Yesterday began with an unexpected, but pleasant surprise: Mohamed's sister sent a camera pic of his birth certificate. His mother had finally found the document after we had pretty much given up on recovering the original. The green card application had been stalled until the original was found or a government-issued replacement was obtained. (The passive voice may be appropriate, since we didn't know who was going to be the agent to do either of these things.) Now there are two more steps before we begin filling out forms and sending checks: the birth certificate must be translated by a government-approved translation service and Mohamed needs to make an appointment with the one doctor in Topeka who is authorized to attest that he has no communicable diseases. These doctors are designated as U.S. Civil Surgeons, and why there are so few of them (there are only a handful in Kansas City, for example) I don't know. Other than that, I think we have everything we need to file the application. After filing, there will be a wait of three or four months, and then, if the application is approved, there is an interview with the CIS in Kansas City to determine whether our marriage is "real" or a marriage of convenience.
One of Mohamed's classes was canceled yesterday, so we were able to leave Topeka early for our appointment at the Cancer Center and add a lunch with our friend T.J. We met at Room 39 on Restaurant Row, or 39th Street just across State Line Road on the Missouri side of Kansas City. It caters to the locavore crowd and is quite reasonably priced for such a restaurant. It is also, unfortunately, extremely noisy. I love duck, which isn't often available around here, and when I saw duck confit on the menu, I was extremely happy. That isn't, of course, the most healthful preparation of duck, and by the time we arrived at the medical offices, my stomach was reminding me of that fact. Still, I enjoyed the duck, and it was fun to see T.J. after two or three months.
We got to the Center at 2 and signed in. My nemesis, Marci the Maladroit, was nowhere to be seen, and I was called immediately for the blood tests performed by someone competent. There was supposed to be a 45-minute wait before we saw Dr. Van, and we had planned on going to the third floor to get the shot of Xgeva, but Dr. Van's nurse was waiting for us, and we went directly to the area with his consultation rooms. First, as always, they took my vitals--all good although I had again lost a little weight. (I always wear my shirt tails out now because the waist of my jeans has to be big enough, but then the legs and butt have lots of loose and baggy material, which is really unattractive.) The blood work results were already there. Basically, they were like always. I'm slightly anemic, the Vitamin D count was low, but I take once-a-week massive dosages of the vitamin, and the thyroid count was also low, so I'm going to add a thyroid supplement to my daily regimen of pills. Perhaps that addition will help relieve the fatigue.
Finally, we went to the third floor for the shot. There was something of a wait (by this time, I'm tired, and we're both impatient), but we still got in long before the scheduled time. The nurse, like all but one of them, believes in the slow injection of the medicine. It burns as it goes in, and I much prefer the nurse who just shoots the medicine in in one fast motion.
And then we were done for another six weeks and drove back to Topeka. For the first time ever, I stayed awake for the trip home, though the moment we got here, I headed for the bed while Mohamed went out for sushi for my dinner (and Chinese food for his)--one-stop shopping at our neighborhood supermarket.
Friday started well with the birth certificate surprise and continued positively with the results at the Cancer Center.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Sunday morning miscellany--
Writing a blog may truly be a new genre. It's unlike making diary or journal entries, which are meant to be personal and self-reflective, because there is an audience of others, ill-defined as it may be. It's unlike writing a letter, since the public nature of a blog means that certain stories, particularly my favorite kind, the foibles of friends, can't be posted for all to see. It's unlike an autobiography because it's spontaneous; what one writes is going to be read immediately after it's written. There's no time for subsequent revisions. It lacks the perspective of later modifications. The organizing principle, at least in my case, isn't entirely focused, no matter what the original intention might have been.
A further reflection on Syria: Let's assume a best case scenario, one where Assad allows the U.N. inspectors in, the sites and size of the chemical weapons caches are accurately located, the schedule is followed and the weapons are destroyed by the middle of next year, and bombing is averted. Does Obama deserve credit since Assad would never have agreed to these arrangements without the threat of even a limited attack? Or was Obama played by Putin, who seized on Kerry's offhand (?) remark to look as if he took the initiative and made the U.S. a secondary player? More importantly, does the plan do anything more than re-establish the status quo ante with Assad still in power? What happens to the fragmented rebel movement? Does the civil war continue and the 100,000 dead increase in number? Although the destruction of chemical weapons would undeniably be a positive accomplishment, how does that affect the more general situation? One thing that can't return to the way it was is the status of the millions who have been displaced by the civil war: at least two million Syrians have been externally displaced---into Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan, Jordan, and Lebanon. Over one million of those refugees are children since 40% of the Syrian population is under the age of 15. Not only are there the immediate problems of housing, food and water, sanitation, education, and health care for the refugees (and another four million or so Syrians have been displaced internally), but there is the uncertainty of the effects of all these humans on the already fragile states particularly of Lebanon and Jordan. The number of displaced persons will surpass those from the war in Iraq and soon become the largest movement of humanity since Rwanda. One small, tentative, potential victory on chemical weapons; many huge, seemingly intractable problems remaining.
