things too wonderful

The World Must Be Peopled

2011-07-25T00:48:00.003-04:00

"The World Must Be Peopled." Such was my favorite line from William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, which I witnessed for the second consecutive night this evening in Clark Park.

"Shakespeare in Clark Park," having now for a sixth consecutive year provided free performances of the works of he who commanded English like no other man has, is becoming an institution in these parts. It is positively delightful to sit out on the grass in the lovely July sunset with the whole community, being challenged by art which is higher than our faculties rather than being sedated by entertainment that indulges our baser cravings, being shown a portrait of the good life entirely different from that which bombards us in most of our lives.

The experience could be a springboard for several themes with which I have been occupied, but I would like to return to the question of Community v. Network as discussed in my previous blog post, more specifically the related question of Past v. Present.

As is a constant delight to me, dear brothers Jonathan and Ben responded with thoughtful challenges to my views. I hope that we may continue to pursue the truth together, even over this great network and on this ethereal forum, not simply for conversation as an end in itself, but for the discovery of an idea of the good life (that is, the life worth aspiring to and fighting for) greater than either Shakespeare or we have known.

In order to return to this question, let us pause a moment and examine exactly what Shakespeare presents to us in this play. Much Ado is a comedy, and therefore presents something like life in the ideal: life in which the designs of evil may cast a dark shadow, but a shadow that ultimately flees before the light. At the end all is well.

As Shakespeare presents, "all" being "well" is characterized chiefly by a right ordering of human relationships. For him to say so requires saying first off that there is a right ordering, and consequently that there are wrong orderings as well. Contrary to Benedict and Beatrice's early avowals, it is right that they marry, and it would have been wrong if they did not. The estate of Beatrice's father must be carried forward after he dies; Benedict cannot happily remain a bachelor forever, nor Beatrice a maid; the world must be peopled.

Moreover, it was right that Hero should have known no man when she married Claudio. Had the accusation against her not been false, it would have been right that she should be ashamed; in such a situation her father went so far as to say:

O Fate! take not away thy heavy hand.
Death is the fairest cover for her shame
That may be wish'd for.

If we take Shakespeare seriously, we are presented with a double offense. The obvious offense is the content of the moral order here presented, which in our day has been rejected in nearly every respect. But before we arrive at the content of that order, we are first offended that there should even be such an order, objective and received, rather than subjective and created.

That I am in favor of an objective and received order over a subjective and created one, and that the order I believe would better make for peace, happiness, truth, and meaning resembles in many respects the one I have described here, is somewhat beside the point I wish to make. Rather, I would like to ask that we engage the question of the good life critically, rationally, and earnestly, with humility toward the past.

I want to emphasize humility toward the past. It is common to hear easy dismissals of past social orders. But I do not think that most who do so have done the intellectual heavy lifting required to make such statements. In essence, I do not believe they make the effort to understand that which they reject, nor do I believe they claim to.

I can think of two reasons why not. First, doing so is work, and there are many pursuits worthy of work. Second, doing so is unnecessary, because we are fundamentally different than those who lived in the past.

I will address the latter impulse before the former. C.S. Lewis called it chronological snobbery. I believe it stems in part from an idea of social progress that comes from the demonstrated reality of technological progress. The story goes something like this: People twenty years ago did not have the Internet, people seventy years ago did not have television, and people a hundred twenty years ago did not have electricity. Likewise, a hundred years ago women were not allowed to vote and what we now call racism was entrenched and accepted.

It is easy and natural to look at such a picture, which is stark and obvious, and to conclude that just as our technological advances have built on all of the best from our predecessors, so too have our social ideas advanced. We even have an idea of an abstract concept of a "civil rights movement," in which a society slowly becomes aware of a grave injustice in its order due to a minority courageously standing for the truth. I do not know how many times I have heard that such and such issue is "the Civil Rights issue of our time." Such an idea is an analog to the scientific method. It is an idea about how to make progress at a faster rate than it has been made in the past.

While the position that social progress is inevitable and self-advancing is completely natural given a naive presentation of contemporary life, it is overly simplistic. Unlike scientific knowledge, social knowledge does not automatically distill itself over time; that which is wrong is not naturally and inevitably corrected by that which is right. Rather, societies may regress as well as progress. Different ages may be peculiarly prescient, and they may also be peculiarly blind. That statement goes for the past, and it also goes for the present.

If true, we are brought more concretely back to the first objection to thinking about the past: it is hard work. If our age does not have a privileged moral position in the social realm, then the legitimacy of the claims of all other ages might seem to leave us in the midst of an indecipherable cacophany.

While I believe we may receive guidance from the past on how to make sense of the past, I will not dispute that we are left with a very difficult task. But I will assert that doing that work is not as hard as collectively going it alone, of soldiering into the terrifying future with nothing about us but our own wits. I will also assert that buried not so deeply in the sands of time are treasures of such richness that were we to possess them we would not think of questioning whether the manual work of digging was worth the opportunity cost. Luke Skywalker was better able to meet the foe with his father's lightsaber, and Frodo Baggins could not have faced Shelob without the light of an ancient star. We do well to carry with us the wisdom of our forebears.

Finally, I would like to respond to Jonathan's comment by acknolwedging the nonexistence of the kind of ideal past presented in Shakespeare's play. No people has ever built the just society or realized the rightness of all human relationships. But we in our time have considerably better heuristics available to us than "change is good" or "change is bad." In fact, thanks to technological advances, we may be better suited than any people has been to intelligently evaluate the past.

Let us set about the good work together. The future needs the past, and if we do not uncover it I do not know who will.

Communities and Networks

2011-06-29T12:49:00.001-04:00

I wonder if the word "community" has become abused.

I am no etymologist, but I believe the original notion of the word refers both to a place and to the people who live in that place. My hometown of Phoenixville and those who live there constitute a community.

People in a community have in common that which pertains to their place, including a particular history and particular ways of life foisted upon them by their shared circumstance. Beyond that commonality, people in a community differ in many ways, but in the traditional sense they are more or less stuck with each other, and they must learn to get along. Healthy community life is a story of unity and diversity, running in both directions.

I fear this concept is more or less antiquated. One reason is that people are not tied as much to one place as they used to be. To give a simple example, my father was born in and died in Phoenixville Hospital. Rest assured, I will not be caught dead in my birthplace of Silver Spring, MD.

Along with this increased mobility, in many places there is no there to begin with, to paraphrase Gertrude Stein. In large swaths of the country (including Silver Spring, MD) people are to get where they are going quickly in hermetically sealed containers, with destinations more or less indistinguishable from one another. People in such places are not forced into life with one another, and there are few distinguishing features around which they could build a distinct local identity anyway.

That it is very difficult in the midst of such social forces to keep from becoming alienated from one another and from nature, few will dispute. Indeed, a proliferation of technologies have stepped into the void. Such technologies promise to help us stay connected to those whom we love but who are far off, as well as to forge new and enriching connections.

Whatever the worth of these substitutes, it is important to main the distinction between them and this same idea of a community. They are not communities but networks; not agglomerations of disparate people in a particular place, but organizations of unified people in no particular place. To confuse them as such is to overlook fundamental truths about how human beings are meant to live.

Networks are suitable for organizing people for collective action, for communication about the mission of the group, and to some extent for the exchange of ideas. But they fail utterly at providing meaningful human connection. To take the most basic human relationship, friendship cannot be sustained across a mere network. Through a network it may be kept in stasis for a time, but if a connection is meaningful it will always converge toward life shared in person.

I doubt that these points about networks are very controversial, and yet as the exponentially advancing tide of technological growth drives us into ever more atomized existence, I do not see many making the hard life choices that could make for healthy life in a community. To be honest, I am not even sure how people could do so, short of dropping off of the grid and moving into an agricultural commune. I am by no means exempt from this criticism. I spend in excess of forty hours per week in front of a computer with people with whom I have no stake outside of the workplace, and I spend scarecly four hours per week collectively with those with whom I ostensibly have the closest connections.

Networks are not bad things. In general, I would say they are very good. But they are not communities, nor can they substitute for them. If we intend to preserve a civilization in which people can have meaningful life together, we will have to work very hard, and I suspect we will not receive much help from technology or from the voices of the world.

The Trinity, as a JSON object

2011-04-02T12:17:00.010-04:00

{What : {Who,
         Who : {What,
                what},
         Who}}

"The Trinity is three Whos in one What, and Jesus is two Whats in one Who." - Dr. Jan van Vliet

i.e.
{God : {Father,
        Son : {God,
               man},
        Spirit}}

Note that even in this representation God would seem to "go infinite."

The Weight of Futility

2011-01-02T01:59:00.001-05:00

Cynicism, sarcasm, and a mode of detached indifference called "being ironic" have become the dominant posture through which my generation interacts with the world. This trend likely has deep roots, at least as deep as Bart Simpson, but I believe it has intensified in even the last five years. You could point to a lot of reasons, but a major one has got to be the continued emergence of electronic technologies.

These technologies are supposed to enrich our lives by making more accessible modes of expression that previously required a lot more money and expertise. My dad once told me about the painstaking work of splicing together 35mm film in the editing process when he was a teenager. A method like that required a lot more time and care than any of the free digital video editing programs out there, and professional or semiprofessional packages are not much harder to reach.

Making processes like video editing or photography or publishing easier and more accessible seems like a slam dunk, but one drawback is that the ease of producing the form of the medium can mask the absence of meaningful content. Any idiot can make a coherent movie now, but that doesn't mean that idiot has something worthwhile to say. The result is a saturation of media in which whatever is significant is buried among mountains of inanity.

I feel this malaise when I take pictures with the ridiculously affordable SLR I bought last May. Walking on the beach in Santa Cruz, California the other day I wanted to take a picture of the view looking down the coast at the reflection of sunlight off the ocean. Instantly I was awash in existential angst. First, in the world there are much more beautiful beaches at much more appealing seasons than Santa Cruz in late December. Second, I do not know how to make good use of my camera, and even if I did I am sure there is equipment which would improve the final product.

The connection of everything with everything means my photo could only be evaluated in the context of photographs of tropical beaches done by professionals the world over. Yet because everyone has seen so many of those pictures, even they elicit scarcely a neuron excitation in the brain. To even take the picture seemed a preposterous conceit, like a droplet of water aspiring to become an ocean wave and inevitably collapsing into an inconsequential eddy.

In a climate of such media ubiquity, it is easy to despair of saying anything original or meaningful. Whatever could be said has probably been said already a hundred thousand times, and probably more competently and expressively at that. At the same time, access to all of those prior expressions makes them essentially insignificant themselves.

The resulting world is one in which it seems there is nothing new to say, and in which that which has been said has demonstrably fallen short of the Ultimate. How could anyone interact with such a world, except through sarcasm, indifference, and cynicism? To do so is simply to bow to the crushing weight of futility.

Authenticity Revisited

2010-09-04T00:22:00.003-04:00

My last post was entitled "Authenticity," yet the word authenticity was nowhere to be found within the message itself. Jonathan called my vagueness to attention and asked for clarification, asking, "Is your complaint here authenticity, or is it quality?"

Indeed, my use of the word begs a definition. I omitted one previously because I could not articulate what I meant, and I hoped that it would be demonstrated by the examples I mentioned. Fortunately, a 17-hour drive to Chicago with Jonathan gave me plenty of time to hash it out.

One observation I had was that before lower-quality versions of the commodities I mentioned existed, no qualifying adjective was needed to describe them. For example, before factory farming methods, eggs did not need to be designated as "pastured" because all eggs were what we now call pastured. The very proliferation of words designating levels of quality betrayed to me a confusion about authenticity resulting from whatever "consumer choice" and "freedom" were won in the process.

Another aspect which puzzled me was the artisan's pursuit of consistency versus the factory's guarantee of standardization. To explain, I will first allow Jeffrey Hamelman from my wonderful bread book to define what I mean by an artisan:

"These days artisan and baker are often combined into one term, as if the unadorned noun baker needs further enhancement...The skilled baker, working with his hands, doing the same work each day, takes his place with the artisans of history...The baker, each day, tries to perfect something that was worked out hundreds of years ago. Mastering the art of fermentation is the ultimate aspiration of the bread baker...When it all goes just right (which it rarely does), and the day's breads have attained more than just good taste, but are, for that day, memorable and charismatic, then the baker knows again why he sets his alarm for that challenging hour."
Bread, Jeffrey Hamelman, John Wiley & Sons 2004.

So an artisan pursues every day the same objective, unchanging standards of perfection, while usually falling short. The best bakers are those who most consistently navigate all of the vagaries of humidity, flour quality, and dough temperature et al (the list is quite long) to produce results close to the standards of their craft.

Here my conundrum presents itself. If consistency is the only value, factories are much better than artisans. With a combination of standardized and interchangeable human and machine labor, they are able to produce nearly identical output. For example, if you have had one Oreo, you have had them all, because they are all the same to an impressive degree. If the best artisans are the most consistent, then are not machines far better than the best artisans?

Intuitively I knew this proposition was false. I realized the crucial difference is uniqueness. Because an Oreo is an Oreo is an Oreo, there is actually no such thing as an Oreo. There is only Oreo, an abstract concept with no particular incarnation. Oreo carries no attachment to anything real, actual, or particular, but only to Nabisco, itself a faceless, rootless, and soulless subsidiary of a multinational corporation.

By contrast, the work of an artisan contains within it something of the artisan himself. I know when I cook that I like very strong flavors with lots of heat. This preference is in accordance with my personality, and so when you eat my food you come to know me in it. Hamelman speaks of a particular day's bread being memorable and charismatic, two things which could never be said of one instance of a standardized product compared to another.

I posit then that authenticity bespeaks two derivative qualities. The first is adherence to objective standards of quality, the same for all instances of the thing produced. The second is specificity, both in that each instance may be distinguished from other instances and thus has its own identity, and that each instance represents the identity of its author.

Factory-produced items may in principle be high quality, but they cannot be authentic. For one, when many contribute to the process, such as when a baking operation is carried out by men who mix separate from men who shape separate from men who bake, the result contains not all of their identities but none of them. For two, factory processes depend on the standardization of every task, depending on no particular man to accomplish them and so by design carry no specificity.

In this way authentic work is like humanity itself. Humans all meet the objective standard of the image of God, yet each is a completely unique work which individually displays the characteristics of his or her creator. It only makes sense that when humans represent the best of their God-given and God-like nature, they create in the same manner as he does.

Authenticity

2010-08-07T16:21:00.003-04:00

Much of what has been lost in recent decades has been achieved by maintaining form and sacrificing substance for price.

Take eggs for instance. There is no question that what you buy in a supermarket qualify as eggs. They were laid by chickens, after all. But it does not follow that all eggs are equivalent. I used a few of these droopy, pale-yellow puddles in a brownie recipe last night and I was almost embarrassed. To hold them next to pastured eggs is a joke, unless you haven't seen pastured eggs.

Furniture is another example. What you may buy at Ikea certainly qualifies as a desk; it has a flat surface and you can put things on it. But no one would call this thing equivalent to a desk which is skillfully made with quality materials. Such things are so rare now that I can hardly conjure a picture of one in my mind.

Sound. My laptop has speakers which can play any song. But play something on speakers owned and modified by my housemate Matthew and you will discover that you hardly knew the music beforehand.

Friendship. Though you can socialize with someone on facebook, it does not compare to the face-to-face.

I do not claim that there is no good reason why in virtually every sphere of life our society has shifted toward hollowed-out shells of its former constituents. The trade-off is between substance and price. My pastured eggs cost ten times more than the cheapest eggs you can buy. The same can be said for furniture, sound equipment, or quality time with friends. This sort of mechanism is responsible for the extension of a high standard of living to much of our society, so that many more can have "eggs" and "desks" and "music" and hundreds of "friends." It is an egalitarianizing process and therefore I understand how it is American.

But this process once unleashed continued unabated, past the point of strict economic utility until we no longer remembered what we had lost and did not wish to get it back even when we could afford it.

We are not a materially poor society. We are destitute not of money but of the good, the true, and the beautiful. It is only logical that we exchange the resource we have in abundance for the resource we lack.

Instead we spare no expense on our isolation and on our glowing screens.

Agency and Autonomy

2010-06-30T22:29:00.002-04:00

Straining against the limits of reality.

I am reading Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford. You should too. The thoughts here were stimulated by chapter 3 of that book.

Crawford's book is basically about the value of manual work. It often finds itself set against the forces of consumerism. In this chapter Crawford brings up a distinction, originally conceived by Albert Borgmann, between "commanding reality," corresponding to "things," and "disposable reality," corresponding to "devices."

Proper use of a "thing" (I might have said "tool") requires obedience to certain absolute principles. An example is a violin, which only becomes the extension of a man's will once he has completely subjected himself to laws of music and physics. A "device," on the other hand, is much more accommodating. Devices are designed to free men from precisely the constraints which things would place upon them. An example is a stereo, which produces any kind of music on command and without restriction.

Things foster what Crawford calls agency, while devices foster autonomy. Things teach men that they are not the arbiters of what is real, and make them submit to the real in order to make use of them. Devices, on the other hand, bring men the reality which they desire.

Crawford does not categorically say that agency is better than autonomy. He concedes that he drives a motorcycle which has an electric start and automatic oil pump, among other features, which free him from the demands which such tasks would place on him, and therefore that greater autonomy is often preferable to the opportunity for greater agency. The point he is making is more one of an imbalance between the two in our society, that the culture of consumerism is inextricably bound up with offering men autonomy, and that the value of agency has been reduced to be more like nostalgia.

To me, whether or not you prefer autonomy or agency is bound up in your view of humanity. If you are a secular humanist, you believe that men can and ought to build the reality which best suits them. Devices which free them from limitations previously imposed upon them are part of progress toward the reality which we as a race are constructing for ourselves. In this view, a man ought to be completely free from anything to which he does not wish to be subject.

If, on the other hand, you are a Christian humanist, you see that things perform the useful service to men of teaching them that they are not the center of the universe. They put man in his place, not as the author of creation, but as he to whom it has been commanded to have dominion over creation. In so doing, they give him the opportunity to become more human as he bends the things to his will precisely by bending himself to the external reality they announce.

People are inspired by the exercise of agency in the creation of commanding reality. For example, the comedy of Conan O'brien and the cooking of Mario Batali inspire me in this way. By contrast, people are sated by the exercise of autonomy in the indulgence of disposable reality. For example, Netflix streaming over my Wii brings me untold hours of entertainment without leaving my room.

Truly exercising agency is hard. My bread turns out inconsistently, though with work it is usually still tasty. But our society offers ever more autonomy through ever more products. I'm looking at you, Apple.

I would like to opt for more agency. Bring on the things.

Pedal Downhill

2010-06-29T21:29:00.003-04:00

Bikers, please pedal when you are going downhill. In this situation, gravity is on your side. As a result you will find it considerably easier to pedal, and you may be amazed at the speeds you will quickly reach with very little additional effort. As a side benefit, your momentum will carry you speedily up the next hill, making that climb much easier.

Don't just coast down the hill. While you will still reach the bottom, you will do so at a comparative crawl. Worse, when you reach the next uphill, you will have to navigate it completely under your own power. And if I am behind you, I will have to brake and patiently endure the same fate.

Yes, when the going is easy, store up momentum for when the road tilts against your favor. You will expend less effort in the long run. You will reach your destination faster. You will have more fun.

Lastly, I am sure there is a metaphor for life in here somewhere. Thank you.

Brought to you by the letters "P" and "C"

2010-06-13T21:59:00.004-04:00

The letter people used to be cool, man.

In kindergarten we were introduced to the letters of the alphabet by way of the 26-member troupe called "The Letter People." The first one introduced was Mr. M, with his munching mouth easily my favorite, followed by Mr. T, of tall teeth fame.

Each was incarnated in an inflatable doll and sang a song according to alliterative theme. My sister and I listened to the compilation tape for years later as bedtime music. Needless to say, they occupy a foundational niche in my brain.

Recent nostalgia led me to order the songs again on eBay and read up on their history. Not surprisingly, the songs didn't age especially well according to my tastes, although I couldn't get "Mr. V's Violet Velvet Vest" out of my head for a few days.

However, it did surprise me to learn that The Letter People were reincarnated in the 90's (the originals had been born in the 70's). As is characteristic of the 90's, the group's character became completely dominated by political correctness, in all of its identity-confusing, parade-raining, life-sucking anti-glory. Peruse if you will the two versions of the group:

Miss A	A'choo	Ms. A	A'choo
Mister B	Beautiful Buttons	Mr. B	Beautiful Buttons
Mister C	Cotton Candy	Mr. C	Colossal Cap
Mister D	Delicious Doughnuts	Mr. D	Dazzling Dance
Miss E	Exercising	Ms. E	Exercise Energy
Mister F	Funny Feet	Ms. F	Funny Feet
Mister G	Gooey Gum	Mr. G	Gooey Gum
Mister H	Horrible Hair	Mr. H	Happy Hair
Miss I*	Itchy Itches; Incredible Inventor	Mr. I	Impossible Inches
Mister J	Jumbled Junk	Ms. J	Jingle Jingle Jacket
Mister K	Kind Kicking	Ms. K	Kaboom Kick
Mister L	Lemon Lollipops	Ms. L	Longest Laugh
Mister M	Munching Mouth	Mr. M	Munching Mouth
Mister N	Noisy Nose	Mr. N	Noisy Nose
Miss O*	Obstinate; Optimistic Optimist	Mr. O	Opposite
Mister P	Pointy Patches	Ms. P	Pointy Patches
Mister Q	Quiet	Mr. Q	Questions
Mister R	Ripping Rubberbands	Mr. R	Rainbow Ribbons
Mister S	Super Socks	Ms. S	Super Socks
Mister T	Tall Teeth	Ms. T	Tall Teeth
Miss U	Upsy-Daisy Umbrella	Ms. U	Unusual Umbrella
Mister V	Violet Velvet Vest	Ms. V	Vegetable Vest
Mister W	Wonderful Wink	Ms. W	Wonderful Words
Mister X	All Wrong (Mixed-Up)	Mr. X	Different
Mister Y	Yawning	Ms. Y	Yodeling Yawn
Mister Z	Zipping Zippers	Mr. Z	Zipping Zippers

Observations:

The primary difference is in gender. Instead of occupying different, but equally important roles (consonants and vowels), men and women equivalently occupy all roles (13 men and 13 women).
Along the same lines, marital status of women is not presumed: female characters are "Ms." instead of "Miss."
Instead of celebrating delicious and delightful treats, healthy food is promoted. Cotton Candy becomes Colossal Cap, Delicious Donuts becomes Dazzling Dance, Lovely Lemon Lollipops becomes Longest Laugh, and Violet Velvet Vest becomes Vegetable Vest.
Fun and masculine Mr. R of the Ripping Rubber Bands transforms into feminine-at-best, paper-cut-at-worst Rainbow Ribbons. I assume the logic was that kids could hurt themselves with rubber bands, and classroom distractions could not be promoted.
Hyper-sensitivity over disabilities: instead of being "Mixed Up," which at least contains an "x," Mr. X is simply "Different."

