Harbour in the Scramble: Opinion

Medical College of Georgia Class Notes

2005-08-22T14:44:00.000-04:00

Okay, another new page (well, sub-site, really). Since I am a Ph.D. student at the Medical College of Georgia, I figured I could kill two birds with one stone and publish my notes from class lectures on my site. I figure that, besides attracting Google hits, putting all my personal class notes online as they happen should be a good study mechanism. I can't guarantee I'll put everything up, but I'd sure like to.

This semester, I'm taking Responsible Conduct of Research (SGS 8011), Scientific Communication (SGS 8012), Biochemistry (SGS 8021) Molecular Cell Biology (SGS 8022), Introduction to Faculty Research (SGS 8040), and Introduction to Research I (SGS 8050). Not all of them have notes (or a good deal of notes, anyway), but whatever I write down, I'll try to put up. I imagine it'll be a help for other students, both graduate and undergraduate, as well as people just trying to find out miscellaneous bits of information (which may be contained in the notes, if you're lucky *grin*).

Medical College of Georgia Biomedical Sciences Class Notes

'Twas Brillig: a Jabberwocky Site

2005-08-01T21:18:00.000-04:00

“The Jabberwocky” is perhaps the most well-known, well-loved, studied, and revered piece of nonsense literature in the English language (well, ostensibly English, anyway), and perhaps in any language. While it occupies a relatively minor position in Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (commonly referred to as Alice Through the Looking Glass), its renown has spread far beyond that single opening chapter (well, and Humpty Dumpty's later expoundification thereof.

Its popularity has resulted in its translation into a number of languages, including French, German, and yes, even Latin.

Since The Jabberwocky has always been one of my favourite poems, I've recently inaugurated a shrine to the work by Lewis Carroll (aka. Rev. Charles Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) in my Alice in Wonderland pages. I'm collecting various translations of the work, along with some of the more clever and less stilted parodies. Hopefully it will grow to be a decent-sized site (though I'm sure not rivaling the Ultimate Jabberwocky Site to which I link in the shrine), and it will at least be a repository for my own thoughts and writings on subjects Jabberwockian.

So, do me a favour and visit 'Twas Brillig, which I think is as apt a name as any for the enshrinement of the ancient scrap of Anglo-Saxon poetry, eh? (For more info on the "Anglo-Saxon" bit, visit the site and look at the Anglo-Saxon translation.)

Danny Doyle, Where the Blarney Roses Grow, and C.

2005-07-20T04:47:00.000-04:00

I've just put up a new bit of content over at the Sehr Gut Web Codex:Celtic.

Spirit of the Gael (Danny Doyle)

A didgeridoo. In Irish music. Did Celts even have didgeridoos? Well, no matter, because in some surreal way, it actually works. In 2002, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store released this fabulous recording by the distinctive vocalist Danny Doyle as part of their Heritage Music collection.

With a diversity of styles from the high mournful tone of "The Fields of Athenry" to the low melancholy of "Kilkelly", from the bawdy good humour of "When the Boys Come Rolling Home" and "Danny Dougan's Jubilee" to the heady adolecent excitement of "Where the Blarney Roses Grow", there's a song to cover every inch of ground that can be covered on Celtic instruments — plus a didgeridoo.

Celtic Music

2005-07-13T04:02:00.000-04:00

New page here! I just put together the beginnings of a Celitc site (including a bit about my favourite song of all time.

I’ve always loved Celtic music, especially that of the Irish persuasion. Now, I am only 1/16th Ulster Scot (Scots-Irish, Scotch-Irish), but I figure that gives me enough Celtic blood to have some right to the music, eh? After all, I’ve been told that Celtic blood takes precedence over any other comers . . .

While I adore the music, I have a great love for all things Irish (odd, since I have more an excuse for Scottish), and hope to transmit a bit of that love of the Celts to you. Enjoy!

Celtic Music at Sehr Gut Web

Sehrgut Anachronism: New Site

2005-07-08T20:11:00.000-04:00

I’ve just launched a new subsection of Sehr Gut Web: Sehrgut Anachronism (housing the Codex Anachronisticus: Sehr Gut). Here I&rsqou;ll be depositing all my anachronistic researches and pursuits.

