I finished reading "The Best Short Stories of 2012," and while I found it more interesting than last year's collection, there remained a certain disappointment in the stories: a canvas too narrow, a palette too wan. (I needed a dictionary for that one, since there's palate, palette, and pallet, and I never have a clue which is which.) There were a couple of stories that I think might live on: Nathan Englander's "What We're Talking About when We Talk About Anne Frank" and George Saunders' "10th of December," but I grew weary reading stories with major characters named Nathaniel/Nathan/Nate (Ethan was a close second). The stock differentiation between novels and short stories is that in novels we watch a character grow (or not) through a series of actions and their consequences, while in short stories we see an action leading to an epiphany but are left to infer the consequences for the protagonist. In these stories, I found the endings almost always disappoiting: the action seemed too limited, the realization too vague and insignificant. After the rich carnival of Vanity Fair, with its huge cast of fools and knaves, I was left longing for variety and richness.
I was searching for what to read next when I came across a review of Adam Phillips' Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life. Phillips is described as "Britain's foremost psychoanalytic writer," but somehow he had flown under my radar. The main premise of the book is that rather than feeling we should have a better life or imagining "what if," we should realize that the life we have is what we have, what we are, and what we're going to get. And that life can be a good-enough life. Here, I'm borrowing from one of Phillips' mentors, the child psychologist D. W. Winnicott, who introduced the term "good-enough mother" to describe the mothers most of us have, those who sometimes when we're children respond promptly to our demands, but other times can't or don't do so. For Winnicott and Phillips this is not only the way it is, but is good preparation for life: sometimes we get satisfaction and sometimes we don't. And no amount of nostalgia or dreaming is going to change that. Phillips quotes one of his, and my, favorite writers, Randall Jarrell: "The way we miss our lives is life." The reviewer writes, "In Phillips's view, the quest for understanding is not just an insult to emotional health; it is an intellectual error." We think we know more about our "unlived life" than about the experiences we actually have. His views remind me of Sartre and Camus--those existentialists who were so popular when I was in college: we are what we do, not what we think we might have been if only.
I had been thinking about our national obsession with "following your dream" and the "American dream." Is there any other country that has so enshrined a phrase like the American dream? As I watch talent shows like "American Idol," I've been struck how many times a night the judges tell mediocre contestants, "You're not right for this show, but you should continue to follow your dreams." I'm not talking about the obvious losers of the first rounds who are there for somewhat sadistic entertainment value, but people who have enough talent to, say, sing in their church choir with an occasional solo or sound better than other drunken karaoke singers, but who are never going to succeed as entertainers. What happened to the reality principle? It's as if I had tried out for the Lakers, and the scouts said, "Well, you're not right for our team, but keep following your dream." (One of the saddest and most potent films about the consequences of middling to good talent being encouraged beyond reality is a classic documentary about basketball, "Hoop Dreams.") Nostalgia for a life we didn't live, dreams about a life we're never going to live--these are dangerous distractions from the good-enough life many of us have the potential to live.
There are great stories in American literature about the unlived life, though with a slightly different take from Phillips'. I sometimes taught three of them in my American lit. survey courses: Henry James' "The Beast in the Jungle," F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Rich Boy," and Saul Bellow's masterpiece, "Seize the Day." These are long short stories in which nothing happens. And that's the point--and also the difficulty for the authors: how to keep the reader's interest in a story without action. The students generally hated all three. My obviously carefully thought-out strategy was "Goddamn it! These are great stories, and the students are going to appreciate them whether they like it or not." James was the least favorite for the students; in addition to the fact that nothing happened over eighty pages, there was James' difficult style and a main character who was completely unlikable. The inaptly named John Marcher (Fitzgerald's main character was named Hunter) thought only of himself and as someone "sublimely unselfish," although he constantly allows himself to be "selfish just a little." His dream/nightmare is that he is the hero who will confront a beast in the jungle and who will perform some brave and dramatic action; meanwhile, the jungle turns into a desert and the beast that does spring in the story's terrifying ending is simply his realization that the life he has--a life marked by the too common for him experiences of love and eventually death--is the good-enough life that he has missed.
Tommy Wilhelm, the protagonist of Bellow's "Seize the Day" does act, but foolishly and against his own best interests, and students had little patience with him. There are two foils in the story, a trickster doctor who sometimes actually gives good advice, but who knows when? which advice is good and which is self-interested? Certainly not Wilhelm, and often not the reader. The other is his successful, but smug and sententious father. The students usually liked his "sensible" and uplifting advice. Wilhelm has a moment of confused clarity in one of the most beautiful passages in Bellow's writing when he at least understands the potential radiance of the life he does have, but he can't act on it. James' story ends in a graveyard with Marcher finally understanding, though averting his eyes from what he has learned. Bellow's story ends almost comically with Wilhelm at a funeral of someone he has not known, sobbing, becoming the inadvertent chief mourner.
All three are difficult stories for twenty-something students to identify with, and I abandoned teaching all three of them the same semester. For an alte kacker, though, they all ring sadly true.
I went to amazon.com to order the Phillips book, and I've never seen so many hostile reader reviews. Everyone seems to have expected a self-help book about following one's dreams, taking the road less traveled, and living a life more than simply good enough.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Monday, February 25, 2013
Snow again. Last Thursday's snow, while heavy, was dry. It fell fast and left 10" where we live, but it has partially melted, and it remains quite lovely--none of the slush on the roads that usually turns snowfalls into ugly, dirty messes. Mohamed enjoyed a four-day weekend, since Washburn was closed for two days. Now we're in, it seems, for a second round, this time with freezing rain and blowing winds. A real Kansas blizzard is forecast (or forecasted, as meteorologists like to say). An aside: when new verbs enter the language, they are usually made regular, i.e., with -d or -ed endings for the past tense and past participle. We already had 'cast,' the past forms of which are unchanged: cast, cast, cast. Should a verb like 'broadcast' or 'forecast' keep the parallel, uninflected form or should it be made regular with the -ed ending? The language seems up in the air at the moment. I always thought that the name 'google' was a brilliant choice: it punned on googol for computer nerds, it echoed already existing verbs (google, ogle), and it was easily made regular, unlike 'bing.' What's the past tense of 'bing': not binged, not bang, not banged. Bingged?
Until last week's storm, we had a very mild winter--not quite so mild as last year, but a huge improvement on the two horrible previous winters. Now we're paying the price. Still, despite how mild it had been, this winter has seemed extremely long. Christmas and New Year's seem like months and months ago. I'm ready for spring and being able to read on the back deck and walk from the car to a restaurant without bracing for a slip and fall.
The weekend wasn't great in terms of food. Friday night, we got a take-n-bake pizza. I made it through one piece and was turning green at the thought of a second, when Mohamed said I should stop. Stop I had to as even that one piece wouldn't stay down. Saturday night, we went out and had a delicate fish and chips, which has always been fine before. I was prematurely proud that I made it through the meal (well, half the meal, which is much as I eat these days) without an emergency. But we all know what they say about pride, and I was up many times during the night. Plus, I had such chills that I ended by sleeping in my hoodie--and downstairs on the couch, since I was sure I was waking Mohamed by leaping out of bed every 30 minutes.
Last night, like "a billion people all over the world," we watched the Oscars. The ceremony would normally have been called the 85th Annual Academy Awards, but the bigwigs decided that made it sound too old, so the Oscars it was. Seth MacFarlane, a hero of mine for "Family Guy," but a huge disappointment with "Ted," was much better as a song-and-dance man than as a comedian, a role in which he seemed uncomfortable and with definitely uneven material. I miss the old days of the 60s and 70s when elegance was out and unpredictable political speeches were in. Nowadays, the most "content" we get is, for example, when Ben Affleck announces that it doesn't matter if you fall down; what matters is that you get up again. I waited three hours for that? The musical numbers were generally fun, and some performances (Barbra Streisand, Jennifer Hudson) were knockouts; the same can't be said for Catherine Zeta-Jones' lip-synched number. Why do women insist on wearing dresses they can't walk in? Not just Jennifer Lawrence, who recovered nicely from her fall, but most distractingly Meryl Streep, who kept picking at the back of her dress as if it was stuck. She finally said that she was standing on it.
Meanwhile, I've been reading the "Best Short Stories of 2012." I remember blogging about last year's edition and my general disappointment in the monotonous tone of so many of the stories, especially given the editor's avowed preference for stories that were humorous and stylistically unself-conscious. This year's editor says essentially the same thing, and I'm still waiting for my first smile. But there are some wonderful stories, though almost entirely by established and familiar author: Alice Munro again, Nathan Englander, Stephen Millhausen, George Saunders. I want to be surprised by someone fresh and new.
That was the weekend that was. Now it seems time to settle in for another round of snow, this time with ice and wind, so perhaps less agreeable than last week's blast.
Until last week's storm, we had a very mild winter--not quite so mild as last year, but a huge improvement on the two horrible previous winters. Now we're paying the price. Still, despite how mild it had been, this winter has seemed extremely long. Christmas and New Year's seem like months and months ago. I'm ready for spring and being able to read on the back deck and walk from the car to a restaurant without bracing for a slip and fall.