To get very concerned would be a bit silly, but the Letter People debacle is a good illustration of how much more than simple academic facts is taught in school from an early age, and of how pervasive the social changes of the last several decades have been.

What is the purpose of photography?

2010-05-04T00:52:00.000-04:00

My friend Matthew takes wonderful pictures. You can see some examples here or here.

Most photographs serve to preserve memories for those who are in the pictures. However, they have little value for people outside of them. I think that role for pictures has expanded in the last decade with the advent of cheap digital cameras which require no film and free social publishing of photos. There is a whole genre of facebook party photos taken by women of friends with drinks.

What I like about Matthew's photos is that they have value for anyone. You didn't "have to be there" in order to see the beauty in them. This quality is probably a mark of any good photography.

I have pondered taking a photography class myself over the summer. I have always taken a passing interest in taking good pictures, and I go out of my way to try and give my posts here a fitting photograph, but I have neither the equipment or the training for the kind of results I would desire. Hopefully I have a good many years ahead of me, and I would like to chronicle them in a way which has as much value as possible.

Before undertaking such an investment, I have wanted to make sure it is worth the cost of time and money to do so. Lord knows there are enough other disciplines and hobbies to which I like to devote my time. In doing so I have pondered exactly what sort of value good photography has.

Is the value that of conferring the appearance of meaning, when in fact meaning might or might not exist? I can certainly see photography being used in this way, and if it is so then I have little interest in pursuing it.

Is the value that of "capturing" an object, of conveying the intangible facets of its character through its appearance? In this case the work of the photographer is similar to that of the naturalist, cataloging objective and intrinsic meaning. When I think of photography like this I think of The Daily Nice.

I got really excited when I thought of a third possibility, that the purpose of photography is to communicate, to show the world as the photographer sees it. In this case, the primary meaning in a photograph is found at least as much in the eye behind the lens as in anything captured through it. It is not a statement merely of what exists, but of what is seen and how it is seen. The meaning resides between what is seen and who is seeing.

I suspect photography can be any of those three things, and that good photography is a mix of the second conception, the objective, and the third conception, the subjective. I would like to have a family someday. The idea of chronicling wife and children through different stages is quite appealing to me, and much the more so if in so doing I can chronicle my journey in seeing them.

Most of that is just speculation, though. How possible is it really to take another into one's frame of reference? To those who have experience in photography, I welcome your insight.

April Fool

2010-04-14T09:26:00.004-04:00

Hop on your bike. Head east on Springfield Ave from 52nd street. Pick up speed as you approach the bottom of the hill. Keep your momentum going uphill.

Now, close your eyes. Inhale. Smell spring pass in the breeze, aromas shifting as you pass each tree.

I hope you don't have bad balance or allergies.

City Planning Fail

2010-03-08T20:05:00.001-05:00

Order is nice, but not if it doesn't make sense.

City planning is a classic example of simplistic type-A thinking gone dangerously awry. Especially in the early and middle parts of the twentieth century, many of the most influential ideas in planning came from people who disliked the messiness of cities. Blocks full of varieties of uses in a variety of architectural styles, used by a variety of people at a variety of times, seemed unseemly.

And so a tendency emerged, especially when planning large initiatives, to cluster similar uses together. For an example in Philadelphia, see the Avenue of the Arts. In one stretch can be found the majority of the performing arts theaters and centers in the city. It makes a certain simplistic sense in that if you want to see a performance you know where to go.

Unfortunately, such ideas do not respect the actual forces which govern what makes city life vital. Exactly the disarray of diversity which the planners scorned is necessary for economic viability, for safety, for anything but quite literally oppressive dullness.

I have read about these concepts in Jane Jacobs's seminal 1960 work on city planning, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. But I was reminded of them this weekend when I encountered exactly these deficiencies on a visit to Washington, D.C.

My friend Pat and I set out to go sightseeing, with a mind to visit national monuments as well as museums at the Smithsonian. All of these are located in the same general area referred to as the National Mall. Here the impulse toward order and uniformity I mentioned earlier is made manifest. Whether you want to see Lincoln's or Washington's memorial, whether the Hirshhorn Museum or the Museum of American History, you go to the same general area.

I would be remiss if I did not point out the advantages to such a layout. Pat and I started at Arlington National Cemetery and were able to spurn the metro in favor of a lovely walk across the Potomac River in the emerging spring sunshine. Without effort we soon found ourselves amazed by Lincoln's second inaugural address as inscribed on the wall of his memorial, and in short order humbled by the names of Vietnam veterans on their memorial. Later we met with a friend at the National Gallery of Art, where we didn't intend to visit but where was just a short detour from our planned destination.

All of these things were made easier and happily car-independent by virtue of each place's proximity. For monuments and memorials, proximity may make a particular amount of sense, since each is not likely to occupy attention for more than half an hour, and would not draw nearly as many visitors as in isolation. Just ask Thomas Jefferson.

However, we were starving.

From the Vietnam memorial, we intended to walk into the neighborhoods and find a place to eat. We walked and found nothing but a food truck which would have been shamed out of Philadelphia for its inventory of hot dogs and bad soft pretzels. Walking farther we found ourselves in the midst of a complex of Federal office buildings, which on a Saturday were perfectly deserted.

Further walking brought us no more options than clones of that same sorry truck from before. We finally broke down and bought candy bars, hoping the carbs would be good for something.

Soon we met my aforementioned friend at the Cascade Cafe inside the Gallery of Art, which we passed up on account of our desire for food other than coffee and gelato.

On our way to American History I remembered that my family and I had the exact same problem years ago. At that point we turned to a lone popcorn vendor to be sated. No sooner had I recalled this fate than we found ourselves facing the exact same vendor, unchallenged and unchanged in a decade. More popcorn followed, along with more hopes for the sufficiency of carbohydrates.

Finally, two hours later, after thoroughly enjoying the museum, we found ourselves at Dupont Circle for dinner. By this point my hunger pangs had turned into a roaring migraine, and ironically I found myself unable to eat. My friends ate hurriedly and we left, headed not to Stefanie's for dessert and catching up, but home for darkness and Advil.

In short, the overuse of segregation in planning the National Mall led to a shortage of viable food options, which led to a headache and a missed chance at seeing two old friends.

Though without certainty, I can guess at some of the roots of this situation. The dearth of respectable food trucks around the mall leads me to suspect that the networks which allow such vendors in Philadelphia to stock up and sell cheap food at a profit do not exist in D.C. The dearth of any commercial restaurant leads me to suspect that such a presence is deemed undesirable in the presence of such hallowed grounds and thus barred, despite its considerable utility.

Moreover, as the metro station's thronged state at 5:30 pointed out, there is virtually no good reason to be at the mall outside of monument and museum hours. In the void left by good reasons, bad reasons creep in, and I would not be surprised if the area is dangerous during such times.

Next time we will be sure to remember our peanut butter sandwiches.

Resonance

2010-03-04T08:07:00.006-05:00

Do re mi fa so...

Looking out the window this morning I see that the earth is beginning to resonate.

Let us not be unscientific in our language here. Strictly speaking, resonance occurs when you touch something in just the way it is meant to be touched and it breaks into song.

It has been six months since the sunlight took on the peculiarly golden slant it acquires every September. I know that the earth is only now emerging from the slumber to which that light alluded.

Yet resonance is no gentle phenomenon,* and March is no gentle month. I remember the teaching from kindergarten: even if March comes in like a lamb, you can bet it will go out like a lion.

Therein lies, I wonder, a principle of nature. New life arrives amid violence. April could not be born from February without a tumultuous March, just as babies cannot be born from their mother without labor pains. Positive feedback mechanisms, resonance, are required in order to overthrow the status quo.

Indeed, Paul the Apostle tells us in the passage called the high peak of Scripture that

"the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now", "in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God." (Romans 8: 22, 20b-21)

Even the freedom of glory which is the final restoration of humanity and of the world will require a tumultuous transition.

I further wonder: what sort of resonance does the human heart display?

* Just ask the Tacoma Narrows Bridge

An Insulated Life

2010-01-16T23:49:00.003-05:00

I live an insulated life.

I saw one of the most horrifying sights of my life on Tuesday. While driving to meet a friend, as I approached the intersection of Springfield and Baltimore Avenues I saw a car blocking the way, as if it had stopped mid-turn.

It turned out that was exactly what happened. Crumpled in the road and motionless lay an African American - man or woman, I could not say. I rolled down my window and asked if I could help. A man stood with his cell phone and explained in stammering, disjointed phrases that he had been turning and hadn't seen the pedestrian before hitting him.

He had already called 911. I wanted to do something, but my friend was waiting for me, other pedestrians were converging on the spot to similarly offer assistance, and I figured my presence was only blocking the way. So I left.

The image has stayed with me. I do not go through the intersection without thinking of the person who lay there, and the poor man who could not comprehend his accidental deed.

I compare those images with images of the earthquake in Haiti this week, after which not just one but thousands of people lay broken in the streets. Natural disasters are unthinkable in Philadelphia, and near-instant mass death had occurred while I cooked jambalaya and listened to This American Life.

My first thought was that I was glad I was not there. I could not understand the random chance that once again left me born to such a comfortable life, but since I had that privilege I was relieved to possess it.

My second thought was that I wished I could be there. While I have indeed been blessed with the means to avoid most hardship, I serve a God who says that he who seeks to save his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for His sake will save it for eternal life.

The fact is that while none of us can choose the hand we are dealt in this life, we are completely responsible for how we play that hand. And my God also says that from he to whom much has been given, much will be required.

This same God had complete freedom to remain in the very seat of heaven, waited on by angels and the whole heavenly host, sharing in the perfect loving company of the Godhead. Yet he freely chose to be born among the lowest of all people and ultimately die literally the most painful death imaginable for my sake.

Finally, he tells me that just as he was sent by his father, so he sends me. I cannot pretend to understand or receive his work for me if I take that gift and sit on it. And so I would follow him, to the ravaged streets of Haiti or to wherever else he might be found.

Yet the scene from this week challenges me. This small intrusion of reality on the road between the tricked out kitchen in which I eat and the gigantic iMac screen at which I work shows me how little accustomed I am to facing Death and Pain. I wonder - would I really follow him?

Most Americans like me will cope the best way they know how, by text messaging a $10 donation to a relief organization. I wonder if it is enough.

Lord, have mercy.

Dare I Bake?

2010-01-05T00:22:00.004-05:00

Good things come in threes.

The bread plot deepens.

My dear friend Pat gave me a book of techniques and recipes for baking bread. I had started baking my own whole wheat bread a few months ago. My efforts, though amateur, filled me with delight during many toast mornings and many peanut butter and jelly afternoons. Making yet another decision which isolates me from the supermarket, I have sworn off store bought bread, if I can help it.

With this book I realize I may have started down a road whose destination I scarcely could have perceived. The first sentence I read spoke to sentiments I had already come to cherish in other contexts:

Although modern equipment seeks to duplicate, and thereby nullify, the hard work of the baker, in the actual bakery setting there is no true substitute for skilled hands (66).

Skilled hands! I have written before about longing for manual work with tangible results, even hinting at an inclination for cooking. Author Jeffrey Hamelman continues:

However, for someone aspiring to be an artisan in the historical sense of the word, that is, a skilled manual worker whose hands are integral to the creation of the product, a firm mastery of hand technique is required (66).

The claim that baking bread can connect one to the past, to a mode of being which has been largely forgotten, is exciting. Hamelman also makes it clear that this is skilled labor, not to be learned lightly or in a short period of time, and not to be despised.

Hamelman elaborates by discussing what exactly an artisan is:

One asks, is the baker an artist? An artisan? These days artisan and baker are often combined into one term, as if the unadorned noun baker needs further enhancement. To me, the baker is no artist, for an artist creates something new: This is the domain of poets and painters.

The skilled baker, working with his hands, doing the same work each day, takes his place with the artisans of history: the potters, coopers, carpenters, and smiths. His work may excel and reach toward perfection, but there is little, really, that is new for the bread baker to invent...The baker, each day, tries to perfect something that was worked out hundreds of years ago (86).

In light of that dignified, counter-cultural, and inspiring narrative, dare I bake? Dare I teach these hands to massage something other than a computer keyboard? Dare I meet the ancients at the hearth?

I would sure like to, for several reasons:

It seems a more universal skill than any other I possess. A baker can serve anyone, while (say) a programmer is of more limited use. It would be nice to think of returning to South Korea and having something to offer the people other than the English language.
It seems an excellent way to connect with my European heritage, since most of these techniques originated there. It would be another way to live as white and redeemed.
It seems to connect with other themes of thought which have occupied me in recent years, along the lines of what is lost through industrialization and mass production.
It seems an appropriate exploration of masculinity. After all, it was said to the man, "In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread" (Genesis 3:19). Infusing the wheat of the earth with water and air and then tempering it with the fire of the oven - yeah!
It seems delicious.

Time will tell if I find the time. If so, I will tell.

Golden Breakfast

2009-12-29T23:43:00.002-05:00

My kind of color coordination:
Eggs, cheese, honey, orange juice, butter, cornbread.

I have discovered breakfast.

First I discovered eggs, or what eggs should be. It turns out that what you put into an animal affects what comes out of it. Exercise matters too. When a chicken sits still and eats the cheapest food possible, the cheapest eggs possible come out. Those eggs are what you generally find in the supermarket.

Enter pastured eggs. Chickens are given freedom to move around. They eat healthy food, and have freedom to peck at bugs and what-have-you.

Does the result make a difference? Well, is there a difference between the following shades?

Those shades come from a photo I took of a pastured egg yolk with a supermarket egg yolk. The deep orange on top represents the pastured egg. I think it a safe assumption that the difference in color corresponds to a difference of nutrient content.

That's not the only difference. I was startled the first time I sought to scramble one of these yolks, because I could actually feel it give back when I pushed on it.

Let me tell you, the flavor speaks volumes more.

Back to breakfast. My housemate and his wife start every day with a spinach and cheese omelet. Culturally this seemed a bit extravagant, so I asked why. They said that, among other reasons, a higher-protein breakfast leaves them fuller longer and helps them have a healthier appetite through the day.

I tried it out, and my experience confirms their words. My old diet of a simple bowl of cereal left me hungry as few as two hours later, while after eating just two eggs with some toast I felt quite full for that same amount of time and not actually hungry for considerably longer.

Those reasons aside, that breakfast is delicious! Taking some time in the morning to treasure cooking and eating is a wonderful ritual. Prizing such luxuries as beauty and flavor and aroma really starts the day off on a good foot.

After all, what you put into an animal affects what you get out of it. If I want to be productive through the day I think I do well to invest time and money and thought into my fuel.

A Day in Philadelphia for $20

2009-11-29T17:10:00.003-05:00

Why is there a British flag hanging in Elfreth's Alley?
Let's call it...a sign of the glory of the First Amendment.

Yesterday I went with my friend Pat, my sister Samantha, and her boyfriend Jace to Philadelphia. Jace is from Maine and had never been here before. He is also studying to be a history teacher. So, we undertook to show him historic Philadelphia, on a budget. Our itinerary:

8:04: Purchase SEPTA "Independence" day pass for $10 each and catch the R5 into 30th St Station.
8:45: In West Philadelphia ("born and raised..."), catch the El to 2nd and Market St.
9:10: Tour Christ Church at 2nd and Arch, birthplace of the Episcopal church. See George Washington's pew, a 300-year-old chandelier, and a 600-year-old baptismal font, among other treasures. Stingily give only $1 of the suggested $3 adult donation.
9:30: Walk through Elfreth's Alley, one of the few preserved colonial streets left in the wake of demolition for Independence Mall and I-95. Price: free.
9:45: Walk past Benjamin Franklin's grave on the way to Independence Hall. Price: Free.
9:50: Get a fresh, fluffy, warm, mustard-drenched pretzel from a food truck. The pretzel is so good it "lives up to Avatar's hype." Price: $0.50
9:55: Reach Independence Hall looking for tour tickets, only to discover we must walk a block to the "Independence Visitor's Center" to pick up the tickets. The Center is immensely pointless, a fact made more bitter by the knowledge of the aforementioned demolition of Elfreth's Alley-like neighborhoods in its place. Grudgingly pick up free tickets for the 11:45 tour.
10:00: Stop in and see the Liberty Bell. Have the feeling that the history presented here is to real history as muzak is to music. Nevertheless, the bell is cool. Price: free.
10:15: Stop for another pretzel at another cart. Find the second every bit as delicious as the first. Price: another $0.50.
10:15 Walk to the Second Bank of the United States, and stumble upon an incredible exhibit of portraits of Founding Fathers and their contemporaries. Here is history intelligently and legitimately displayed, as the exhibit tries to explain these folks as products of a movement called the Enlightenment, grouped so as to leave room for visitors to make their own inferences and contextualization. See some really cool paintings. Price: free.
11:30: Return to Independence Hall for tour. Hear excellent tour guide involve the whole group, which included visitors from both coasts, the South, Canada, and France. Price: free.
12:30: Walk to Reading Terminal Market for lunch. Realize there are better times to go than Thanksgiving weekend at peak lunch time. Wait around 45 minutes for a cheesesteak at Spataro's, which proves pretty much worth it. Save money and unnecessary calories by bringing a water bottle from home. Price: $8.
2:15: Walk to City Hall. Explore the tallest masonry building in the world. Find the city's Christmas Village set up in wooden huts on the west side. Meet Germans selling roasted nuts. Find out from the merchant that his group came from Bavaria just for this market and will return two days after Christmas. Share Pat's roasted pecans, which are out of this world. Price: free to me, $4 to Pat.
3:30: Walk through Love Park with the intention of reaching the Franklin Institute.
4:00: Stop in to see the Comcast Center's video wall, and receive 3D glasses for their "Holiday Spectacular" show. Enjoy the beautiful screen, though it is merely a glorified screen saver. Discover exactly how empty Christmas becomes when stripped of its Christian context, as most spectacularly displayed by a children's chorus of "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" for the finale. Price: free.
4:25: Return to Love Park for photos of Sam and Jace under the iconic sign.
4:45: Take the El past the giant clothespin to 5th and South with the intention of dinner at Pietro's and an exploration of the street. Price: free.
5:15: Elect instead to return home for free lasagna from Mom's kitchen. Stop by Carpenter's Hall, site of the First Continental Congress. Price: free.

A wonderful day with a few surprises to boot. Total cost was $10 for SEPTA, $1 for the Christ Church donation, $1 for two pretzels, and $8 for lunch.

$20 for a day packed with history, culture, and delights for the senses in a world class city? Sounds like a great deal to me.

Next Up: Unintended Consequences

2009-11-20T13:08:00.005-05:00

Please don't take this away!

"A bike is a legal vehicle with the same rights and duties as a motor vehicle."
"A Guide to Biking in Philly"

That quote defines a broken and inadequate philosophy toward biking which is harmless when tacitly ignored but harmful to society at large when actually enforced. Unfortunately, it looks like there is a new push to enforce this misguided idea, with tickets for $119.50 likely being written to cyclists in Center City as I write these words.

I see only one reason why a bicycle should be governed by the same rules as a car, and it is not a good one: thinking through proper regulations for bikes would require work, maybe even hard work. Applying rules designed for cars is simple, and might make sense to someone unacquainted with actual cycling experience on the city streets. But if carried to its extreme, streets would become unsafe and inefficient for all users of the road while severely hampering cycling in particular.

Cars have four wheels. Pedestrians have zero wheels. Bicycles have two wheels. As a first approximation, it might make sense to treat a bike as something between a car and a pedestrian. I think this idea is a much better starting point than the quote above.

For example, bikes go faster than pedestrians, but not as fast as cars. That means they should ride on the road, but accommodations should be made for the fact that they are slower. A great solution is the bike lane, which unfortunately does not exist in most places and is often obstructed when it does. However, bikes are flexible! They can bend themselves to be more like pedestrians or more like cars in any given circumstance, and this great advantage allows them to cope with most perils the road throws their way.

In my estimation, the crux of the issue lies in the assertion that bikes, like cars, should never be allowed to proceed through red lights or stop signs. To say otherwise would seem a dangerous idea if bikes were just like cars, but looking through the lens of a pedestrian provides a different perspective.

In Philadelphia, pedestrians frequently move through a red light when there is no car traffic coming. This behavior has the dual benefit of first, saving pedestrians time, and second, getting them out of the way so that when the light turns, parallel traffic need not wait for them to cross before turning. At times, pedestrians cross when it is unsafe to do so, but that does not invalidate the fact that jaywalking in general increases efficiency and productivity for everyone.

In this respect, bicycles are a lot more like pedestrians than they are like cars. A cyclist is equally as capable as a pedestrian of riding to the front of an intersection, determining whether it is safe to go through, and proceeding when it is so. In fact, doing so makes things easier for automobiles, since the slower bike is now out of its way and the car is free to go its normal speed.

I do not deny that reckless "jayriding" is hazardous, inefficient, and stupid, but that fact should not be used to condemn safe use of the practice. If bikes are prohibited from jayriding, the result in a city with ever increasing bike traffic will be a pileup of bikes at the light. This result would be inefficient, since not only would the cyclists' commute time be greatly slowed, but cars would also be inconvenienced by the obstacle which multiple cycles present. Given sufficient volume, this situation would also be unsafe, since there is not much space for bicycles to begin with.

How does a city prohibit behaviors like unsafe jayriding while allowing safe and productive use of the practice? This is the kind of challenge which city legislators should take up if they truly wish to make city streets safer and more efficient. Actually condoning moving through a red light for anyone may be hard to swallow at first, but that is only so if one has only experienced the perspective of an automobile.