Currently, the Codex is comprised of some ink-related recipes: namely the preparation of yellow dextrine (“British gum”) from corn starch, testing gum solutions for starch using iodine, and the preparation of a dextrine-bound Prussian Blue writing ink using Mrs. Stewart's Bluing.

In Memoriam America

2005-07-02T00:27:00.000-04:00

In memory of those whose dreams and schemes gave us this land, of those who died for the freedom that was America, of those whose blood watered the Tree of Liberty.

We have not kept your dream. We have abandoned your hopes. We have sold the freedom you died for us to have. We have failed you.

Forgive us.

In memory of that for which which once she stood,
In hope of that for which she yet may stand.

*****

July Fourth, Two Thousand and Five, a mere two hundred and twenty-nine years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, found America in the later stages of giving up freedom for security and finding she had neither.

In Memoriam

Harbour in the Scramble Being Replaced

2005-01-12T14:55:00.000-05:00

Yes, folks, at last the time has come to disembark from this port which so long held my mind and thoughts. Harbour in the Scramble is, as of now, an archival weblog. My new weblog, Passage to Serendipity, has sent out its first update pings. (Passage will be a category-based weblog, so both Harbour and Scraps are being coalesced into one personal weblog. (My new writing weblog is still in the design phase.) The world is now becoming dimly aware of its (Passageâs) existance. Do please check out Passage to Serendipity. I have spent a lot of time laying out the design and tweaking the installation of Blosxom, which is fast becoming my favorite content-management scheme.

So, the URL for Passage to Serendipity is http:// sehrgut.relatedworlds.net/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi. (I know, I know. It's poor form to show the .cgi, and even the cgi-bin directory in a URL. However, my host is not yet able to put in a ScriptAlias (they run Apache) for me. As soon as they do, the link should be /passage on that domain, or some other such.

All Things Feminine

2004-12-29T16:01:00.000-05:00

All Things Feminine

There is that which running along after like a lost puppy is no shame.

I have an untoward gravitation, I think, towards all things feminine. No, not in the way that I am some girl-crazy kid, but merely in that women seem to make up a larger part of my life than they do for most men. You see, I would very much prefer being the only man anywhere in my life. It is much more pleasant, and pleasant nearly to a fault, to have anything — even the smallest task — done by a woman.

All beauty seems to spring from The Feminine — from the delicate inklings of nature: please do not misunderstand this as neo-Pagan goddess-worship — whether the clean design of a beautiful piece of architecture or a splendid poppy blowing in the wind, what makes something worth just sitting and staring at is always its feminine properties. The delicacy of the flower, the perfectly-arranged sweeping columns of some Parthenon in any country: all point to the beauty that is SHE.

The Feminine has always, as far as I can remember, held a strange fascination for me. There is that which running along after like a lost puppy is no shame. Indeed, I would be ashamed to not throw myself to the great Wind of Beauty. “From far, from eve and morning and yon twelve-winded sky, the stuff of life to knit me blew hither: here am I.”¹ To stand firm when such a mistress bids me crumble I find the greatest blasphemy; to fall at her word, the stuff of life. Careless of being crushed by such a force, I would ride high on the gales of Her mischance until swept into the face of Wonder, I live, crippled by sweetness, forever.

Above all, I am a follower of the Feminine. I am a worshipper of Beauty.

From far, from eve and morning
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I.

Now — for a breath I tarry
Nor yet disperse apart —
Take my hand quick and tell me,
What have you in your heart.

Speak now, and I will answer;
How shall I help you, say;
Ere to the wind's twelve quarters
I take my endless way.

— “XXXII”, A Shropshire Lad, A.E. Housman.

Comfort Ye My People

2004-12-29T08:02:00.000-05:00

Comfort Ye My People

Note: Yes, this piece is somewhat religious in nature. However, please do not allow that to scare you away. I think I can promise nearly every reader, of whatever creed, a line or idea or turn of phrase to carry away. I think you will be glad you read it.

“Comfort ye.” A sombre lilt of strings — no reeds, and certainly no horns — overlaid with the smoked glass of flute, opens. (The horn players are busy writing and reading, oblivious to a world which shall not require their attentions for several minutes.)
An overture of predawn and long, desert mountain trails, bears no premonitions of the victorious “Rejoice, O Ye Daughters of Zion!” and “Hallelujah!” to come. Indeed, it seems very fitting to that “story we know”¹: yet one more tale of heartache and a supposedly-inspiring moral victory somewhere near the end. But this story — that story which kept Handel sequestered months in its telling — is far from a mere moral victory (though it may be rightly called a victory of The Moral).