The weekend wasn't great in terms of food. Friday night, we got a take-n-bake pizza. I made it through one piece and was turning green at the thought of a second, when Mohamed said I should stop. Stop I had to as even that one piece wouldn't stay down. Saturday night, we went out and had a delicate fish and chips, which has always been fine before. I was prematurely proud that I made it through the meal (well, half the meal, which is much as I eat these days) without an emergency. But we all know what they say about pride, and I was up many times during the night. Plus, I had such chills that I ended by sleeping in my hoodie--and downstairs on the couch, since I was sure I was waking Mohamed by leaping out of bed every 30 minutes.
Last night, like "a billion people all over the world," we watched the Oscars. The ceremony would normally have been called the 85th Annual Academy Awards, but the bigwigs decided that made it sound too old, so the Oscars it was. Seth MacFarlane, a hero of mine for "Family Guy," but a huge disappointment with "Ted," was much better as a song-and-dance man than as a comedian, a role in which he seemed uncomfortable and with definitely uneven material. I miss the old days of the 60s and 70s when elegance was out and unpredictable political speeches were in. Nowadays, the most "content" we get is, for example, when Ben Affleck announces that it doesn't matter if you fall down; what matters is that you get up again. I waited three hours for that? The musical numbers were generally fun, and some performances (Barbra Streisand, Jennifer Hudson) were knockouts; the same can't be said for Catherine Zeta-Jones' lip-synched number. Why do women insist on wearing dresses they can't walk in? Not just Jennifer Lawrence, who recovered nicely from her fall, but most distractingly Meryl Streep, who kept picking at the back of her dress as if it was stuck. She finally said that she was standing on it.
Meanwhile, I've been reading the "Best Short Stories of 2012." I remember blogging about last year's edition and my general disappointment in the monotonous tone of so many of the stories, especially given the editor's avowed preference for stories that were humorous and stylistically unself-conscious. This year's editor says essentially the same thing, and I'm still waiting for my first smile. But there are some wonderful stories, though almost entirely by established and familiar author: Alice Munro again, Nathan Englander, Stephen Millhausen, George Saunders. I want to be surprised by someone fresh and new.
That was the weekend that was. Now it seems time to settle in for another round of snow, this time with ice and wind, so perhaps less agreeable than last week's blast.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Yesterday was our first snowstorm in two years. The night before, the list of cancelations began scrolling across the bottom of the TV screen, including all the area schools and universities. I woke up at 4 a.m., and there was not a flake of snow to be seen. Shortly before 6, it was the same story. I thought everyone was going to be embarrassed when the snow missed us entirely. And then suddenly, a thundersnow began. Between 6 and 10 a.m., we got 10 inches of snow. It fell so fast and so thick that it really was a white-out. It didn't qualify as a blizzard because there was no wind--just the snow falling as fast as I've ever seen. There was a long break, and then by early evening, another couple of inches of snow and freezing rain fell. Schools are closed again today, so Mohamed is getting a nice and unexpected four-day weekend, though with lots of homework.
Mohamed and I, from the crowded aisles and the long lines like most Topekans, had gone to the grocery store the day before to stock up. So we were happily warm and snug at home for the day--and a good thing too, since no one came to clear the driveway. Kimber, our german shepherd mix, however, was perfectly content to spend the day outside frolicking in the snow. She would sit by the back door, surveying her queendom, and then suddenly take off leaping through the snow in search of something only she could see. Since I really have nothing original to say, I'll attach a picture of Kimber in the snow and hope it really is worth a thousand words.
Mohamed and I, from the crowded aisles and the long lines like most Topekans, had gone to the grocery store the day before to stock up. So we were happily warm and snug at home for the day--and a good thing too, since no one came to clear the driveway. Kimber, our german shepherd mix, however, was perfectly content to spend the day outside frolicking in the snow. She would sit by the back door, surveying her queendom, and then suddenly take off leaping through the snow in search of something only she could see. Since I really have nothing original to say, I'll attach a picture of Kimber in the snow and hope it really is worth a thousand words.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
When I first starting blogging, a number of friends tried posting comments. Some succeeded, but many would find their comments labeled "accepted" before they disappeared into cyberspace. Since then, most comments arrive via e-mail. The last comment, by cameronVSJ, requesting that I e-mail him to answer a quick question, I found rather suspicious. I don't know him; he's not a follower. I didn't want to seem unfriendly, but neither did I want to send an e-mail to someone whose motives weren't clear. So Mohamed and I began snooping around. It wasn't long before we found that cameronVSJ sends the exact same comment to many bloggers whose subject is living with cancer. Many people warned that he was phishing and/or trying to hack e-mail and cautioned not to respond. I worked myself into a state of indignation and prepared a nasty comment in return. I could imagine that people living with cancer might send via e-mail personal, financial information to friends or, indeed, to lawyers. Mohamed and I kept digging and found cameron's last name (the VSJ), a name that itself sounded fishy (or phishy). Googling him by his full name, we found that the request he seems to make of cancer bloggers is that he be allowed to do a guest post on their site.
Several years ago, his wife was, according to his posts, diagnosed with mesothelioma cancer. What's strange is that he has been posting essentially the same blog entry on the sites of people who do respond to his request ever since. It focuses on his role as caregiver (it's hard; accept whatever help is offered) and gives some conventional advice (life is full of the unexpected so enjoy every moment that you have). Sometimes, if it appears near a holiday, he'll tweak the entry a little, but the essence has remained the same for six or seven years. Is he sincere and extremely persistent but completely uninteresting? Does he simply get off on seeing his name online? Or is something less innocent going on? So this is all the response you get, cameron, and no, you can't be a guest blogger here.
A number of distant friends have said that since this is how they keep up with my health, I should mention it more. I always talk about it after I've had tests, but on a day-to-day basis, it's pretty much same old, same old. I've taken Votrient (the chemo) every day for 20 months now. In clinical trials, the longest anyone took Votrient was two years; most suspended the treatment after about eight months. I'm used to the most immediate effects: my hair turned white, and my blood pressure soared so that I have to take three pills every morning to keep the blood pressure in check. My left shoulder, where part of the scapula was destroyed by cancer and which underwent radiation, doesn't pain me and has gotten much stronger. There are a few things that I can't do, but I've long since adjusted to them, and anyway (or anyways, as Kansans say) we left-handers are pretty good about adapting. My right leg and hip (both full of titanium and plastic) are always the source of discomfort, but never real pain. As I've said, unconsciously (most of the time) I make small groaning sounds when I stand, and though I negotiate stairs pretty well, I carry my cane outside the house, since it's easier if there's a railing or some other support. I can't kneel or get down on my hands and knees to play with the dog or do serious cleaning (an advantage). But in general I'm pretty mobile. I had naively thought that after a while, I'd return to normality, like someone who's had a hip replacement, but after all this time, I've realized that that's not to be.
Of course, the most frustrating problems are the fatigue and the G-I problems. I know that three to four hours after I take the Votrient, I'm going to have to crash for an hour and that usually right after lunch, I'm going to fall deeply into a two-hour sleep. But it's not as if I have a lot of serious work to do, so I've relaxed into that rhythm. Still, it's a bit scary when one minute I'm feeling peppy and the next I'm completely out of it. The stomach problems--loss of appetite, nausea, and diarrhea--are the most irritating, especially as they're fairly constant parts of my days, but come and go without any observable direct cause. I eat spicy Thai food, and all is well. I eat something that seems totally bland and suffer dire consequences. I'm unhappy that food and drink are no longer pleasures, but I don't think anything is going to change on that front. So if I don't write more about my physical health, it's not that I'm avoiding the subject. It's just that there is rarely anything new to report.
My mental health is okay as well. Even though my life is much more constrained than I had hoped, I don't get bored (sleeping so much probably helps), and I've got many good friends whose company always gives me a 90-minute burst of energy. I've certainly got my share of neuroses, but luckily depression has never been one of them. Many years ago, I saw for a time a crazy, drug-addled shrink who at the end of one session suggested that I might like to try Zoloft or Paxil or Prozac. I said that I wasn't depressed. He said he knew, but perhaps I'd enjoy their effects. Finally, I agreed (I wasn't a hippie for all those years for nothing) and took Zoloft for a week or two. I've never been so depressed in my life. I sat immobile on the couch for hours at a time. That was the end of that experiment. (He also once decided to hypnotize me. In the middle of my "trance," he used the word 'collegial,' which he pronounced with a hard g. I remember debating whether it would be rude to correct him and then whether it would break the spell if I did so. I finally decided that if I was thinking about this and not whatever he was saying, I probably wasn't all that hypnotized anyway. Another experiment came to an end.)
I'm also by nature not a brooder. I was saying to a friend last week that sometimes, when my stomach is being particularly rebellious, I wondered whether I should stop the chemo for a few days, as I've done a couple of times before. But, I added, since the primary tumor seems to have resumed growing, I was reluctant to do so. She said that it must be a hard decision and that I must spend a lot of time thinking it over. But the truth is that I don't. On a bad day, I think about it for a few seconds, decide I'm not going to stop, and that's that. Or I look at the bottle of Votrient, think for a moment how nice it would be not to take it that day, and then just go ahead and swallow the three pills and don't think about it again. It's not denial or avoidance; it's just my character.
