Hello again dear reader - have you missed me? I can only hope so. Recently life has conspired to keep my pen away from the page and will likely continue to do so as November progresses.
It's been an introspective few weeks for me as I've debated whether to throw my hat in the ring for an unexpected opening on campus. After much contemplation, I moved forward with my candidacy, as this is probably my last chance to advance at this university. Some of you may know that I was all but certain that I would move on after this year and this opening is a bit of a Hail Mary to stay. The position in question is relatively lucrative and is certainly a step up in responsibility, and I am 75% perfect for it and 25% lacking, but while I might not be the best candidate for right now, I have no doubt that I'm the right candidate for a year from now and for five years from now. Overcoming the immediate disadvantage will be the challenge.
In this position I would be "the guy," I would be the last stop for "the buck", and the very thought of it is both energizing and terrifying. It has sent me soul-searching into my own behavior as a manager and a leader, and has opened my eyes to both my beliefs and my inadequacies. The irony is that should I miss out on this position, I have no doubt that pursuing it will improve my performance in my current role. Let's follow those dreams.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Passage
Uncle Fred, the older of my mother's two brothers, passed away this morning in his sleep, apparently peacefully. A quiet, sedate man, he preferred the side of the room to the center, and never appeared comfortable as the object of attention. He was relatively young, still in his mid-60s. Computers and telecommunications had been his career, one, as I understand it, that he enjoyed, and in which he had much success before retiring early to enjoy time with his wife, my Aunt Marie, and their son, James, while indulging his passion for fishing and muscle cars. I imagine that the long hours of quiet contemplation so characteristic of fishing must have appealed to him. As a child he suffered a severe bout of rheumatic fever which, in those days was a more serious ailment than it is now. The illness damaged his heart, and while that never prevented him from living a full life I imagine that it contributed to his untimely demise.
I confess that I didn't get to know Uncle Fred as well as I should have, although I know that as his first niece or nephew he held a fondness for me. Families are odd creatures, and all-too-often those who have known us before we knew them are the ones we neglect as we move out and on through our lives. So I, and my siblings, and my mother for that matter, didn't see as much of Uncle Fred as we did his brother and his family. It seemed normal at the time, but now represents opportunities forever lost. I spent most of my time with him in the passenger seat of one of his half-dozen or so Hondas as he transported me from my parent's home in central Jersey to my Grandparents' farm in south Jersey. He was an important supporting actor in the fondest and happiest memories of my childhood (or life for that matter), as he brought me to them. During the fall he would bring vegetables and eggs up from the farm, still smelling of the soil, the house, and joy. I remember this all quite well.
However, it is memories of his voice that have been with me all afternoon. Uncle Fred's voice combined an odd, but pleasant, metallic note, with a velvet softness. It seemed to mix an ethnic New York/North Jersey timbre with a Piney accent. And that sound has always been the "note" that for me was connected to him in my mental Rolodex. For others in my life their calling card is a particular event, or an image, but for a few, very few, that mental marker is aural, and for Uncle Fred it was his voice. And now, that exists only in my memory.
Death, to be simple, is the culmination of life. But for me, aside from the recent passing of the mother of one of my best friends, death has called for the individuals in my life at a generation's remove. Uncle Fred is the first taken from the generation just before me, and that causes pause and reflection.
I imagine that you are visiting with Grandma and Grandpa right now, and sharing a story in your slow, distinctive voice. I hope to hear it again someday. Goodbye Uncle Fred, and godspeed. I hear that the trout are biting.
I confess that I didn't get to know Uncle Fred as well as I should have, although I know that as his first niece or nephew he held a fondness for me. Families are odd creatures, and all-too-often those who have known us before we knew them are the ones we neglect as we move out and on through our lives. So I, and my siblings, and my mother for that matter, didn't see as much of Uncle Fred as we did his brother and his family. It seemed normal at the time, but now represents opportunities forever lost. I spent most of my time with him in the passenger seat of one of his half-dozen or so Hondas as he transported me from my parent's home in central Jersey to my Grandparents' farm in south Jersey. He was an important supporting actor in the fondest and happiest memories of my childhood (or life for that matter), as he brought me to them. During the fall he would bring vegetables and eggs up from the farm, still smelling of the soil, the house, and joy. I remember this all quite well.