It is easy to shackle cyclists to all of the limitations of motorists while denying them any of the benefits of the pedestrian side of their nature, but actually doing so almost keeps cycling from being worthwhile. Depending who you are, that may not be a problem. In a society as auto-dominated as ours, most people probably would not care, and many would probably be happy to have streets sanitized of the two-wheeled nuisances.

But any Center City rush hour prominently displays how broken our auto society has become, and any look at obesity statistics shows how sorely many Americans are lacking exercise. Within the city, biking is faster and more efficient than driving, with virtually none of the parking hassle. It is also a great way for people like myself who struggle to get enough exercise to burn calories.

In short, biking is a godsend, working against several social problems at once, and we ought to seek to make even more provision for its use rather than bullying cyclists off the road. There is no question that as use has increased, more regulation has become necessary. Let us hope that we as a city can rise to the challenge of doing so in an intelligent, useful fashion.

If this is the placebo effect, I'm going to look like a fool.

2009-11-10T13:52:00.003-05:00

To try and make ends meet while unemployed, I have been taking part in a study of the effects of Adderall on memory, concentration, and personality. For that work this morning I took a pill which was either Adderall or a placebo, watched an hour of the Planet Earth documentary while the drug kicked in, took a personality test, and took part of the SAT.

The drug's effects are likely still with me as I compose these thoughts.

This was my first time taking a pill for the study, but I feel pretty confident that this one was the real stuff. The sharpest changes I notice are an increased need to concentrate and increased self-awareness.

I say "need to concentrate" rather than "ability to concentrate" because I feel a drive to go deeply into whatever is my focus. I dove deeply into each separate task on the SAT, yet switching gears was unpleasant. I wanted to be absolutely immersed in each task while I was doing it, and having to come back to the surface before diving into a different task was unpleasant.

This behavior made clock management a little more difficult. Rather than having the back of my mind tethered to the big picture of completing the entire test as best as possible, I wanted to delve fully into every problem and task for its own sake, spurning the larger task at hand.

While I was able to concentrate more and attack problems with fiery zeal, I don't think I necessarily performed better. For instance, at the beginning of the math section there were several problems which I had trouble completing, yet with which I was fairly sure that I would not normally have much trouble. I felt as though there were a couple of circuits in my brain not connecting well.

I think the increased self-awareness I notice may not be directly due to the pill, but rather due to my curiosity as a scientific observer of myself in changed circumstances. Nevertheless I found myself thinking about my posture and my motion on my bicycle in ways I don't normally, which are the kinds of observations I wouldn't be making just based on searching for the pill's effects.

The questions lurking behind any such study are, first, can we actually expand human capabilities with this pill? Second, should we?

The consequences of answering those questions with respect to Adderall are pretty benign, since its effects in any rate aren't dramatic. Whether we do or we don't, most people's lives probably don't stand to change much.

But those answers will follow us once we open the door to more dramatic "enhancements." Our ability to change who we are and our descendants will be undoubtedly will increase, whether by taking drugs to change our minds and our bodies, by altering our genetic code, or by other means. In my opinion, the answer to the first question (can we?) is a clear yes.

I wonder whether many who are providing those yeses to the first question will give the second question a second thought. To most I expect it, too, leads to an obvious yes.

The specter of transhumanism has already graced our baseball players and our Olympic athletes, and it looms larger in the future as we journey inward. Should we? I hope to write more later.

Great Plain Drain

2009-10-28T02:17:00.005-04:00

Meritocratic winners debate whether the world is getting better and better,
or whether it is getting worse and worse.

Tomorrow's anticipated World Series opener between the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Yankees carries an interesting twist. The starting pitchers, C.C. Sabathia for the Yankees and Cliff Lee for the Phillies, each won Cy Young awards* in 2007 and 2008, respectively, while playing for the Cleveland Indians.

In other words, if you're a Cleveland baseball fan, you probably want to kill yourself.

I'm struck by how similar this situation is to a more widespread and more consequential phenomenon in our country. I witnessed it as a student at Penn, a university which boasts an acceptance pool from all fifty states and many countries besides.

People entering Penn may come from all over, but graduates are not nearly so far-flung. They tend to congregate in the major metropolitan areas of the Northeast and of the West Coast. My dear friend Ben, who returned to his native Minnesota for law school in Minneapolis, is by far the exception.

The result is what some have called the "Problem of Meritocracy:" the nation's smartest are drawn from all over to the coasts, leaving the "flyover states" desolate of leaders and thinkers with perhaps the highest potential. This article puts it aptly, likening the SAT to strip mining:

For the meritocratic system is a method that uses impersonal technology (e.g., the SAT) to help us identify valuable natural resources (bright kids), and then pitilessly removes them from their ecological contexts (local communities), never to return them, thus creating cultural landscapes just as ravaged as the denuded mountainsides of Kentucky coal country.

I am not sure what I think about this issue. If you ask me, the principal advantage in going to the University of Pennsylvania compared to the much-cheaper Penn State University, where one could ostensibly learn the same facts and study the same subjects, is in being surrounded by brilliant friends and classmates. This grouping would not have been possible had we not been brought from hither and yon to the same twelve square city blocks.

In addition, my primitive understanding is that the "knowledge-based economy" into which the United States continues to develop requires collections of really smart people. Take a company like Google for example, whose achievements have made significant improvements in daily life for just about everyone who uses the Internet. Those achievements were all developed by groups of very smart people who likely came from all over.

Yet I also know that a great deal of this coastal congregation amounts to selfish gain rather than the greater good, as a large stack of currency trading books I saw today reminds me. The University instills certain values, but duty and responsibility are not among them, nor anything that acknowledges anyone is responsible for students' success but themselves.

Perhaps the great danger in meritocracy lies here, in the easy bridge it offers to entitlement. Those who have conquered meritocratic establishments do so by definition according to their own achievements. That is probably a better system than the old standby of heredity, but it hides the many factors that students have no control over yet which play crucial roles in their successes.

Since students are led to feel entitled to their standing, nothing inhibits them from adding to that privilege rather than sacrificing for others' benefit. Notable losers in this exchange may be the communities which poured their resources into raising these children to begin with, or anyone not blessed with the same kind of golden ticket.

I have pride in my hometown of Phoenixville, which is doing just fine without me, but to which I would love to contribute meaningfully someday. I know there are countless other locales which are not so lucky, and which could be enlivened greatly by the devoted attention of their native sons and daughters.

Make no mistake. I will be rooting for Cliff Lee to absolutely topple the Yankees hitters, while I hope C.C. Sabathia is himself toppled by the Phillies' bats. But lurking in the back of my mind, as I watch the game with many friends who are lucky in the same way I am, will be a feeling of loss for the Cleveland fans and the large swaths of America which they represent.

*The Cy Young award is given annually to the American League pitcher and the National League pitcher deemed to be the best in his respective league.

What else is going on in there?

2009-10-21T14:40:00.005-04:00

I woke this morning with Pachelbel's Canon in D played by a Game Boy synthesizer stuck in my head.

This occurrence is intriguing because while I have heard Pachelbel's Canon many times, and while I have heard music played on a Game Boy synthesizer many times, I have never heard Pachelbel's Canon played on a Game Boy synthesizer before. Yet there it was, playing through my head.

Even more interesting: I realized later on that the canon playing through my head was at least in parts in a minor key, while the actual canon is written in D major.

So completely unbidden by conscious thought, for no reason known to me, while I slept my brain spun together a novel arrangement of a song it knew and an instrument it knew, and then transposed it to a minor key.

By now, however, various other songs have crowded it out. If only I had a USB port for capturing such things...

*I have some basic musical inclination, but nothing special, and I am not nearly as avid of a music listener as many others I know. Yet I virtually always have something playing in my head, which I understand to be relatively rare. I think my dad was the same way. Curious.

2012

2009-10-20T00:42:00.007-04:00

Apparently the world is going to end in three years and some change.

Sony is making a movie about it. The date will be an almost-symmetric 12/21/2012. Also it's the end of the Mayan calendar or something. Some of my students last year were fascinated by this possibility.

Conjecture on the end of the world based on round numbers seems to be relatively common (remember Y2K?). But roundness of numbers is misleading.

1,000 is only round because we use a base ten number system (a choice almost certainly due to the fact that we have ten fingers). The choice of ten is otherwise arbitrary.

By base ten, I mean that each place in a number refers to a power of 10. The number 3,762, for instance, is shorthand for:

3x10³ + 7x10² + 6x10¹+ 2x10⁰
= 3x1,000 + 7x100 + 6x10 + 2x1
= 3,000 + 700 + 60 + 2
= 3,762

Computers are built on a base two number system, better known as binary. In this case each place refers to a power of 2. For instance, the binary number 10110 is shorthand for:

1x2⁴ + 0x2³+ 1x2² + 1x2¹ + 0x2⁰
= 1x16 + 0x8 + 1x4 + 1x2 + 0x1
= 16 + 0 + 4 + 2 + 0
= 22

Any number can be represented in base ten, or in base two, or in base anything. This means that numbers which look round are only round in one particular number system. In base two, 1,000 is just 8. Some people find 8 a particularly appealing number, but most probably do not. But 1,000 in a base two system? That's 1111101000.

So to us, in our crazy base 10 mindset, 12/21/2012 looks mildly interesting. However, in another system, say base seven, the date is represented 15/30/5403. The year 2,000, which many more people got excited about, is just 13132 in base six. Not so round in either case.

Humans are superstitious as a rule, and it's easy to believe that round dates carry hidden significance. Whatever adjectives you might use to describe such a belief, it is if nothing else a tad anthropomorphic.

Side question: How would human history have differed as a function of the number of fingers we have?

*All of this is not to say that I am above celebrating the arrival of a round number.
** 2,000 in base 7 is actually 5555, which still has a certain roundness to it. We're so lucky the world didn't end at Y2K!

You, sir, are not like me.

2009-10-05T17:37:00.001-04:00

Today's ride, about 12 miles.

Is it better or is it worse to encounter in your daily life people who are not like you?

I think most would say that it is better to encounter a diversity of people. However, most choose to live around others similar to themselves, which would speak to the contrary. Certainly, auto-dependent and traditionally homogenous suburbs do quite a bit to keep their residents selectively isolated.

One such experience today got me thinking about the question. While on a bike ride, I waited at a light to turn from 12th onto Walnut. As the light changed the other way, an African American biker transitioned from the sidewalk to the road, signaling his way with the "ding ding!' of a bell attached to his handlebars, offering a polite thank-you as he passed.

Within a few blocks I had caught up to him and found myself biking side-by-side. This experience is a pleasing one, for reasons related to physics, and because I feel safer and more relaxed when taking up the whole lane with another rider. (This practice is perfectly legitimate in Center City, where there is no bike lane and the right lane is thus reserved for bikes and for buses.)

Soon we crossed through an intersection, and he alerted some jaywalking pedestrians of our passage again with his bell. "I like your bell," I said.

"Thanks," he replied. "My partner gave it to me."

"It's nice."

"Yeah, I want him to get one for my grandson, too. I know he'd like that," he responded.

"It's useful, too," I added.

"Yeah." We rode a bit more. "I'm heading up Sixteenth Street here, so you have a good day," he said. And we parted ways.

I don't know how many gay African American grandparents I've met before. I don't think that number is very high, but you wouldn't expect it to be for someone like me either. Yet by virtue of using a non-isolated mode of transportation, and by living in a city where many kinds of people reside, we came into contact just by chance.

Though I suspect there is virtue in such experiences, I am not exactly sure what that virtue is. I do think it is helpful just to be reminded that there are ranges of experience drastically different from my own, that the world is a lot bigger than I conceive it to be.

Science on Spokes

2009-08-26T22:01:00.000-04:00

Zadrejko stands tall.

Jon majored in biology. I majored in physics. We both went for a bike ride.

At the start we spontaneously took a few revolutions around a cul-de-sac. I remarked what an interesting frame of reference that had been - he stationary in front of me and the rest of the world spinning.

We stopped at an old one-room schoolhouse. He noticed a spider on the handle of an old pump, and we talked about how underrated spiders are.

On the way back a flock of geese suddenly passed overhead. Jon was surprised at how low they flew, and how large the flock was.

Soon after, I waxed poetic about the mystery of riding bikes with friends. Again, the frame of reference struck me. Riders are all moving, often at a pretty good clip, yet in each other's eyes they remain still. This exclusively shared frame of reference is a great source of bonding.

It was fun to see our disciplines come out in our observations.

Culture Crossing Complications

2009-08-01T11:33:00.006-04:00

Stereotypes only get you so far.

I find understanding Korean culture is helped very little by any kind of stereotype, or even by some of the more nuanced things I picked up in my Korean studies before coming here.

I usually try to understand the world by finding a few guiding principles and explaining everything I see in terms of them. I don't think this has much to do with why I majored in physics, but that is exactly what physicists try to do. Newton used three concise laws to explain all motion.

However, if there are a few such principles at the core of Korean culture, they elude me. American stereotypes of Koreans, such as aptitude in math and science and obsession with video games, are several dimensions short of what I find here. I have found approximately nothing in Korea which would lead me to deduce those stereotypes.

It's not that I haven't tried to understand the people here in such a way. At times, I form a hypothesis based on an experience, but it seldom explains other experiences. (Am I living and breathing the Scientific Method or what? Makes one sick...)

For example, before leaving the airplane in Korea I had to fill out a card certifying that I did not have Swine Flue or any of the associated symptoms. The next day customs even called me to make sure that I hadn't come down with the bug. This experience led me to think, "Koreans are very serious about hygeine and preventing the spread of disease."

I am baffled, then, every time I use a public bathroom and find there is absolutely no soap. Not just no antibacterial soap - no soap.

Asian cultures are also known for being family oriented. This is true of Korea, yet people get married late even by American standards and the population is almost the fastest-declining in the world, with a birth rate of around 1.15.

Another example: when we went to the beach one afternoon three weeks ago, only one other person actually took off the clothes he was wearing over his bathing suit - and he was Chinese. The rest went in and got soaked in their clothes.

This might lead you to think that Koreans are very shy and private when it comes to their bodies. But then you would have no way of explaining the group shower I took in the same room with 5 other guys later that night, or the culture of public bathhouses here in which you can have your skin scraped by a stranger while you swelter in the nude.

A reductionist who has failed to this point might throw up his arms and label the country something like, "Korea: Land of Contradictions." But that label would excel in both ignorance and in arrogance. The fact the people can't be understood via a few simple rules (i.e. "They're just like us except a, b, and c...") does not indicate that their culture is strange or illogical; it indicates that there is something wrong with the reductionist approach.

This failure is one reason humility is such and important virtue in crossing cultures. As an outsider, the only way to begin to understand a people is by living as one of them. The presumption that you could understand them through a textbook, or that trying to understand and accept their culture isn't necessary in loving them, is fatal.

Omniscient God chose to live as one of his creations in demonstrating his love for them. We celebrate this miracle as Christmas. We would do well to fully consider the implications of his Incarnation.

I am a transit pro.

2009-07-28T09:59:00.005-04:00

You there! Don't you know shoe etiquette?

Transferring lines in the subway yesterday, I noticed another white man puzzling over a subway map. He looked American enough, so I boldly asked, "Can I help you?"

"No English," was his reply in a Russian accent, a bit self-conscious.

"어디 가요?" I asked.

"Ah," he said with a word of recognition. He showed me where he was headed on the map, and I gathered he wasn't sure whether to turn to the left or to the right in transferring.

Carefully surveying the situation for a moment, I pointed to the right, he thanked me, and we moved onward on our respective paths.

One lesson my friend Matthew reported understanding better after his band's European tour this summer was that,

America just doesn't fit into the cultural spectrum of "white people" as they exist in their homeland, Europe. You have to go to countries that are actually ethnically "white countries" to understand that America isn't a white nation any more than it's a black or a Hispanic or an Asian nation.

The above encounter, combined with meeting Sergei from Ukraine on the street last week, has taught me a bit about how this is so.

First Ever (Only Ever?) Fashion Post

2009-07-21T04:53:00.004-04:00

Coming to Korea this summer, I didn't have any idea what to expect with regard to fashion. I figured with my Phillies hat, polo shirts, and khaki shorts my clothes would broadcast "American" even more loudly than my skin.

In this I was somewhat mistaken. Korean fashion is a lot more complicated than I'm capable of understanding, but I see lots of polo shirts and not a few pairs of cargo shorts.

The big surprise comes with regard to the Phillies hat. In Korea, Major League Baseball hats are in style big time, especially among men but also among women.

The most popular teams are (expectedly) the Red Sox and the Yankees, followed by (unexpectedly) the Detroit Tigers and maybe the Pittsburgh Pirates. I don't think the people wearing the hats generally know anything about the teams, and so I suspect that the cool script "D" on the Tigers hat explains its prevalence.

I have only seen a Phillies hat twice. Perhaps when they win the World Series again this year, I will be able to welcome many Korean friends onto the bandwagon.

A First Approximation

2009-07-01T16:25:00.012-04:00

"You say, 'I don't know how to solve an elephant, but I do know how to solve a mouse.' And so you start with a mouse and build to an elephant."
Dr. Marija Drndic, professor of physics, University of Pennsylvania

I may not have mastered introductory quantum mechanics, but Professor Drndic's words have remained with me. She speaks with regard to problem solving (perturbation theory, to be precise), but I think of them now with respect to travel.

On Sunday I will leave for six weeks in Seoul, South Korea. I have studied Korean. I have some Korean friends. But by no means do I profess to understand Korea.

For the sake of this analogy, let's call Korea the elephant. And let's call Pennsylvania, my home state, the mouse.

Wikipedia affords some comparisons:

So, while Pennsylvania has about 20% more space, in Korea reside almost four times as many people. It's liable to feel a bit crowded over there. Also, to the extent that GDP per capita is a reflection of wealth, your average Pennsylvanian is a little wealthier than your average Korean.

Judging by latitude, climate should be similar, though Korea's peninsular nature and other geographic features should make for differences.

How about each locale's respective largest cities?

Yikes. Like I said, it might feel crowded.

How about a comparison of the depth of history in each place? I remember a conversation with my Korean conversation partner in which I told her the various, mostly European lineages from which I descend. She replied, "My 58th grandfather is Korean."

Hmm. Perhaps statistics will only get me so far.

A Great Commission

2009-06-24T09:52:00.008-04:00

I saw a site in Scotland.

No, I am not speaking of the Loch Ness, nor of the loping, sheep-whisped countryside, nor of the centuries-old cobblestone Royal Mile of Edinburgh, though I saw all of these things.

This was a site you could see anywhere. And that is precisely the point.

On a commuter train from Glasgow to Edinburgh, I sat next to a man. A man in a suit. A man at work.

It is hardly news to find someone working away from the office. That he worked electronically is similarly passe to report. What struck me was that this man did his work, not on a BlackBerry, not on an iPhone—

—but on both.

At the same time.

Is it accurate to say I was next to this man? Can we even speak of being embodied in such a case?

Granted, he made good use of each. With the iPhone and its superior display he browsed, while with the BlackBerry and its superior keyboard he communicated. But what a sacrifice for such productivity!

Truly, the Space of Flows marches onward to the ends of the Earth. Amen and amen.

Up

2009-06-07T16:34:00.006-04:00

I saw Up last night.

I was struck by how unorthodox of a film it was. For one, it doesn't follow a traditional story arc, even though some sort of arc is present.

For two, it is full of the whimsical and the fantastic.

For three, it doesn't worry about logically explaining certain things. Normally this means filmmakers were sloppy, but in this case they intentionally don't bother. The ability of an old man to inflate enough helium balloons to lift his house overnight and the associated physics of those balloons just aren't important.

It's also the saddest "children's" film I've ever seen. I don't say that because there is (or isn't) a sad ending or some tragic "Bambi's mom" kind of moment, but because the film is draped in a quietly melancholic aura.

So kudos to Pixar for continuing to tell the best stories, and to be willing to venture well off the beaten path in doing so.

I also took the occasion to rank all Pixar movies. This list is objective and absolute.

The Incredibles
Toy Story
Monsters Inc.
Up
Ratatouille
Finding Nemo
Wall-E
Cars
Toy Story 2
A Bug's Life

Further comments available upon request.

Prayer

2009-03-11T21:31:00.000-04:00

According to the New York Times:

"'This is a day of mourning for all of Germany,' Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a brief statement in Berlin. 'Our thoughts are with the friends and families.' "

It's probably better than paying lip service to belief in God when no belief exists. Still, how empty is that comfort?

Irony at 37th and Powelton

2009-02-15T22:37:00.000-05:00

Practice what you preach, Philadelphia!

I don't have many artistic gifts, but from time to time I conceive of projects I would create if I did possess such gifts.

One project, for example, would be a better version of the above photo, more clearly highlighting the irony.

Which brings up another point. Philadelphia's roads are in terrible condition:

The above intersection has been that way for weeks.
I can think of at least three intersections where the stoplights at times don't work properly.
It's not unusual to find sections of road blocked off because of giant potholes or ditches.
When it snowed two weeks ago, it seemed the roads weren't treated at all. My car almost got stuck going down Chestnut St. Roads across the Ben Franklin in New Jersey were completely clear.

I can only conclude that the road condition highlights the desperate condition of our city's finances.

A book I'm reading now puts the current crisis in perspective. It's called "A Prayer for the City," and it's about Ed Rendell's first term as mayor of Philadelphia from 1992-1995. I've been amazed at how worse off Philadelphia was then. However, I've been struck by how similar the city's plight seems now.

For instance, Rendell's big challenge upon taking office was dealing with Philadelphia's unprecedented budget deficit. Mayor Nutter's has been the same.

It remains to be seen whether or not the roads were in similarly bad shape then.

Post Office Cross-Cultural

2009-01-30T01:57:00.000-05:00

It is kind of weird, when you think about it.

Today in the post office, I was approached by an Asian couple (I think Korean) in their or 40's or so. The woman asked a question - how were they to seal their envelope?

"Oh, you have to lick it," I said. I think they heard me, but thought they must have gotten the words wrong. "With your tongue," I elaborated, pantomiming the motion.

They were quite amused.

How many aspects of our culture do we learn by the age of six, never to think of again unless reminded that they are but aspects of our culture?