True, it's frustrating that food is an ordeal rather than a pleasure and that I'm not spending time lounging on a beach in Mexico or planning a summer trip to France. But I know that I've been very lucky in traveling and living abroad more than most people can even dream of. I tend to live almost entirely in the present (a trait which hasn't always served me well), so I'm much more likely to think about what I should read next (having just finished the very funny and very cynical "Vanity Fair," I need another long book to immerse myself in) or when Liam is finally going to choose between Hope and Steffy on "Bold and the Beautiful" than about what isn't happening in my life. You can see I have my priorities in order.
Several years ago, his wife was, according to his posts, diagnosed with mesothelioma cancer. What's strange is that he has been posting essentially the same blog entry on the sites of people who do respond to his request ever since. It focuses on his role as caregiver (it's hard; accept whatever help is offered) and gives some conventional advice (life is full of the unexpected so enjoy every moment that you have). Sometimes, if it appears near a holiday, he'll tweak the entry a little, but the essence has remained the same for six or seven years. Is he sincere and extremely persistent but completely uninteresting? Does he simply get off on seeing his name online? Or is something less innocent going on? So this is all the response you get, cameron, and no, you can't be a guest blogger here.
A number of distant friends have said that since this is how they keep up with my health, I should mention it more. I always talk about it after I've had tests, but on a day-to-day basis, it's pretty much same old, same old. I've taken Votrient (the chemo) every day for 20 months now. In clinical trials, the longest anyone took Votrient was two years; most suspended the treatment after about eight months. I'm used to the most immediate effects: my hair turned white, and my blood pressure soared so that I have to take three pills every morning to keep the blood pressure in check. My left shoulder, where part of the scapula was destroyed by cancer and which underwent radiation, doesn't pain me and has gotten much stronger. There are a few things that I can't do, but I've long since adjusted to them, and anyway (or anyways, as Kansans say) we left-handers are pretty good about adapting. My right leg and hip (both full of titanium and plastic) are always the source of discomfort, but never real pain. As I've said, unconsciously (most of the time) I make small groaning sounds when I stand, and though I negotiate stairs pretty well, I carry my cane outside the house, since it's easier if there's a railing or some other support. I can't kneel or get down on my hands and knees to play with the dog or do serious cleaning (an advantage). But in general I'm pretty mobile. I had naively thought that after a while, I'd return to normality, like someone who's had a hip replacement, but after all this time, I've realized that that's not to be.
Of course, the most frustrating problems are the fatigue and the G-I problems. I know that three to four hours after I take the Votrient, I'm going to have to crash for an hour and that usually right after lunch, I'm going to fall deeply into a two-hour sleep. But it's not as if I have a lot of serious work to do, so I've relaxed into that rhythm. Still, it's a bit scary when one minute I'm feeling peppy and the next I'm completely out of it. The stomach problems--loss of appetite, nausea, and diarrhea--are the most irritating, especially as they're fairly constant parts of my days, but come and go without any observable direct cause. I eat spicy Thai food, and all is well. I eat something that seems totally bland and suffer dire consequences. I'm unhappy that food and drink are no longer pleasures, but I don't think anything is going to change on that front. So if I don't write more about my physical health, it's not that I'm avoiding the subject. It's just that there is rarely anything new to report.
My mental health is okay as well. Even though my life is much more constrained than I had hoped, I don't get bored (sleeping so much probably helps), and I've got many good friends whose company always gives me a 90-minute burst of energy. I've certainly got my share of neuroses, but luckily depression has never been one of them. Many years ago, I saw for a time a crazy, drug-addled shrink who at the end of one session suggested that I might like to try Zoloft or Paxil or Prozac. I said that I wasn't depressed. He said he knew, but perhaps I'd enjoy their effects. Finally, I agreed (I wasn't a hippie for all those years for nothing) and took Zoloft for a week or two. I've never been so depressed in my life. I sat immobile on the couch for hours at a time. That was the end of that experiment. (He also once decided to hypnotize me. In the middle of my "trance," he used the word 'collegial,' which he pronounced with a hard g. I remember debating whether it would be rude to correct him and then whether it would break the spell if I did so. I finally decided that if I was thinking about this and not whatever he was saying, I probably wasn't all that hypnotized anyway. Another experiment came to an end.)
I'm also by nature not a brooder. I was saying to a friend last week that sometimes, when my stomach is being particularly rebellious, I wondered whether I should stop the chemo for a few days, as I've done a couple of times before. But, I added, since the primary tumor seems to have resumed growing, I was reluctant to do so. She said that it must be a hard decision and that I must spend a lot of time thinking it over. But the truth is that I don't. On a bad day, I think about it for a few seconds, decide I'm not going to stop, and that's that. Or I look at the bottle of Votrient, think for a moment how nice it would be not to take it that day, and then just go ahead and swallow the three pills and don't think about it again. It's not denial or avoidance; it's just my character.
True, it's frustrating that food is an ordeal rather than a pleasure and that I'm not spending time lounging on a beach in Mexico or planning a summer trip to France. But I know that I've been very lucky in traveling and living abroad more than most people can even dream of. I tend to live almost entirely in the present (a trait which hasn't always served me well), so I'm much more likely to think about what I should read next (having just finished the very funny and very cynical "Vanity Fair," I need another long book to immerse myself in) or when Liam is finally going to choose between Hope and Steffy on "Bold and the Beautiful" than about what isn't happening in my life. You can see I have my priorities in order.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
I had a dream the other night about my undergraduate roommate, Richard, the first "openly gay" person I'd ever known. And about his early death in 1983 from AIDS. For undergraduate school I went to the University of Northern Iowa, which was, while I was there, known as State College of Iowa, a change from its longtime name, Iowa State Teachers College. I've never been one to think about what-if scenarios, since even the smallest change would, like the butterfly effect, alter the rest of my life, and I've been happy with my 67+ years. (Henry James's "The Jolly Corner" is perhaps the best literary representation of what happens when the protagonist, somewhat dissatisfied with his life, confronts a ghostly and at first unrecognizable representation of what he might have become.) But the one exception is that when I graduated from high school, I won a National Merit Scholarship and received letters from universities around the country. I really had no context to make a judgment. Since the guidance counselor at school said "we was" and "he don't," he wasn't going to be much help. The few of my classmates who went to college went to either Iowa State, because it was ten miles away, or Luther, because that's where Lutherans from Story City went. My choice of SCI, ninety whole miles away, seemed to me adventurous. Still, I allow myself occasionally to wonder what if?
SCI/UNI was still primarily a teachers college. We were all inculcated with one "truth": there were three great schools of education in the U.S.: Columbia, Chicago, and ISTC. Like almost everyone else, I signed up for education. I remember taking two courses. The first, Teacher and Child, was a five-hour course that met every day from 4-5. The professor, Dr. Thompson, told us that since we were all honors students, we should just meet on our own every day and produce a paper at the end. He never came to class, and soon neither did we. As I remember it, at the end of the semester, he gave us all B's as punishment for being slackers. The second was another five-hour course taught by Dr. Nelson, a tiny, red-haired woman, who had a temper tantrum in every single class. After those two classes, among the most worthless I ever took, I dropped education, also having learned that to teach in college, you didn't need a teaching certificate.
The first year I was at SCI, there was a housing shortage, so there were three of us in a room designed for two: one bunk bed, another single, one closet with four drawers underneath, one desk, and a sink. The telephone was in the corridor, and the communal bathroom and showers were at the end of the hall. There was no TV, no mini-fridge, none of the conveniences that students today take for granted. But the three of us all got along and had a great time. Richard, his identical twin brother, and another guy were in another dorm, but the six of us did most things together. The fact that Richard and I were gay went unspoken, but at the end of that year, when housing opened up, the six of us split into three rooms with Rich and I living together. Neither of us had the sine qua non sexually that the other demanded, so there wasn't a sexual subtext; we were just great and inseparable friends. I was still closeted. Richard was definitely not. He was among the funniest people I've ever known. Once, when he came to visit me in Story City, where my house was on a dead end street with no curbs and no traffic, as my mother and I watched from the living room window, he spent a good ten minutes pretending to have difficulties parallel parking--backing in, pulling out, trying again, maneuvering the car between other imaginary vehicles. My mother was a giggler, and Rich had immediately found a fan. I remember a letter he wrote when he was in the hospital in Los Angeles suffering from AIDS. A nurse gave him a cup of liquid and told him to take it in his mouth and swish. Richard wrote, "She obviously had never seen a gay man swish before."
Rich and I often played bridge (very loosely speaking) in the Commons during breaks from classes. The games were never very serious because Rich's favorite bid was seven no-trump, no matter the strength of his hand. Another friend, Phil, and I, however, began going to duplicate bridge sessions where the play was much more serious. We entered tournaments and won master points, and we took bridge very seriously. After undergraduate school, I played bridge exactly three more times in my life, all three with couples who made the experience unpleasant by screaming at each other and, in one case, with the wife throwing the cards at her husband/partner. One of the participants in the duplicate clubs was the Dean, and he and his wife occasionally invited Phil and me to their house for more casual Sunday afternoon games. Someone--we never knew who--had told the Dean that Richard was gay, and the Dean called Rich into his office to tell him he was expelled from the teacher education program because gays should not be allowed to be teachers. (So much for nostalgia about the good old days!) I think I went one more time to the Dean's house, but I felt too hypocritical to continue.