However, it is memories of his voice that have been with me all afternoon. Uncle Fred's voice combined an odd, but pleasant, metallic note, with a velvet softness. It seemed to mix an ethnic New York/North Jersey timbre with a Piney accent. And that sound has always been the "note" that for me was connected to him in my mental Rolodex. For others in my life their calling card is a particular event, or an image, but for a few, very few, that mental marker is aural, and for Uncle Fred it was his voice. And now, that exists only in my memory.
Death, to be simple, is the culmination of life. But for me, aside from the recent passing of the mother of one of my best friends, death has called for the individuals in my life at a generation's remove. Uncle Fred is the first taken from the generation just before me, and that causes pause and reflection.
I imagine that you are visiting with Grandma and Grandpa right now, and sharing a story in your slow, distinctive voice. I hope to hear it again someday. Goodbye Uncle Fred, and godspeed. I hear that the trout are biting.
Odds and Ends
This dispatch comes to you from the McDonald's in Hannibal, MO. A scheduling quirk (of my own infernal creation) gave me a five hour break between a high school visit and a financial aid talk this evening. At the table next to me, two octagenerian fellows are having the most stereotypical conversation you can imagine, dealing with topics of where they get their weather info, how they wouldn't last too long without their medicine, and how they save money on long distance by using their children's cell phones when they come to visit. I will spare you all the mundane details, but just know that I say in all seriousness, and with great sadness, that simply being alive is not living.
The Chiefs game was a phenomenal experience and I can say with only slight exaggeration that Arrowhead Stadium is my Mecca. It went by in a blink as time spent with great friends so often does. The Chiefs won in dramatic fashion and clung to a one point lead throughout the fourth quarter. I am not one for fluffy words, but it was stirring as 75,000 people chanted their way of the stadium, drunk on both alcohol and victory.
The Chiefs game was a phenomenal experience and I can say with only slight exaggeration that Arrowhead Stadium is my Mecca. It went by in a blink as time spent with great friends so often does. The Chiefs won in dramatic fashion and clung to a one point lead throughout the fourth quarter. I am not one for fluffy words, but it was stirring as 75,000 people chanted their way of the stadium, drunk on both alcohol and victory.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
On Fasting, of a particular sort
I have been observing a news fast since the passage of the temporary funding bill and the end of the government shutdown (which really wasn't a shutdown but rather a selective punishment of certain portions of the American public by the legislative and executive branches). I was spending far too much time reading the news, watching the news, trolling blogs and punditry sites, obsessively checking various news feeds and Twitter. I never learned anything from these efforts of which I was not already aware. Now, in my line of work, I have to stay somewhat abreast of goings-on, so I cannot sustain this fast for long, but I am willing to push a bit, see how long that might be.
It has provided me with an insight into my personality, which suggests that I have something of an addictive relationship with certain forms of media and content. On one level I can convince myself that one more source, one more blog will provide that extra bit of information, a problem from which I suffer in my own research (which has had a deleterious effect upon my production of said scholarship), and this is certainly what I tell my students. But there is so very little worthwhile to be read on-line or in watching the news, regardless of the provider. Even PBS no longer provides the kind of serious, erudite insight into contemporary politics that it once did.
I do find myself idling in other ways, and so the next step is to find a way t channel that restless need into something more productive.
It has provided me with an insight into my personality, which suggests that I have something of an addictive relationship with certain forms of media and content. On one level I can convince myself that one more source, one more blog will provide that extra bit of information, a problem from which I suffer in my own research (which has had a deleterious effect upon my production of said scholarship), and this is certainly what I tell my students. But there is so very little worthwhile to be read on-line or in watching the news, regardless of the provider. Even PBS no longer provides the kind of serious, erudite insight into contemporary politics that it once did.
I do find myself idling in other ways, and so the next step is to find a way t channel that restless need into something more productive.
Friday, October 18, 2013
Let's do this
Although I have been a Kansas City Chiefs fan for as long as I can remember, so much so that they were the subject of my college admission essay, I have never been to a game in person. Until this Sunday, that is. Thanks to a fortunate and generous friend I will be a part of the chaos as the Chiefs take on the Houston Texans at 3:25pm. 80,000 people, a sea of red, and some hellacious tailgating ... I am f*cking pumped.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Some levity after a long week of Congressional idiocy
I have driven by this sign for more than two years and it is still as funny as the first time. Read the words carefully.
Political Dysfunction
As I write this, the House is considering a proposal that would end the shutdown and raise the debt ceiling, yet news continues to emerge that even at the moment there may not be enough votes to pass, even with all Democrats voting in favor. Then the bill, if passed, would go onto the Senate, where several Tea-Party affiliated senators have not indicated whether they plan to filibuster the bill, or try to push through a series of doomed amendments.