Can'ts hold no fruit.

2009-01-26T18:25:00.001-05:00

And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion..."
Genesis 1:28

My friend leighcia has written about the joys of knitting, of the process "From one dimensional string to two dimensional fabric to three dimensional garment." In one post, she writes:

Being a financial analyst by occupation and a writer/reader at heart, I usually work with the substances that cannot be touched. Abstract numbers, thoughts and ideas, shuttling back and forth from computer screen to paper to words...Sometimes, it's just so refreshing to just be able to hold something in my hands and not feel obliged to say anything at all.

As a student and now as a teacher, I have felt a similar longing, as I articulated in a comment on another of her posts:

You make pretty things. I wish I make pretty things one day too. Not sewing things. Other things.

What kind of "other things?" In another comment, her husband Matthew (who builds amps and bikes) hit the nail on the head:

other things like SWORDS! and BASKETBALL HOOPS! and COMIC BOOKS! and MONSTER TRUCKS! and KUNG FU MOVIES!

Yes. Something masculine.

What do I already create?

As a teacher I primarily seek an impact on the hearts, minds, and souls of my students. Very real, yes; tangible, no.
Along the way I churn out copious amounts of worksheets, Powerpoint lectures, and grades. Tangible? Sort of. The real creation exists in zeroes and ones on my hard drive.
Today I made Scantron answer keys for my midterm exams. They possess a certain beauty in that they are codified truth, a standard to which my students' imitations will be compared. But, while I can hold them in my hand, they are hardly tangible. They must be fed through a dot machine in order for their worth to be made manifest.

So what am I left with? Well, I like to cook.

I'd like something more.

McAvoy: 1. Satan: 0

2008-12-27T01:19:00.002-05:00

How much does the natural order of our world conspire to keep people from reading the Bible?

You might answer, "Not at all." Certainly, nothing in physics would give any reason to believe such a thing. But years of experience show me otherwise.

Take last Friday, for instance. I was on my way from Jersey to Philly to meet a friend for lunch. It poured rain, and while traffic moved fine on the other side of Rt. 70, I could have probably covered more distance swimming than driving. Short a swimsuit, I inched along, frustrated at my growing tardiness.

Then, I had an idea.

As I said, it's my belief that forces within us and without us strive to keep us from reading the Bible (or praying). But I had my Bible right with me. And what better thing to do in traffic than to, as they say, get in the Word?

So I got my Bible out. I opened to Luke. I balanced it on my steering wheel. I started reading aloud.

Six verses in, the previously unmovable traffic parted like the Red Sea, and I was on my way to hand drawn noodles!

Advent Conspiracy

2008-12-21T22:47:00.005-05:00

I don't have the words to express how beautiful this video and its vision are to me:

Yes, please.

Thanks to jaeyde for showing this to me.

A Friend in Dialogue is a Friend Indeed

2008-12-20T11:26:00.000-05:00

Handsomer men would be hard to find.

Jonathan and I both like to think. We also like to talk. We also have amazing chemistry. We also properly spell, capitalize, and punctuate text messages. Put it all together, add some intangibles, and you get some really great exchanges. Let me offer a sample:

Me: Wow, blogging about evolution is really exhilarating for me. I'm not sure why, but I hope it doesn't spill into giving the issue more centrality than it merits.

Jon: Yeah, I hear you. I think it's a little too emotionally charged in some circles.

Me: Yes, people perhaps equate fighting for Jesus with fighting against Darwin.

Jon: Not to mention the personal dimension. For me I mean. And I think it contributes to anti intellectualism among Christians.

Me: YES. I HATE anti-intellectualism among Christians. It is one of our big failures communally.

Jon: It's definitely an area where we play into the narrative of the world.

...

Jon: Yeah. One thing that's been hard for me since high school is not being the scientist in the room.

Me: Guess you will have to fit in a few physics classes [in grad school]. At least audit.

Jon: I don't know. While I like being a poly math, I definitely believe in division of labor. I want to be thinking econ 16 hours a day.

Me: Hah, that's your econ speaking. Try some science and you'll change your tune. That's funny because I love the idea of a "renaissance thinker."

Jon: So do I, but in today's world very often a renaissance thinker is a shallow thinker. It's just not possible to know everything that deeply.

Me: But is the integral of knowledge the same? Can one assign relative worth to breadth vs depth? Is there a place for each? Ephesians 3:18

Jon: You have to go deep to reach the frontiers of knowledge. Although sometimes ideas from other fields have applications in your field, you need depth in your own field to recognize that opportunity.

Me: In other words, take a 17 c.u. major as well as one or two courses in seven varied sectors?

Jon: Well, an undergraduate degree rarely takes you to the frontiers of knowledge. But yes, the principle is there.

Me: I do think in modern academia there is an idolatry that says new knowledge = progress, and that does not necessarily follow. Let's synthesize what we know.

What a friend!

Why I am Not an Evolutionist #1

2008-12-16T18:17:00.004-05:00

Or, "Charles Darwin Lied."* Part one of an at-least-three-part series.

Calvin has a hairier face than most.

First, a disclaimer: while I have a modest background in science, that science is not biology, and I am by no means an expert in these matters.

(1) There are a whole host of aspects to life that, while wonderfully aesthetic, imply no obvious reproductive advantage. One can still attempt to explain them through the framework of natural selection and random mutation, and indeed many do attempt so, but these attempts often strike me as strained, and are circular themselves inasmuch they seek to offer evidence for evolution.

A few examples:

Forgive me for allowing most of the details to escape me, but I remember reading several years ago about a prize awarded to a man for thinking of an explanation for why people aren't nearly as hairy as other apes.

His prize-worthy idea? Perhaps mothers preferred babies who were less hairy and were thus more likely to care for them.

That's it.

My problem with this reasoning is that it could be used to justify any trait unique to humans. Who knows what would be possible if our great-grandmothers had different tastes! Perhaps we would all be able to sing "Do your ears hang low?" with much more gusto. Perhaps Chewbacca would exist in reality and not in myth.

The peacock's tail is a prime example of what is called "sexual selection:" the trait makes the peacock no more fit physically, indeed less so, but nevertheless makes him more fit in the evolutionary sense because peahens are impressed by peacocks with more impressive tails. The tails are said to signal fitness, perhaps because the man is able to survive despite the handicap.

The logic strikes me as just a bit twisted. He proves he has good genes by surviving despite having bad genes (which give him a functionally useless display of feathers).

(And why should peahens prefer mates with more impressive tails to begin with? Would this trait itself not have to evolve?)

Another challenge is presented by the knowledge that it seems peahen mate selection is rather independent of peacock tail impressiveness. For the evolutionary argument to hold up in light of this knowledge, peahen preference toward impressive tails must have evolved some time ago, then evolved away again after the men had gone through all the effort of evolving their tails. Women are so hard to please.

Consider, for a moment, an alternative explanation: Peacock tails are beautiful, and this fact has something to do with their origin.**
As a final example, consider breasts in women, a topic upon which my male readers should have no trouble focusing. Believe it or not, their presence presents a significant challenge to evolutionary theorists.

The story is similar to the puzzle of why we aren't so hairy. Put simply, most female mammals develop breasts only after giving birth, and their breasts remain only while nursing. Only in human women do they develop first and for always at adolescence, then further around the time of birth. Breasts in other mammals are decidedly unattractive to males, since they signal that the female is not in much of a state to bear young.

Why should this be so? There are evolutionary ideas. Perhaps breasts evolved so that babies would have an easier time nursing. I think it was Stephen Jay Gould who posited that they developed so men would have an easier time getting used to mating face-to-face (which raises the question of why people evolved the propensity to mate face-to-face). Evidently, our great-grandfathers much preferred their wives' posteriors to their faces. Men are so insensitive.

But these ideas are just speculation. In short, there is no good reason why this trait ought to evolve, from a Darwinian perspective. One can posit, "There must have been a good reason, because this trait clearly evolved!" But that is circular reasoning and placing faith in Nothing.

And so I say, only one third in jest, is it not evident that breasts are a great gift from God to men, women, and babies alike?
"I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment..." (Ezekiel 16:7a).

In short, the world is full of incredible beauty, and this beauty is very difficult to explain with a framework that only rewards survival, like a society of Van Goghs which cares nothing for its artists.

Rather, it is evident to me that many things are beautiful because they were made with beauty in mind.**

*Not especially true, as there is a world of difference between lying and simply being mistaken. But it goes well with another recent post of mine.

**This, of course, requires that beauty exists in an intrinsic, objective sense.***

***This, of course, requires that there exist someone with the authority to set such a standard. You can see where I'm going...

Response: Morning again in America

2008-11-07T16:53:00.000-05:00

My friend Matthew left a thoughtful post about the "joyful shock" felt at President-elect Obama's victory, and the tough-luck reactions of many conservatives.

Well, I'm pretty conservative. I voted for Senator McCain.

Nevertheless, after a few minutes' disappointment* in getting used to the result, I found plenty of bright side about which I could be happy. I was so glad for all of my neighbors who woke me with their celebrating, and for my student with the proud Obama button the next morning, and for the millions of others like them. And a Barack Obama sand sculpture in India can't help but bring a smile.

I was also so very proud of my country and its election process and peaceful transition of power. I keep picturing the tea that George and Laura Bush will have with Barack and Michelle Obama on January 20th.

And I was proud to hold up our new President-elect to my many disappointed students, and to urge that they respect him and pray for him.

All of that said, I'm mildly to moderately concerned about what President-elect Obama and his Congress will do. I think Matthew is right in saying the joy behind the celebration, and much of the reason Obama was elected to begin with, has a lot more to do with an ideal than it does an ideology. But the two are a package deal.

For instance, I think it would be a monstrosity if the Freedom of Choice Act passed. I furthermore don't want to see the nation enact protectionist economic policies that I think would hurt our global friends and us in the long run. I believe that, while our healthcare system needs major reforming, doing anything like socializing it would make things worse. And there are a whole slew of other issues with which I don't really trust the solutions offered by our President-elect and his Democratic colleagues.

All of that said, I'm willing to give him a shot. Indeed, in the spirit of his campaign, I hope to be a more active contributor to my democracy, voicing my concerns along the way. I think those who are particularly misguided are those who hope that Obama fails and fails big now that he's going to be President.

He's my President now, too.

*Interestingly enough, I voted for Kerry in '04 and was quite bummed out by the prospect of a united Republican government. Four years can bring a lot of change, all right.
**On conservatives who quip that America is finished now that it has elected Obama and his Congress, I don't take them too seriously. It's just the mirror image of those who four years ago threatened to move to Canada.

Foul Ball!

2008-10-29T15:24:00.007-04:00

If Connie Mack never heard of it, I don't want to hear about it.

Lee Huang pointed me to an op-ed in the New York Times coauthored by unlikely colleagues Billy Beane, Newt Gingrich, and John Kerry. They advocate the creation of a federal institute for "evidence-based" medicine, as opposed to what they call the "experience-based" approach that most of our care is based on now. Basically, that means introducing a lot of hard statistical analysis into practice.

That may well be a fantastic idea,* but I reject the analogy with which they drive their argument: sabermetrics.**

As their story goes, sabermetrics is transforming baseball, propelling to success teams like the Oakland A's of earlier this decade and the Tampa Bay Rays of today. Furthermore, dinosaurs clinging to the old ways, like the Yankees, Mets, and Red Sox, are sitting at home.

I dispute every step of this narrative. Yes, the A's had a good run from 2000 to 2003, but they never even made it to the World Series. And where are they today? They've finished ten games under .500 the past two seasons.

And the Rays? It's true they're in the World Series with baseball's second lowest payroll. But they haven't done so predominantly by getting hidden gems for a steal off of the trade market. Rather, finishing in last place every year continually presented them with favorable positions in the draft. This standing definitely required deft choices in said drafts, which many other teams failed to do, but they certainly had a leg up by being awful year after year.

In short, if the A's' success earlier in the decade and the Rays' success this year is evidence in favor of sabermetrics, why aren't these teams' failures since and before evidence against it?

Now, how about the "dinosaurs" (my word, not theirs). The article implies that the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, et. al have gotten where they are by following the "old ways." Quite the opposite. My understanding is that the strategy of building a team out of the most expensive free agents year after year is a relatively new one, pioneered by the Yankees in the 90's.

Again, it's true the hazards of such a strategy have been made manifest, in no team more clearly than the Mets. The result is a team full of players past their prime who all want to be stars - in short, a whole equal to less than the sum of its parts. But these hazards are by no means the result of following tradition and intuition.

If you want to look at a truly traditional approach to baseball, look no farther than Charlie Manuel and Pat Gillick, the Phillies' manager and general manager, respectfully. They have 135 years between them. Charlie's following of his gut frustrated Philly fans for years until they realized our team was winning. And Gillick has done the same miracle work here as he did in the early 90's with the (cursed) Toronto Blue Jays and later on with the Seattle Mariners.

And we're about to win the World Series.

So, I cry foul on Beane, Gingrich, and Kerry. They spun a story about baseball to make an analogy with healthcare seem pleasing, when in fact it is a false one. Not surprising, coming from politicians, but not true.

Now, the fact that the analogy is a false one may be irrelevant. But to the extent that it rings true, I would be very cautious about undervaluing a doctor's intuition.

*It probably says something about me that I was far more incensed about the baseball aspect of this article than the healthcare aspect. Sorry, Health and Societies friends.
**Sabermetrics refers to the statistical approach taken by the Oakland A's (under Beane) late in the 90's. They evaluate players using a lot of new-fangled statistics in addition to traditional indicators like batting average, ERA, and intuition.
*** Though unrelated to baseball, I find hard to swallow their statement that the United States has worse health quality than most industrialized nations. There's no question we need to do a lot better, but my (flawed) understanding is that if you're insured here (a big if, I know), you're a whole lot better off than in most other places.

Two Wrongs May Not Make a Right, But Three Rights Make a Left!

2008-10-25T12:57:00.005-04:00

Just going to get some wiper blades.
Map and directions courtesy Google Maps.

Distance as the crow flies: 1.1 miles
Distance if New Jersey employed normal left turns: 1.6 miles
Actual road distance: 3.0 miles

I still don't understand. It's not like they don't have room for a left turning lane. They just choose to have a grass median instead.

Oh, Jersey.

Charles Darrow Lied

2008-10-08T21:35:00.000-04:00

My school sent me today to a seminar on classroom management in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The seminar was interesting and useful, but the most lasting impression was made upon me by
a lunchtime stroll down the boardwalk.

Atlantic City, if you didn't know, is the inspiration for the game Monopoly, hence my taking a walk on the boardwalk and passing things like St. James's Place. The atmosphere of the city exudes that same kind of promise - fortune and thus happiness are only a few rolls of the dice away.

The boardwalk promises its own romance. Start with a clear autumn day on the warm side of brisk. Add the splendor of the Atlantic Ocean and the associated salty air. Provide a walkway from which to take it all in, add in quaint shops selling inexpensive and nostalgic American food, and you've got a recipe for sepia-toned enjoyment.

The lords over this enterprise are the casinos, who with straight, even grinning faces ignore the obvious fact that the system is rigged against you. No one seems to notice.

I found a few other things on my stroll. New Jersey, unlike Nevada, stops short of legalizing prostitution in addition to gambling. So instead of being solicited by women in front of brothels, I was solicited by women in front of massage parlors. It seems to be human nature to buy all varieties of sensual pleasure where one sort is already available.

Fortune tellers abound as well, offering such ridiculous methods as phrenology. One modestly proclaimed, "Specializing in solving all problems. Health, financial, and love."

Mixed in without explanation is the New Jersey Korean War memorial. The only people I saw there were Korean. It was cool.

Benches on the boardwalk have not one but two arm rails between the outer two, creating three distinct seats, and eliminating any possibility of being used as a bed. The memory of one homeless man sitting on one makes me think of what happens in Monopoly when you land on that last hotel property whose rent you can't afford.

On my way back I attempted to enjoy some of the aforementioned nostalgic American food, two hot dogs and some french fries, out on the boardwalk. I was foiled by belligerent seagulls, clustering and squawking more and more around me. I got up right as one lunged at my fries. Later another one smacked me in the head with its wing. I couldn't help but think of how birds in Scripture represent the powers of Satan, as when Abram drove them away in Genesis 15:11.

One contrast surpassed all of these in the disgust it brought me. At the start and at the end of my walk I passed a beggar woman. She stood and sang, completely tone deaf, beating for percussion on a plastic bucket that looked like a sand castle toy. Most street performers are musically gifted, and her complete lack of talent heightened the sense of desperation she conveyed.

A few feet up from her, another beggar danced, without coordination, displaying some physical deformity. It is hard to know whether to call her a girl or a woman, because in body she was dressed and styled like an eight-year-old, and in face she looked over forty.

The backdrop against which these beggars stood, and the filler for all of these scenes, was the casino crowd. It was easier for me to understand the presence of residents and workers, who for whatever brokenness at least seem to belong there. But, in the midst of that whole scene, the scores of white senior citizens chasing Borgata and lewd comedians like Robin Williams raised the largest sense of outrage and futility that I felt.

The way I felt about all of this didn't really hit me until about an hour ago, several hours and a nap after returning. In a different situation I might shout and cry. Instead I raise this small outcry against Trump's stronghold on the beach.

The New Testament asserts that all of creation was made by and for Jesus Christ, and that one day he will return to assert his ownership of every square inch. While I feel powerless against that monstrous boardwalk, I long for the day when he will put an end to all of its lies and all of its pain.

Now there's a news outlet with its priorities straight.

2008-10-02T21:43:00.007-04:00

Hats off to The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Environmentalism and Consumerism

2008-09-13T17:04:00.005-04:00

So far, it's been a happy marriage:

God of the Forgotten

2008-08-30T17:25:00.002-04:00

Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,

to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary.
Luke 1:26-27

I've been thinking a good deal lately about groups of forgotten people. In particular, I've thought of a neighborhood in northeast Philadelphia and an island in Alaska.

The Philly neighborhood is one row of houses on one side of one block of one street. It's nearly surrounded by commercial establishments like car dealerships and the like, and it borders Kensington Avenue, which is a major commercial strip. Every four minutes the Market-Frankford El goes past overhead. Many of the people who live there are related, and in the past even more were.

About twelve years ago, prostitutes moved into the area. It makes sense that they would because, as I said, not many people live there. There isn't a whole lot the residents can do, other than call the police and hope they come. Their biggest concerns are for their children, and not just that they are exposed to such things at a young age; the prostitutes' used drug needles litter the sidewalks and the overgrown grass.

As powerless as the residents may be to drive this blight from their midst, the prostitutes for their part seem rather powerless themselves. Young prostitutes are too young - 15, 16 - and look a grotesque parody of little girls playing dress-up. Old prostitutes look too old. The memory of one limping past to take respite in her car without a license plate is particularly striking.

Angoon, Alaska is home to 500 or so Tlingit (pronounced Klinkit) Native Americans. The island has one gas station and one store, and approximately 25 people actually have jobs. The rest live off of two sources: money every month from the U.S. government, and an incredible abundance of marine life.

I don't know the history behind the money from the government, but I wonder at its purpose. What is it, hush money? It reminds me of a tagline from a game I used to play: "Sorry we shelled your village. Here's some gold."*

As often occurs among Native Americans and among people with little to do in general, alcoholism and drug addiction are dominant forces on the island.

I can't but wonder if "forgotten" people like these two groups actually outnumber the "remembered." How many suffer and no one knows of them, let alone cares? We are people who exalt the exalted, and humble the humbled.

And so, I think it not insignificant that Jesus was born to parents from Nazareth of Galilee. To get an idea of a modern day equivalent, imagine something like Hicktown, West Virginia. A small town in an insignificant region.

God remembers forgotten people all through the first chapter of Luke. All who are mentioned - an old priest, his barren wife, a young girl - receive enormous blessing, their prayers heard (v. 13), their reproach taken away (v. 25), and their lowly state regarded (v. 48). They were each in time filled with the Holy Spirit (v. 67, 41, 35) and received advance notice of the amazing work that Mary's baby would do (v. 69, 43, 32).

God remembers forgotten people today. He sends his people to them and stirs them to love them as he does. If this were not so, I would know of none of the things about which I write today.

I pray that the God of Nazareth in Luke would show himself more to be the God of Kensington and the God of Angoon in 2008. As he did then, I pray he would send his angels and his saints to prepare the way of the Lord.

Don't give up now.
A break in the clouds -
We will be found.

Rescue is coming.
Rescue is coming.

-David Crowder Band

*Wow, I was more right than I thought. From wikipedia:

In 1882, a whaling vessel's harpoon charge accidentally misfired and exploded, killing a crewmember who was a Tlingit shaman, or medicine man. Villagers demanded payment of 200 blankets to the man's family, as was customary. The Northwest Trading Company sought help from the United States Navy at Sitka. Angoon and a nearby summer camp were shelled and destroyed by the Navy Cutter U.S.S. Corwin.
...

In 1973, Angoon won a U. S. $90,000 settlement from the United States Government for the 1882 bombardment.

Consumers, Producers, and Capitalists

2008-08-22T17:29:00.006-04:00

Consumerism is an oft-criticized force in these blogging circles. There can also be a backlash from those who feel such critiques are implicitly critiques of capitalism itself. I'm thinking of this guy.

At any rate, I recently came across an elegant statement of why consumerism is bad. In the short book "Handoff," Jeff Myers says that today's youth have been "raised to consume rather than produce" (92).

In this way of looking at it, consumerism is not a choice made in a vacuum. It is the flip side of production. It is taking rather than giving.

As for the assertion that today's youth are more consumeristic than previous generations, that at least seems a reasonable hypothesis. In my picture of the past (by definition idealized and incomplete), it seems like Americans found their identity more in their occupation or their trade. Just look at all of the surnames that are trades - Mason, Baker, Smith, and so on.

In college I noticed people still defined themselves by their (future) occupation, but I think more indirectly. People want to be investment bankers not for the sake of the work that investment bankers do, but for the lifestyle that they lead. In other words, not for what they produce, but for what they consume.

Now, I don't think it's right to find identity in an occupation. The Christian finds his identity rooted in Christ, and what the Gospel says he is - a saved sinner, a child of God. There is no need, nor any real possibility, of adding to this with our own works.