After graduation, Rich, who had been a theater major, went to San Francisco, where he was convinced he'd be accepted by the American Conservatory Theater. He wasn't. He made do with part-time work, and after many struggles, he became a male prostitute. I went to visit him once. He lived in the Tenderloin in the seediest hotel I'd ever seen. The hotel resembled a movie set for a depressing hotel: my room had a single, unadorned light bulb. The bathroom was down a dark hallway. I was scared to use it after dark, but luckily there was a sink in the room. I didn't see Rich much because he "worked" nights and slept during the day. I've never had a sadder visit, and I never saw him again. Rich hung on this way for several years, and then one his friends got him a job in Los Angeles. But by then it was too late: he had AIDS. He didn't have much money, so he stayed at Los Angeles County Hospital until his parents finally took him back to the small town in Iowa where he grew up. It's hard to remember the fear and shame that accompanied AIDS in the early eighties. I wanted to visit him, but Rich kept putting me off: he didn't want me to come until he felt and looked better, though of course both of us knew that that was just an excuse since he was never going to be better. I was fearful enough, I'm ashamed to say, that I pretended to buy into it.
In my dream, it is the present day, and I enter a restaurant in a sunny setting, and there is Richard as the maitre d'. Although it's the present, we are still in our twenties, and the reunion is a joyous one. Don't worry: I'm not getting soft. The dream isn't a presentiment of some future meeting. It was just a dream, but a pleasant one that reminded me of one of the most important and formative people in my life, somehow who died nearly thirty years ago, but whose presence lingers happily on.
SCI/UNI was still primarily a teachers college. We were all inculcated with one "truth": there were three great schools of education in the U.S.: Columbia, Chicago, and ISTC. Like almost everyone else, I signed up for education. I remember taking two courses. The first, Teacher and Child, was a five-hour course that met every day from 4-5. The professor, Dr. Thompson, told us that since we were all honors students, we should just meet on our own every day and produce a paper at the end. He never came to class, and soon neither did we. As I remember it, at the end of the semester, he gave us all B's as punishment for being slackers. The second was another five-hour course taught by Dr. Nelson, a tiny, red-haired woman, who had a temper tantrum in every single class. After those two classes, among the most worthless I ever took, I dropped education, also having learned that to teach in college, you didn't need a teaching certificate.
The first year I was at SCI, there was a housing shortage, so there were three of us in a room designed for two: one bunk bed, another single, one closet with four drawers underneath, one desk, and a sink. The telephone was in the corridor, and the communal bathroom and showers were at the end of the hall. There was no TV, no mini-fridge, none of the conveniences that students today take for granted. But the three of us all got along and had a great time. Richard, his identical twin brother, and another guy were in another dorm, but the six of us did most things together. The fact that Richard and I were gay went unspoken, but at the end of that year, when housing opened up, the six of us split into three rooms with Rich and I living together. Neither of us had the sine qua non sexually that the other demanded, so there wasn't a sexual subtext; we were just great and inseparable friends. I was still closeted. Richard was definitely not. He was among the funniest people I've ever known. Once, when he came to visit me in Story City, where my house was on a dead end street with no curbs and no traffic, as my mother and I watched from the living room window, he spent a good ten minutes pretending to have difficulties parallel parking--backing in, pulling out, trying again, maneuvering the car between other imaginary vehicles. My mother was a giggler, and Rich had immediately found a fan. I remember a letter he wrote when he was in the hospital in Los Angeles suffering from AIDS. A nurse gave him a cup of liquid and told him to take it in his mouth and swish. Richard wrote, "She obviously had never seen a gay man swish before."
Rich and I often played bridge (very loosely speaking) in the Commons during breaks from classes. The games were never very serious because Rich's favorite bid was seven no-trump, no matter the strength of his hand. Another friend, Phil, and I, however, began going to duplicate bridge sessions where the play was much more serious. We entered tournaments and won master points, and we took bridge very seriously. After undergraduate school, I played bridge exactly three more times in my life, all three with couples who made the experience unpleasant by screaming at each other and, in one case, with the wife throwing the cards at her husband/partner. One of the participants in the duplicate clubs was the Dean, and he and his wife occasionally invited Phil and me to their house for more casual Sunday afternoon games. Someone--we never knew who--had told the Dean that Richard was gay, and the Dean called Rich into his office to tell him he was expelled from the teacher education program because gays should not be allowed to be teachers. (So much for nostalgia about the good old days!) I think I went one more time to the Dean's house, but I felt too hypocritical to continue.
After graduation, Rich, who had been a theater major, went to San Francisco, where he was convinced he'd be accepted by the American Conservatory Theater. He wasn't. He made do with part-time work, and after many struggles, he became a male prostitute. I went to visit him once. He lived in the Tenderloin in the seediest hotel I'd ever seen. The hotel resembled a movie set for a depressing hotel: my room had a single, unadorned light bulb. The bathroom was down a dark hallway. I was scared to use it after dark, but luckily there was a sink in the room. I didn't see Rich much because he "worked" nights and slept during the day. I've never had a sadder visit, and I never saw him again. Rich hung on this way for several years, and then one his friends got him a job in Los Angeles. But by then it was too late: he had AIDS. He didn't have much money, so he stayed at Los Angeles County Hospital until his parents finally took him back to the small town in Iowa where he grew up. It's hard to remember the fear and shame that accompanied AIDS in the early eighties. I wanted to visit him, but Rich kept putting me off: he didn't want me to come until he felt and looked better, though of course both of us knew that that was just an excuse since he was never going to be better. I was fearful enough, I'm ashamed to say, that I pretended to buy into it.
In my dream, it is the present day, and I enter a restaurant in a sunny setting, and there is Richard as the maitre d'. Although it's the present, we are still in our twenties, and the reunion is a joyous one. Don't worry: I'm not getting soft. The dream isn't a presentiment of some future meeting. It was just a dream, but a pleasant one that reminded me of one of the most important and formative people in my life, somehow who died nearly thirty years ago, but whose presence lingers happily on.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
For the first twenty-three months after Mohamed's arrival in May 2009, everything went just as we had hoped. Mohamed fit in immediately with the way of life in Topeka, strange as that may sound. Sometimes moving into the role of student after the freedom of a good job with a good salary was a little bumpy, but he adapted quickly. All my friends liked him enormously. And our in-person relationship after two years of long distance flights was a relief and a delight. In our six years together, we've had exactly one argument, and that ended after about 15 minutes. We spent the summer of 2010 in Paris in a very chic, but very small studio apartment and didn't get on each other's nerves despite the cramped living. I retired at the end of May 2010, but I taught as an adjunct for an additional year, so we were even together on campus. I had been contemplating where to live after retirement, and, for some inexplicable reason, I hit upon Florida, which had never been on my list before. Property values in Topeka are so low that lots of potential retirement cities were immediately ruled out, but Florida suddenly seemed like the answer--inexpensive housing, no state income tax, and best of all no winter. We visited St. Petersburg, but didn't like it, but then made two visits to the Naples area with a third trip scheduled for May 2011. I was ready to buy; Mohamed, I think, would have been happier to stay in Topeka.
Then in April 2011, everything changed. First, it was the sentence, "You have cancer." Then it was it's in the bones; next came the worse news that it wasn't bone cancer, but kidney cancer that had metastasized. Then it was the need for emergency surgery on my femur and the dire prognosis. At no step did either of us cry. We both focused on what needed to be done day-by-day as the telephone calls and appointments increased in number and bad news. Without Mohamed, I'm not sure what my reaction would have been or how I would have handled this. With him, we got through it together.
I spent nine days in the hospital at KU Med for the surgery, and Mohamed was there every minute. He slept in the room with me and went out at least twice a day to bring me food from outside once I could eat. The nurses loved him. He cleaned the bedpans (no wonder they loved him), rolled me over so that they could change the sheets, and helped change and adjust dressings. He took me for walks around the hallways as soon as I could walk and was my advocate with the guy who had designed the abduction brace, which at first cut into my flesh and caused bleeding. The surgeon cheerfully said, "Well, it's one size fits all, which means that it fits nobody." But Mohamed didn't stop arguing until finally someone new came and made the abduction brace as "comfortable" as it could be. The staff wanted me to go to a rehab facility, but I just wanted to go home, and they had enough confidence in Mohamed's skills to relent.
Once home, for the next 46 days, I wore the abduction brace 24/7. I couldn't shower. I couldn't take it off to sleep. For several days, I couldn't make it up the seven steps to the bathroom. It was Mohamed who bathed me, who led me through physical therapy, and who, never with a word or sigh of complaint, did for me all the sometimes unpleasant tasks I couldn't do for myself. He entertained visitors (how lucky we were that I hadn't forced a move to Florida where there would have been no friends or colleagues for extra support) and kept my spirits up. At night, he would loosen the brace enough so that it was less constricting, but never more than would make it less effective.