I have a creeping sense that there are some on the R side of the ledger who want to call the President's bluff on the 17 October "default" deadline. It isn't a real deadline, and the Federal government would still be able to pay its bills for at least a week on the basis of its daily cash flow. Thus if midnight passes without an agreement and the markets don't collapse today or tomorrow, the administration will have lost a great deal of creditability. Now, the markets would eventually react, probably on Friday or next week, with a sizable, but not catastrophic sell-off, but the damage might be temporary. With nowhere else safe to go, investors will probably sit and hope for a solution. The fly in the ointment might be foreign holders of short-tern treasuries, who might dump them.
I have a creeping sense that there are some on the R side of the ledger who want to call the President's bluff on the 17 October "default" deadline. It isn't a real deadline, and the Federal government would still be able to pay its bills for at least a week on the basis of its daily cash flow. Thus if midnight passes without an agreement and the markets don't collapse today or tomorrow, the administration will have lost a great deal of creditability. Now, the markets would eventually react, probably on Friday or next week, with a sizable, but not catastrophic sell-off, but the damage might be temporary. With nowhere else safe to go, investors will probably sit and hope for a solution. The fly in the ointment might be foreign holders of short-tern treasuries, who might dump them.
Monday, October 14, 2013
Life, not to be wasted
History appeals to me for many reasons, not the least of which is the unending evidence it provides that civilization is the thinnest veneer over the base and vile creatures we are, especially in the aggregate. Yet, I am not a misanthrope, because in the individuals that life and circumstance and God (or god, or fate, or however one looks at this) have brought in and out of my life lies the joy of that life. Thus I hold friendships dearly, and stay in tough with old flames, and nurture relationships with mentors, even when the immediate need for that mentoring had long dissipated.
Last weekend one of those mentors died, in a single-car wreck on I95 in South Carolina. Mark Finlay was a professor of history at Armstrong Atlantic State University, where I worked for two years. It was my first position after completing my doctorate. It wasn't the best job, a heavy teaching load, located not in Savannah at the main campus, but at a branch campus location shared with an unemployment office out in the sticks (literally).
Combined with the parsimonious Georgia legislature's attitude toward spending on higher education (summarized as follows: don't spend money on them colleges, especially on degrees that are all about thinking just makes liberals who won't work for peanuts) it was a rough two years spent worrying about when the campus might be closed (it was briefly), and when I might have the opportunity to compete for a tenure-track position (the answer was never). I knew all of this going in, but one of the many reasons I accepted the position (I had another offer), was that when I met Mark during my interviews it was clear that he had read my file, carefully and fully even though, because he was the assistant Dean, he couldn't participate in the department's vote (a quirk of faculty governance, a topic for another time). Later that spring, he made a point of coming to hear a paper that I presented at the Agricultural History Conference.
He worked hard to acclimate me to the realities of working at a teaching institution, and fully supported my efforts to find another position when it became clear there was little hope for advancement at Armstrong. He trusted me as a scholar to ask me to complete some research for a project upon which he was working that required perusing records in Wyoming, and he was willing to write a letter on my behalf when I came up for retention at my current institution. Yet he was not just a good-time charlie, he pushed me on my scholarship, and my teaching, and made it clear that the academic life is one of hard labor, and often small rewards, but part of a grand tradition. He took life seriously (and that meant being serious, but also taking fun, seriously).
Last weekend one of those mentors died, in a single-car wreck on I95 in South Carolina. Mark Finlay was a professor of history at Armstrong Atlantic State University, where I worked for two years. It was my first position after completing my doctorate. It wasn't the best job, a heavy teaching load, located not in Savannah at the main campus, but at a branch campus location shared with an unemployment office out in the sticks (literally).
Combined with the parsimonious Georgia legislature's attitude toward spending on higher education (summarized as follows: don't spend money on them colleges, especially on degrees that are all about thinking just makes liberals who won't work for peanuts) it was a rough two years spent worrying about when the campus might be closed (it was briefly), and when I might have the opportunity to compete for a tenure-track position (the answer was never). I knew all of this going in, but one of the many reasons I accepted the position (I had another offer), was that when I met Mark during my interviews it was clear that he had read my file, carefully and fully even though, because he was the assistant Dean, he couldn't participate in the department's vote (a quirk of faculty governance, a topic for another time). Later that spring, he made a point of coming to hear a paper that I presented at the Agricultural History Conference.