But there is real value in being creative (in the most Genesis 1 sense of the word), in doing good works for the Lord. In fact, these are to adorn our lives as sweet offerings to God, and we look forward to a reward for faithful stewardship.

Consumption in itself isn't bad - for, as Jesus says, the laborer is worthy of his wages (Luke 10:7). But as a mode for finding our identity, it is quite dangerous.

In sum, consumerism is empty because it finds identity in taking. "Producerism" is still off the mark, but perhaps less so.

And this need not be a critique of capitalism, which is based on the premise that we all benefit from exchange - in other words, from simultaneous giving and taking.

True Education

2008-08-17T23:36:00.000-04:00

Lasagna facilitates true education.**

The high school physics textbook from which I will be teaching next year begins with a philosophical treatise on the nature of science and its relation to religion, the arts, and technology.

Were I teaching a worldview class, this chapter would provide me with weeks of material. A pure physics course could probably skip the chapter without missing a beat. Fortunately, the philosophy of my school allows the former to supplement the latter.

Among many thought-provoking quotes, I find:

A truly educated person is knowledgeable in both the arts and the sciences.

I believe this summarizes the philosophy behind liberal arts education. Penn's College of Arts and Sciences, the school from which I have my degree, still practices this idea in theory: In addition to 18.5 courses in my major (physics), I had to take courses from seven varied sectors, in addition to language, writing, and quantitative data analysis requirements. In this way, no student gets out of the College without being exposed to the full spectrum of arts and sciences.

In theory.

It doesn't surprise me that the above quote would come from a physicist. Most physicists I've encountered are also students of the liberal arts. Many consider themselves philosophers, or so their actions indicate (like the writing of this chapter), and many have deep love for literature. Indeed, I feel I could have almost as easily majored in English or history as physics or biology, and I treasured the excursions into these other subjects which my requirements permitted me.

However, I can't help but feel that the reverse is considerably less true for most students of the liberal arts. While most of my colleagues in physics enjoy studies in music or philosophy or religious studies, friends majoring in liberal arts disciplines are likely to take the easiest and fewest courses in science and math possible.

Geology is a favorite because it fulfills two requirements simultaneously. So instead of plumbing the wonders of creation with the time permitted them, students suffer through a semester of rocks and plate tectonics (interesting, to be sure, but hardly at the top of the list) and learn very little.

I think this highlights a real failure. A popular excuse is that these students simply can't handle real science courses, but I'm skeptical. Students at Penn have demonstrated considerable aptitude in math and science before being admitted.

Instead, I think there is very little popular appreciation for the sciences. And it is quite possible that introductory courses for non-majors go about things the wrong way.

Perhaps physics courses for non-majors should include conceptual overviews of the great staggering truths of physics: To describe light as either a particle or a wave, or even as both, is inadequate. Time moves slower when you move faster. It is literally impossible to know exactly where something is at a specific time.

I could go on. Having an inkling of these ideas changes fundamentally one's conception of reality, something which undoubtedly deserves expression in the arts. Intro courses should make them clear.

However, I think the core problem is that our culture somehow devalues science. Science is for geeks and mad professors, but only technology has relevance for the general public. It doesn't have nearly as much to teach about the human condition than literature or history. Or so the assumptions go.

Bunk, I say. As a science teacher, I hope to instill otherwise.

As for you who haven't filled your science requirements, do yourselves a favor. Don't take the boring way out.

*My old housemate Carlos is a notable exception. An English major, Carlos wishes he had done physics. Now there's a man with his head on straight.
**Gosh, by year's end two of these people will be married, and the other two likely aren't very far behind. Growing up is weird...

Mornings No!

2008-08-17T23:10:00.004-04:00

Best viewed after staying up all night, as on this occasion.
Otherwise kill me.

Part of me is dying soon.

Scintillating excitement flashes through me when the last member of my family heads to bed. I treasure the solitude and the darkness of the late night hours. They are my very favorite part of the day.

In order to get to school with enough sleep, my school year bed time will be 9:00.

Pray for me.

Meditative Thought

2008-08-15T15:14:00.001-04:00

All that is good is from Him;
All that is from Him is good.

Book Reviews: First Two Thirds 2008

2008-08-11T01:29:00.002-04:00

My friend leighcia reads a lot of books. She posts reviews on her lovely blog every three months or so.

I read some books. I'll also try my hand at reviewing.

Not aware of, let alone feeling an irresistible urge to justify, the theses implicit in star ratings,* I'll use leighcia's scale, which I believe comes from goodreads:

* Didn't like it.
** It was okay.
*** I liked it.
**** I really liked it.
***** It was amazing.

On to the books:

Fiction

***** White Noise (Don DeLillo)
I read this book straight through without any prior knowledge of it except the title and that several friends loved it. So, after reaching the end, I was shocked to discover that it was published in 1985, the year I was born. The terrifying yet ordinary life which DeLillo depicts in this novel felt as true today as then.

Matthew's comment here (where I also rave) describes this book better than I could:

Don DeLillo is one of the few contemporary novelists good enough to have that paradigm-transference effect. He's an alchemist of the mundane --- but not in a mundane-becomes-sublime/exalted kind of way (which is how most postmodern creative people see themselves, because they don't believe in anything that's ACTUALLY sublime). Rather, in his work the mundane becomes ominous, forboding, paranoia-inducing (the supermarket scene!!!). I love that. It's the closest thing to fables or cautionary tales that the postmodern world has produced. Beware aimless floating on the sea of radio and television signals...

*** One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel García Márquez)
Again at the behest of my friends, and again knowing nothing but the title and some loose idea that this was "magical realism," I read this apparently semi-allegorical novel about seven generations of the Buendía family in a miscellaneous Latin American town called Macondo. Márquez's writing knocked my socks off, especially in his interweaving of the magical with the real. However, without spoiling too much, I think the book could have as easily been titled One Hundred Years of Futility, and that made it less pleasant to get through. I also could have probably benefited from some more background.

Non-Fiction
**** The Omnivore's Dilemma (Michael Pollan)
To be fully honest, I only read the first three sections of this book, and not the final one about foraging.

Pollan gives a great overview of the American food system, in particular showcasing how industrial of an industry it is. While the book is most famous for its meditations on corn, the section on the grass farm was most fascinating to me. It describes a Virginia farmer who, through active management of livestock placement, exploits the full web of an ecosystem you might have learned about in biology class. His land is acre for acre more productive than the industrial standard, and comes off as far more in line with natural design and common sense. Descriptions of the FDA's forced establishment of the industrial standard were enlightening and infuriating.

***** Knowing God (J.I. Packer)
Every Christian should read this book.

*** Being White (Paula Harris & Doug Schaupp)
A book by white Christians for white Christians, this one seeks to exhort and encourage its readers to discover and realize the Gospel's vision for ethnic reconciliation. The book does well by insisting color-blindness isn't enough, that experiences displaced from majority culture are essential, and that white identity can be redeemed. For me, the section on racism was particularly challenging and deep-digging.

**** Shakespeare: The World As Stage (Bill Bryson)
I never really appreciated Shakespeare. Since I seemed to be the only one, and since Bill Bryson is one of my favorite authors, I decided to give this one a try. It was fantastic. Bryson is very funny and has a talent for taking simple facts and rendering them into a coherent, pointed picture. He draws inferences at once obvious and easily overlooked. The book is less a biography of Shakespeare than it is a book about how little we actually know about Shakespeare, and how much speculation has attempted to fill the gap. It developed in me an appreciation for the man's genius, and thoroughly laid to rest any silly claims that Shakespeare did not write Shakespeare, or didn't exist, or whatnot.

I saw a performance of As You Like It for free last Sunday in Clark Park and enjoyed it thoroughly, in no small part thanks to this book.

***** Getting a Grip on Your Money (William C. Wood)
Practically speaking, the best book I have ever read that wasn't written by God. Just having graduated college and without the foggiest idea what to do with my finances, I feel this book told me all I need to know to manage my money wisely and shrewdly for life. Wood is an economist with a long history of helping people with their money. He lays all of his cards on the table, even maintaining a web site to keep the advice current. The goal everywhere is eliminating worry rather than blind accumulation of wealth. Every page drips wisdom that is centered on common sense, an acute knowledge of human nature, and the Gospel.

Buy it on Amazon for the best $2 you've ever spent.

--
Average rating: four stars. Not bad.

*Read the comments here to see what I'm talking about.

Worshiping At c

2008-08-10T23:02:00.005-04:00

Ah, Physics 364. Those were the days.

You are moving at the speed of light.

So am I. So is everything.

If that sounds preposterous, you're only thinking in three dimensions, while neglecting the fourth: time.

If you're acquainted with Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity, or at least some decent science fiction, you know that the faster someone moves through space, the slower that person moves through time.*

The reason everyday experience doesn't reflect this truth is we never approach speeds through space where this is relevant. But if you were to travel at the speed of light (impossible, I know, but forget that for a moment), you would actually cease to move through time at all.

A technical way of phrasing this idea would be to say that the magnitude of our velocity through all four dimensions of space and time is a constant, c, the speed of light.

Why do I mention this? Well, for one I find it fascinating. Maybe you find it less fascinating, and that's why I'm the one with a physics degree. At any rate, the concept is directly analogous to one about which I thought in church today.

That other concept relates to worship. God commands, in both the Old and New Testaments, that his followers should love him with their entire being: heart, soul, mind, and strength. In short, their entire lives should be worship.**

Such demands of devotion are not unique to Christianity and Judaism. It is often noted that religious believers of all stripes have in common the desire to "open themselves" to a "higher power," whatever that means. And it is here that many atheists find a great advantage for themselves. That advantage is freedom from worship.

If there is no higher power, as atheists believe, then all worshipers are wasting their time and, if they're sincere enough, their lives. By sidestepping this flaw in human nature, atheists are free to invest their devotion elsewhere. They thus lead tremendously more efficient lives; rather than spend one hundred percent of their energies on a God, as the Bible would command, they spend zero.

Such is the atheist-humanist gospel. In this view, religion is the great problem, because people waste their lives on it and even kill each other over it. If people could simply accept that there is no God, they say, we would be able to build the true future of our species. (Not that we'll be able to enjoy it; by then any of us will be luxuriating in oblivion.)

However, such thinking is based on the flawed preconception that freedom from worshiping God is freedom from worshiping. It might seem to be true, just as it might seem that by sitting still one is not moving. However, just as a stationary person continues at the speed of light through time, we all give our entire being away. It is our choice whether that gift is to God or to something which ultimately perishes.

There are a host of things which people worship yet aren't God. Some devote themselves to the pursuit of money, or power, or a legacy, or another human being. We're all familiar with these things, yet we're perhaps not as familiar with calling them what they are: idols. Stand-ins for God.

Everyone, even those who profess to devote themselves to God, is affected by the idols' shiny allure. And I know by experience that silver and gold and all their kin are far harsher masters than is my God.

Atheists are correct to observe that fundamental to human nature is a desire to worship; they are incorrect to disregard it. Unfortunately, the belief that there is no God and ultimately no purpose to anything, precludes them from considering the purpose of this facet of nature.

The clues are right there. God has sewn them into every stitch of creation. When we resist following them to their natural conclusion, we gain not freedom but bondage. That is to say nothing of answering to a being who is owed our all and finds us delinquent in our account.

*If you're not familiar with that idea, you're certainly familiar of animations where characters stretch very long when they are moving very fast. That effect, called length contraction, is intimately related to the one of which I speak: time dilation.
**This doesn't mean that his people aren't to love anyone or anything else, as is made clear by the accompanying command to love one's neighbors as oneself. But that love and devotion must always fall under the heading of love for and devotion to God.
***In light of God's just demands for our entire being, John Piper has advice: Don't Waste Your Life.

The Block From Which I Chip?

2008-07-24T19:11:00.005-04:00

Unintentional coordination.
I almost wore a grey tie, too.

He's the source of one fourth of my genes, and now he's joined the blogosphere!

He's my grandpa. I've often thought that if you were to give him a typewriter and lots of time, he could provide you with volumes upon volumes of encyclopedic knowledge. Perhaps his blog is the closest we'll ever get.

The title, too, delights my sense of wordplay. It's called "View from the West Lea:"

west (noun):*
1 a: the general direction of sunset : the direction to the left of one facing north b: the compass point directly opposite to east

lea (noun):*
1: grassland, pasture

Wesley (noun):
1: Grandpa's first name.

To complete the picture, know that Grandpa will often be writing about issues pertinent to where he lives, on the west bank of the Chesapeake Bay. So the title represents both his point of view and the area about which he's writing.

Zing!

*Definitions from Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.

San Francisco: Model of Eden?

2008-07-24T05:00:00.006-04:00

Little known Bible fact: the Earth as it existed in the time of Adam and Eve was without rain. Why?

...For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground;

but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.
Genesis 2:5b-6

For any who don't have any idea what that would be like - I encourage you to check out San Francisco to get the gist of it!

Shrouded in fog.

Many believe, since there's no more mention of rain until Noah, that the rains of the Flood were the first that the world ever experienced. That would make Noah's display of faith that much more impressive!

God: Noah, I want you to build a boat. It's going to rain for forty days and forty nights.
Noah: You got it. What's rain?

Keystone Solution

2008-07-13T01:36:00.005-04:00

Gorgeous. The weather isn't bad, either.

Thoughts while I visit California:

In Pennsylvania, weather varies primarily in time. There is stark variation across the four seasons, or across patterns from one week to the next, or even within one day. On many occasions, a look into a clear sky has led me to lock my bike in the open, only to return to it later soaking.

In California, weather varies primarily in space. The part of San Francisco in which I'm vacationing is often covered in thick fog. However, a drive of twenty minutes across the Golden Gate Bridge brings me to sun and another fifteen degrees Fahrenheit in Marin County.

Humans have developed fast and convenient ways of traveling through space. Disappointingly, they have developed no way to travel through time. Surely this is one reason real estate in California is so sought after.

Pennsylvania struggles with losing people, especially college graduates, to the Sunshine Belt. Surely the best way to alleviate this problem would be to invent a time machine.

Governor Rendell? Anyone?

A Glimpse Into The Future?

2008-07-13T01:11:00.000-04:00

According to Fox News, a Canadian woman lost custody of her children for sending her daughter to school twice with a swastika drawn on her arm.

As deplorable as such an act is, it boils down to deeming a mother unfit because of her beliefs. It's not a large leap to see taking away the children of parents who, say, don't take proper action against global warming.

I have read of other disturbing trends in Canada,* such as essentially losing the freedom of speech. As Canada seems in some ways to be the logical progression of trends in the United States today, I wonder if this country isn't far behind.

*Most of what I hear about the Great White North comes from David Warren, who I believe has many true and important things to say.

False Doctrine on the News

2008-07-12T02:08:00.001-04:00

I briefly saw a cable news segment tonight criticizing John McCain for his reluctance to offer an on-the-spot opinion on insurance companies which cover medicine for erectile dysfunction but not oral contraceptives. The logic behind this report peeves me.

We're talking about equivalent situations here, right? Many men need medication for erectile dysfunction in order to have sex; many women need oral contraception in order to have sex. Paying for only one situation is a clear case of sexism!

I disagree. In the man's case, there is something wrong with his body, albeit often a natural result of aging.* In the woman's case, the only thing "wrong" with her is fertility. I resent calling this natural state a condition to be methodically subdued.

Americans today would much rather sex and reproduction were two noninteracting spheres, but nature nags otherwise. Many demand contraception to accomplish this divorce and maintain the modern life, but I do not acknowledge a fundamental human right to be barren.

Deeper than the insistence that sex be enjoyed without fear of attachment to another human being, or of the catastrophe that would be creation of new life, is the loud insistence that all people are exactly the same. For decades academics have obsessed over promulgating the worldview that no difference among humans is fundamental, and therefore any existing difference can and should be eradicated.

Society is constructed, they say. Morality is constructed. Emotions are constructed. Gender is constructed. "If it is constructed, then I will demolish it, and build my own."

Vanity and Babel. No amount of scholarly analysis or advance of medicine will bring a man to give birth.

We are stuck with the we that we are.

*I don't necessarily think ED should be covered by insurance. It probably depends on the situation. As my friend Josh puts it, "if a 70-year-old guy wants to pretend he's 40, he can do it without me picking up any of the tab."

Even a Few

2008-07-10T02:46:00.000-04:00

In need of hope.

I'm reading a great book about the role of Christians in the city. Author Ray Bakke, raised in rural post-World War II Washington state, became the reluctant pastor of a congregation of hundreds at the age of 23. In the 1960's he moved to Chicago, an explosive place at an explosive time, and remained there for the next 30 years.

In a chapter entitled "Can We Save a City Like Sodom?" Bakke discusses the transformational power of even a few Christians living in and for a city, as well as the widespread withdrawal of Christians from cities in the second half of the twentieth century.

Bakke writes:

When I became a pastor in Chicago [in 1965], my first community service was the funeral of the neighboring pastor and wife two blocks down the street from the church. They had been stabbed to death during the night in what is still an unsolved crime. One of their three preschool children stopped the postman at the door the following morning and plaintively asked, "Can you wake up my daddy?" As I described the situation to my mother later that week, she asked - doubtless thinking of my own little boys - "How long are you going to stay in Chicago?"

I replied, "As long as I can count on other believers here. If I can't, I'll run far and fast."
From Ray Bakke, "A Theology As Big As the City" (1997), pg. 41

When a 23-year-old aspiring teacher was murdered in Philly recently, my mom asked me if I really wanted to live in Philadelphia. I told her that if everyone who was able to leave the city were to do so, things would be even worse for those who couldn't get out.

Bakke believes that the welfare of a city is contingent on the presence of God's people within it. Indeed, he notes Jesus calls his followers salt (a preservative) and light (exposing, eliminating darkness). Genesis teaches us that Sodom* could have been spared by the presence of ten of God's followers (18:22-33). Indeed, in Jeremiah we learn that Jerusalem could have been saved by even one seeker of the truth (5:1).

So I think Bakke is onto something. If God is who the Bible says he is, cities desperately need His people, any of His people, to live in and for them, to death if necessary. And those who do so must unite in their purpose, or all will be adrift.

These principles are the those that lead me to seek employment in Philadelphia now that I have graduated. It's time to put my money where my mouth is.

On a final note, contrast the importance of this call with the widespread response of the church when things have gotten rough in the cities:

I don't need to tell American Christians that we live in a day of large-scale Christian withdrawal from large sections of our cities. The people running away from Los Angeles are bumping into the people running away from Chicago, somewhere in Colorado's pristine mountains, or so it seems at times. The results: social gaps grow, God is furious, and our nation is at risk (44).

We have a history of flight and failure, not to atone for (for Jesus has done that), but to learn from. Let us boldly approach the throne of grace and find our Lord's heart for his city:

Can we save a city like Sodom? Of course we can, and we must. Thankfully the preserving effect of a few righteous people is much more widespread than we might think (46).

"For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says."
Mark 11:23

*It is a common misconception that God destroyed Sodom primarily because of sexual immorality in the city. Ezekiel 16:48-50 reveals that the primary reason God destroyed it was that though the people of the city were economically prosperous, they did not help the poor and needy. Is there any city today in which this neglect is not widespread?

Image is in the details.

2008-07-01T15:18:00.003-04:00

The logo is a siren. Mistake?

Not being a coffee drinker, I was confused by the sizes at a Starbucks recently. Fortunately, they provide handy examples up front, from which I deduced the following translations:

Tall normally means something is bigger than its peers, but in this case tall means small. Customers ordering a tall are freed from feeling like they are depriving themselves.

Grande means large. Instead of feeling guilty about indulging, customers can take a caffeinated vacation south of the border. Arriba!

Venti means Supersize. We have learned though from our forebears in the 1990's that Supersize will kill you. So Starbucks had to rename it. Venti is Italian for 20, as in the number of ounces in the drink, or the square root of the caffeine dose.

It's great ideas like these that helped Starbucks open a new location every workday in the 1990's.

Developments Explained

2008-06-30T12:56:00.002-04:00

Red: My home. Purple: My favorite bike route. Yellow: Housing developments.
Made using Google Earth. Click to enlarge.

A lot changes in 18 years.

That's how long I've lived at 63 Ruth Avenue in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. In the scheme of things, that's no time at all. And yet, look at all of the yellow circles above.

Those circles mark housing developments which have gone up in the time I've lived here. You can see these four all within two miles of my home, with one just beyond my backyard. By convention, these places are named after that which they supplant: "Kimberton Meadows;" "Brimful Farms;" "Foxfield;" "Heritage Place." They are also known as "what's wrong with America."

My ears bristled at the sharp criticism that my friend leighcia, with some help from Jane Jacobs, leveled against the suburbs. Simulating nature? That's not what I learned from all of those bike rides growing up, or from the tall maples and soft moss in my front yard.

I think what leighcia was really addressing, as clarified in the comments section and by her husband Matthew, is not what lies along the purple bike path, but what lies within the yellow circles. Here we are on the same page.

Two questions surround these developments. First, why would anyone build these houses? Second, why would anyone want to live in them?

The explanation to the first question is simple, if unsatisfactory: economies of scale. It's much easier and cheaper for one company to build a lot of nearly identical houses all at once than if each house were to be built to order by its future inhabitants. While that makes economic sense (often the only sense something needs to make for it to happen), it leaves out much of what should go into making a home.

I believe the central flaw lies in that the people designing and building the homes are not, in general, the people who will be living in them. Design ingenuity centers on modularity and ease of construction rather than on quality of final product.

From the point of view of construction workers, since the homes are to be built and never seen again, why take pride in them? Why make anything sturdy, or unique, or (dare I suggest) beautiful? Certainly not for personal credit - that will go to Toll Brothers. It becomes a job to complete, not one to do well.

Blame cannot rest entirely on the builders. They are only in one sense giving people what they want. Going back to my second question then, why would anyone want to live in these houses? I present a hypothesis.

First, the homes are generally expensive, which makes them symbols of status. They carry characteristics that give the appearance of wealth, such as high ceilings and large square footage. This is true regardless of how ugly they are.

So young couples looking to start a family go right for the houses which broadcast that they are already successes. They may not be able to afford them, but is success really something you can afford not to buy?