*****

“The real meaning of Christmas” is a phrase lost now on me and most Americans: it has become a trite “ad-word”, sermonzing catch-all, and moral to any holidy tear-jerker. It’s a phrase hijacked by anyone who wants to say that Christmas isn’t just about getting, but it’s about {giving, family, unity, etc.}. Everyone, down to the most irreligious, has heard at least one rendition of the First Christmas meant to inspire a holy fear or love or somehow-restored devotion. The thrill of that is long since gone.

What is not gone is Handel. It is one thing to tell a story of a young engaged woman found pregnant with the son of God. It is quite another to begin, not with the Anunciation (as is the manner of most religious, due to Catholic tradition), but with God’s deep desire to send comfort to His people.

Jesus was sent with the commission to “comfort ye my people”, God’s people being the Jews. With all the persecution they had faced, and were facing, and admittedly though their own folly, they were still God’s people. The same God who in the Old Testament promised Abraham that a blessing to all nations would come from his line² fulfilled that promise in the time of His people’s greatest need.

*****

Yes, sing the “Hallelujah!” chorus. It is fitting. “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain”* to receive our praises. But sing “Comfort Ye My People” as well. Handel well knew the real real meaning of Christmas. To him, it was worth what most people would never give up, for friends, family, or even self: comfort. For him, it was a story worth all in the telling, and giving all in the hearing.

“The Story We Know”

The way to begin is always the same. Hello,
Hello. Your hand, your name. So glad, Just fine,
And Good-bye ant the end. That’s every story we know,

And why pretend? But lunch tomorrow? No?
Yes? An omelette, salad, chilled white wine?
The way to begin is simple, sane, Hello,

And then it’s Sunday, coffee, the Times, a slow
Day by the fire, dinner at eight or nine
And Good-bye. In the end, this is a story we know

So well we don’t turn the page, or look below
the picture, or follow the words to the next line:
The way to begin is always the same Hello.

But one night, through the latticed window, snow
Begins to whiten the air, and the tall white pine.
Good-bye is the end of every story we know

That night, and when we close the curtains, oh,
we hold each other against that cold white sign
Of the way we all begin and end. Hello,
Good-bye is the only story. We know, we know.
— Martha Collins

2. “In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.” — Genesis 22:17–18

How to Raise a Perfect Little Angel

2004-12-26T04:00:00.000-05:00

How to Raise a Perfect Little Angel

or, Training and Trusting

Of course you’ve heard teenagers and even younger children claim, “My parents don’t trust me.” Every child psychologist will tell parents that the important thing is that they trust their children: trustworthiness is sure to follow. I’m sorry, but I’m just not used to paying for something and waiting six to eight weeks for delivery with no assurance of delivery or recourse when delivery is not made. Trustworthiness is something which results from training, and not from previously-doled-out trust.

Enter Joel L. He’s a second-grader in my Sunday School class at the Campus Church, Pensacola, FL. He’s also the most trustworthy and best-behaved child in the class. In fact, when I need someone to deliver something to the Junior Church teacher (Junior Church follows Sunday School, and is in a different classroom), he is the only student whom I have ever so much as considered for the errand. Joel can spout off a semester’s-worth of Bible verses at the drop of a hat (“How about the one before that, Joel? Do you remember that one?”), answer questions about last week’s story like nobody’s business, and sit still to boot! I have an idea. Let’s follow him for a moment to see where his behaviour and trustworthiness originated: from trust, or from training.

Friday, December 17^th, 2004. Sports Center, Pensacola Christian College, Pensacola, FL.
The semester had officially ended at 9:45 that morning. Most of the student body had left, and most of us stragglers were in the Sports Center (gym, weight rooms, bowling, racquetball, ice skating, and miniature golf, along with pool, foosball, and places to just sit and chat or play games) killing time. My friends and I were sitting around watching The Artistry of Ivan¹ on Rachel’s computer and making small talk. Suddenly Joel came (from nowhere, as far as I could figure) and stood over me (I was seated on the carpet). He and I chatted a bit, and he eventually sat down to watch the movie with us.