He worked hard to acclimate me to the realities of working at a teaching institution, and fully supported my efforts to find another position when it became clear there was little hope for advancement at Armstrong. He trusted me as a scholar to ask me to complete some research for a project upon which he was working that required perusing records in Wyoming, and he was willing to write a letter on my behalf when I came up for retention at my current institution. Yet he was not just a good-time charlie, he pushed me on my scholarship, and my teaching, and made it clear that the academic life is one of hard labor, and often small rewards, but part of a grand tradition. He took life seriously (and that meant being serious, but also taking fun, seriously).
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Living the Dream
My work vehicle is a 2009 Dodge Grand Caravan, the first such vehicle I've had with middle windows that actually roll down. This is relevant.
This past Wednesday I was driving back to campus on a two lane highway, cruising at about 65mph. I had been hounded by a fly on my entire hour+ trip, and my methods - namely rolling the front window down - had thus far failed to remove the pest. If I sit back and look at it as a physicist, this is unsurprising. It must be said that at this juncture I did not have my "physicist" hat on. I was "over" this fly.
I decided the solution to this nuisance was to roll down all of the van's windows and thereby to increase my odds of blasting this fly into the atmosphere and out of my life. It was as foolproof a plan as I had at my disposal, short of mutually assured destruction. It must be said, however, that I had forgotten about the box of tumblers in the back seat of the van, tumblers intended as counselor gifts, tumblers, more importantly, packed in packing peanuts. So I rolled the windows down and the van filled with the wind tunnel feel you would expect. Life is good. And then the packing peanuts started to fly. Everywhere. At me. Around me. Out the window. Back in the other window. I had turned this minivan into a 65mph snow globe. I screamed. I rolled the windows up.
I will be picking up packing peanuts for weeks.
This past Wednesday I was driving back to campus on a two lane highway, cruising at about 65mph. I had been hounded by a fly on my entire hour+ trip, and my methods - namely rolling the front window down - had thus far failed to remove the pest. If I sit back and look at it as a physicist, this is unsurprising. It must be said that at this juncture I did not have my "physicist" hat on. I was "over" this fly.
I decided the solution to this nuisance was to roll down all of the van's windows and thereby to increase my odds of blasting this fly into the atmosphere and out of my life. It was as foolproof a plan as I had at my disposal, short of mutually assured destruction. It must be said, however, that I had forgotten about the box of tumblers in the back seat of the van, tumblers intended as counselor gifts, tumblers, more importantly, packed in packing peanuts. So I rolled the windows down and the van filled with the wind tunnel feel you would expect. Life is good. And then the packing peanuts started to fly. Everywhere. At me. Around me. Out the window. Back in the other window. I had turned this minivan into a 65mph snow globe. I screamed. I rolled the windows up.
I will be picking up packing peanuts for weeks.
Monday, October 7, 2013
A good day to rail
Both Scott and I took advantage of my 31st birthday to express our frustration at the world around us - be sure to read the two posts below.
Idiocy - or any DMV
If there is a den of state incompetence more visceral than the California DMV then I am beggared to conceive of what that could be (with the exception of its prison system which is in direct confrontation with the courts on the issue of cruel and unusual punishment).
Witness me, mild-mannered, punctual, and polite. I have an appointment to take my written driver's test (an additional indignity in and of itself given that I have held driving licenses in four other states). Assuming that there would be paperwork to complete before I sat for my exam (which I naively assumed was the purpose for the appointment), I arrived twenty minutes in advance. When I approached the line for folks with appointments, I was brusquely asked for the time of my appointment, and after providing my printed confirmation of appointment (something no one else seemed to have) was told that I could not enter the line earlier than five minutes prior to my appointment. So, the appointment time is actually an appointment to enter the line to wait, not to engage in the transaction for which you have made the appointment (despite that you are required to provide then making the appointment). You wait in line to prove that you have the paperwork for an appointment, and then told to sit and wait your turn to speak with one of the clerks. In that queue, you receive no advantage for making an appointment, and are served in the order you finally made it to the check-in line.
When finally, 45 minutes after my scheduled appointment I was called to take my written exam, I proceeded to a dirty, nasty room without chairs and supervised by a state employee with but one speaking volume - loud, who when not correcting exams (I was one of only 2 people out of ten taking the exam who passed), was dealing with "difficult" cases from the main room. Not a reasonable testing environment. It staggers me that as a society we sent people to the moon using little more than JP4 and transistors, yet we cannot figure out how to take the stupid out of people, or execute a smooth operating plan for the DMV.