Since the houses are built at the same time, lots of young couples at the same stage of life flock in at the same time. They bring vehicles which broadcast success and drive around their children who broadcast success. The homogeneity of the neighborhoods becomes homogeneity of the neighbors.

The removal of many differences between people in these developments might sound like a recipe for a close-knit community, but I don't think that is what usually develops. Community breathes through interdependence, but this vision of success is built on independence.

Instead of community then, residents find an individualist conformity. Since everyone pursues the same vision simultaneously, the way to be most successful is to deviate the least from that vision.

This is exemplified in the classic suburb exercise, mowing the lawn. Because of builder demands for house density and buyer demands for near-mansions, few development houses have yards to speak of. Regardless, on Saturdays everyone mows their postage stamps at the same time.

We see then why people build and live in droves of hideous houses. People will take success in whatever package they are told contains it. None of the success signals outlined above require houses to be of any aesthetic quality. So they aren't.

My description of the mentality of those who live in these developments may sound a bit extreme. While I would be reluctant to apply it to individuals whom I know and love, I do think in the aggregate these ideas go a long way toward explaining the four yellow circles around my house.

Career Discernment: A Christian Perspective

2008-06-14T04:08:00.008-04:00

What will we do?

Photo courtesy Jay Hiatt.

Po Bronson was not the first person to ask, "What Should I Do with My Life?" Nor shall he be the last. After interviewing hundreds of people from many walks of life, Bronson's basic conclusion was, "Do what you love."

Dakota Pippins, Mid-Atlantic Regional Director for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, offers a more nuanced view for Christians. Dakota might say, "Find a purpose-driven career at the intersection of your creative and your redemptive passions."

What does all of that mean? Let's unpack it slowly.

First, let's talk about the purpose-driven career, as opposed to the career-driven purpose. Note that in the former, the purpose comes first, while in the latter, career comes first. In the latter, a well-meaning person chooses a career and then seeks to shoehorn that career into service for the Kingdom of God.

Many of us have heard that it's possible to be an investment banker, or a janitor, or a lawyer, or a professional football player - just about anything - and still devote one's career wholly to the Lord. That's true, but Dakota would say Christians often run into problems when this career goal is given primacy - in other words, when one's career choice drives one's purpose.

The problem with this situation is that a person's ability to take godly risk is minimized. If a career choice is taken as a fundamental presupposition, then when a person is faced with a choice between maintaining security in that career or risking it for the Kingdom, he or she will have a much harder time putting the career on the line. On the other hand, if his or her career is merely one expression of God-given talents and passions, then he or she will have a much easier time making the right choice. This idea is what is meant by a purpose-driven* career.

Dakota also says that those with career-driven purposes can face issues of guilt for having based their decision on their own desires, rather than on a process surrendered to the Lord.

So career-driven purposes have the potential to become idols, while purpose-driven careers are part of a life wholly surrendered.

What, then, is meant by finding a career at the intersection of creative and redemptive passions? To illustrate this concept, Dakota turns to that pillar of set theory used most by second graders, the Venn diagram:

Try not to get distracted by all of the colors.

Granted, this Venn diagram is a three-fer and thus more complicated than we normally encounter, but try to keep up.

According to Dakota, three forces govern Christians' career decisions. They are creative passions, sinful motivations, and redemptive passions.

Creative passions are basically things that you are good at. The concept of these comes out of Genesis 1:28, when God blessed Adam and Eve and commissioned them to, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Creative passions are what work was before the Fall. They are described perfectly in a famous statement from Chariots of Fire: "God made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure." Maybe you have a love for accounting. Maybe knitting. I love computer programming. These are all creative passions.

Likewise, we are all familiar with sinful motivations. Desire for human approval; love of money; desire to build an earthly legacy. These motivations came in the picture at the Fall. Sinful motivations are static in the airwaves of communication between a person and God. It is harder to hear and understand his voice when they are present.

Third, redemptive passions are desires to join Jesus in his work of restoring this fallen world according to the vision of the Gospel. By very nature, these passions are developed after one already has a saving relationship with Christ. These might include wanting to share the Good News with people in the Middle East, or wanting to bring together children of different socio-economic backgrounds in the equality that only the Cross offers. One of my own redemptive passions is to see all of God's peoples live together in one body, retaining distinct identities yet being one in the Spirit of the Lord.

Most people, Dakota says, choose a career that lies in the orange zone of the diagram, combining both creative passions and sinful motivations. Maybe you wield logic like a fencer wields a sword and you want to make a lot of money. So you become a lawyer. This kind of path is most natural to follow, but it feeds appetites which should be starved and misses the mark of following Christ's voice in all facets of life.

Adding redemptive passions to the mix focuses our creative passions toward ushering in the Kingdom of God. However, if sinful motivations are still present, we attempt to serve two masters, which as we learned is impossible (Luke 16:13). You cannot try to build orphanages in Jamaica while trying to make a name for yourself; if you do, you are a clanging cymbal (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). So the center of the Venn diagram is not an acceptable final destination.

Truly godly career discernment occurs in the purple region intersecting creative and redemptive passions. Take what you're good at. Take what you want to do for Jesus. Put them together. Voila! Purpose-driven career.

Many look at career discernment as trying to find the one job to which God has called them. That idea does not flow from the picture presented here. God will take and use mightily anything from that magic purple zone, and the choice is really up to us. "Opening doors and closing doors isn't the primary way God helps in discernment," says Dakota.

In this choice there is freedom. Rather than struggling to remain on some sort of career tightrope, the theoretical One Right Path, God invites us to join him in discovering how to redeem the world. Yeah God!

There you have it. Examine your motivations. Be wary of career-driven purposes. Ask God to show you your redemptive passions, and to adjust the size of the three circles. Go for the purple. Anywhere in the purple.

And the world better watch out, because you bout to catch fire.

Ben finds the intersection of his creative and redemptive passions.
Photo courtesy Ellen Williams.

Wise and miscellaneous points from Dakota's presentation:

Creative-redemptive overlap isn't always direct. Professors who share the Gospel in closed countries are an example - here the creative passion is the gateway to the redemptive one.
Filling in the three circles of the Venn diagram is a helpful and discerning exercise. Try it. Examine yourself. Ask God. Ask others.
Don't be the kind of person who says in college, "I'm not going to give now, but I will when I have money." It's not going to happen.
To that end, get started managing your money now. If you don't know how, read Getting a Grip On Your Money by William C. Wood. I can lend it to you.
There's nothing wrong in principle with having lots of income. Says Dakota, "I'm a big fan of income." But he says it's very rare to meet people who both make a lot and give a lot.
"Wherever you are in life, spend a lot of time interacting with people who have a lot less than you."
Shadowing people in a career you're thinking about is a great idea. Why not get an idea of what it's like before spending three years in grad school, only to discover that animal husbandry, at times, stinks?
Not everything we are good at will end up in our careers. It's okay. I don't have to chug milk for a living.**
The Settlers of Catan is a worthy and enjoyable game for men and women alike.

Thanks, Dakota!
Photo courtesy Ben Hanna.

*Not to be mistaken for The Purpose Driven Life.
**But I could.

[Note: This essay was adapted from a talk given by Dakota Pippins to Penn InterVarsity on May 16, 2008. Dakota has graciously allowed me to attempt this distillation.]

Products v. Producers In Action

2008-06-11T15:37:00.003-04:00

To see at work the "products vs. producers" framework I described for understanding liberalism and conservatism, check out this comic, which Stefanie sent me:*

La Cucaracha by Lalo Alvarez, 5/31/2008**
Taken and available online from gocomics here.

Liberal viewpoint: Voting for John McCain is equivalent to sending our children to fight in Iraq. As long as there's a war on, our finest will continue to enlist, and some will lose their lives.

Conservative response: No one is sending anyone out to Iraq. Our young men and women enlist of their own accord. The idea of parents registering their children to ship out is laughable and insulting.

*Aren't friends who send you snail mail and newspaper clippings the best?
**I wonder if this strip would be any less effective if the car was removed and only word bubbles remained. Aside from some comedic timing, this hardly seems to qualify as a comic strip.

Teh Awesome

2008-06-11T14:08:00.004-04:00

I'm so happy that there is a Wikipedia entry for the word "teh." They actually describe it as an English article.

Only something built on user-generated content could have entries for things so obscure. And the page has over 500 revisions over its history!

What an age we live in.

My Name is Nicholas

2008-06-05T14:22:00.004-04:00

Rock stars: is there anything they can't do?
Image grabbed from weezer.com.

New Weezer album! Yeah!

Weezer is the most popular group I think I've ever liked. Virtually all of my favorite music was written by dead men, whether Ludwig van Beethoven or Jerry Garcia. But few high school memories are fonder than Blue Album sing-a-longs.

I gave the new album a listen-through and I like it. Wikipedia cites frontman Rivers Cuomo in saying the album includes, "longer songs, non-traditional song forms, different people writing and singing, instrument switching, TR-808s, synths, Southern rap, and baroque counterpoint." You can hear all of that.

The fascinating part of Weezer to me is their blending of the artful and the popular. After the success of their debut album, they released Pinkerton, which was a concept album of a Puccini opera. It wasn't successful, and in backlash they released The Green Album, which is rather empty and unadventurous and was thus very successful.

Another example - according to Wikipedia,

The second single off Make Believe was "We Are All on Drugs"...MTV refused to play the song, so Weezer re-recorded the lyrics by replacing "on drugs" with "in love" and renaming the song "We Are All in Love".

Finally, they had to add songs to the most recent album because it didn't have enough "marketable" material. So they just made some. The album's first single, "Pork and Beans," was written for that reason, and it's been their most successful single ever.

In other words, it seems like the band sticks mostly to what they like to do, effortlessly supplementing with "sellout" material to further their aims. I think it's hilarious and admirable.

Finally, check out the music video for "Pork and Beans" below. It features many of the most popular YouTube stars. While in general I hate music videos, I think this one is a valuable cultural artifact:

"Pork and Beans"

Thanks for all you've shown us.

Are Prostitutes Trafficked?

2008-06-02T14:01:00.011-04:00

In a recent post, I discussed liberal and conservative perspectives on how much choice people have in where they end up. I used this framework to analyze debate about prostitution and human trafficking.

While I did my best there to present both viewpoints accurately, I also wanted to set down separately which narrative I find to be more accurate with respect to prostitution.

I'll start by saying that I have far less knowledge in this area than I would like to. This is especially true when talking about circumstances outside the United States. If you feel I am mistaken, I invite you to correct me in the comments section.

As with most things, I think the neither of the two perspectives presented quite captures the truth. However, I will not be so wishy washy as to say that I find both to be equally valid.

Remember that what I presented as the liberal viewpoint says that people's choices are greatly constrained by their circumstances, and in the case of many at the bottom of society, there often are few choices at all. See page seven of the handbook* I listed before for a survey of some circumstances that those who enter prostitution often share. They include childhood sexual abuse, incest, and physical abuse. In addition, the pamphlet cites that the international median age for entry into prostitution is 14.

In other words, many make this choice when they could still be considered children. True, the childhood that in the United States often extends well into the 20's is much different than the standard present many places in the world. But the forces of puberty are reasonably new to all at these ages, and a defining characteristic of young people is their inability to manage such forces well. And abuse greatly warps anyone's ability to manage these forces, let alone children.

So while these girls are capable of making a choice, their ability to choose wisely is heavily impaired. I conclude that circumstances in the lives of the majority of those who enter prostitution make them unfit to make such a choice. In that sense, since these do not have the protectors that they ought, I am willing to call them "trafficked."

Many might say that parents are responsible for protecting children from choices like prostitution, and legislation cannot substitute for good parenting. I agree, but there is another side to the equation. Forces war with parents for influence over children, and in the absence of good parenting these forces often win out.** Legislation can fight against these forces.

So I say, don't look at those who reap prostitutes' wages as men in an illicit business partnership. Look at them as oppressors. Work accordingly. This goes the same for men who use their services.

My reasoning applies specifically to those who become prostitutes at a young age, which figure to be significantly more than half worldwide. Perhaps there is some room in my reasoning for those who both choose to become prostitutes and who should be considered competent for such a choice, and thus in my view are not victims of trafficking. Should we only work against men involved with "trafficked" prostitutes?

In my understanding, no such distinction exists. Pimps and johns do not investigate whether or not prostitutes make their choices from a healthy context. And really, I am quite skeptical that such prostitutes exist in non-negligible amounts. Then, it makes no sense to differentiate between them when deciding how to act.

In short, I am willing to brand all pimps and the like "traffickers." So color me liberal on prostitution.

*From the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women.
**The language of "forces winning out" is synonymous with the language of determinative circumstances in the liberal framework that I described. As I said, while I don't accept this concept wholesale, I think that children are "impaired choosers" and shouldn't be held responsible for choices of such magnitude. In this case it is appropriate to "blame" forces influencing their choices.

E-mail to Penn InterVarsity, 5/31/08

2008-05-31T23:06:00.009-04:00

The visual representation of an abstract concept! Ahhhh!

Subject: Summer Reading

Hello friends,

I write to you this afternoon from my porch in southeastern Pennsylvania. Thunderstorms from earlier have rolled away and it's fresh and cool and pretty out.

You may have heard us at various times in the previous year prattle on about the importance of community. You may not have quite understood what the big deal was. It seems a simple concept, and our emphasis on it may not seem very profound. After all, don't we all live in community? Our school is in the city, and most of us further live in communities within College Houses.

The truth is that while community is a really simple idea, when it functions it has profound power to transform those who live in it. Community is not just an agglomeration of people; it's what occurs when those people take on a collective identity and life together. In real sense they become part of one another and their web of interactions changes all who are involved.

"Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another." - Proverbs 27:17

That might sound a tad on the creepy side to you. I think twinges of creepiness come from examples we've seen where acquiring a collective identity has meant relinquishing an individual one. We've seen streams of Nazis marching in lockstep. Communist propaganda seems to advocate this relinquishment. And there's always the Borg Collective from Star Trek.

But the paradox of Christian community is that individuals lose none of their individuality in joining it. On the contrary, as we collectively acquire more of an identity together, our individual identities are actually enhanced. We become more ourselves.

This is the mystery that we are talking about when we encourage community. It's something that must be experienced to be fully understood, but take my word for it when I say it's a marvelous thing indeed.

"If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. " - 1 Corinthians 12:26-27
(Read all of 1 Corinthians 12:4-27 for all of the classical Biblical passage on community.)

I write this to all of you today to invite you into a facet of our community that you can participate in even over the summer. I'm of course talking about - blogging!

Blogging is something I'm passionate about. A group of blogs can provide many of the same functions as an in-person community, and in some cases they do an even better job.

Blogs can be incubators of discourse. They allow people to present ideas in a format often better thought out and more communicative than in-person discussion. Comments sections and other blogs allow people to respond and have conversation.

Posters and readers alike learn and develop ideas significantly faster than is often possible in person. The result? We learn more about who we are, who we'd like to be, and what we want to do in the world. Iron sharpens iron.

Now, our in-person community of InterVarsity also has a collection of blogs associated with some of its members. As is also evident when we come together in person, they display the wonderful variety in individual identity that God has given each of us.

As I said, these blogs provide a vibrant opportunity for growth in community even now over the summer. I've included a directory and short description of many of these blogs.

And if this is the sort of thing you're interested in, I encourage you to join in on the fun. Don't let any feeling that you don't have value to contribute stop you - as with our fellowship at large, I'm certain that is not the case.

"To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." 1 Corinthians 12:7

Yours,
Nick

[Note: Here's another e-mail that I could have made into a post but was just easier to leave as-is.]

Idiosyncrasies at Mealtime

2008-05-31T22:40:00.009-04:00

I think signs of health in families are habits and traditions that would seem weird to outsiders. At dinnertime I was mildly embarrassed to observe:

Milk. 1% for Mom, skim for me, and whole for my stepdad.

Of course, you take the delicious with the embarrassing:

We make pizza.

Are We Products or Producers?

2008-05-30T23:55:00.001-04:00

Politically speaking, Grandma sits on the left, Grandpa sits on the right,

and Aunt Lisa? Well, she's somewhere in between.

Jonathan has thoughts about the nature of the difference between liberal people and conservative people.* He says that conservatives will always take economic growth if it harms no one, while liberals might not want such growth if it led to more inequality.

Another way to look at the difference, hardly new but nonetheless on my mind lately, is in terms of agency. Put crudely, conservatives tend to believe that where a person ends up in life is principally a result of his or her choices, while liberals tend to believe that it is principally a result of his or her circumstances.

Put succinctly, according to liberals we are products of our environment, while according to conservatives we produce our environment.

For example, this past weekend my grandmother lamented that President Bush's policy in Iraq had killed many of our finest young men. In a separate conversation, my grandfather talked about how the Iraq war displayed for one of the first times in history a professional army - in other words, one in which all of the the soldiers have aspired to be there.

A conservative might counter my grandmother by saying that President Bush did not kill these men, but that they chose to enlist in the army fully knowing that they might die. The conservative might go farther by saying my grandmother dishonors the memory of these men by denying that they chose to lay down their lives - calling them victims rather than heroes.

A liberal might counter my grandfather by saying that the choice anyone makes to enlist in the armed forces is constrained by his or her circumstances. In particular, those of lower socioeconomic standing have far fewer alternatives to the military available to them. To many, the possibility of being killed in Iraq may still be lower risk than the next best alternative. Calling what these people face a "choice" may be misleading - sure, the liberal might say, they made the best with what they had to work with, but what they had to work with was not much to begin with.

Another issue in which this narrative plays out is human trafficking. If you are not familiar with the issue you can read this little introduction I wrote at the end of last year. It's basically another word for slavery, or at least that's what advocates say.

Where a lot of controversy comes in is what you actually consider forced labor, and here is where liberal and conservative voices say different things.

Are prostitutes victims of trafficking? Most conservatives would say that in most cases, they're not. The discussion is once again in the language of choice. As one conservative viewpoint puts it, "...women are, in fact, capable of deciding for themselves what they do with their bodies and their time." Far from slaves, they say, prostitutes are prostitutes because they choose to be prostitutes. What's more, conservatives would argue that saying all prostitutes are victims unable to change their situation and thus needing rescue is arrogant, culturally imperialistic, and even dehumanizing.

Liberals would again point to constraints on choice beyond the women's control. Says this handbook, prostitutes "...use their agency every day simply to survive. But their agency is severely limited by the conditions and context of their lives..." Liberals also point to common histories of abuse and the young age at which many enter prostitution as evidence that circumstances are largely deterministic in these women's lives.

Naturally, these different viewpoints give rise to drastically different opinions on how best to address the problem, if you even acknowledge that there is a problem. For one, statistics like the ones thrown out in my article vary widely depending on what you consider trafficking, and policy discussion is heavily influenced by such statistics.

Within policy discussion, conservatives accuse liberals of trying to give an old problem (prostitution) a new name (trafficking) to push through legislation that they would not be able to if they used the old name.

As for the old problem, conservatives might note that prostitution is called "the world's oldest profession" for a reason. It may be lamentable or even deplorable, but it must be called the problem of human nature that it is. They would emphasize that attempts to work against it must be realistic, and branding it something that it is not is counterproductive.

Liberals would say that the age of a problem is a poor excuse for not addressing it. If human trafficking is a new name (the term originated around the 1990's), working against it is no less urgent. They would return to what they view as the root problem: the constraint of prostitutes' choice by circumstances beyond their control, almost the definition of slavery. Liberals would say conservative ideas of choice and prostitution vanish in the face of the experience of actual prostitutes. If prostitution were understood for what it is, they say, it would be possible to work significantly against it and help millions of oppressed women and children.

Such debate is by no means limited to discussions of prostitution. Very similar discussion surrounds other issues within trafficking, most prominently migrant labor. People in poor families often leave home for work elsewhere. This work often requires illegally crossing borders and often takes place in deplorable conditions. Are these people trafficked, even slaves? See above for the gist of the debate.

So there you have it. A great deal of the difference between liberals and conservatives can often be understood in terms of how much control people have in what they do.

Even so, such differences need not keep us from loving one another. After all, my grandparents have been happily married for 53 years. The rest of us should be able to get along.

*One thing I really dislike about the terms "liberal" and "conservative" as nouns is that, particularly in the case of the former, they are often used to dehumanize. It's easier to belittle your opponents (and their arguments) if you overlook their humanity, but there are fairer and more productive ways to have discourse.

Mexican-American Love

2008-05-11T15:29:00.004-04:00

My housemates have a way of interacting with one another that I've enjoyed witnessing through the year. Here's an example:

Carlos: Mayra, I could just stay with Sprint and pretty much get a new phone for free.

Vero: Get the one that Vero has.

Carlos: ..and get the one that Vero has.

Vero: Copycat.

Going to miss these guys.

A Dog Named Bear

2008-05-03T00:06:00.007-04:00

Puppy!

Marley & Me this will not be, but my dog was put down today and I thought I'd share some memories:

We got Bear when I was about 11 because my sister and my dad wanted a dog. Someone from my mom's work was looking to get rid of him; they had a new baby and thus no more need for him. They assured us that he was well trained, and he sat and shook hands, so we took him.

Let's just say Bear's dalmatian half (the other half is black lab) immediately made itself known. For instance, despite being neutered, he displayed unmistakably male appetite with his blanket. That wasn't so bad, but when he tried to do the same thing with my sister's seven-year-old friends, we had more of a problem.
More than once, Bear succeeded through barking in diverting us from the kitchen long enough to help himself to our food. Nor were covering, elevation, or a combination of the two enough to keep him from delighting in our garbage.
In second grade, my sister was friends with twin girls whom we couldn't stand. Whenever they came over the noise was unbearable, and Dad and I would retreat to the backyard. One time when their father came to pick them up, Bear burst through with his front legs the glass panes in our front door . I'm not sure the twins came over again.
My dad loved Bear. In fact, every now and then he would inadvertently call me his name. He always felt terrible, and I might have given him a hard time, but I knew it didn't mean anything.
I'm skeptical that Bear felt pain. Whether a baseball to the head or a dashboard to the face, he never seemed to notice anything hit him.

That includes the car accidents. A big Buick rolled down our street at about 25 miles per hour right into poor Bear. He ran off for three hours, but returned wagging his tail and happy.

Another time a large black van hit him going about 40. Two broken legs, a fractured cranium, and a dislocated hip resulted. My parents decided to save him by acquiring $3,500 in credit card debt.

