Tsk

I've been leaving our buddy over there at Christian Conservative alone for the same reason I've been staying away from Dennis Prager over at Townhall -- you don't put a stumbling block in front of a blind man, you don't mock morons, you don't shoot fish in barrels, there just isn't any sport in it, folks.

But heavens. I can't resist this one.

Michael's found some academic somewhere who says he doesn't support the troops.

Michael is all triumphant, parading around saying ho-ho, I told you so, academics really ARE traitors! Only Good Christian Conservatives Love Their Country!

He finishes with the fine sentence:

This is how these academic yahoo's think.

http://christianconservative.blogspot.com/2006/01/i-dont-support-our-troops.html

Which if he hadn't I think I could have just shrugged and moved on, because you know, I've seen that stupid dance before.

I know these Christian Conservatives don't know anything about actual universities -- mainly because they haven't been to one since they were nineteen and weren't actually paying attention then -- so their ideas about universities, well, they're like all their other ideas, aren't they? Based on nothing but faith -- which is to say, based on nothing.

But that last sentence. Hee.

It's so cute.

Yahoo's.

And then in the comments, one of his commentors brings up the dearly held belief that those on the "Left" are "persecuting" those on the "Right," by refusing to let them teaching in the universities.

Yep. We're keeping all these high-paying teaching posts, all these positions of huge influence, for ourselves, forcing Christian Conservatives to work in the real world. Heartless of us, isn't it?

Le and Michael and all the rest, they could come teach in the universities. They'd just, oh, need to be able to do a few little things first. Like be able to spell. And reason. And think critically. And pass a few exams. And write a dissertation. It only takes seven or eight years. I'm sure they'd be up to it. So why don't they do it?

Then they could come teach in the universities too. And influence the lives of dozens of students at a time. For forty thousand dollars a year.

So what are they waiting for, that conservative crowd? Come on in. The water's fine.

(And by the way, Mike? My students are those troops. So fuck you.)

Back to the Future

Here's where we're heading, folks:

I remember getting introduced to something called septic abortion. It is a condition that is caused by the breakdown of bacteria in an infected site. I remember a woman losing the tips of her fingers because of the endotoxic shock causing the blood vessels to shrink down. It was just terrible.

They were denied the medical help to save their life unless they confessed. Detectives came in and were questioning. Whenever we got a hint that it might be illegal, or the causation was some sort of illegal operation, we had to report it.

I'd say, "You're going to die if you don't tell us. You're going to die and it's going to be terrible." That's a horrible thing for a doctor to have to scare the hell out of his patient in order to save her life. It's terrible, but that's what we did. That's what we had to do.:::

The image that I retain was that of a 31-year-old Mexican-American woman who died of endotoxic shock with her husband and four or five children around. I see the bed. I see the kids crying and I see the husband crying. It's a strange condition, this endotoxic shock. Your ability to reason and talk is fine. You just don't have any blood pressure and have a blue coloration. We know they're going to die and yet they haven't lost it. The last thing that goes is the brain. The kidney is shut down. The heart's going a little irregular and there's nothing we can do, because the bacteria and clots have gone throughout the body into all the blood vessels of all the vital organs, and yet they're talking to us. It's a sense of helplessness.

And Dr. William Harrison of Fayetteville, Arkansas, has ignited a recent firestorm of condemnation among the religious right. But he has a long memory, too.

http://ourword.org/node/843#comment-3369?PHPSESSID=9d52cf303c1402abca5400b37a7d2a9a

Well, Best...

Driving to Aikido yesterday evening, the kid says to me, "Is Arkansas the best state?"

"Um," I said. "Well. No. Actually not."

"It's not?"

"No."

"Is it one of the best?"

"Um. It's among the worst, actually," I admitted.

She burst into tears.

"Hey," I said. "Hey, hey, hey, now."

"I can't believe you said that!" she wailed. "It is not the worst! It has a WENDY'S!"

Writing

I've created, out of my spring schedule, a small (four-hour) Thursday morning space in which I can write, while the kid is at school, and before I have to be up here at the U to teach.

Can I just say -- it's nice.

Reading the Texts

Though I always sort of like it when people move to ban books, since that means they are at least taking literature seriously*, I agree with DED Space 110% here:

Blaes thinks the fate of Lolita in Marion County should be decided by the community, however, because "...that's the American way of dealing with controversial books."

No, Terry. The supposed American way--the way set forth in our Constitution--is to let individuals read what they want.

http://dedspace.blogspot.com/2006/01/woman-in-florida-doesnt-want-people.html




*Yes, this is sarcasm. I don't actually think such folk are taking literature seriously. Wouldn't it be lovely if they did?