Witness me, mild-mannered, punctual, and polite. I have an appointment to take my written driver's test (an additional indignity in and of itself given that I have held driving licenses in four other states). Assuming that there would be paperwork to complete before I sat for my exam (which I naively assumed was the purpose for the appointment), I arrived twenty minutes in advance. When I approached the line for folks with appointments, I was brusquely asked for the time of my appointment, and after providing my printed confirmation of appointment (something no one else seemed to have) was told that I could not enter the line earlier than five minutes prior to my appointment. So, the appointment time is actually an appointment to enter the line to wait, not to engage in the transaction for which you have made the appointment (despite that you are required to provide then making the appointment). You wait in line to prove that you have the paperwork for an appointment, and then told to sit and wait your turn to speak with one of the clerks. In that queue, you receive no advantage for making an appointment, and are served in the order you finally made it to the check-in line.
When finally, 45 minutes after my scheduled appointment I was called to take my written exam, I proceeded to a dirty, nasty room without chairs and supervised by a state employee with but one speaking volume - loud, who when not correcting exams (I was one of only 2 people out of ten taking the exam who passed), was dealing with "difficult" cases from the main room. Not a reasonable testing environment. It staggers me that as a society we sent people to the moon using little more than JP4 and transistors, yet we cannot figure out how to take the stupid out of people, or execute a smooth operating plan for the DMV.
Do you have any sense?
The more time I've spent in admissions, the more reluctant I have become to automatically complain about the younger generation, "those damned Millenials.". When I was 19, thirty-one year old's probably complained about me, and I understand that. However..
I am not fierce patriot. I wouldn't have the patience to properly fold a flag, and I feel silly when circumstances find me having to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in a high school. However, none of this means that don't appreciate the soldiers who have fought in wars for the United States of America, whether I agreed with those wars or not, or frankly, was even alive at the time. In front of my building is the University's Veterans' Memorial: it's not much in the grand scheme, just some brass plaques on a brick wall, plaques commemorating the names of the university alumni who have perished in America's Wars. 90% of the time I pass by them without a thought, but there are occasions when I will stop and examine these plaques. Where were these students from? How did they find themselves in Flanders, Korea, or Vietnam? How did they perish? Heavy thoughts.
Across the walkway from these plaques is a bronze sculpture of a father holding his son's purple heart. The sculpture was dedicated on Veterans Day 2011 to quite a bit of fanfare. Ask most visitors about the sculpture, however, and they'll likely tell you that A) it looks like the guy is standing there texting, or B) they thought it was a real man and it creeped them out. Very few of them will stop to examine it or ponder what it represents. None of this is surprising.
Fast forward to this afternoon: I was standing near the front door of my building, eating the delicious cinnamon ice cream a coworker brought me for my birthday, and gazing idly out of the front windows. A female student - a student ambassador I come to learn - comes whizzing through our parking lot on a bike and I follow her progress with my eyes. She flies up to our building, dismounts, and without a second thought leans her bike up against the Veterans' sculpture.
I'm usually not a confrontational person; in fact, I think I could benefit from being more so. But to paraphrase the Dude, in some cases "This aggression will not stand, man." How did this ever seem "appropriate?" How did this ever seem like something one should do?
I immediately accost this student as she walks in and ask her to move her bike.
M: Could you please move your bike so it's not leaning on the sculpture?
S: Ugggggggh. All I need to do is find out if I have a tour.
M: I'm not usually confrontational, but it's a memorial, not a bike stand.
S: Uggggghh (walks out).
M: THANK YOU! (literally yelled as she exits in a huff)
So this is a student, a student hand chosen to represent this university to prospective students, 1. thinks it's ok to lean her bike against our Veterans Memorial, and 2. feels put upon when someone asks her to move it.
Kids these days.
I am not fierce patriot. I wouldn't have the patience to properly fold a flag, and I feel silly when circumstances find me having to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in a high school. However, none of this means that don't appreciate the soldiers who have fought in wars for the United States of America, whether I agreed with those wars or not, or frankly, was even alive at the time. In front of my building is the University's Veterans' Memorial: it's not much in the grand scheme, just some brass plaques on a brick wall, plaques commemorating the names of the university alumni who have perished in America's Wars. 90% of the time I pass by them without a thought, but there are occasions when I will stop and examine these plaques. Where were these students from? How did they find themselves in Flanders, Korea, or Vietnam? How did they perish? Heavy thoughts.