Almost every semester, Mohamed takes one of his courses online, and it's been interesting to see the way online courses are taught and which instructors actually make them work while others just coast through with as little work as possible. Every day there are commercials for previously unknown universities--Southern New Hampshire University, Ashford College in Iowa, and others are inviting students from all of the country. In Kansas, Fort Hays University has become the third largest university in the state. How is this possible, since Fort Hays is located in the middle of nowhere? It's possible because few of the students are actually in Fort Hays; the vast majority are in China, taking all their course work online. Where do these institutions of higher education get enough instructors? It's a cinch that the teachers don't move to Fort Hays or to Clinton, Iowa, the home of Ashford. I learned on Friday, for example, that the instructor of the online course Mohamed is taking this semester teaches online at numerous other schools. It's what she's chosen to do with her retirement. And it's moderately lucrative for the instructors--and very lucrative for the schools. Online courses aren't necessarily of inferior quality; I taught courses online, a couple successfully, I thought, one as a complete disaster. But what strikes me is how little work an instructor can get by with if he wants to and how little interaction between the teacher and the students and among the students themselves is possible. In many of the classes, there are no required discussion postings. In many others, the quizzes and tests are tied directly to the texts and are created and graded electronically; there is no instructor involvement whatsoever. It's an easy gig if you want it to be. How well it educates is another question entirely.
Writing a blog may truly be a new genre. It's unlike making diary or journal entries, which are meant to be personal and self-reflective, because there is an audience of others, ill-defined as it may be. It's unlike writing a letter, since the public nature of a blog means that certain stories, particularly my favorite kind, the foibles of friends, can't be posted for all to see. It's unlike an autobiography because it's spontaneous; what one writes is going to be read immediately after it's written. There's no time for subsequent revisions. It lacks the perspective of later modifications. The organizing principle, at least in my case, isn't entirely focused, no matter what the original intention might have been.
A further reflection on Syria: Let's assume a best case scenario, one where Assad allows the U.N. inspectors in, the sites and size of the chemical weapons caches are accurately located, the schedule is followed and the weapons are destroyed by the middle of next year, and bombing is averted. Does Obama deserve credit since Assad would never have agreed to these arrangements without the threat of even a limited attack? Or was Obama played by Putin, who seized on Kerry's offhand (?) remark to look as if he took the initiative and made the U.S. a secondary player? More importantly, does the plan do anything more than re-establish the status quo ante with Assad still in power? What happens to the fragmented rebel movement? Does the civil war continue and the 100,000 dead increase in number? Although the destruction of chemical weapons would undeniably be a positive accomplishment, how does that affect the more general situation? One thing that can't return to the way it was is the status of the millions who have been displaced by the civil war: at least two million Syrians have been externally displaced---into Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan, Jordan, and Lebanon. Over one million of those refugees are children since 40% of the Syrian population is under the age of 15. Not only are there the immediate problems of housing, food and water, sanitation, education, and health care for the refugees (and another four million or so Syrians have been displaced internally), but there is the uncertainty of the effects of all these humans on the already fragile states particularly of Lebanon and Jordan. The number of displaced persons will surpass those from the war in Iraq and soon become the largest movement of humanity since Rwanda. One small, tentative, potential victory on chemical weapons; many huge, seemingly intractable problems remaining.
Almost every semester, Mohamed takes one of his courses online, and it's been interesting to see the way online courses are taught and which instructors actually make them work while others just coast through with as little work as possible. Every day there are commercials for previously unknown universities--Southern New Hampshire University, Ashford College in Iowa, and others are inviting students from all of the country. In Kansas, Fort Hays University has become the third largest university in the state. How is this possible, since Fort Hays is located in the middle of nowhere? It's possible because few of the students are actually in Fort Hays; the vast majority are in China, taking all their course work online. Where do these institutions of higher education get enough instructors? It's a cinch that the teachers don't move to Fort Hays or to Clinton, Iowa, the home of Ashford. I learned on Friday, for example, that the instructor of the online course Mohamed is taking this semester teaches online at numerous other schools. It's what she's chosen to do with her retirement. And it's moderately lucrative for the instructors--and very lucrative for the schools. Online courses aren't necessarily of inferior quality; I taught courses online, a couple successfully, I thought, one as a complete disaster. But what strikes me is how little work an instructor can get by with if he wants to and how little interaction between the teacher and the students and among the students themselves is possible. In many of the classes, there are no required discussion postings. In many others, the quizzes and tests are tied directly to the texts and are created and graded electronically; there is no instructor involvement whatsoever. It's an easy gig if you want it to be. How well it educates is another question entirely.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
About two months ago,, my friend Virginia's neighbor and friend, Joe, suddenly found himself in my position, being diagnosed with stage four kidney cancer that had metastasized into his bones. One moment his life was routine; a minute later nothing would ever be the same. In my case, it was the left scapula and its refusal to heal normally that signaled something was wrong. For Joe, the experience was like that of the protagonist of Tolstoi's classic story "The Death of Ivan Ilych": Ivan is the most ordinary of men. One day, doing the most ordinary of household tasks, he "bruises" his side. He thinks it's nothing, but it doesn't get better. While the doctors and his family focus on his external health (and the inconveniently altered routine of their lives), Ivan broods on his own past and present, as well as his very short future. Joe also hurt his side, a minor injury, he thought, that would heal quickly. But it didn't. It was more than a bruise; ribs had fractured. Why from such a small accident? It didn't seem logical after his having lived a physically active, healthful life. And then came the diagnosis: kidney cancer (like me, Joe had never had any signs of a problem with his kidneys) that had spread.