He was basically fine. That was around Halloween, so we said the shuttlecock-shaped thing he wore to keep him from chewing on his cast was an astronaut costume. Thereafter my uncles affectionately called him "Dented Dog."
He would chase after our chickens for fun, but never attack them. Rodents weren't so lucky.

The cats bossed him around.
Rather than walking him when I got home from school, I used to just let him loose. Apparently there was a female dog down the street that Bear was quite fond of. We discovered this when our neighbor visited on my Dad a large garbage bag. "Girl Scout Cookies?" he asked. Nope. Just poop that Bear had left as a display of affection on their lawn. (You'd think we could have talked before it got to that point.)
Bear probably pooped in the house over a hundred times. He knew it made us mad, so he hid it, which caused particular problems on the couple of occasions when he pooped in someone's bed.
I remember once when Bear dove down a nearly vertical hillside in pursuit of a hapless groundhog. Seizing it in his jaws, he shook it violently for a few seconds before casually discarding it. With dried blood streaked on his coat, he looked particularly pleased.

All I can say is, now that's a dog.

Why did we love this dog? He ate our food, soiled our house, barked frequently for no reason, required lots of attention, and brought expensive vet bills. On paper he was almost an unqualified detriment to our lives.

Yet all of these recollections are quite fond for me, and I'll bet that despite being freed from spending her lunch hour coming home to walk him, my mom will miss him not a little.

The fact is, he brought color to our lives. Somehow cleaning up after him, walking him, and feeding him, while when taken individually were merely chores, collectively they form part of a relationship with an animal. There's something wonderful about such a creature, so like a person and yet fantastically different.

These things of which I've written are a priceless part of my childhood. Far from being regrettable, they are a badge of uniqueness that I show you with pride.

This was my dog. And as his life was part of mine, so he is part of me.

Bear, Sam, Uncle Rob, with guest appearance by Pennsylvania.

Econ 002 is still easier.

2008-04-28T12:21:00.006-04:00

I just completed my student loan exit counseling session, a required pre-graduation rite of passage for those of us with debt awaiting us.

After learning about the horrors of default and forcibly completing a monthly budget, I was grilled on the gritty details. The quiz involved difficult questions such as:

(6) Federal student loan money should be used for:
A down payment on a stereo system
A trip to California
A new wardrobe
Educational related expenses

Side note: What does this question say if you already go to school in California? Probably "A trip to Pennsylvania."

Upon completion, I was greeted by the pleasant message:

Nice job, you got them all right!
In these uncertain times, it's good to receive some affirmation.

Budding Hope

2008-04-16T01:50:00.006-04:00

Spring is great.

They're doing it again.

There's a way the light hits the trees in April that you don't see the rest of the year. I can't describe it except to say that the trees seem to resonate. Newly budded leaves rejoice in their first sunlight.

The beginning of spring smacks you in the face if you're trying to be miserable. You realize you're a fool. The entire natural world is singing with delight at new life, and there you are, pretending like life isn't good.

I love whizzing through the streets on my bicycle and catching whiffs of flowers.

And if life isn't good, and you're not pretending? Then spring brings something even more beautiful:

"Come, you hopeless! Find hope, for just as this creation was barren and now bursts forth, so too can your life. Come, see the nature of my abundance!"

Eric Knight. Maker of good sandwiches.

2008-04-03T23:35:00.011-04:00

Where I come from.

I got to see my dad last night.

I had a dream about him for what seems like a couple of hours. It felt soo good to believe like he was around again, like it hadn't been almost five years since he died.

It's hard, having lived so much of my life now without him. I've changed so much since I was 17, he'd hardly know me if we met now. And I begin to forget.

The less of my life he's part of, the more I'm defined independently of him. I lose touch of where I come from and become increasingly defined by where I've been.

I miss my dad.

There is that great hope. In each dream reunion the years without him instantly evaporate for the joy that he is with me now. It is they which seem to be the illusion, the dream which may be forgotten.

Despite waking up, I feel that in this is truth.

Christians and Abstinence - How?

2008-04-02T04:09:00.002-04:00

James wore footwear generally considered appropriate for a bridegroom.
From what I can tell, he and Kate's honeymoon hasn't stopped yet.

Maddy Kronovet's post today brought up a couple of practical criticisms of abstinence in Christianity that I thought worth addressing.

She begins by saying that those who choose to abstain are, "fighting a losing battle. Biology is hard to beat. We are programmed to want sex.*"

In large part, she's right. I say from experience, it is hard. Very hard. There is good reason that many Christians marry "young."

But this is a battle which need not be losing. In fact, the entire Christian message can be summed up in saying that life is a battle which need not be losing. The victory is for the having, thanks to Jesus's free gift.

Even with free victory, we fail often, especially when measured up to standards that say even a lustful look is adultery. We are hypocrites.

But that's not the point. For the same reason that we ought not condemn others for having sex outside of marriage, we ought not condemn ourselves: Jesus is the only Judge, and as his sacrifice has declared us righteous, we dare not make ourselves a higher authority.

We Christians are often criticized for failing to practice what we preach. The problem is that it is impossible to practice what we preach. Unconditional love, moral perfection - these things are far beyond human capability.

A great misunderstanding of Christianity is that the point is to live a moral life. The real point is that the life God requires is impossible to live, and so Jesus did it for us. We do seek to live morally, not out of obligation, but out of gratitude and because (as I attempted to illustrate with my last post), it is simply better for us. Just as God designed our bodies to function better when drinking water than when drinking gasoline, our souls thrive under a lifestyle of moral nutrition - love and obedience.

To recap: chastity is hard but it's worth it. We mess up, but it's okay because not messing up isn't the point.

I also wanted to address the statistic Maddy brought up, the latest in a long line showing that abstinence pledges don't seem to be all that effective.

I'm not surprised. Christian youth are often told that they shouldn't have sex, but the good reasons why they should wait are seldom explained.

Even if they were, kids are almost as dumb as adults, in general view the present as much more important than the future, and are subject to powerful and new hormonal urges.

So it's no surprise that an emotional commitment made in a peer pressure situation one evening doesn't hold fast when the moon hits their eyes like a big pizza pie. I see little value in these pledges. I do esteem much more highly parental dialogue and example, but even then kids make their own choices. Sin and biology are hard to beat.

Again though, it's not the point. Those who haven't had sex out of marriage aren't better Christians than those who have - we're all equally terrible Christians. The beauty is that once mistakes have been made, Jesus instantly invites us to live as if they hadn't, guilt-free.

*I agree with Maddy that we are programmed to want sex, but we may disagree on who the programmer is. "It is not good that man should be alone" (Genesis 2:18).

Christians and Abstinence - Why?

2008-04-02T02:48:00.005-04:00

What you don't see is that Matthew is wearing Chuck Taylors.
So unoriginal.

In Maddy Kronovet's post in The Spin today, entitled "Do I feel like a virgin or a whore tonight?", Ms. Kronovet criticizes students who choose to abstain from sex before marriage, with an emphasis on those who do so for religious reasons.

As is often the case when someone writes about a culture with which he or she is not well acquainted, the post reveals a two-dimensional understanding of why Christians choose abstinence and what it's like for them.

Being a Christian and acquainted with what might loosely (and somewhat incorrectly) be called evangelical culture here at Penn, I thought I would try and explain the basics.

The big myth is that Christians believe that sex is bad and you shouldn't do it. In this myth's narrative, Christians who abstain are blindly following teachings from the Bible which are archaic and counterintuitive.

On the contrary, Christians have a higher view of sex than popular perspectives today do. Christians believe that our bodies are inseparable from our selves, and that the physical union of a man and a woman in sex signifies and accomplishes the complete union of those two people.

This complete union is also known as marriage, after which, as Jesus says, "they are no longer two, but one flesh" (Mark 10:8). Note that I said sex both signifies and accomplishes this union: more than just symbolic, sex actually encompasses the spiritual and physical reality of two people becoming one.

From here, it's not difficult to see from where a belief in abstinence before marriage comes. In fact, in this view pre-marital sex is impossible. All sex is marital.

Jesus goes on to say in that passage, "Therefore what God has joined together, let no man separate" (Mark 10:9). That doesn't mean that people can't separate, as many demonstrate with their lifestyles. But in the Biblical view, all of this sexual activity is nothing less than adultery.

Do we Christians look down on the sexually active majority around us? We shouldn't. To the extent that we do, we are sinning just as much as those we would think ourselves better than. The same Jesus that said the above words also said, "Judge not, that you be not judged" (Matthew 7:1). Judging is Jesus's job, and when we do it we are pretending to be him. Unlike him, we're not perfect, and so we are made hypocrites.

That's not to say we are indifferent. Christians wish others would be abstinent as well, not simply because we want to enforce an arbitrary moral code, but because we believe that the Bible's view of sex is so much better (in all senses of the word) than Cosmopolitan's, and we would love for everyone to share.

"Why knock something you haven't tried?" asks Kronovet. I would repeat the same challenge to her. It is countercultural to put off pleasure now for pleasure later, but when the future pleasure promises to be much greater* than the presently available one, abstinence is a proposition which makes good economic sense.

And economic sense is something upon which most students at Penn can agree.

* What do I mean by greater pleasure? By Cosmopolitan's standards, this statement is ridiculous. Cosmo and Western culture at large teach that the utility of sex is in its ability to bring mind-blowing orgasms, and the quality of one's sex life can be measured by the integral of all sexual pleasure over time. In this view, any period of abstinence is a period of no sexual pleasure and thus a decreased quality of sex life over a lifetime. So why wait?

By greater pleasure, I mean that sex in marriage is about more than physical gratification. Christians thank God for mind-blowing orgasms, but they have a lot more to thank him for, too: Having someone to be completely vulnerable - naked - with, requiring trust which is only possible in light of a lifetime commitment. The joyful hope that their union may create new life, and that the same union will provide the environment for that life to thrive. Having a companion with whom to split life's sorrows and amplify life's joys. I could go on.

Much more than antiquated and arbitrary, the Christian view of sex is beautiful enough to marvel at, too complex to be easily dismissed, and ultimately worth waiting for.

**As you can see in the photo above, my good friends Matthew and leighcia recently married. For some of leighcia's thoughts the week leading up to the wedding, see here and here. Matthew's, here and here.

One More Thing

2008-03-23T22:36:00.004-04:00

It didn't occur to me until later this evening that this great Easter was an answer to prayer. I've been realizing that while I understand intellectually all of the principles of salvation outlined in the Bible, I haven't really been understanding them on a personal, meaningful, heart level.

So I've prayed that God would help me understand the true meaning of my salvation. And that, in short, was what happened today. During the pastoral prayer, the pastor thanked God for saving us, emphasizing that he didn't have to.

And it hit me - he didn't have to! He could have very rightly just abandoned us, and he would have been perfectly happy still. But he decided to provide atonement for us, which involved moving heaven and earth and sending Jesus to live as one of us and absorb unimaginable wrath. Wow, what a thought.

We call that concept grace - completely unmerited, unforced favor.

Anyway, as I illustrated it's something you can have a knowledge of without any real comprehension. But, as I illustrated, it's a prayer that God is glad to answer.

Man, what a thought. I urge you to consider Jesus's words:

And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.

Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
John 16:23-24

Glory, hallelujah!

The dead's alive and the lost is found - glory, hallelujah!

2008-03-23T18:32:00.001-04:00

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23

If you're a Christian, then I hope you identify with my last post and that God smiled on you this Easter as well.

If you're not, the post probably sounded like foolishness, inasmuch as it claims to be evidence of an abundant life given by Jesus. You might say that Jesus's signature is not readily visible on the works, and one need not be a Christian to enjoy such simple blessings, so why attribute them to him?

I would say that you're right, but you're mistaken. My Easter Sunday didn't come with a greeting written in the sky or an angelic pancake, but I still saw the divine in what I received.

For his own reasons, our God is a God who hides himself so that he may be sought out by his creatures. And he is also a God who bestows his blessings on all of his children, whether they honor his Son or not.

It is for this reason that, as the seraphim cry out in Isaiah 6:3, the whole earth is full of his glory. We all experience sunrises and smiling babies and friendships as I did today because God loves us all and shows himself through his good gifts.

Such a thing as good could not exist without such a person as God to set the standard. So the enjoyment of any good thing is screaming proof of his existence and his nature. Any response but humble gratitude is off the mark.

But what of that great counterargument, suffering? If all good things come from God, then what of the bad? Is God not then spiteful as often as he is benevolent, and as worthy of curses as of praise?

Indeed, in church today we heard of orphans in Liberia and a missionary's house burning down and the poverty of Malawi, and also death. It is a worthy question to ask how anyone can believe in God in the face of pain and death.

The answer is that the sufferings that touch all and fill the lives of so many testify all the more of God and his goodness. These things entered the world through humanity's choice to reject a world without them.

Adam and Eve were given two trees - one which gave eternal life, and one of which they were promised brought death. They chose the death tree. So do we. We all know what is right but so often choose to do what is wrong.

And the ultimate evil, death, doesn't come from God's design; from the beginning it was not so. Death springs from transgression in the same way that sunflowers spring from sunflower seeds.

Jesus is not made an irrelevant liar by suffering and death. On the contrary, it is through these things that we see desperately our need for him.

Simply, it is through him that they are not the end of the story. They could have been - God wasn't obligated to do what he did - but the wonderful truth of Easter is that they are not. Jesus's birth brought a new human nature into the world, one that was not doomed to trespass. He experienced suffering like none have and hung on a tree so that, impossibly, God could be found just and we could be found blameless.

And he lived again. Death, the unconquered foe, could not hold one who knew no transgression. Jesus left his tomb, never to be touched again by pain or by death.

The Good News is that, for those willing to admit that they need it, his victory is for the sharing.

It is for this reason that Christians can look at a day when the sky turned black and call it Good Friday. And it is for this reason that Easter brings joy, hope, and love.

Joy, because just as Jesus raised from the grave, so shall we.

Hope, because we find ever greater power over our nature which knows good and does evil, and look forward to a day when that release is final.

Love, because to understand Jesus's work for us is to adore him for accomplishing it and to deeply want to live out his example to all his children.

Happy Easter.

Shout on, pray on, we're gaining ground - glory, hallelujah!

2008-03-23T16:23:00.001-04:00

Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.
John 16:22

I have never felt the joy of being a Christian more fully than on this Easter day.

A dozen things already today highlight the full abundance that life with Jesus promises. Really, he promises it.

I rode my bike downtown for Tenth Presbyterian Church's sunrise service. Headed due east on my iron steed, the city was filled with the glory of the rising sun, and I delighted to ride farther into it. My hands just about fell off from the morning air.
During the service I was thinking to myself, "Man, I wish I had somewhere to go for pancakes." The pastor announced, "Please join us for pancakes in the fellowship hall after the service."
After the service I ran into two newlywed friends.
At the breakfast I saw a friend I haven't spoken to in a year and a half, and heard from him about the marriage of a freshman year acquaintance to the girlfriend he had been striving to love wholly and purely.
At the table I caught the eye of a baby boy, and we played a nodding game.
Also at the table were the baby's parents, a young doctor and his wife getting ready to move to Niger to heal the sick and bring hope to the brokenhearted.
Between he and I was Dr. Joan Caddell, who graduated from medical school at Penn in 1952 as one of three women in her class. I heard of her own incredible experiences in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. "I wasn't just sitting underneath the banana tree."
I biked straight down a nearly empty Broad Street in the still-clear and still-early sunlight to Jonathan's house and shared in Easter morning with him, before heading back to church with his three lovely sisters and his lovely Stefanie.
The church was so full that we had to sit in the basement and watch the service on TV. The people down there were a bit sheepish on singing the hymns but, not to be deterred on so grand an occasion, Jon's sister Mary-Robin and I sang out. Folks joined in.
The service boldly proclaimed the resurrection in about five ways, which I'll spare you.
Afterwards, spurning the crowded Geno's Steaks, Jon and I found a great cheesesteak and a pot of begonias in a Mexican shop that made me smile.
Biking back, I passed quickly from a Mexican neighborhood to a Vietnamese one to an African American one. That's three continents!

All of these moments are glimpses of the eternal kingdom to come.

The baby and Dr. Caddell and I will sit again at the same table, this time without inadequacies of youth or infirmities of old age, and declare the works of the risen Lord, whom we shall see face to face and with our own eyes. The Kreamer sisters will still walk arm in arm, but now through the city of God, where all nations will dwell together and

They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.
Revelation 22:5

I can't wait.

Biofuel: Starving the World's Poor Since 2007

2008-03-12T02:28:00.002-04:00

I don't have many original thoughts to share regarding the headline, so please read what David Warren has to say on the subject:

A scheme to kill off the world’s poor, through starvation, has already been launched on the advice of environmental “experts,” and is showing promising results.
...
"Biofuel" is the means. By turning much of the planet’s limited arable land, including especially the lower-cost breadbaskets of the Third World, into grain generators for biofuel, the environmental revolution is creating the conditions for famine on a colossal scale.

Any attempt to use corn to replace or even supplement our supply of petroleum is misguided at best. Proponents hope to capture in our crops amounts of energy rivaling the amount pumped cheaply from the ground in the form of petroleum. The problem is that the amount of energy we get from petroleum is much greater (a gallon of gas contains about 31,000 Calories) than the amount of energy we get from food.*

There is simply no hope of finding enough excess energy in our food supply to shift significantly into our petroleum consumption. We've been trying anyway, and (partially) as a result food prices are climbing worldwide, with results that may prove to be nothing short of devastating.

Biofuels are not a new source of energy. They merely reallocate an old, more valuable source of energy. This is completely backwards, yet it continues to be trumpeted as great progress.

To replace our oil consumption, sources of energy that don't originate in oil must be developed. Nuclear power generates energy from mass (E = mc squared, remember), and we have mass in abundance. The sun radiates more energy to us than we would know what to do with if we could only capture it efficiently. Heck, below the earth's surface geothermal forces move entire continents.

We would be much, much better served in learning to better harvest sources like these, none of which need appreciably emit carbon, if that's what you're worried about. Considering petroleum isn't actually running out at present, there is no need to panic. In likelihood we have a few decades to work things out.

And yes, it would make a lot of sense to stop using oil where we don't need to.

There is much to say on this topic, but for now I'll leave it at this: biofuel is the kind of solution that makes your problem worse, like taking a habanero pepper for heartburn. Except instead of getting indigestion, you make basic nourishment considerably more difficult for billions of people to obtain.

A grave, grave error that should be reversed immediately.

*It's true that to grow our food supply we depend on large amounts of fertilizers derived from fossil fuels. This means it makes even less sense to try to convert crops into fuel, since the way we do things now we are converting fuel into crops to begin with.

Response: Ms. Ninette Murk, Designers Against AIDS

2008-03-11T03:41:00.003-04:00

[Note: This is a response to comments Ms. Murk left on my February 13 post, "Shopping has never been more important."]

Ms. Murk,

Thank you for your response to my post. It's good to know that you're listening. I'm sorry my reply is somewhat tardy.

First, a clarification. I indicated in my writing that the campaign's decision to focus exclusively on prevention betrayed "some hypocrisy that I can't put my finger on." Here I misspoke. To fault anyone for fighting only one facet of a multifaceted disease would be to place a ridiculous demand on any attempt to do good, and unfair.

My assertion was meant to express my confusion at the ambiguously stated goals of the campaign. I assumed that something as broadly titled as "Fashion Against AIDS" would address similarly broad aspects of the disease. I was frustrated, first at the difficulty I had in digging up its goals, and second that the campaign only seemed to be feeding itself.

I do find it dishonest that the campaign masquerades as the means to the end of fighting AIDS, when the campaign itself is a primary end. I'm also very skeptical of the reasoning which equates buying a t-shirt as doing good, since the purchase purportedly (1) spreads awareness and (2) helps sell more awareness-spreading t-shirts. This logic extols self-indulgence as a moral act, and that is misleading and dangerous.

I reiterate: with efforts like these, everyone involved, from the designers to the consumers, gets a pat on the back,* while no one with the disease gets anything. If this is justified by saying the consumers are being educated, then it should at least be made clear that's all that's going on.

I'm also concerned by your statement that prevention is overlooked in the West, "Possibly because there are antiretroviral medicines now, so even if you do get infected, you can live to be a hundred years old (give or take a side effect or two)." The belief that a morning cocktail solves all of the problems of AIDS is just not true, and it's a dangerous myth for anyone to believe, let alone someone in your position.

Antiretroviral medications do exist, but for them to be effective, patients must be one hundred percent compliant to what can be rigorous and complicated regimens. These regimens must be frequently adjusted as the disease adapts, and side effects are not negligible. And this dance cannot continue indefinitely, as the disease and the medications war simultaneously against the body and something must give.**

Misconceptions about the gravity of contracting HIV encourage carelessness with prevention, and thus cost lives.

It is true that young Westerners don't know what they should about AIDS, especially with regard to the impact right at home and their own risk. Thank you for working against this problem, and for your response which has spurred me to become better informed myself. I encourage you to be diligent in finding the best way to do pursue your goals, to be transparent in your intentions, and to accept the enhanced scrutiny that falls on those who reap the benefits of being known for doing good.

My best wishes in your endeavors.

*And what a pat, in some cases! Check out the glamorous lifestyle of Kate Roberts, founder of (Fashion Against AIDS-beneficiary) YouthAIDS, as romanticized by the Washington Post. The perks of sainthood are considerable.
**At least, that's what I remember learning from Jim Biddle, who has HIV and should know.

If stomach no smile, heart no smile, and face no smile.

2008-03-02T14:49:00.008-05:00

I'm sick. I can't eat much, but I do spend a lot of time in my room fantasizing about foods that I love. Here are some foods that I wish I was eating right now:

Eggs benedict
Grilled cheese sandwiches
Cheeseburgers, from Johnny Rockets or Fuddruckers or Blarney Stone or my kitchen or anywhere, really
My mom's pizza
Even a glass of orange juice

Mmm mmm mmm, all of these foods are so good. Woe is my wishes-it-wasn't-empty-but-doesn't-want-to-be-filled tummy.