All right now

I needs to get me one of these...

http://www.popgadget.net/2006/01/pez_dispenser_f.php

Back in the saddle

I am back at work despite still being whacked from this flu or whatever it is. mr. delagar said I was insane and threatened to hide my car keys again. He's always threatening to hide my car keys. He knows he better never though. (Picture the raging feminist WITH flu and migraine...)

Yes, I have a migraine, on top of the flu, or whatever it is. Some disease that makes every single bone in my body ache --not the whole bone, just the ends of the bones -- and made my throat swell nearly shut, and gave me a raging fever with very pretty fever dreams, I must say, and made me unable to eat for the past three days. I did eat soup on Sunday, but it didn't stay down. And last night I had an egg cream. mr. delagar made it for me. He was lying in bed watching me mutter about how hungry and how sick I was, naming things I might eat -- "Buttered toast?" "Popcorn?" "Tomato soup?" "We have that real Coke, I could put it on ice for you?" -- at each of which I gagging and grimaced and made appalled noises, but when he got to egg cream, ah, egg cream, food of the gods, and we actually had the fixings, real Fox's U-Bet syrup and some seltzer and milk from Marshall's dairy....

Anyway, I had an egg cream last night and all went well.

So I guess I'm getting better.

Except for the migraine, which hit yesterday afternoon. I see from this blog that it's been about ten days since my last migraine started -- that one lasted five days -- so if they hit every ten days and last five days each, well, as you can see, that makes MY LIFE A LIVING HELL.

Just to speak plainly.

I need to get a new neurologist.

Obviously.

Seeing Brokeback

I have a fever of 102, so this will be brief --

We drove up the mountain yesterday, in the rain and cold, fifty miles to see Brokeback Mountain. I had a fever of over 100 even then, but I didn't tell mr. delagar because I reckoned he would use it as an excuse to stay home -- the rain is usually enough for him to refuse to drive anywhere.

Anyway, everyone knows this already, since I'm likely the last person on the planet to see it, but what a fine movie. Heath Ledger is just brilliant. And the mountains. And the rocks. What great rocks in this movie. (All right, leave me alone, the landscape is a character in this movie, it's not just that I'm obsessed with geology.) And a stellar supporting cast. Great script, too.

Such a bleak ending. But what other ending was there?

The theater was packed, btw, even at 1.25 on a Sunday afternoon.

And I see why audiences are laughing at the scene when the wife sees the two cowboys kissing -- it's not hee hee laughter, it's oh-my-god laughter.

Sweet Dreams

The kid woke up with a blissful smile on her face this morning.

"Oh, I had such a good dream," she told me.

"Did you?" I said.

"It was about a very helpful monkey. He went around helping everyone!"

"That does sound like a good dream."

"For instance," she said, "he went to the White House, and lured George Bush out of the White House with a banana, and lured him all the way to Texas, and left him there forever! And EVERYONE was happy!"

Maybe I've been talking politics too often at home.

I do like that banana bit though. You so know George would fall for that.

Brokeback Mnt

I just heard from Zelda (http://darcy12.blogspot.com/ ) that Brokeback Mountain is coming to Fayetteville -- just up the hill from the Fort -- this weekend.

So all right then!

Mythology

The kid and I are studying Greek Mythology together, as I prep for the Mythology in Literature class I'm teaching, TR afternoons this semester.

(You should see this 2 volume Manga book on Greek myths she got for Hanukkah this year -- it's manga everything these days, I suppose, but nevertheless it cracks me up, especially the footnotes: for example, right after Gaia and Ouranos "get married," which is how the text puts it, the manga version has a footnote: "You're probably wondering how a mother can marry her son! Well! Lots of strange things happen in mythology!" <-- That's the entire footnote, I swear.)

Anyway, studying an academic subject with your seven year old is an experience not to be missed. She asks me endless questions, some of which are just annoying, but some of which are actually fruitful -- for instance, what *is* up with those ashtree nymphs?

You remember. This is after Kronos castrates his father (The Manga version tastefully cuts away and doesn't show precisely what Kronos is doing to Ouranos, just that he's wounding him somehow) and throws his whanger into the sea?

And as he's flinging the whanger into the sea, some drops of blood fall onto "the dark earth"?

And from that union of dark earth and blood spring first the Furies, and second, the Giants, and finally the Ashtree Nymphs.

Okay, the Furies make sense. They're Vengeance demons. You can see why the blood of a castrated father would cause them to be born.

And the Giants, well, they're monsters. They cause a lot of trouble during the War with the Titans, later on. Still making some sense.