It's been almost two years, the second year of which I wasn't supposed to be around to see, since the first telephone call with the word 'cancer.' We still haven't cried. Instead, we've followed the British slogan, "Keep Calm and Carry On." Mohamed has carried on with a full load of classes every semester, in addition to being my chauffeur, my therapist, my rock. I've carried on in large measure because of Mohamed's love and support. Without him, I have no idea how these last two years would have played out. I don't even want to imagine them. When I have no appetite, it's Mohamed who searches for what might sound good to me and gently encourages me until he can see that it's time to say, "That ok. Don't force yourself." When I make small groaning noises as I stand up or climb the stairs or hear the rumbling in my stomach that signals yet another trip to the john, it's Mohamed who pretends he's heard nothing or makes a joke of it. When we go out and then suddenly have to rush home, it's Mohamed who risks the speeding ticket. When nothing but sushi sounds good to me, it's Mohamed who goes to Dillon's, no matter what the hour or what he's been doing. When at least twice a day I announce that I have to sleep, it's Mohamed that turns the bed back. He doesn't gripe now that trips are out of the question. He still finds me sexy (de gustibus... and all that) when all I see are Prufrockian skinny, white arms and legs. He gives me a shot every morning and says "I'm sorry" just before the needle goes in. (I always say "thank you" once it slides out.)
Life feels in many ways diminished because it is. But in more important ways, it's not diminished at all--and all because I'm not going through this alone but with a smart and loving partner. He makes it easy to keep calm and carry on, and together we continue to do so.
Then in April 2011, everything changed. First, it was the sentence, "You have cancer." Then it was it's in the bones; next came the worse news that it wasn't bone cancer, but kidney cancer that had metastasized. Then it was the need for emergency surgery on my femur and the dire prognosis. At no step did either of us cry. We both focused on what needed to be done day-by-day as the telephone calls and appointments increased in number and bad news. Without Mohamed, I'm not sure what my reaction would have been or how I would have handled this. With him, we got through it together.
I spent nine days in the hospital at KU Med for the surgery, and Mohamed was there every minute. He slept in the room with me and went out at least twice a day to bring me food from outside once I could eat. The nurses loved him. He cleaned the bedpans (no wonder they loved him), rolled me over so that they could change the sheets, and helped change and adjust dressings. He took me for walks around the hallways as soon as I could walk and was my advocate with the guy who had designed the abduction brace, which at first cut into my flesh and caused bleeding. The surgeon cheerfully said, "Well, it's one size fits all, which means that it fits nobody." But Mohamed didn't stop arguing until finally someone new came and made the abduction brace as "comfortable" as it could be. The staff wanted me to go to a rehab facility, but I just wanted to go home, and they had enough confidence in Mohamed's skills to relent.
Once home, for the next 46 days, I wore the abduction brace 24/7. I couldn't shower. I couldn't take it off to sleep. For several days, I couldn't make it up the seven steps to the bathroom. It was Mohamed who bathed me, who led me through physical therapy, and who, never with a word or sigh of complaint, did for me all the sometimes unpleasant tasks I couldn't do for myself. He entertained visitors (how lucky we were that I hadn't forced a move to Florida where there would have been no friends or colleagues for extra support) and kept my spirits up. At night, he would loosen the brace enough so that it was less constricting, but never more than would make it less effective.
It's been almost two years, the second year of which I wasn't supposed to be around to see, since the first telephone call with the word 'cancer.' We still haven't cried. Instead, we've followed the British slogan, "Keep Calm and Carry On." Mohamed has carried on with a full load of classes every semester, in addition to being my chauffeur, my therapist, my rock. I've carried on in large measure because of Mohamed's love and support. Without him, I have no idea how these last two years would have played out. I don't even want to imagine them. When I have no appetite, it's Mohamed who searches for what might sound good to me and gently encourages me until he can see that it's time to say, "That ok. Don't force yourself." When I make small groaning noises as I stand up or climb the stairs or hear the rumbling in my stomach that signals yet another trip to the john, it's Mohamed who pretends he's heard nothing or makes a joke of it. When we go out and then suddenly have to rush home, it's Mohamed who risks the speeding ticket. When nothing but sushi sounds good to me, it's Mohamed who goes to Dillon's, no matter what the hour or what he's been doing. When at least twice a day I announce that I have to sleep, it's Mohamed that turns the bed back. He doesn't gripe now that trips are out of the question. He still finds me sexy (de gustibus... and all that) when all I see are Prufrockian skinny, white arms and legs. He gives me a shot every morning and says "I'm sorry" just before the needle goes in. (I always say "thank you" once it slides out.)
Life feels in many ways diminished because it is. But in more important ways, it's not diminished at all--and all because I'm not going through this alone but with a smart and loving partner. He makes it easy to keep calm and carry on, and together we continue to do so.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Several weeks ago, someone whom I described as an "old friend" prompted an entry on why I started writing the blog. Carla wrote later to gently suggest that since she is considerably younger than I and since the phrase "old friend" is ambiguous in English, perhaps I should have said "a friend I've known for a long time." Suggestion taken. She also wondered why I hadn't written more about Mohamed and especially how he and I met. The main reason I haven't is that he is generally a private person, and I wanted to respect his privacy; this was also augmented by the fact that he is a Muslim from an Arab country, and I didn't want to discuss too many details. But given the fact that my life would have been/would be entirely different without his presence, I ought to fill in at least some of the gaps.
We met online almost exactly six years ago. On paper, it didn't look like a promising encounter. He lived 5,000 miles away; I'm an atheist, he's a Muslim. The cultural differences were not entirely daunting; since 1990, with only one exception, all my significant relationships have been with Muslims, both Arab and non-Arab. (Only about 20% of all Muslims are Arabs.) And I had lived for a year in Morocco, a Muslim country. When we met online, he was 27; I was 61. Age, religion, culture, and distance--not much seemed to hint at the possibility of a real relationship. But we began chatting, first in one of the chatrooms, and then, more often, I'd steer him into a private conversation, at first on MSN, then on Skype. The chats had both camera and microphone, but for the first months, we just typed the chat, though with the cameras on. Mohamed's typing was slow (he'd write in Arabic and then use a translating site to rewrite it in English), and I was a bit skeptical of his English. But I'm nothing if not stubborn, so we continued. Maybe a slow learner too--because one night I realized that I could hear his typing, and therefore our microphones must be working. It took a little persuasion, but we began speaking, and much to my amazement his English was very fluent--both his speaking and comprehension.
As soon as the spring semester was over, I would have more free time during the summer school, and I had a sabbatical scheduled for the fall semester. (It finally produced an article on linguistic invention in Melville's Pierre. For at least a year, all my friends abroad teased me because they never saw me without a copy of Pierre, which got more and more tattered.) I suggested that I would come visit Mohamed, an idea that both tempted and frightened him. After some hesitation on his part, I booked a ticket to Paris for my birthday (Bastille Day) and then on to see Mohamed. He picked me up at the airport, and we went to a very nice hotel with an underground parking lot, which made his comings and goings less conspicuous. I kissed him in the elevator on the way up to the room and then realized there was a camera in the elevator. I was greeted with a basket of fruit, a huge bouquet of roses, and a gold-plated Dolce & Gabbana cellphone. Over the next two years, I visited Mohamed six times, and he came to Topeka four times. In the time between visits, we spent hours a day on Skype, despite the time difference, which meant the chats were often at odd times.
And then after much discussion of who should live where (I could probably have gotten a teaching job there, but we couldn't have lived openly together), we decided that Mohamed would come here on a student visa. He already had an A.A. degree in business from a local university. He was accepted at Washburn, but at his first two visa interviews, the embassy official turned down his application. So we changed strategy: he applied to and was accepted by KU. And somehow KU was more convincing at his third visa interview, and he was given a student visa. He arrived in May 2009, took one course during the summer at KU, and then transfered to Washburn. Once you've received a student visa, you're not committed to staying at the university you put on your form. Nowadays, a student submits his transcript (for a large fee) to a national evaluation company, and the company tells the university which courses, how many hours, and what grades are the equivalent of those at an American university. On the company's advice, Washburn accepted 86 hours of credit. We thought that another two or three years would be sufficient for Mohamed to get the B.A. But two problems emerged: American is virtually the only country that has general education courses. Elsewhere, once you go to a university, you study only your major. So Mohamed had to start with lower division courses to fulfill Washburn's complicated gen ed requirements. Second, although Washburn accepted 86 hours of credit, the School of Business would accept exactly zero hours. So ultimately, the A.A. degree counted for nothing. This semester is Mohamed's eighth at Washburn, and if all goes well, he'll graduate next December. In one way, the delay has been beneficial: as long as he's in school, his student visa is valid. Once he graduates, however, the problem of his visa status will arise. Even if there's been immigration reform by then, Obama's proposal that international students who graduate from American universities should be given green cards rather than sent home extends only to those in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects--not to business or, for example, the humanities.
That's how we met and how nearly four years ago, Mohamed came to the U.S. He returned home briefly in the summer of 2010 before meeting me in Paris for the summer, but he hasn't suffered from homesickness and immediately fit in with American culture and with my American friends. Of course, with modern technology it's easy to keep in touch with his family and friends back home. I never met his family in the six visits, nor, at least in theory, do they understand the nature of our relationship, though why he's living with a 67-year-old man might raise some suspicions. He left behind a good job and a fancy car, in addition to his friends and family--quite a sacrifice for a life in the U.S. that didn't turn out exactly as planned. Next time, then, I'll write more personally on what has happened after April 13, 2011, when a doctor first told me I had cancer.