Virginia keeps urging both Joe and me to call each other and exchange information. So far, neither of us has done so. And it would be interesting to know which chemo Joe is taking and at what dosage, whether he takes the bone-strengthening shot that I take every three months, whether he gets a daily shot to prevent or ameliorate the pulmonary embolisms that often result from cancer. Joe went to the country's premier hospital for cancer, M. D. Anderson. What regimen did they prescribe? Does it differ from mine? And then perhaps I could be an example for optimism, as someone who has outlived his prognosis by two years now. And if the conversation stopped there, it would have been a productive exchange.
But might there also be a downside to meeting? If Joe is angry at life's unfairness, how much more unfair might it seem that I, who certainly can't attribute the extra two years to clean living, am still alive and kicking? Joe never smoked; I did--and do. And we would certainly talk about the side effects and the practical reality that Joe's life is going to be "diminished"--and that this change isn't going to get better. In my case, the first effect was to drive my blood pressure way up, requiring three anti-hypertension medications, each with its own additional side effects. And then the fatigue, which will change the entire rhythm of his days. Every time I mention it to my oncologist, he says the same thing: "You have to remember that your body is fighting cancer and that you're introducing toxic chemicals to combat the cancer into your body every day." That's clear and accurate, but hardly a consolation when every three hours your mind and body turn themselves off. For Joe, who has always been physically active, how to say this is just a fact, a new constraint that is never going to change. And then, of course, almost everyone who takes chemo suffers from G-I problems--nausea or diarrhea or loss of appetite or all of the above. If a talk were to take place, despite my longevity and seeming energy (timing of meals and visits is important; better if only Mohamed sees the ugliness), we'd also have to discuss what the next months or years are going to be like.
So far, Joe and I haven't met, and I seem to be talking myself out of calling him--and thinking up all sorts of rationalizations to justify not doing so.
Virginia keeps urging both Joe and me to call each other and exchange information. So far, neither of us has done so. And it would be interesting to know which chemo Joe is taking and at what dosage, whether he takes the bone-strengthening shot that I take every three months, whether he gets a daily shot to prevent or ameliorate the pulmonary embolisms that often result from cancer. Joe went to the country's premier hospital for cancer, M. D. Anderson. What regimen did they prescribe? Does it differ from mine? And then perhaps I could be an example for optimism, as someone who has outlived his prognosis by two years now. And if the conversation stopped there, it would have been a productive exchange.
But might there also be a downside to meeting? If Joe is angry at life's unfairness, how much more unfair might it seem that I, who certainly can't attribute the extra two years to clean living, am still alive and kicking? Joe never smoked; I did--and do. And we would certainly talk about the side effects and the practical reality that Joe's life is going to be "diminished"--and that this change isn't going to get better. In my case, the first effect was to drive my blood pressure way up, requiring three anti-hypertension medications, each with its own additional side effects. And then the fatigue, which will change the entire rhythm of his days. Every time I mention it to my oncologist, he says the same thing: "You have to remember that your body is fighting cancer and that you're introducing toxic chemicals to combat the cancer into your body every day." That's clear and accurate, but hardly a consolation when every three hours your mind and body turn themselves off. For Joe, who has always been physically active, how to say this is just a fact, a new constraint that is never going to change. And then, of course, almost everyone who takes chemo suffers from G-I problems--nausea or diarrhea or loss of appetite or all of the above. If a talk were to take place, despite my longevity and seeming energy (timing of meals and visits is important; better if only Mohamed sees the ugliness), we'd also have to discuss what the next months or years are going to be like.
So far, Joe and I haven't met, and I seem to be talking myself out of calling him--and thinking up all sorts of rationalizations to justify not doing so.
Monday, September 16, 2013
If at about 21,000 pageviews after 21 months of blogging, Rabbit Punched hasn't exactly gone viral, at least now it's gone into print. Oklahoma Humanities, the journal of the Oklahoma Humanities Council, is one of five such journals in the country that are devoted to serious issues rather just promotional fluff. The recently published fall issue centers on Medicine: The Humanities Prescription and features several pages of entries from my blog.
I went to the University of Oklahoma for all my graduate work, so there's a tie there, and Carla Walker, the editor of the journal, was my student at Washburn. She writes an introduction to the excerpts in which she tells a story that's become a motif over the summer: she was used to easy A's until she took a class from me. Unhappy with her grades, she came to see me to complain but left with "advice that stood me in good stead, as I would build a career on my tendency to edit." There are six full pages of selections, many more than I had expected, and the individual entries are printed in their entirety. There are many excerpts from early in the series, when the prognosis was particularly grim and the subject of the blog likely to be death and atheism. There are also many entries when I discuss poems and how literature reflects on life and death.
I got to choose the art work that accompanies the article, and I chose a Los Angeles artist, John Fox, whom I've known since 1977. www.johnfoxart.net The four samples of his work included are not just lovely and intriguing in themselves, but also make a wonderful complement to the writing. John's art has evolved through many iterations in the years that I've known him, and these are particularly apt in their organic imagery.