Across the walkway from these plaques is a bronze sculpture of a father holding his son's purple heart. The sculpture was dedicated on Veterans Day 2011 to quite a bit of fanfare. Ask most visitors about the sculpture, however, and they'll likely tell you that A) it looks like the guy is standing there texting, or B) they thought it was a real man and it creeped them out. Very few of them will stop to examine it or ponder what it represents. None of this is surprising.
Fast forward to this afternoon: I was standing near the front door of my building, eating the delicious cinnamon ice cream a coworker brought me for my birthday, and gazing idly out of the front windows. A female student - a student ambassador I come to learn - comes whizzing through our parking lot on a bike and I follow her progress with my eyes. She flies up to our building, dismounts, and without a second thought leans her bike up against the Veterans' sculpture.
I'm usually not a confrontational person; in fact, I think I could benefit from being more so. But to paraphrase the Dude, in some cases "This aggression will not stand, man." How did this ever seem "appropriate?" How did this ever seem like something one should do?
I immediately accost this student as she walks in and ask her to move her bike.
M: Could you please move your bike so it's not leaning on the sculpture?
S: Ugggggggh. All I need to do is find out if I have a tour.
M: I'm not usually confrontational, but it's a memorial, not a bike stand.
S: Uggggghh (walks out).
M: THANK YOU! (literally yelled as she exits in a huff)
So this is a student, a student hand chosen to represent this university to prospective students, 1. thinks it's ok to lean her bike against our Veterans Memorial, and 2. feels put upon when someone asks her to move it.
Kids these days.
Friday, October 4, 2013
Standstill
The great American wit, Will Rogers, once quipped that he wasn't a member of any organized party, he was a Democrat. At the time, the 1920s, the Democratic Party was a roiling mess of constituencies that generally disliked one another, and often actively hated their party compatriots when they gave it any real thought. Urban immigrant, working class, wets (anti-prohibition), often Catholic, distrusted their rural, native-born, dry, fellow party members, who in turn provided the largest sources of recruits for the resurgent Ku Klux Klan. Southern Democrats lived in a one-party state that equated the opposition party with civil insurrection, miscegenation, and the death of society, while Northern party members had decades of experience working with Republicans in temporary coalitions. In a competitive party environment they had no other choice. Urban democrats were less wary of state effort, while their rural cousins equated an active state with high taxes and "high livin'" on the backs of honest farmers. Unable to reconcile these divisions the Democrats looked more like a civil war than a political party throughout the decade, requiring 103 ballots to nominate a presidential candidate in 1924.
I have been ruminating on this history as I view the current budget gridlock in Congress and the government shutdown (we could talk for hours about how this isn't actually a shutdown - it isn't). Being a historian, I am a cynic. My own politics are non-partisan, and my scholarship only reinforces my sense that neither party cares more for the nation than they do politics and that we live in an age where Statesmen are non-existent. Yet, I have a bit of sympathy for John Boehner, the Speaker of the House. I dislike his politics, certainly, and his swarmy relationships with K Street, but I do recognize an essentially decent person caught with no real alternatives (bearing in mind that that my definition sets a low bar - he is someone no more or less venal and small-minded than the others of his community - in this case, politicians). His party caucus, both in the House and in Congress at large, is much like the Democratic Party of the 1920s. It contains constituencies who fear one another more than they fear the opposition. The Tea Party ranks are small, but the number of House Republicans who fear Tea Party primary battles is nearly as large as their total caucus. Establishment Republicans see the Tea Party types as undisciplined and uncontrollable, and, explicitly populist, a dangerous mix for the Business Roundtable and Chamber of Commerce types who stand behind the stalwarts. And much like the irreconcilable division in the 1920s between Democratic wets and drys (a dry was always utterly dry - to admit to allowing drink, even strictly regulated, was to admit to the need for drink, something a dry could not hold and continue to believe that prohibition was a positive good), the Tea Party members of the House hold that compromise (with the opposition or within their own party) on issues of spending, taxes, regulation, and state action is antithetical to their core understanding of themselves. To compromise is to reject their identity. The Establishment wing simply wants to move on as they have been, quite successfully for the last 30 years, slowly dismantling the New Deal state (often with the help of centrist Democrats) and reducing the impediments to unfettered business action. They are happy to use their Tea Party colleagues to rile up the base of the party, but have no intention of permitting them to do as they want. The Tea Party caucus understands this, and so puts John Boehner in an impossible situation
Unable to reconcile these two wings of his caucus, Boehner is forced to sustain the minority position, for fear that he will lose all control, to say nothing of the speakership, and the center of gravity in the Party.