We met online almost exactly six years ago. On paper, it didn't look like a promising encounter. He lived 5,000 miles away; I'm an atheist, he's a Muslim. The cultural differences were not entirely daunting; since 1990, with only one exception, all my significant relationships have been with Muslims, both Arab and non-Arab. (Only about 20% of all Muslims are Arabs.) And I had lived for a year in Morocco, a Muslim country. When we met online, he was 27; I was 61. Age, religion, culture, and distance--not much seemed to hint at the possibility of a real relationship. But we began chatting, first in one of the chatrooms, and then, more often, I'd steer him into a private conversation, at first on MSN, then on Skype. The chats had both camera and microphone, but for the first months, we just typed the chat, though with the cameras on. Mohamed's typing was slow (he'd write in Arabic and then use a translating site to rewrite it in English), and I was a bit skeptical of his English. But I'm nothing if not stubborn, so we continued. Maybe a slow learner too--because one night I realized that I could hear his typing, and therefore our microphones must be working. It took a little persuasion, but we began speaking, and much to my amazement his English was very fluent--both his speaking and comprehension.
As soon as the spring semester was over, I would have more free time during the summer school, and I had a sabbatical scheduled for the fall semester. (It finally produced an article on linguistic invention in Melville's Pierre. For at least a year, all my friends abroad teased me because they never saw me without a copy of Pierre, which got more and more tattered.) I suggested that I would come visit Mohamed, an idea that both tempted and frightened him. After some hesitation on his part, I booked a ticket to Paris for my birthday (Bastille Day) and then on to see Mohamed. He picked me up at the airport, and we went to a very nice hotel with an underground parking lot, which made his comings and goings less conspicuous. I kissed him in the elevator on the way up to the room and then realized there was a camera in the elevator. I was greeted with a basket of fruit, a huge bouquet of roses, and a gold-plated Dolce & Gabbana cellphone. Over the next two years, I visited Mohamed six times, and he came to Topeka four times. In the time between visits, we spent hours a day on Skype, despite the time difference, which meant the chats were often at odd times.
And then after much discussion of who should live where (I could probably have gotten a teaching job there, but we couldn't have lived openly together), we decided that Mohamed would come here on a student visa. He already had an A.A. degree in business from a local university. He was accepted at Washburn, but at his first two visa interviews, the embassy official turned down his application. So we changed strategy: he applied to and was accepted by KU. And somehow KU was more convincing at his third visa interview, and he was given a student visa. He arrived in May 2009, took one course during the summer at KU, and then transfered to Washburn. Once you've received a student visa, you're not committed to staying at the university you put on your form. Nowadays, a student submits his transcript (for a large fee) to a national evaluation company, and the company tells the university which courses, how many hours, and what grades are the equivalent of those at an American university. On the company's advice, Washburn accepted 86 hours of credit. We thought that another two or three years would be sufficient for Mohamed to get the B.A. But two problems emerged: American is virtually the only country that has general education courses. Elsewhere, once you go to a university, you study only your major. So Mohamed had to start with lower division courses to fulfill Washburn's complicated gen ed requirements. Second, although Washburn accepted 86 hours of credit, the School of Business would accept exactly zero hours. So ultimately, the A.A. degree counted for nothing. This semester is Mohamed's eighth at Washburn, and if all goes well, he'll graduate next December. In one way, the delay has been beneficial: as long as he's in school, his student visa is valid. Once he graduates, however, the problem of his visa status will arise. Even if there's been immigration reform by then, Obama's proposal that international students who graduate from American universities should be given green cards rather than sent home extends only to those in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects--not to business or, for example, the humanities.
That's how we met and how nearly four years ago, Mohamed came to the U.S. He returned home briefly in the summer of 2010 before meeting me in Paris for the summer, but he hasn't suffered from homesickness and immediately fit in with American culture and with my American friends. Of course, with modern technology it's easy to keep in touch with his family and friends back home. I never met his family in the six visits, nor, at least in theory, do they understand the nature of our relationship, though why he's living with a 67-year-old man might raise some suspicions. He left behind a good job and a fancy car, in addition to his friends and family--quite a sacrifice for a life in the U.S. that didn't turn out exactly as planned. Next time, then, I'll write more personally on what has happened after April 13, 2011, when a doctor first told me I had cancer.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Why is it that when something bad happens, Christians (in particular) are content with the idea that God's ways are inscrutable, but somehow those ways are perfectly knowable when the events are advantageous?
Here's a particularly egregious example. Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis was indicted in 2000 on two counts of murder and aggravated assault. He struck a plea deal with the prosecutor in which he testified against two friends who were also charged, and Lewis was convicted only of obstructing justice, for which he received probation. Neither of the friends was ultimately found guilty of the murder charges, and to this day, Lewis has never explained what happened, what his role was in the murders, or why he lied to the police. He has six children by four different women. And he is also a vociferous and often tearful Christian. In a pre-SuperBowl softball interview with his former teammate Shannon Sharpe, Lewis was gently asked about the events of 2000. His answer went like this:
I am a great football player. (Granted)
All my football skills testify to the glory of God.
God wouldn't waste his glory on those who are unworthy.
Therefore, I deserve all that I have accomplished.
Ingenious, if not ingenuous.
When I wrote about Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People," my point was that the Catholic O'Connor reversed the traditional argument against the existence of God--the universality of evil in the world--to use it for her religious beliefs. O'Connor doesn't deny the prevalence of evil. Rather, she argues that nihilism/atheism leaves one defenseless against it. Therefore, since good also exists, there must be a god to account for goodness and to provide defense against evil.
In his famous sonnet "Design," Robert Frost uses a similar tactic for the opposite end: he takes one of the most traditional arguments for the existence of God, the argument from design, and turns it on its head:
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth --
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth --
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.
Immediately, the choice of a sonnet, one of the most traditional and carefully designed of all poetic forms, reinforces the sense of design. The octave itself has a symmetrical structure--three lines of description, two lines of comment, and three lines of simile. The first three lines describe a morning breakfast scene enacted by three white characters. (Frost always prefers synecdoche to symbolism, metonymy to metaphor; these three are not symbols: they're a representative part of the larger natural world.) White, used three times in three lines, traditionally indicates purity, The use of 'dimpled' to describe the spider may throw the reader for a moment, and even if we've never seen the flower known as the heal-all, its name suggests its beneficial powers. But Frost doesn't allow for ambiguity for long, as in lines four and five he makes explicit the nature of his characters with the strange comment that predation and death is the way to "begin the morning right"--not what we would normally assume. Moreover, both of the last two words have homonyms: is it to begin the morning right or the mourning right? is it 'right' or 'rite'? Certainly there appears to be a ritual aspect to the rigid wings, as if we're watching a black mass with the priest holding up the sacrificial 'host,' though sacrificial to no public good. And then there are the three lines of similes, again a mixture of the deceptively pleasant (snow-drop spider, froth, paper kite) with the fatal reality of one character's survival at the cost of another's life.
The scene described, the sestet begins with the philosophical/religious question about the role of design. Frost doesn't ask "who" has scripted this scene, but "what?" What brought the innocent heal-all, more commonly blue than white, to participate as the stage, the altar for the spider's predation? The spider, once 'dimpled' and then 'snow-drop,' is now 'kindred' to the heal-all; they are both participating in the deadly ritual. And finally, what brought the moth to its death. Frost is shrewd in his choice of a moth; no matter how much we love wildlife, moth protection is probably not high on our list of charities. As we spend twelve lines watching the observing narrator describe the death scene, we probably do so from a rather detached perspective. Frost doesn't deign to cheapen the poem with a more emotionally involving death.
Like most Italian sonnets written after Shakespeare introduced an alternative form, this varies from the original Petrarchan structure and borrows Shakespeare's use of a final couplet. Line thirteen makes clear the poet's attitude toward an argument from design: after twelve carefully sculpted lines whose content as well as form hints strongly at design, Frost suggests that it's a "design of darkness" and that we ought to find any such design appalling. And then, in his brilliant last line, Frost casually tosses off an alternative reading of the scene: perhaps there is no design at all. This last possibility, so frightening to many of the religious, is here just an off-hand remark. Design of darkness or no design at all--take your choice.
Here's a particularly egregious example. Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis was indicted in 2000 on two counts of murder and aggravated assault. He struck a plea deal with the prosecutor in which he testified against two friends who were also charged, and Lewis was convicted only of obstructing justice, for which he received probation. Neither of the friends was ultimately found guilty of the murder charges, and to this day, Lewis has never explained what happened, what his role was in the murders, or why he lied to the police. He has six children by four different women. And he is also a vociferous and often tearful Christian. In a pre-SuperBowl softball interview with his former teammate Shannon Sharpe, Lewis was gently asked about the events of 2000. His answer went like this:
I am a great football player. (Granted)
All my football skills testify to the glory of God.
God wouldn't waste his glory on those who are unworthy.
Therefore, I deserve all that I have accomplished.
Ingenious, if not ingenuous.
When I wrote about Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People," my point was that the Catholic O'Connor reversed the traditional argument against the existence of God--the universality of evil in the world--to use it for her religious beliefs. O'Connor doesn't deny the prevalence of evil. Rather, she argues that nihilism/atheism leaves one defenseless against it. Therefore, since good also exists, there must be a god to account for goodness and to provide defense against evil.
In his famous sonnet "Design," Robert Frost uses a similar tactic for the opposite end: he takes one of the most traditional arguments for the existence of God, the argument from design, and turns it on its head:
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth --
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth --
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.