But the Ashtree Nymphs? They're sort of...sweet. What is up with that?

(And the last thing to be born, after Ouranos's whanger falls into the sea, by the way? It floats around, and foam foams up around it? And from this foam? Arises Aphrodite. Lovely Aphrodite. Goddess of Love. Meditate on that one a bit.

But even that sort of makes sense. Love is dangerous, as Billy Bragg says. And Aphrodite did start the Trojan War, as the kid pointed out to me. So.)

So why the Ashtree Nymphs?

I hunted around and found this article

http://www.musaios.com/ash.htm

which helped a bit -- basically what it's saying is that the ashtree puts out a substance like honey or like manna, a sweet sap, which, when it ferments, will get you high.

Peyote, if you will.

Blood of the gods.

Or the god, in this case.

Since we're all born of Aphrodite, in one sense, born of her blood, which is in another sense Ouranos's blood; and since the ashtree puts out Ouranos's blood, exudes that blood, if we drink that blood, according to this myth, we're connected back to the god.

Anyway, the ashtree nymphs are another way to connect to the gods -- I think. They leak the blood of the wounded god, and if we drink that blood, we become part of the god, for awhile.

Not that I'm advising anyone to do such a thing! Heavens no! This is all academic here!

Paying Students to Spy

This is from today's Chronicle of Higher Ed -- a birk named Andrew Jones, taking his cue from our pal Horowitz, is paying students to report radical professors.

An independent alumni group formed to attack "radicalism" at the University of California at Los Angeles has offered $100 prizes to any student who turns over extensive documentation of cases in which professors show political bias in the classroom.

On its Web site, the Bruin Alumni Association says it will also offer the use of recording equipment, and students who simply pass on a tip about "a problem professor" will be rewarded with $10. To earn $100, a student would have to turn over "full, detailed lecture notes, all professor-distributed materials, and full tape recordings of every class session, for one class," and would have to obtain the professor's permission to make the recordings. A companion Web site, UCLA Profs.com, says it is dedicated to "exposing UCLA's most radical professors" and lists professors who "are actively proselytizing their extreme views in the classroom."

http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/01/2006011904n.htm

Not surprisingly, the article goes on to say, most professers listed are left of center.

What a charming country these folks must want to live in.

(Hat tip to the Professor Down the Hall.)

Whoa

This site is whack.

http://www.popgadget.net/

I am a low-tech bint, mind you. I just got an i-pod six months ago, I was the last person on the planet, I believe, to start writing on a computer, and to this day I still get up from the sofa to adjust the volume on the television (that little remote control boh-hickey makes me itch), but even so, surely the posts on this site have moved beyond hi-tech and into the realm of surreal?

I mean, i-pod jeans?

We are jesting, yes?

(Via Geeky Mom, source of all things cool: http://geekymom.blogspot.com/)

The 100% Solution

What Diana says here:

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2006/01/clueless_in_afr.html

My (usually male) students who argue that we don't need to teach birth control methods or protections against STDs in high schools because abstinence is all anyone needs to know about -- and they know that this is true because they do just fine without sex, don't they? -- just miss the point.

They aren't the universe. They aren't the world. Their situation isn't everyone's situation.

Barbara Bush is missing it too, of course. Maybe she can just say no. Maybe her marriage and her life allows her that right, that luxury. Not everyone lives on her planet, though.

Well

If it offends the Fundies, I'm happy.

"In its never-ending quest to sexualize everything in our culture, Planned Parenthood is selling a line of condom key chains that offends just about everyone in the country," said Jim Sedlak, executive director of American Life League's STOPP International. "Some are even blasphemous."

The condom key chains, featuring 28 different designs, are offered for sale on Planned Parenthood of Connecticut's Web site. Each chain has a picture or slogan on a plastic holder containing a latex condom.

"Planned Parenthood offends religious people with its key chain that shows a portion of the famous painting from the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo gave us a beautiful image of Adam stretching out his hand to God, with God's index finger about to touch Adam's index finger," said Sedlak. "In Planned Parenthood's blasphemous version, God is handing Adam a condom."

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=59197

Did I ever tell y'all about the student in my Comp II class?

I had that take-off of the Flying Spaghetti Monster picture on my door for awhile -- the one where He's touching Michelangelo's Adam with His Noodly Appendage? A nice enlarged full-color print-out, it was very pretty.

Anyway, one day I hear one of my students say to another student: "You orta go by and see her door sometime, she's got this dude on it with his whanger hanging out. All sorts of stuff!"

Yes, indeed. Arkansas.