I have been ruminating on this history as I view the current budget gridlock in Congress and the government shutdown (we could talk for hours about how this isn't actually a shutdown - it isn't). Being a historian, I am a cynic. My own politics are non-partisan, and my scholarship only reinforces my sense that neither party cares more for the nation than they do politics and that we live in an age where Statesmen are non-existent. Yet, I have a bit of sympathy for John Boehner, the Speaker of the House. I dislike his politics, certainly, and his swarmy relationships with K Street, but I do recognize an essentially decent person caught with no real alternatives (bearing in mind that that my definition sets a low bar - he is someone no more or less venal and small-minded than the others of his community - in this case, politicians). His party caucus, both in the House and in Congress at large, is much like the Democratic Party of the 1920s. It contains constituencies who fear one another more than they fear the opposition. The Tea Party ranks are small, but the number of House Republicans who fear Tea Party primary battles is nearly as large as their total caucus. Establishment Republicans see the Tea Party types as undisciplined and uncontrollable, and, explicitly populist, a dangerous mix for the Business Roundtable and Chamber of Commerce types who stand behind the stalwarts. And much like the irreconcilable division in the 1920s between Democratic wets and drys (a dry was always utterly dry - to admit to allowing drink, even strictly regulated, was to admit to the need for drink, something a dry could not hold and continue to believe that prohibition was a positive good), the Tea Party members of the House hold that compromise (with the opposition or within their own party) on issues of spending, taxes, regulation, and state action is antithetical to their core understanding of themselves. To compromise is to reject their identity. The Establishment wing simply wants to move on as they have been, quite successfully for the last 30 years, slowly dismantling the New Deal state (often with the help of centrist Democrats) and reducing the impediments to unfettered business action. They are happy to use their Tea Party colleagues to rile up the base of the party, but have no intention of permitting them to do as they want. The Tea Party caucus understands this, and so puts John Boehner in an impossible situation
Unable to reconcile these two wings of his caucus, Boehner is forced to sustain the minority position, for fear that he will lose all control, to say nothing of the speakership, and the center of gravity in the Party.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Damn This Bleeding Heart
Listening (by coincidence) to Everybody Wants to Rule the World, Tears for Fears
I don't like talking about politics. Not because I am opposed to sharing ideas, but because political discussions are so rarely about sharing ideas, and instead focused on explaining to the other person (who is obviously a dim bulb in the first place or they wouldn't disagree with you to begin with) why you are right and they are wrong.
The current fiasco in Washington doesn't make me angry, nor righteously indignant. No, it makes me sad. Sad that the motivation of certain House members is not the good of the people of their districts, nor the people of their country, but instead obstructionism, attention-seeking, and grandstanding. Sad that people willfully elected these wingnuts who spout bullshit and sometimes can't even form coherent sentences, and that their domination of state legislatures means that US Congressional Districts have been redrawn to insure that their brand of wing-nuttery will prosper in the future. Sad that American conservatism can be held hostage by a minority (between 30 and 80 house members, depending upon who you ask) and that the speaker of the house won't do anything about it.
My problem isn't that these house members - and ostensibly their consituencies - are conservative, nor that they label themselves as Republican. My problem isn't that they're religious and I'm not, nor that they own guns, and I don't. My problem is that they are willfully ignorant, intolerant, reactionary, and somehow all believe that they can gain their party's nomination for president in 2016. My problem is that they believe what they believe because they believe it, and for no other reason. My problem is that they have been elected to serve but instead are using their position to extort extreme concessions on a bill that both the Supreme Court and a voting American populace have upheld - concessions intended to knock the President down a peg, concessions intended to demonstrate the power of their particular brand of zealotry, and concessions that, worst of all, are intended to get them time on TV.
And now they won't back down, because to do so is to admit defeat and to accept humiliation. So government will remain shutdown, and this faction will no doubt convince their district that they are martyrs, like the defenders at Masada.
Editor's Note: The Affordable Care Act is not socialized medicine, not in any meaningful way. HOWEVER, There are some ways in which socialized medicine is actually really cool. Just the other day I heard that a strong correlation has been found between a pregnant mother's level of gluten autoimmunity and the chances of Autism in her offspring. Essentially, a mother that has a significant autoimmune response to gluten (whether she knows she has it or not) is far more likely to have an autistic child. Was this correlation unearthed by private industry? Nope - it was found by analyzing blood samples and the other exhaustive records kept on every Swedish infant - records that exist because of the country's socialized medical system.