Immediately, the choice of a sonnet, one of the most traditional and carefully designed of all poetic forms, reinforces the sense of design. The octave itself has a symmetrical structure--three lines of description, two lines of comment, and three lines of simile. The first three lines describe a morning breakfast scene enacted by three white characters. (Frost always prefers synecdoche to symbolism, metonymy to metaphor; these three are not symbols: they're a representative part of the larger natural world.) White, used three times in three lines, traditionally indicates purity, The use of 'dimpled' to describe the spider may throw the reader for a moment, and even if we've never seen the flower known as the heal-all, its name suggests its beneficial powers. But Frost doesn't allow for ambiguity for long, as in lines four and five he makes explicit the nature of his characters with the strange comment that predation and death is the way to "begin the morning right"--not what we would normally assume. Moreover, both of the last two words have homonyms: is it to begin the morning right or the mourning right? is it 'right' or 'rite'? Certainly there appears to be a ritual aspect to the rigid wings, as if we're watching a black mass with the priest holding up the sacrificial 'host,' though sacrificial to no public good. And then there are the three lines of similes, again a mixture of the deceptively pleasant (snow-drop spider, froth, paper kite) with the fatal reality of one character's survival at the cost of another's life.
The scene described, the sestet begins with the philosophical/religious question about the role of design. Frost doesn't ask "who" has scripted this scene, but "what?" What brought the innocent heal-all, more commonly blue than white, to participate as the stage, the altar for the spider's predation? The spider, once 'dimpled' and then 'snow-drop,' is now 'kindred' to the heal-all; they are both participating in the deadly ritual. And finally, what brought the moth to its death. Frost is shrewd in his choice of a moth; no matter how much we love wildlife, moth protection is probably not high on our list of charities. As we spend twelve lines watching the observing narrator describe the death scene, we probably do so from a rather detached perspective. Frost doesn't deign to cheapen the poem with a more emotionally involving death.
Like most Italian sonnets written after Shakespeare introduced an alternative form, this varies from the original Petrarchan structure and borrows Shakespeare's use of a final couplet. Line thirteen makes clear the poet's attitude toward an argument from design: after twelve carefully sculpted lines whose content as well as form hints strongly at design, Frost suggests that it's a "design of darkness" and that we ought to find any such design appalling. And then, in his brilliant last line, Frost casually tosses off an alternative reading of the scene: perhaps there is no design at all. This last possibility, so frightening to many of the religious, is here just an off-hand remark. Design of darkness or no design at all--take your choice.
Monday, February 4, 2013
The philosopher Thomas Nagel has a short, new book out: Mind and Cosmos. The title is neutral enough; it's the subtitle that's meant to command attention: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. The mind-body debate is, of course, an old one, and Nagel's main point is familiar: he cannot accept the notion that the physical science of the mind with its emphasis on matter, such as neurons, explains consciousness. And since consciousness is part of life, then neo-Darwinian materialism is inadequate to explain life itself. Natural selection and adaptation respond to the current environment of a species, so evolution, as it's now conceived, cannot be purposeful or aim toward a goal. "Materialist naturalism" is almost certainly wrong.
But then comes the kicker. We might expect to conclude from this that Nagel is about to introduce God into the discussion. Nagel, however, is an atheist. What he proposes to fill the gap is a complement to our current conception of natural laws: teleological laws of nature. That is, among the laws of evolution is one that we don't yet understand, a law of nature that includes the purposefulness of evolution. What's particular about Nagel's sense of teleology is that he eliminates agency, someone's special intentions. Rather, it's just the way it is; teleology is simply another facet of the general theory of evolution. The new concept is hard to grasp (even if we are willing to consider it at all), but that may well be because our cognitive abilities haven't yet evolved to the point where we can understand it.
Nagel's book is short, an introduction to his hypothesis rather than a full-fledged exploration of it. One question that comes to mind immediately is that since living organisms that lack sentience far outnumber those who possess "consciousness," how would the teleological law apply to non-sentient organisms? Let's say that those who are religious want to enlist Nagel on their side. Surely, common beliefs are more likely to be attracted to solving the mind-body problem with a god than with a vaguely formulated teleological principle. Teleology has traditionally embraced agency; what could it mean without an overarching designer? In current debates about religion, however, that is probably not very appealing to the religious. It gets them no further than a prime mover, a Deist clockmaker, and that's neither emotionally satisfying nor compatible with what most believers want from a god.
In a recent episode of "The Good Wife," the Julianna Margulies character announces that she is an atheist. The immediate response of the other character is not to ponder abstract principles of final causes but to ask whether she would remain an atheist if Jesus walked in and performed a miracle. Theists want a personal god, and more: a familiar personal god that fits the mold of a particular religion. At its most extreme, many Western religions involve a formula like "If you don't accept X, then no other belief counts." Christians are often guilty of this hubris: if you don't accept Jesus as your personal lord and savior, then you can't go to heaven." Catholics at least used to have limbo for those who led good lives but were born either temporally or spatially without the possibility of being Christian, but now the concept of limbo is itself in limbo in Catholicism--neither a necessary part of belief, but not officially rejected either. For those of us who are atheists, this exclusivity is one of the most galling beliefs. It's also, of course, a belief that has led to countless wars and deaths and that has persisted throughout the centuries.
It is also galling when those who are religious assume that atheists can't live moral lives. Dostoevski to the contrary, without god, all is not permitted. Like everyone else, we make moral decisions on a situational, ad hoc basis. We don't need the carrot-and-stick of heaven and hell. Indeed, heaven and hell are concepts that make no sense to us. Mark Twain's satire of a Christian's idea of heaven (lots of harp playing but no sex, for example) is indictment enough. But my favorite treatment of what heaven would be like is Wallace Stevens's in "Sunday Morning." The main character of the poem is enjoying a lovely, peaceful, sun-filled Sunday morning until she begins to think that maybe she should be in church, or as Stevens puts it, she "feels the dark / Encroachment of that old catastrophe." The rest of the poem is a dialogue between the woman's thoughts and the voice of the poet who argues against belief, with the woman's questions and arguments becoming progressively shorter and less convincing. One of the most beautiful parts of the poem is the beginning of the sixth stanza when the poet suggests suggests how awful a world without change would be:
Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in the perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set the pear upon those river-banks
Or spice the shore with odors of the plum?
Alas, that they should wear our colors there . . .
Alas, indeed! "Love calls us to things of this world," as Richard Wilbur wrote. Our disbelieve is almost certainly right--and much more satisfying.
But then comes the kicker. We might expect to conclude from this that Nagel is about to introduce God into the discussion. Nagel, however, is an atheist. What he proposes to fill the gap is a complement to our current conception of natural laws: teleological laws of nature. That is, among the laws of evolution is one that we don't yet understand, a law of nature that includes the purposefulness of evolution. What's particular about Nagel's sense of teleology is that he eliminates agency, someone's special intentions. Rather, it's just the way it is; teleology is simply another facet of the general theory of evolution. The new concept is hard to grasp (even if we are willing to consider it at all), but that may well be because our cognitive abilities haven't yet evolved to the point where we can understand it.
Nagel's book is short, an introduction to his hypothesis rather than a full-fledged exploration of it. One question that comes to mind immediately is that since living organisms that lack sentience far outnumber those who possess "consciousness," how would the teleological law apply to non-sentient organisms? Let's say that those who are religious want to enlist Nagel on their side. Surely, common beliefs are more likely to be attracted to solving the mind-body problem with a god than with a vaguely formulated teleological principle. Teleology has traditionally embraced agency; what could it mean without an overarching designer? In current debates about religion, however, that is probably not very appealing to the religious. It gets them no further than a prime mover, a Deist clockmaker, and that's neither emotionally satisfying nor compatible with what most believers want from a god.
In a recent episode of "The Good Wife," the Julianna Margulies character announces that she is an atheist. The immediate response of the other character is not to ponder abstract principles of final causes but to ask whether she would remain an atheist if Jesus walked in and performed a miracle. Theists want a personal god, and more: a familiar personal god that fits the mold of a particular religion. At its most extreme, many Western religions involve a formula like "If you don't accept X, then no other belief counts." Christians are often guilty of this hubris: if you don't accept Jesus as your personal lord and savior, then you can't go to heaven." Catholics at least used to have limbo for those who led good lives but were born either temporally or spatially without the possibility of being Christian, but now the concept of limbo is itself in limbo in Catholicism--neither a necessary part of belief, but not officially rejected either. For those of us who are atheists, this exclusivity is one of the most galling beliefs. It's also, of course, a belief that has led to countless wars and deaths and that has persisted throughout the centuries.
It is also galling when those who are religious assume that atheists can't live moral lives. Dostoevski to the contrary, without god, all is not permitted. Like everyone else, we make moral decisions on a situational, ad hoc basis. We don't need the carrot-and-stick of heaven and hell. Indeed, heaven and hell are concepts that make no sense to us. Mark Twain's satire of a Christian's idea of heaven (lots of harp playing but no sex, for example) is indictment enough. But my favorite treatment of what heaven would be like is Wallace Stevens's in "Sunday Morning." The main character of the poem is enjoying a lovely, peaceful, sun-filled Sunday morning until she begins to think that maybe she should be in church, or as Stevens puts it, she "feels the dark / Encroachment of that old catastrophe." The rest of the poem is a dialogue between the woman's thoughts and the voice of the poet who argues against belief, with the woman's questions and arguments becoming progressively shorter and less convincing. One of the most beautiful parts of the poem is the beginning of the sixth stanza when the poet suggests suggests how awful a world without change would be:
Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in the perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set the pear upon those river-banks
Or spice the shore with odors of the plum?