(John's partner, Richard, may be familiar to many of you from the series of H & R Block commercials he did last tax season. Directed by Errol Morris, the black and white ads feature Richard, a former C.F.O., in a trademark bow tie, extolling the professionalism of Block employees and the pleasure they take in what seems like mundane work. The ads were certainly memorable; everyone to whom I mentioned them, claiming friendship with Richard, knew exactly what I was referring to.)
There are also a couple of photos with the article. One is of Mohamed and me at a reception at Washburn. The other is from 1970. Carla asked whether I had any photos from when I was at OU, and I chose one from hippie and activist days--me with frizzy hair and John Lennon sunglasses during a protest by OKC garbage workers.
I am very flattered by the publication with the well-chosen samples of the blog entries, the art, the photos, and the many personal connections the selections bring to mind. Copies of the journal are available for order at www.okhumanities.org
I went to the University of Oklahoma for all my graduate work, so there's a tie there, and Carla Walker, the editor of the journal, was my student at Washburn. She writes an introduction to the excerpts in which she tells a story that's become a motif over the summer: she was used to easy A's until she took a class from me. Unhappy with her grades, she came to see me to complain but left with "advice that stood me in good stead, as I would build a career on my tendency to edit." There are six full pages of selections, many more than I had expected, and the individual entries are printed in their entirety. There are many excerpts from early in the series, when the prognosis was particularly grim and the subject of the blog likely to be death and atheism. There are also many entries when I discuss poems and how literature reflects on life and death.
I got to choose the art work that accompanies the article, and I chose a Los Angeles artist, John Fox, whom I've known since 1977. www.johnfoxart.net The four samples of his work included are not just lovely and intriguing in themselves, but also make a wonderful complement to the writing. John's art has evolved through many iterations in the years that I've known him, and these are particularly apt in their organic imagery.
(John's partner, Richard, may be familiar to many of you from the series of H & R Block commercials he did last tax season. Directed by Errol Morris, the black and white ads feature Richard, a former C.F.O., in a trademark bow tie, extolling the professionalism of Block employees and the pleasure they take in what seems like mundane work. The ads were certainly memorable; everyone to whom I mentioned them, claiming friendship with Richard, knew exactly what I was referring to.)
There are also a couple of photos with the article. One is of Mohamed and me at a reception at Washburn. The other is from 1970. Carla asked whether I had any photos from when I was at OU, and I chose one from hippie and activist days--me with frizzy hair and John Lennon sunglasses during a protest by OKC garbage workers.
I am very flattered by the publication with the well-chosen samples of the blog entries, the art, the photos, and the many personal connections the selections bring to mind. Copies of the journal are available for order at www.okhumanities.org
Friday, September 13, 2013
This has been a tough week for a number of reasons, several of them having to do with food. Last Saturday, five of us went to Topeka's best restaurant, the Rowhouse, for what promised to be a delicious dinner with good company. I was fine for the first three courses (small dishes from the tasting menu); then suddenly I felt really terrible. Mohamed and I navigated the very steep staircase to the first floor and went outside for some fresh air, but that didn't help and getting back up the stairs seemed nearly impossible. I stopped at the restroom, and when I looked at myself in the mirror, I looked something like a zombie. Usually when I'm in public or with friends, I look "normal," not sick at all. So it was a shock to see my own image. The other diners in the room stared--trying to look as if they weren't--as I stumbled back to the table. And then the feeling passed, and I picked my way through the dessert course with no problems. By the time we were in the car, I was sick again, and getting home and in bed was the only goal I could think of.
Things didn't improve with my next foray into a restaurant, our favorite go-to eatery, where we have lunch or dinner two or three times a week. I almost always choose their fish special, which twice now has come with alligator. (It tastes like rich chicken livers.) This time the fish of the day was catfish, hardly my favorite, but it was stuffed with crawfish and served with a Creole sauce. While I was eating, I enjoyed every bite, though the proportion of catfish to crawfish was a little heavy. But once more, there was a sudden shift, and my whole body, especially of course my stomach, revolted.
After thinking that my stomach problems were basically in the past, this week was a sudden reminder of less pleasant times. For the rest of the week, my appetite hasn't been great, and I've tried to stick with bland fare. Tomorrow night we're invited to my friend and colleague Maureen's for dinner in Lawrence. She's a wonderful cook, so I'm hoping for a calmer digestive system. I want to enjoy what I know will be a fine meal.
Meanwhile, I feel as if I've been crashing even more than usual. It's probably just my imagination; I know I've felt this way before. But I've been sleeping much later than usual, even sleeping through the alarm on occasion--and that's definitely not characteristic. Exactly three hours after I get up and take the chemo, I think I'm going to take a shower, but the bed is on the route, and it's too inviting to pass by. An hour or so later, I make it to the shower, have lunch, watch "The Bold and the Beautiful" (we all have our guilty pleasures), and then, even though I've been up for only two or three hours, I crash again, this time for two hours. As I've said, I'm sure, before, it's very frustrating. It's difficult to build up any momentum to accomplish things when my mind and body stop working.
On a lighter and completely unrelated note (except that I watch too much TV), here are my choices for the two funniest lines from commercials:
"I need a template for a template." (Carrie Brownstein for American Express)
And in second place, the Geico commercial that says that Old MacDonald was a really bad speller:
Announcer: Your word is 'cow.'