Pooch

2008-02-15T14:32:00.008-05:00

There's a really beautiful short piece today in the University City Review about a dying dog:

...I'd seen death in pictures, on the side of the road, but never so immediately or violently. It wasn't pain by degrees, the bumps and scrapes we accrue every day, lessened by love and whatever gives us comfort. It was final, irrevocable. I stood there for ten minutes,unable to look at anything but this nameless dying dog.

I really suggest you read the whole thing - it's not long. You'll find: the empathy of a nameless narrator. The indifference of passerby. The character of our community. The almost-humanity of a dog. The finality of death.

I'm a big fan of any newspaper that puts this kind of thing on its front page.

I say the almost-humanity of a dog. It's interesting to me - if dogs possessed nothing like humanity, the article wouldn't be evocative at all. If dogs possessed complete humanity, it would be too horrifying to view in a detached manner.

Something about other mammals is just right - they're like us enough to be loved, but unlike us enough that their loss isn't crippling to us. And their experiences are a great proxy for understanding our own.

Is that why they sent chimps into space first?

"Shopping has never been more important."

2008-02-13T02:41:00.000-05:00

This quote from Swedish clothing company H&M, the same people who bring us this lovely advertisement on the bus stop outside DRL:

We "believe" that you're all morons.

You may have heard about AIDS. You may have wished you could do something about it. Well, great news - you can go on doing what you've always been doing and wonderful companies like H&M will save the world for you. All you have to do is buy their quality products. "Designers Against AIDS" joins initiatives like the RED campaign (critiqued here by my lovely friend leighcia) which bundle virtue with their products to superficially fight the world's great ills.

Everybody wins. The designers get their names advertised and associated with a "good cause." H&M gets the revenue spike associated with a successful campaign. You get to feel great about yourself for your altruism.

And those suffering from AIDS? They don't actually get anything. It took some digging on the web site, but I eventually found something which told me goals more concrete than "fighting AIDS," though not much more concrete. A whopping 25% of these proceeds go to "raise awareness and prevent the spread of AIDS worldwide."

I wouldn't be surprised at all if advertising for this campaign qualifies as "raising awareness."

Their other efforts appear to be centered on getting people to use condoms, which puzzles me. Do they not consider research for a cure a worthwhile investment? Do they think that since those who have already contracted HIV are going to die anyway, it's not worth caring for them? Both of these areas seem at least as important to me as preventing the spread of the disease (and I imagine that it's controversial how much good condom campaigns actually do). Their exclusion seems to betray some hypocrisy that I can't put my finger on.

So, for all of its noise, the campaign actually does very little more than repeat a message harped on since middle school to wealthy young Westerners.

Meaningless as the stated goals of these campaigns may be, I would go as far as to say their unstated goals are actually sinister. They seek to establish corporations as the agents for moral action in our society, rather than encouraging people to actually care about the problems and actually do something with their lives to solve them. They are a sedative, deepening complicity in an existence centered around consumption and self-gratification. They are poison.

Ezekiel speaks well of such false prophets (and false profits?):

Because, indeed, because they have seduced My people, saying, 'Peace!' when there is no peace--and one builds a wall, and they plaster it with untempered mortar*--

say to those who plaster it with untempered mortar, that it will fall. There will be flooding rain, and you, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall tear it down.

Surely, when the wall has fallen, will it not be said to you, 'Where is the mortar with which you plastered it?' "

Therefore thus says the Lord God: "I will cause a stormy wind to break forth in My fury; and there shall be a flooding rain in My anger, and great hailstones in fury to consume it.

So I will break down the wall you have plastered with untempered mortar, and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation will be uncovered; it will fall, and you shall be consumed in the midst of it. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.
Ezekiel 13:10-14

*Other translations render "untempered mortar" as "whitewash."

P.S. H&M is also behind a gigantic photo of a reclining and nearly nude woman above the Philly Car Share pod at 21st and Chestnut - nothing like filling a public space with an image damaging to men and women alike. They also appear to have a penchant for giant murals (like this giant Madonna in New York) which are actually ads - nothing like mixing advertising with art. I hate this company.

Photos of the Week - 1/27-2/2, 2008

2008-02-04T00:44:00.000-05:00

A colleague of mine on the blog last semester referred to my style as "taking pictures of things that annoy you." Given gems like this I could see his point.

In any case, I carry my trusty digital camera most places I go, and I take pictures of things which catch my fancy. Here're a few pictures I took last week:

Banana Blues

First, I discovered at Trader Joe's what it means for a banana to be organic: they don't put in any yellow.

I think there's something wrong with an ethic of organic food which still allows for picking completely unripe fruit out of season and shipping it long distance to mock residents of northern climes.

The stuff grown with petrochemical fertilizers wasn't really any yellower, but that's at least what you would expect from industrial produce.

Burger Bonanza

Don't forget the milk. Oh, yeah. Mmm mm. Delicious.

A conversation with my housemate Carlos about his love of fast food led me to indulge in my semi-annual Whopper.

I give the whole experience three and a half out of five stars. First, there's the drive-through. I probably derived most of the enjoyment from nostalgia, but to smell the indistinct Burger King aroma while waiting in the car was delightful. The price was cheap and the service was fast.

The actual Whopper was filled with indistinct Burger King flavor, which for the most part was a good thing. The experience was over quickly, but not altogether unsatisfying. Lots of pickles.

Mostly it was just great to give the middle finger to forces which tell me fast food is a horrible thing and enjoy it for half an hour. I suspect this is what is behind much of Burger King's recent success. They've come out with new sandwiches which take calorie density to unreached heights, and Americans have responded enthusiastically.

Have you seen the recent commercials where they tell Burger King customers they can't have a Whopper? It's an astounding feat that you can make beloved intellectual property out of a cheeseburger. There are essentially the same ingredients in a Whopper as in any other burger, yet I know one when I taste one. I guess it's the indistinct Burger King flavor.

Thinking about it, that happens all across the American foodscape. Chips Ahoy tastes different from Chips Deluxe. Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup tastes different from Progresso. Somehow value is added by affixing a brand to the commodity in question: you know what you're getting. The soup may not be any good, but at least you know that this can tastes the same as that can. Familiarity breeds comfort.

Bummer Buster

Thanks, Mark. Thanks a lot.

My (Catholic) stepdad heard that I had been turned down by a (wonderful) girl recently, so he put this ad for the priesthood in my bedroom mirror at home.

What a guy, huh? Sometimes a gentle ribbing is much better than straight sympathy. It's great to have an older man who can tell me not to take myself so seriously.

Note that this ad's strategy is to reassure you that life as a priest is preferable to suicide. "Hey, is your life not worth living? You sound like just the kind of man we're looking for!" If I were them, I would set the bar higher.

Happy Food

2008-01-26T14:10:00.000-05:00

I bet your lunch doesn't look like a smiley face with a snorkel mask.

Mine does.

E-mail to Bill Grassel, 1/1/2008

2008-01-23T00:07:00.000-05:00

Bill.

Subject: White Noise

Hey Bill,

I just finished White Noise. Great book! You can recommend reading or movies to me anytime.

As my latest attempt to integrate reading into life as a student, the book was somewhat of a failure. I got through most of the first part laboriously, a couple of chapters at a time, in the weeks after you gave it to me. I read "The Airborne Toxic Event" over Thanksgiving and "Dylarama" in the last two days, fitting with my previous pattern of binge reading over vacations.

Looking back, I'm not sure which part of the book I liked the most. It was more the consistent voice and themes across the three parts that I loved. I was somewhat detached from all of the discussion of death in the final part, since thanks to Jesus I need not fear death (though I think I fear dying...it's easier not to fear death when it does not appear to be imminent).

I read the final 100 pages today, so that's what's freshest on my mind, but there were a couple of things in it that really stuck out to me. The protagonist's long walk with Murray and their dialogue about death, and how it is wholly unnatural and wholly bad and not apparently necessary, was a blast to read. I also loved the faithless nuns, who just say "Do you think we are stupid?" to questions of belief, and the dialogue about how nonbelievers need believers. "They are sure that they are right not to believe but they know belief must not fade completely." It's so true.

Ah, the notion that postmodern life obliterates any question of God or the supernatural. Do you think it's a recent thing? I think on one hand there have always been atrocities and great suffering that challenge an all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful God. On the other hand, I think the current flavor of materialism or naturalism or whatever you want to call it is relatively new. The wholesale and universal acceptance of Darwinism as the explanation for our existence and the larger illusion (and illusion it is!) that science disproves anything that is unseen and not governed by the four fundamental forces of physics is prevalent and quite poisonous to belief.

But you know and I know that everyone knows God to some degree, and people reject Him fundamentally not because they have insufficient evidence but because they want to be their own bosses. However, I think the climate of the times gives people the excuse they are looking for not to pursue such questions seriously, as if they have been decided once and for all by great men of the twentieth century.

I went on a bike ride in the midst of my reading. I was struck as I noticed the way my mind would try to describe the things around me the way Don DeLillo would. Do you notice as you read for a long time that your thoughts afterwards are crafted to resemble the narrative style of the author?

What's really interesting about this pantomime to me is I noticed things that I would have never noticed otherwise, like the really faint flutter of a flock of birds overhead. Perception of everything is altered, as you interpret raw sensory data first through the lens of the author and second from your own in a reactionary way, weighing and testing what the author has to say about reality.

So when you read a book, the author is really handing you the set of goggles with which he or she views the world. If you're like me this effect wears off after a while, but like the stretching of dough it doesn't return to exactly the state in which it began. It's changed slightly but perceptibly, and over the course of many stretches the form is drastically changed.

So one ought to be careful about what one reads, because one's mind becomes like that of the authors whose works one beholds. This is how you become a Marxist, by holding up Marx's goggles to your eyes and saying, "This makes sense!"

Think then about reading the Bible. The authors in question are, on one level, great men who intimately knew God, and on another level, God Himself. By reading the Bible we put on the goggles of not just the author, but the Author, and our mind becomes like His as we learn to see His creation as He does. What a privilege, and what a desirable discipline!

I am a Christian, not principally because I seek to escape the terror of my death, but because I hold up Christ's goggles to my face, and everything makes sense. As C. S. Lewis said, "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

Happy New Year.

Love,
Nick

[Note: I've been thinking of making this e-mail into an essay for this page since writing it, but I found that it already articulated most of what I wanted to say. I have only barely edited the writing for this publication.]

Macroevolution of Knits?

2008-01-16T13:28:00.000-05:00

In my drawer, I have accumulated 11 distinct types of sock, including one dress and one women's. Seven have no mate, and I can account for at most four of the different types.

I only ever buy one kind of sock.

We all know that the amount of socks you put into the wash never equals the amount you get out, though it's usually an odd number. Now, apparently, left to their own devices, they evolve.

I am convinced that socks obey different laws of physics than the rest of the universe. There is weird, weird stuff going on here.

Response: Corporate Cosmopolitans and the End of Place

2008-01-15T02:33:00.001-05:00

Matthew has a well-developed sense of place.

My good friend Matthew recently wrote an excellent essay in response to Manuel Castells's "The Social Theory of Space and the Theory of the Space of Flows," which I have not read.

A major point that Matthew highlighted was the creation by elite corporate society of a globally homogenous living space. Meaning, people with elite (consulting, managerial, etc.) jobs which jet them across the country and the world can find the same living arrangements and lifestyle wherever they go: the same diet, the same hotel furnishings, and the same separation from any locals who aren't serving them.

In this way, these people are freed from the demands that crossing between places of different cultures and histories would place on them, since everywhere that they go is part of what Matthew calls "one global, virtual city of the elite, with outposts all over the physical world" and what Castells calls the "space of flows."

This transcendence of culture and place is precisely what makes such people elite. Instead of traveling to different "places," each with its own unique nature, corporate elites merely inhabit extensions of the same "space." In this view, the value of different locations rests only in the sum of their consumable attributes; New York and Los Angeles become the only cities of worth in the United States. "Whatever they got here they got there, right?" Matthew says of anywhere else.

I notice such an outlook as a student here at Penn.

I was annoyed last semester when the Undergraduate Assembly announced that they would be bringing The New York Times to campus for free this semester. Why not The Philadelphia Inquirer? I realize the Times is larger and regarded as the nation's paper of record, but inescapable is a sense of widespread indifference about the city we live in.

It makes sense in light of the space of flows. Students at the visible top of the ladder at Penn are corporate elites in training, and New York is the nearest gateway into the space of flows. Penn's location in Philadelphia is irrelevant, since the University is just a clearinghouse for the big firms. So students spend four years without leaving the campus and don't look back after graduation.

Penn gives plenty of lip service to being part of the surrounding West Philadelphia community, but its claims are ridiculous in light of the indifference its primary constituency holds toward its surroundings. The University is in the business of attracting the most gifted graduate and undergraduate students, and it doesn't do that by caring about West Philly. The students that come are in turn just passing through, on their way to jobs that also couldn't care less about the city. So they don't care either.

It bothers me for several reasons. For one, as a native to the Philadelphia area, I know that there is a ton that people are missing by ignoring it. There's much of value to learn and experience here, and to see students close their eyes to it is frustrating.

For two, whether or not individual students and the University at large put anything into the city, they are certainly reaping its benefits. Instead of being part of the community, they are - you guessed it, Jon - merely consumers.

This outlook is reinforced by the same philosophy governing the space of flows: West Philly is the space that students inhabit during their time here, not a place. Its own narrative is something separate, parallel to their own lives, not something of which to collaborate in writing the newest chapters.

And the upshot is not that the West Philly community loses and the University community wins; rather, everyone loses, for to be divorced from place is a great cost to the student. Likewise, were the student body to view itself truly as a part whose welfare is bound to its whole, even if temporarily, everyone would benefit.

Penn's community indifference is a popular topic to complain about, but I thought interpreting it in the framework presented by Castells was insightful in understanding it and in linking it to the greater values that drive people through Penn.

Understanding is well and good, but what can be done about the problem aside from complaining? Well, let's think about it.

Sunsets, not Sushi

2008-01-12T19:00:00.000-05:00

View from a farmer's field along my route.

My mom and I were joking the other day about how I'm deadline motivated. She remarked that it's not just that deadlines motivate me to accomplish things; it's that deadlines are the only things which motivate me.

I couldn't really argue with her.

Over the break I've been riding my bike, to fight atrophy and because it's fun. It may not help that I haven't been rising much before noon, but it always seems to be 4:30 before I realize that I would like to go on a bike ride today and I don't have much time before the sun sets. Deadline motivation at its most pervasive.

The upside of such a temperament is, I realized today, I get to see the sunset every time I ride.

Let me tell you, sunsets are not the kind of thing that gets old. In fact, I've found there's an extra layer of wonder to be had in going out and seeing it every day. To see the sun set is one thing. But to see it go down day after day, blazing glory after blazing glory, over any length of time is quite another.

It's astounding that it's always there. It's been rising and setting every day, reaching incomprehensibly long before I was born, and it will keep rising and setting, Lord tarrying, long after I die. And tomorrow evening, whether I'm looking or not, it will be there.

Yeah, yeah, it's cloudy sometimes. Whatever.

I consider it an immense gift that I live only a short bike ride away from a clear view of the horizon. It is one of the great tragedies of living in the city that the views of the heavens are obscured beyond daily remembrance, one reason I think it would be very hard for me to settle there permanently. Sunset in the city? The best that you can usually do is perceive that it's happening out there, somewhere.

It is the same with God. He has been his glorious self since before the foundation of the world, and he'll keep being his glorious self long after these heavens and this earth have passed away. And he's there every day, free for us to behold, whether we're looking or not. And usually, we retreat into enclaves of our own making, content to allow our own structures and our own lights to block him out of our view, freeing us from the need to acknowledge his majesty.

I could go on, but I think it sufficient to say that

The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.

Day unto day utters speech,
And night unto night reveals knowledge.
...
In them He has set a tabernacle for the sun,
Which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
And rejoices like a strong man to run its race.

Its rising is from one end of the heaven,
And its circuit to the other end;
And there is nothing hidden from its heat.
Psalm 19:1-2,4b-6

Priestly Wit

2008-01-12T18:30:00.000-05:00

Anecdote related by my mom, after mass tonight:

My new stepdad, Mark: Do you know of such-and-such priest? He was...(launches into description of who the man is and what he stands for).
Priest: Are you asking me a question or lecturing me? (to my mom) Boy, I see what you must have to deal with at home.
-laughs all the way around-
Priest: Say, have you heard of Bob Adams?
Mark: Oh, he was the priest over at such-and-such place. He died a few years ago, and...
Priest: Are you kidding? I'm going to see him tomorrow! I'll tell him you said he was dead!

Allow for both my mom's dramatic license in telling this to me and mine in retelling it.

Poor Mark.

Personal Media Player Purchase - Philosophical Analysis

2008-01-11T03:19:00.000-05:00

A couple of other concerns nagged at me about whether or not to buy an mp3 player.

It’s the earbuds.

iPod is actually a great name, because the device enables each person to disconnect him or herself from the rest of the world. Because of the portability and the sheer amount of songs you can fit on one of those things, it’s common for people to listen at any time in which conversation is not required.

Instead of listening to the sounds offered by his or her environment, an mp3 player gives its owner the option of piping in more agreeable or more stimulating or less confrontational media. Surroundings become muted. Anything that wants to get attention must fight through the chosen tunes.

So mp3 players encourage the impulse, part of human nature, to withdraw from the rest of the world into a universe in which we are the center. I’ve been part of at least one conversation in which I was competing with an iPod for attention, and it isn’t a good feeling.

To summarize, iPod --> solipsism --> uncomfortable Nick.

I went on a bike ride today, from my house out to a nearby track for a one mile run,* and I took my Sansa View. I was delighted to be accompanied by enjoyable music – it really is magical to have clear and beautiful music delivered by tiny buds which you hardly feel.

By my third lap around the track, the novelty had worn off. Rides are when the silence and the slowly changing landscape help me listen to God, away from the warring stimuli that usually block him out. I realized the last thing I wanted to do was take the stimuli with me during one of the few times I’m actively seeking to hear his voice.

All of that said, weighing all of these concerns I still decided to buy the View, and I really do like the nifty little thing. The experience of brushing my teeth was much improved by listening to The Grateful Dead, and earbuds beat laptop speakers by leaps and bounds.

In general, it’s great to be able to fill boring or half-occupied times with good listening. I just think there’s plenty about these innocuous seeming things to be cautious about.

*Run. Lumbering, panting jog. Same thing.

P.S. Another minor concern was the continuing trend toward more convenient but lower quality music. i.e. live performance --> vinyl --> compact disc --> mp3. But it's hard to argue with a format which allows such a variety of music with such portability. And you have to really listen for the difference at a reasonable bitrate.

Personal Media Player Purchase - Brand Analysis

2008-01-11T02:08:00.000-05:00

My market analysis ignores the factor that brand has on the decision, which is actually quite significant. Given Apple’s domination of the market and the iPod’s status as a major cultural icon of this decade, the choice to buy an iPod or another brand makes a statement about who you are.

When I’m not compromising my principles, I strongly resist joining the crowd. Exceptions to this rule have not fared well for me, as the parachute pants I purchased in 9th grade powerfully attest. Something about the iPod’s universal popularity and sleekness and pervasiveness has always made me a little uncomfortable, which is why I came into this investigation predisposed against the iPod.

That said, it is hard to deny the allure of the mainstream. There’s something about choosing things like the iPod or the New York Yankees or Satan that is very reassuring. It’s declaring citizenship with the majority. You’re given a bond with everyone who has made the same choice, which is at least a plurality, even if the bond is a bit superficial. Throwing your lot with the majority means the voices of those who approve of you are bound to be more numerous than the voices of those who disapprove.

And those dancing silhouette rock stars with the white earbuds look really cool in the commercials.

That allure tempted me early in my search to spring for the $250 shiny 80 GB iPod or Zune. It was more than I wanted to spend and probably more than I needed, but that was kind of the point. This once I could comfortably give into my materialistic, image-centered instincts and indulge.

There’s part of me that cares about what others think of me much more than it ought to, and there’s another part of me that looks at the act of considering a price tag as low and a slight against who I am.

You can see the small can of worms that the simple process of shopping for a small electronic gadget opened up for me. In general I think I do better staying out of these things...

By the way, I didn’t (quite) intend to equate buying an iPod with following Satan. I’m sure many make the decision to purchase one without the debate that I went through, and as I mentioned in one class of products the iPod may actually be objectively the best choice. The juxtaposition was (mostly) made in jest.

Personal Media Player Purchase - Market Analysis

2008-01-11T01:55:00.000-05:00

I got my new personal media player today – the 8 GB Sansa View.

This was the result of much deliberation and consternation. I spent many hours shopping online, comparing different mp3 players.

I began with the assumption that there were cheaper and better players than the iPod readily available. It turned out the story was not quite that simple. If you’re looking for a player with a hard drive with capacity on the order of 30 or 80 GB, options are somewhat limited. Aside from the iPod and the Zune (Microsoft’s version), there aren’t a whole lot of players out there. The alternatives that do exist cost about the same.

With flash memory-based players, with hard drives on the order of 4 or 8 GB, options are a little wider. Making a splash is the SanDisk Sansa brand. These are pretty straightforward players that boast a few extra features over the iPod, like FM radio and the ability to record.

The second biggest advantage the player I bought is that it operates on an open system. That means that the manufacturer doesn’t attempt to shackle you to its own media player and music store, like Apple and Microsoft do. You’re free to dump whatever music you want onto the player, provided it doesn’t have digital rights management. You don’t have to use iTunes (side rant: the Apple iEverything product names strike me as pretentious and annoying, if highly successful) or Windows Media Player or anything else.

The biggest advantage to the View I bought is its price. The MSRP for this player is a good $50 less than the equivalent iPod nano, and its features are equivalent or better in nearly every category.

So in the realm of flash players, there are undoubtedly cheaper and better alternatives to the iPod.

However, as I mentioned that is not necessarily the case when it comes to hard drive players. The iPod may very well be the best choice in this arena, and if it’s not the Zune probably is. If you’re okay with the closed system these giants provide, here mainstream looks to be the way to go.

The Name

2008-01-11T01:39:00.000-05:00

Obadiah was taken. I thought adding an "h" made it look like a term of endearment.

As for why Obadiah to begin with, you kind of had to be there. I introduced myself to a roomfull of people as "Obadiah" because I thought it would be funny. These people have since become many of my closest friends.