Alas, that they should wear our colors there . . .
Alas, indeed! "Love calls us to things of this world," as Richard Wilbur wrote. Our disbelieve is almost certainly right--and much more satisfying.
Friday, February 1, 2013
I was going to write about atheism today, but I received a couple of comments on my description of how I write the blog, so I'll save atheism for the next entry. I taught for 45 years, and there was not one semester, either here or abroad, when I didn't teach at least one, and usually two, classes on composition--developmental, freshman, and advanced. (Rather than having two semesters of required freshman composition, Washburn has one semester at the freshman level and a second required course that is supposed to be taken by juniors. Indeed, it used to be called Junior Composition, but Advanced sounded better, though it also created some confusion since more and more juniors put the class off till their senior year. That procrastination created numerous scheduling problems, constant desperate calls when classes were full, and some delayed graduations.) My favorite of these three was developmental English, where a diverse group of students who had been told all their lives that they neither spoke nor wrote well could sometimes be molded into a cohesive and interested group. Although not all students succeeded, progress was also clearer than in the more advanced classes where I was never sure exactly how much value I was adding to their writing skills.
The most frustrating aspect of teaching composition was that there are no rules: everyone has his or her individual ways of approaching writing. What works, works. I used to feel as if I spent half my time undoing supposed rules that the students had learned in high school. Almost all students were convinced that they couldn't use the word 'I' and produced sentences that began "This writer believes..." They had all been taught never to begin sentences with 'and or 'but,' an opening that, as a glance at any of my blogs reveals, is one of my favorites. My particular bête noire was the five-paragraph essay: tell them what you're going to say, provide three points of support, tell them what you've said. If that's organization, it's particularly superficial. Has any of us actually read a professional essay that followed that principle? And though three may be a magic number in religion, why is it sacred in writing? What if you have only one supporting argument, but it's brilliant. Do you have to invent two weaker ones? What if you have four strong arguments? Are you supposed to eliminate one of them?
I've never made an outline before writing in my life. If I was ever required to provide an outline, I waited till my essay was finished and then wrote one, one which always pleased the instructor since it followed the essay exactly. Still, if students thought they benefited from outlines, I certainly wouldn't discourage them from creating one. I might encourge them to try other methods, ones that left more room for discovery as they were writing, but if students felt comfortable with the structure that an outline provided and if they produced interesting themes, who was I to say that it didn't work? We've all heard of authors who say that they never begin writing until they have a firm sense of the ending. And we've also heard authors who say the opposite: that they don't know where their story or essay is going until the arguments and characters reveal themselves during the writing. John McPhee, the famous non-fiction writer, had an essay about a month ago in The New Yorker in which he described his writing methods and how he taught them to his students. The essay came complete with several diagrams, none of which made any sense to me. When I read his explanation of them and how they related to his storytelling, I was even more baffled. They clearly worked for him, but I would hate to have been a student in his class. The long-time chair of our English department used to tease me that my teaching methods were like Carlyle's "organic filament" description of writing. I took that, whatever Dr. Stein's intentions, as a compliment. If I did make recommendations, I often suggested what works for me: just letting the ideas percolate in your thoughts for a day or two before beginning to write. (Of course, that advice might have been more successful if the students had actually ever seen a percolator.)
Ever since I was young, I've always written on a typewriter. My mother worked in a bank till she married at age 35. My father, who himself had trouble holding jobs, wouldn't let my mother work outside the home, but he finally compromised (we needed the extra money) and let my mother do piece work in the home. Once a week, my mother and two other women drove to Nevada (pronounced Ne-vay-da), the county seat, and returned with ten boxes with 500 envelopes in each, on which they typed mail order addresses from voter and car registration lists. That equaled 5000 envelopes a week with no typos, erasures, or white-outs. There couldn't be more than a 1% spoilage rate. When my mother was cooking or doing other household tasks, I would sit at the black manual Smith-Corona typewriter, typing addresses and rolling in one envelope while I rolled out the completed one. In high school, in college, even for my dissertation, all my writing was done at a typewriter. I'd let ideas percolate, type a draft, make handwritten corrections, and type a second and final draft. With the advent of word processing, I encountered a dilemma. Before, I had always written fast and saved revision till a complete draft was done. Word processing made revisions much easier, since after writing a sentence or paragraph, it was tempting to read it over and make changes on the spot. Was this a good thing? It changed the whole rhythm of how I wrote. It's hard to teach old dogs new tricks (professor writes 'cliché' in the margin), so even with the ease of immediate revision, I generally prefer keeping whatever momentum I have.
I know what works for me--or think I do. Teaching writing, however, despite 45 years of experience, was never so clearcut. It was a constant experiment in trying to get students to trust their own intuition, to discover what worked for them, and to follow the organic filament of their thoughts.
If anyone would like a free, one-year subscription to Oklahoma Humanties, which I mentioned in the last blog, it's available at http://www.okhumanities.org/publications [Click on "Subscribe" in the left-side navigation menu.].
SuperBowl side note: Washburn will be represented by two players: Cary Williams, a starter for the Ravens, and Michael Wilhoite on the 49ers. Not bad for a Division II school.
The most frustrating aspect of teaching composition was that there are no rules: everyone has his or her individual ways of approaching writing. What works, works. I used to feel as if I spent half my time undoing supposed rules that the students had learned in high school. Almost all students were convinced that they couldn't use the word 'I' and produced sentences that began "This writer believes..." They had all been taught never to begin sentences with 'and or 'but,' an opening that, as a glance at any of my blogs reveals, is one of my favorites. My particular bête noire was the five-paragraph essay: tell them what you're going to say, provide three points of support, tell them what you've said. If that's organization, it's particularly superficial. Has any of us actually read a professional essay that followed that principle? And though three may be a magic number in religion, why is it sacred in writing? What if you have only one supporting argument, but it's brilliant. Do you have to invent two weaker ones? What if you have four strong arguments? Are you supposed to eliminate one of them?
I've never made an outline before writing in my life. If I was ever required to provide an outline, I waited till my essay was finished and then wrote one, one which always pleased the instructor since it followed the essay exactly. Still, if students thought they benefited from outlines, I certainly wouldn't discourage them from creating one. I might encourge them to try other methods, ones that left more room for discovery as they were writing, but if students felt comfortable with the structure that an outline provided and if they produced interesting themes, who was I to say that it didn't work? We've all heard of authors who say that they never begin writing until they have a firm sense of the ending. And we've also heard authors who say the opposite: that they don't know where their story or essay is going until the arguments and characters reveal themselves during the writing. John McPhee, the famous non-fiction writer, had an essay about a month ago in The New Yorker in which he described his writing methods and how he taught them to his students. The essay came complete with several diagrams, none of which made any sense to me. When I read his explanation of them and how they related to his storytelling, I was even more baffled. They clearly worked for him, but I would hate to have been a student in his class. The long-time chair of our English department used to tease me that my teaching methods were like Carlyle's "organic filament" description of writing. I took that, whatever Dr. Stein's intentions, as a compliment. If I did make recommendations, I often suggested what works for me: just letting the ideas percolate in your thoughts for a day or two before beginning to write. (Of course, that advice might have been more successful if the students had actually ever seen a percolator.)
Ever since I was young, I've always written on a typewriter. My mother worked in a bank till she married at age 35. My father, who himself had trouble holding jobs, wouldn't let my mother work outside the home, but he finally compromised (we needed the extra money) and let my mother do piece work in the home. Once a week, my mother and two other women drove to Nevada (pronounced Ne-vay-da), the county seat, and returned with ten boxes with 500 envelopes in each, on which they typed mail order addresses from voter and car registration lists. That equaled 5000 envelopes a week with no typos, erasures, or white-outs. There couldn't be more than a 1% spoilage rate. When my mother was cooking or doing other household tasks, I would sit at the black manual Smith-Corona typewriter, typing addresses and rolling in one envelope while I rolled out the completed one. In high school, in college, even for my dissertation, all my writing was done at a typewriter. I'd let ideas percolate, type a draft, make handwritten corrections, and type a second and final draft. With the advent of word processing, I encountered a dilemma. Before, I had always written fast and saved revision till a complete draft was done. Word processing made revisions much easier, since after writing a sentence or paragraph, it was tempting to read it over and make changes on the spot. Was this a good thing? It changed the whole rhythm of how I wrote. It's hard to teach old dogs new tricks (professor writes 'cliché' in the margin), so even with the ease of immediate revision, I generally prefer keeping whatever momentum I have.
I know what works for me--or think I do. Teaching writing, however, despite 45 years of experience, was never so clearcut. It was a constant experiment in trying to get students to trust their own intuition, to discover what worked for them, and to follow the organic filament of their thoughts.
If anyone would like a free, one-year subscription to Oklahoma Humanties, which I mentioned in the last blog, it's available at http://www.okhumanities.org/publications [Click on "Subscribe" in the left-side navigation menu.].
SuperBowl side note: Washburn will be represented by two players: Cary Williams, a starter for the Ravens, and Michael Wilhoite on the 49ers. Not bad for a Division II school.
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