Old MacDonald: "Cow. cow. c-o-w-e-i-e-i-o. [Buzzer] Dagnabbit!" (An "old cooterism" says the urban dictionary.)
Things didn't improve with my next foray into a restaurant, our favorite go-to eatery, where we have lunch or dinner two or three times a week. I almost always choose their fish special, which twice now has come with alligator. (It tastes like rich chicken livers.) This time the fish of the day was catfish, hardly my favorite, but it was stuffed with crawfish and served with a Creole sauce. While I was eating, I enjoyed every bite, though the proportion of catfish to crawfish was a little heavy. But once more, there was a sudden shift, and my whole body, especially of course my stomach, revolted.
After thinking that my stomach problems were basically in the past, this week was a sudden reminder of less pleasant times. For the rest of the week, my appetite hasn't been great, and I've tried to stick with bland fare. Tomorrow night we're invited to my friend and colleague Maureen's for dinner in Lawrence. She's a wonderful cook, so I'm hoping for a calmer digestive system. I want to enjoy what I know will be a fine meal.
Meanwhile, I feel as if I've been crashing even more than usual. It's probably just my imagination; I know I've felt this way before. But I've been sleeping much later than usual, even sleeping through the alarm on occasion--and that's definitely not characteristic. Exactly three hours after I get up and take the chemo, I think I'm going to take a shower, but the bed is on the route, and it's too inviting to pass by. An hour or so later, I make it to the shower, have lunch, watch "The Bold and the Beautiful" (we all have our guilty pleasures), and then, even though I've been up for only two or three hours, I crash again, this time for two hours. As I've said, I'm sure, before, it's very frustrating. It's difficult to build up any momentum to accomplish things when my mind and body stop working.
On a lighter and completely unrelated note (except that I watch too much TV), here are my choices for the two funniest lines from commercials:
"I need a template for a template." (Carrie Brownstein for American Express)
And in second place, the Geico commercial that says that Old MacDonald was a really bad speller:
Announcer: Your word is 'cow.'
Old MacDonald: "Cow. cow. c-o-w-e-i-e-i-o. [Buzzer] Dagnabbit!" (An "old cooterism" says the urban dictionary.)
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
According to two scholars at the well-known research school, the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, there are six types of atheists:
1. Intellectual atheists are seekers of information and intellectual stimulation about atheism and enjoy debating and arguing with religious believers. The latter stipulation rules me out from this category, as I have no interest in debating with the religious. As Whitman wrote, "Logic and sermons never convince," so there's no point in engaging in debate.
2. Activist atheists not only disbelieve, they like to be aggressive in telling others why we'd all be better off without religion. At the moment, but hardly for the first time, an atheist in Massachusetts is suing to have the words 'under God' removed from the Pledge of Allegiance. I remember when I was a child, and in 1954, the words were added. Every morning at school began with a recitation of the Pledge, and over night we added those two new words. Since none of us was paying any particular attention (I was nine after all), at the time the addition didn't have particular significance.
3. Seeker agnostics don't really belong in the classification at all, since, according to the researchers, they have an open mind and don't have a firm ideological position. Agnostics are not atheists.
4. Anti-theists speak out often and vehemently against religion and religious belief. They are confrontational and believe that "obviously fallacies in religion and belief should be aggressively addressed in some form or another." I think if I have to be categorized, the researchers would put me here. I'm not interested in arguing or even really trying to convince another, but I often can't keep my mouth shut when religious people make confident pronouncements. And since the religious are so frequently vocal, they provide numerous occasions for sarcastic comments.
5. Non-theists, in this scheme, don't involve themselves one way or the other. They are simply unconcerned about religion and faith. This is sort of my default position. I have no interest in concepts like heaven or hell or, at a different level, hypocrisy within a religious group. You leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone. But since believers are rarely quiet, I find myself pushed more often than I'd like into group 4.
6. Ritual atheists aren't affiliated with any specific religion, but are still find "useful the teachings of some religious traditions." These are people who are likely to describe themselves as 'spiritual.' It drives me nuts when people say to me, "Well, you may not be religious, but I can tell you're a spiritual person." Nope. I don't have a spiritual bone in my body.
I'm not sure whether this study actually contributes anything to our understanding of atheists or atheism. Nor do I have a clear sense of the methodology of the researchers. It seems as if a late night, dorm room conversations could have arrived at similar categories. But the study not only was published, but also was reported on by CNN, so the researchers at least have burnished their academic reputation and résumés.
1. Intellectual atheists are seekers of information and intellectual stimulation about atheism and enjoy debating and arguing with religious believers. The latter stipulation rules me out from this category, as I have no interest in debating with the religious. As Whitman wrote, "Logic and sermons never convince," so there's no point in engaging in debate.
2. Activist atheists not only disbelieve, they like to be aggressive in telling others why we'd all be better off without religion. At the moment, but hardly for the first time, an atheist in Massachusetts is suing to have the words 'under God' removed from the Pledge of Allegiance. I remember when I was a child, and in 1954, the words were added. Every morning at school began with a recitation of the Pledge, and over night we added those two new words. Since none of us was paying any particular attention (I was nine after all), at the time the addition didn't have particular significance.
