughout the year, I always had the spectre of this resolution hanging over my head like a Damocles sword to force me to make an effort to keep my weight under some kind of control and not to let myself get too far beyond redemption.  It has been good to feel and look healthier over the course of the year so far.

So drop by the Upchuck tomorrow to see some pictures of where I am; and wish me luck as I make my final push to get to my goal.

Back to Upchucking

Well, it's been a long, long stretch of emptiness on the Upchuck. I think I'm missing it a bit. In a way, I've kinda substituted Facebook for blogging. Doing so has its merits, for sure. I have a ready audience of some 800+ readers through my FB friends. And my blog type status updates on FB are guaranteed to elicit response from at least a core group of folks. However ...

I'm not so sure I like using Facebook in this way. I also like Facebook just as a way to keep up with friendships and family; and my blogging style can be kind of alienating to some folks on Facebook that does some damage to my friendships on FB. For instance, since I really heated up my polemics on FB during the Presidential election campaign, I've noticed that my FB friends numbers have dropped a bit. Just a handful or so, but it's something I noticed. And I don't really like it.

I think why I'm bothered by this is that a lot of my FB friends are on the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, and these are people whose company and camaraderie I have enjoyed for over 30+ years. Many of my High School buddies are conservative. Many of my childhood friends from elementary school and the old Kenner/Metairie suburbs are conservative. And I like them all. They are really good people at their core. And I don't like to think that they maybe find my politics a bit distasteful, off-putting, and perhaps even offensive. Now let me say that I am by no means apologetic or sorry for my politics, and for expressing them publicly and forcefully; but I am bothered by the idea that I may be pushing myself in the faces of those good people who might prefer not to be subject to my rants. So, I think I'm just going to do my best to try to keep my politics here on the Upchuck, and to try to minimize that stuff on Facebook.

All this to say that I'm putting the Upchuck back into business. I make no promises as to how often and frequently I will be putting up blog postings, but I'm going to try to keep my rants here for the most part. I may link to my blog from FB; but I think that provides enough distance and remove such that my FB friends won't feel so directly besieged by my rants, such as they are.

And I welcome any who want to engage me to do so here.