I don't like talking about politics. Not because I am opposed to sharing ideas, but because political discussions are so rarely about sharing ideas, and instead focused on explaining to the other person (who is obviously a dim bulb in the first place or they wouldn't disagree with you to begin with) why you are right and they are wrong.
The current fiasco in Washington doesn't make me angry, nor righteously indignant. No, it makes me sad. Sad that the motivation of certain House members is not the good of the people of their districts, nor the people of their country, but instead obstructionism, attention-seeking, and grandstanding. Sad that people willfully elected these wingnuts who spout bullshit and sometimes can't even form coherent sentences, and that their domination of state legislatures means that US Congressional Districts have been redrawn to insure that their brand of wing-nuttery will prosper in the future. Sad that American conservatism can be held hostage by a minority (between 30 and 80 house members, depending upon who you ask) and that the speaker of the house won't do anything about it.
My problem isn't that these house members - and ostensibly their consituencies - are conservative, nor that they label themselves as Republican. My problem isn't that they're religious and I'm not, nor that they own guns, and I don't. My problem is that they are willfully ignorant, intolerant, reactionary, and somehow all believe that they can gain their party's nomination for president in 2016. My problem is that they believe what they believe because they believe it, and for no other reason. My problem is that they have been elected to serve but instead are using their position to extort extreme concessions on a bill that both the Supreme Court and a voting American populace have upheld - concessions intended to knock the President down a peg, concessions intended to demonstrate the power of their particular brand of zealotry, and concessions that, worst of all, are intended to get them time on TV.
And now they won't back down, because to do so is to admit defeat and to accept humiliation. So government will remain shutdown, and this faction will no doubt convince their district that they are martyrs, like the defenders at Masada.
Editor's Note: The Affordable Care Act is not socialized medicine, not in any meaningful way. HOWEVER, There are some ways in which socialized medicine is actually really cool. Just the other day I heard that a strong correlation has been found between a pregnant mother's level of gluten autoimmunity and the chances of Autism in her offspring. Essentially, a mother that has a significant autoimmune response to gluten (whether she knows she has it or not) is far more likely to have an autistic child. Was this correlation unearthed by private industry? Nope - it was found by analyzing blood samples and the other exhaustive records kept on every Swedish infant - records that exist because of the country's socialized medical system.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Nocturne
I'm in a hotel in Springfield, IL, typing this on my phone. As you can likely guess, typing a post on one's phone is quite the pain in the ass, but it is out of my love for you that I suffer willingly, dear reader.
My room has a king-sized bed, and I never know what to do with one. I feel like I'm sleeping in a swimming pool, and there's no doubt that I will wake up several times during the night wondering how I got onto the roof, only to realize I'm just in a stupidly large bed. The dulcet tones of non-stop I-55 traffic will carry me off to slumber in the way that only diesel can. Government shutdown, biblical plague, alien invasion; the freight must go on.
I have six pillows and deciding which to lie my massive dome on is the hardest decision I'll have today. Luckily my unconscious mind is equal opportunity, and as I sleep my head will skip between them like a frog on lilypads.
There's a whirlpool bath, and no, I didn't use , but from the warning signage the hotel has placed in the bathroom, it seems like a barrel of fun. I have taken to a cold shower before bed every evening, as I believe it helps with sleep, with hormones, and immunity. Since it leads one to dance around and curse like a sailor, I can only assume that it relieves stress as well.
Yours in prairieness,
Matt
My room has a king-sized bed, and I never know what to do with one. I feel like I'm sleeping in a swimming pool, and there's no doubt that I will wake up several times during the night wondering how I got onto the roof, only to realize I'm just in a stupidly large bed. The dulcet tones of non-stop I-55 traffic will carry me off to slumber in the way that only diesel can. Government shutdown, biblical plague, alien invasion; the freight must go on.
I have six pillows and deciding which to lie my massive dome on is the hardest decision I'll have today. Luckily my unconscious mind is equal opportunity, and as I sleep my head will skip between them like a frog on lilypads.
There's a whirlpool bath, and no, I didn't use , but from the warning signage the hotel has placed in the bathroom, it seems like a barrel of fun. I have taken to a cold shower before bed every evening, as I believe it helps with sleep, with hormones, and immunity. Since it leads one to dance around and curse like a sailor, I can only assume that it relieves stress as well.
Yours in prairieness,
Matt
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