3. Seeker agnostics don't really belong in the classification at all, since, according to the researchers, they have an open mind and don't have a firm ideological position. Agnostics are not atheists.
4. Anti-theists speak out often and vehemently against religion and religious belief. They are confrontational and believe that "obviously fallacies in religion and belief should be aggressively addressed in some form or another." I think if I have to be categorized, the researchers would put me here. I'm not interested in arguing or even really trying to convince another, but I often can't keep my mouth shut when religious people make confident pronouncements. And since the religious are so frequently vocal, they provide numerous occasions for sarcastic comments.
5. Non-theists, in this scheme, don't involve themselves one way or the other. They are simply unconcerned about religion and faith. This is sort of my default position. I have no interest in concepts like heaven or hell or, at a different level, hypocrisy within a religious group. You leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone. But since believers are rarely quiet, I find myself pushed more often than I'd like into group 4.
6. Ritual atheists aren't affiliated with any specific religion, but are still find "useful the teachings of some religious traditions." These are people who are likely to describe themselves as 'spiritual.' It drives me nuts when people say to me, "Well, you may not be religious, but I can tell you're a spiritual person." Nope. I don't have a spiritual bone in my body.
I'm not sure whether this study actually contributes anything to our understanding of atheists or atheism. Nor do I have a clear sense of the methodology of the researchers. It seems as if a late night, dorm room conversations could have arrived at similar categories. But the study not only was published, but also was reported on by CNN, so the researchers at least have burnished their academic reputation and résumés.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Within the last ten days, Turner Classic Movies has shown two of the greatest movies of all time: D. W. Griffith's 1916 masterpiece Intolerance and Fritz Lang's Metropolis, first shown in 1925, but immediately censored and cut with the mutilated version premiering in 1927. Both require patience from a modern viewer; Intolerance is three and a half hours long, and the newly restored version of Metropolis is nearly three hours. Both are, of course, silent and in black and white, though Griffith had some scenes in master prints hand tinted. TCM preserved a few of the tinted scenes. Just as eighteenth and nineteenth century British novels, wonderful as they are, are the bane of English graduate students because they are so long and we don't have the same lengthy leisure hours to fill as readers did a couple of centuries ago, so too it's not common to have three hours plus to watch a silent, b/w movie from nearly a hundred years ago. It's worth it, though. A few years ago, I taught a senior seminar on the American novel into film to some of the very best students we had. Not one of them had seen a silent film; none could remember ever having seen a film in black and white. They groaned when they saw that there were two silent films on the course list. Victor Sjostrom's The Scarlet Letter wasn't a huge hit, though it's by far the most intelligent and engaging version of Hawthorne's novel, but once Erich von Stroheim's Greed (1924) began playing I had a rapt classroom for the four hours of the restored version.
Greed is legendary for the series of cuts that were made in Stroheim's original 85 hours of footage, cut and cut and cut, with the deleted film supposedly destroyed. The four hours that are left in the restored version that currently is in circulation are mesmerizing. So, too, for years much of what was cut from Metropolis was thought to be lost, but a badly damaged print of the longer version was found in Buenos Aires, and what TCM shows returns much of the missing material, though not all of it has been fully restored in terms of quality. Metropolis might equally as well have been titled 'Greed,' as the world it creates--expressionistic, fantastic, futuristic--is divided sharply and neatly between the 1% and the rest. The very rich play in the "eternal garden," while the workers slave mechanically away to support them. I hadn't seen Metropolis in several years, and I thought I remembered it well. But this time it seemed different; it felt newly relevant to our own society and our growing divide between the have-it-nearly-alls and the rest of society.
TCM shows a lot of dreck, movies that are hardly classics, but it is one of the last forums for movies that are truly classics. I'm showing my age, but I can't resist nostalgia for the days when every university had film series that showed foreign and classic movies that weren't going to play in the first-run theaters that dominate movie-going these days. For several years in the 70s, a colleague and I ran the Shoestring Film Society at Washburn, showing movies on 16mm to an appreciative crowd, for whom most of the movies were new experiences. But then VCRs, then DVD players, then Netflix put an end to all that. And the movies that were available didn't broaden our sense of cinema but merely focused on those films that were in theaters a year or two before. (The eight dollars a month a spend for streaming Netflix is a complete and infuriating waste,) We brought back the Shoestring Film Society a few years ago, and for the next three years we had a respectable audience, even if the movie was silent or in black and white or in a foreign language. But there was a problem: the audience was overwhelmingly middle-aged and older, people from the town, not from the university. Very few students ever appeared to watch the films that we loved. And so when the university was going to close the auditorium where we showed the movies for remodeling, the second iteration of Shoestring came to an end. TCM, uneven as it is, is basically all we who don't live in big cities have left.
Greed is legendary for the series of cuts that were made in Stroheim's original 85 hours of footage, cut and cut and cut, with the deleted film supposedly destroyed. The four hours that are left in the restored version that currently is in circulation are mesmerizing. So, too, for years much of what was cut from Metropolis was thought to be lost, but a badly damaged print of the longer version was found in Buenos Aires, and what TCM shows returns much of the missing material, though not all of it has been fully restored in terms of quality. Metropolis might equally as well have been titled 'Greed,' as the world it creates--expressionistic, fantastic, futuristic--is divided sharply and neatly between the 1% and the rest. The very rich play in the "eternal garden," while the workers slave mechanically away to support them. I hadn't seen Metropolis in several years, and I thought I remembered it well. But this time it seemed different; it felt newly relevant to our own society and our growing divide between the have-it-nearly-alls and the rest of society.
TCM shows a lot of dreck, movies that are hardly classics, but it is one of the last forums for movies that are truly classics. I'm showing my age, but I can't resist nostalgia for the days when every university had film series that showed foreign and classic movies that weren't going to play in the first-run theaters that dominate movie-going these days. For several years in the 70s, a colleague and I ran the Shoestring Film Society at Washburn, showing movies on 16mm to an appreciative crowd, for whom most of the movies were new experiences. But then VCRs, then DVD players, then Netflix put an end to all that. And the movies that were available didn't broaden our sense of cinema but merely focused on those films that were in theaters a year or two before. (The eight dollars a month a spend for streaming Netflix is a complete and infuriating waste,) We brought back the Shoestring Film Society a few years ago, and for the next three years we had a respectable audience, even if the movie was silent or in black and white or in a foreign language. But there was a problem: the audience was overwhelmingly middle-aged and older, people from the town, not from the university. Very few students ever appeared to watch the films that we loved. And so when the university was going to close the auditorium where we showed the movies for remodeling, the second iteration of Shoestring came to an end. TCM, uneven as it is, is basically all we who don't live in big cities have left.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
This is the 200th blog. When I started, twenty-one months and 21,000 pageviews ago, I had no idea of how many entries there would be. I started with a sense of urgency, and initial blogs were all about medical issues and procedures, death, and atheism. As the days passed and the number of entries increased, the subject matter broadened: a lot about politics during the election, a number about poetry and its joys and consolations. Although all of those subjects still appear, by now the blog is pretty diffuse. Unless there's something specific, like tests at the cancer center, I write about whatever is on my mind at the time, no matter how trivial it may be. Usually the night before I'm going to write, I begin to worry that I'll have nothing to say. It's not exactly writer's block, since I know I won't be silent, but rather a shuffling through current events, possible poems, the state of my health in order to find something that will engage me and, I hope, the readers.
Thanks to all of you who have stuck with me for longer than any of us expected. With more good chemo and a little luck, I hope I'll be around for number 300.
Thanks to all of you who have stuck with me for longer than any of us expected. With more good chemo and a little luck, I hope I'll be around for number 300.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
"There are no good options." It's impossible to listen to a debate about what to do in Syria without eventually hearing those five words. Whether from a liberal or a conservative, someone pro or con on using military force, politician or pundit--that sentence is bound to be uttered. Some choices are clearly not options: any that would endanger American troops and/or suggest a prolonged involvement (e.g., boots on the ground, a no-fly zone).
For twenty years, discussions of military action were haunted by the 'quagmire' of Vietnam. Now, though Vietnam still is there in the background, it's the ghost of Iraq that shadows the debate, particularly among those who, in light of the lies by Powell and Cheney, are unwilling to accept the evidence that the Assad regime was responsible for the use of chemical weapons. This morning I heard a passionate argument that it was the Chinese and the Russians still in Syria who were responsible for the chemical attacks on behalf of the rebels. Since Russia and China are supporting the Assad regime, this seemed a strange and unconvincing argument, but the speaker claimed to have evidence to support her point. Amy Goodman, a progressive, argued that it doesn't make any difference because the U.S. used chemical weapons (napalm, agent orange) in Vietnam and supported Saddam Hussein, who was using gas against the Kurds, during the long Iran-Iraq war. Therefore, it's hypocritical for us to draw a red line against chemical weapons, and we're prohibited from acting now.
There's also the complication arising from the question as to whether the death of 1,429 Syrians from chemical weapons is somehow more morally reprehensible than the deaths of 100,000 people and the displacement of more than a million more from conventional arms.
Also shadowing the debate is the question, echoing what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, of what is the end game. What will be the effect of limited, targeted strikes? On the positive side, there are the examples of Kuwait, Bosnia, and Kosovo, where such strikes (78 days for Bosnia) were effective and the negative example of Rwanda, where our refusal to intervene is now regarded as a shameful episode in the Clinton presidency. Two days of strikes might punish Assad (is that a legitimate goal?), but they probably aren't going to change things on the ground.
There are, of course, those like Sen. John ("I never saw a nail I didn't want to hammer") McCain who want more aggressive action. He would bomb the airstrips in Syria in order to disrupt the daily supplies of arms to the government from Russia and China. He would also arm the rebels, specifically the Free Syrian Army. Convinced that we can separate the "good" rebels from the "bad" ones, he wants to send arms to the good rebels. He's perfectly assured that, since he's been to Syria and talked to representatives of the FSA, the arms won't fall into the wrong hands. His assurance that we can easily tell the difference and control the flow might be more convincing had the photo of him in Syria showed him standing with members of the FSA and a leader of one of most vicious of the rebel groups. His office later issued a statement in his defense saying that he didn't know who the man was. So much for easily distinguishing among the rebel groups.
A year and a half ago, even a year ago, it was common wisdom that Bashar Al-Assad's days were numbered; it was considered self-evident that his regime would collapse. Now, Assad is stronger than before and the rebels more disorganized and divided. So we bomb some strategic facilities for two days. Assad is still in power. Does our show of force intimidate him into being more flexible in the on-again, off-again diplomatic process? Or does it just embolden him as one who has taken what the Americans have to offer and is as strong as ever? Obama is gambling, we assume, that in addition to making a statement about the use of chemical weapons, strikes will facilitate further diplomatic efforts.
President Obama's surprise decision on Saturday to seek Congressional approval has some obvious advantages: it may consolidate support among those, usually progressives, who might tend to support the strikes but who were troubled by yet another presidential usurpation of Congressional power. Moreover, it puts each member of Congress on the record. And it may help convince a skeptical American public that air strikes are a good idea--or at least that their representatives have debated the issue and come to that conclusion. The danger, of course, is that what happened to David Cameron in the U.K. might happen here. What is Congress refuses to authorize the action? President Obama has made clear that he doesn't think he needs Congressional authorization. If they vote no, will he good ahead? If so, his actions will garner even less support within America. If not, all the leverage of our threats will be lost.
These are just a few of the thoughts buzzing around in my head the last few days. I've not even mentioned the sectarian divisions within the country or the proxy position of Syria in conflicts between the West and the East or within the Muslim communities. There's a good reason, many good reasons, why there are no good options in Syria.
For twenty years, discussions of military action were haunted by the 'quagmire' of Vietnam. Now, though Vietnam still is there in the background, it's the ghost of Iraq that shadows the debate, particularly among those who, in light of the lies by Powell and Cheney, are unwilling to accept the evidence that the Assad regime was responsible for the use of chemical weapons. This morning I heard a passionate argument that it was the Chinese and the Russians still in Syria who were responsible for the chemical attacks on behalf of the rebels. Since Russia and China are supporting the Assad regime, this seemed a strange and unconvincing argument, but the speaker claimed to have evidence to support her point. Amy Goodman, a progressive, argued that it doesn't make any difference because the U.S. used chemical weapons (napalm, agent orange) in Vietnam and supported Saddam Hussein, who was using gas against the Kurds, during the long Iran-Iraq war. Therefore, it's hypocritical for us to draw a red line against chemical weapons, and we're prohibited from acting now.
There's also the complication arising from the question as to whether the death of 1,429 Syrians from chemical weapons is somehow more morally reprehensible than the deaths of 100,000 people and the displacement of more than a million more from conventional arms.
Also shadowing the debate is the question, echoing what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, of what is the end game. What will be the effect of limited, targeted strikes? On the positive side, there are the examples of Kuwait, Bosnia, and Kosovo, where such strikes (78 days for Bosnia) were effective and the negative example of Rwanda, where our refusal to intervene is now regarded as a shameful episode in the Clinton presidency. Two days of strikes might punish Assad (is that a legitimate goal?), but they probably aren't going to change things on the ground.
There are, of course, those like Sen. John ("I never saw a nail I didn't want to hammer") McCain who want more aggressive action. He would bomb the airstrips in Syria in order to disrupt the daily supplies of arms to the government from Russia and China. He would also arm the rebels, specifically the Free Syrian Army. Convinced that we can separate the "good" rebels from the "bad" ones, he wants to send arms to the good rebels. He's perfectly assured that, since he's been to Syria and talked to representatives of the FSA, the arms won't fall into the wrong hands. His assurance that we can easily tell the difference and control the flow might be more convincing had the photo of him in Syria showed him standing with members of the FSA and a leader of one of most vicious of the rebel groups. His office later issued a statement in his defense saying that he didn't know who the man was. So much for easily distinguishing among the rebel groups.
A year and a half ago, even a year ago, it was common wisdom that Bashar Al-Assad's days were numbered; it was considered self-evident that his regime would collapse. Now, Assad is stronger than before and the rebels more disorganized and divided. So we bomb some strategic facilities for two days. Assad is still in power. Does our show of force intimidate him into being more flexible in the on-again, off-again diplomatic process? Or does it just embolden him as one who has taken what the Americans have to offer and is as strong as ever? Obama is gambling, we assume, that in addition to making a statement about the use of chemical weapons, strikes will facilitate further diplomatic efforts.
President Obama's surprise decision on Saturday to seek Congressional approval has some obvious advantages: it may consolidate support among those, usually progressives, who might tend to support the strikes but who were troubled by yet another presidential usurpation of Congressional power. Moreover, it puts each member of Congress on the record. And it may help convince a skeptical American public that air strikes are a good idea--or at least that their representatives have debated the issue and come to that conclusion. The danger, of course, is that what happened to David Cameron in the U.K. might happen here. What is Congress refuses to authorize the action? President Obama has made clear that he doesn't think he needs Congressional authorization. If they vote no, will he good ahead? If so, his actions will garner even less support within America. If not, all the leverage of our threats will be lost.
These are just a few of the thoughts buzzing around in my head the last few days. I've not even mentioned the sectarian divisions within the country or the proxy position of Syria in conflicts between the West and the East or within the Muslim communities. There's a good reason, many good reasons, why there are no good options in Syria.
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