After not too long, Mrs. L, his mom, came over. I stood up to introduce myself (as the recipient of the cookies she had sent with him to Sunday School the previous Sunday to give to his teachers), and ended up in a conversation. I mentioned rather quickly how much I enjoyed having Joel in my class, and how well he always behaved himself.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that! I worry about him . . . When we do school, the girls always do their work, but he always wants to go outside and play.”

Are you seeing where I am going with this? The kid was homeschooled (which I had found out a couple of weeks earlier — but which in no way surprised me, given his beyond-years maturity). That’s nearly a given these days when you run across the rare decorous, well-behaved child. That aside, however, did you see how even the mother of my best student was not assuming of his behaviour?

A child can sense the difference between assumption and expectation, I think. Assumption states that the child will be trustworthy because I trust him. Expectation states that the child will be trustworthy because I train him; and because I, knowing that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked”², watch for the untrustworthiness when (not “if”) it crops up so I can immediately and lovingly correct it.

And you know, that is love.³ A kid like Joel is going to grow up and go places. A kid like D_____ (unanimously the worst-behaved kid in the class) is going to need some help. But you know, Joel’s folks could blow it. They could start trusting him — who, as sweet and obedient as he is, has a deceitful heart and a sin nature just like you or I. And D_____’s parents could stop trusting him and start training him. That would make all the difference.

1. The Artistry of Ivan is a student-produced documentary of Hurricane Ivan. Daniel Allen, a student at Pensacola Christian College, arranged for footage to be taken throughout the campus during the lockdown for the hurricane itself, as well as interviewing numerous faculty, staff, administration, students, and Pensacola residents after the hurricane had passed. The two-disc set, including a half-hour documentary and a large library of still images and short video clips, may be ordered from Brand X Multimedia by calling 815-212-3564 or 815-886-4144. The cost is $15US +S&H. It is well worth fifteen dollars to see the good coming from Ivan — the good that only God can bring from a catastrophe. As Mr. Allen said, “Ivan’s terror was not random or evil. It was all part of the Painter’s perspective to show forth the glory of God.” The Lord hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. — Nahum 1:3b

2. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” — Jeremiah 17:9

3. “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” — Proverbs 13:24
c.f. Proverbs 22:15 and 23:13

Presidential Prerogative -or- Saturday, Observed

2004-11-02T16:02:00.000-05:00

Presidential Prerogative

The sweetest words any Pensacola Christian College student can hear are “I am exercising my prerogative as President . . .” With those words is ushered in the fabled nirvana — the right Elysian Fields — or a day free of all classes. Deadlines are pushed back and rest reigns supreme.

Most years, Presidential Prerogative falls on a Wednesday: the Wednesday on which Freshman English research papers are due. In fact, all three of my previous years here, such has been the case. Now, in 2004, fall semester, we have Ivan . I have never gotten back on any semblance of a daily schedule since the near shut-down of all of northwest Florida, and neither have most other students.

Dr. Horton cited this as well as the election (did you know that Precinct 110, where PCC resides, is the second-strongest Republican* precinct in all of Florida?) as our reason for getting tomorrow (Tuesday) off. [[One of my friends suggested that perhaps Dr. Mullenix has inculcated his personal policy into Dr. Horton at long last. Dr. Mullenix is one of the faculty/administration who makes it a practice to adjourn all of his classes on election days for those who have not yet gotten to vote and are registered to vote in Escambia County.]] One definitely has no excuse for not voting around here. Whatever party you happen to support, you are all but ordered to act on your beliefs.

Even with all the benefits of Presidential Prerogative, there are still some few who deem it necessary to grip, complain, whine, murmer, et cetera. You see, PCC has what some would consider to be strict discipline — though none would have found it strange in the academic halls of only fifty years ago — so of course a privilege such as the one just granted of necessity carries with it certain regulations.

The first, and most complained-about regulation, is that on Presidential Prerogative days, there is no leaving campus for other than previously-scheduled activities (work, doctors’ appointments, &c.) until three in the afternoon. Logically, of course, it makes perfect sense. There is no sense in granting a catch-up study day if half the student body would spend it at the beach. However, rather than looking at the day as time granted which would not have otherwise been theirs, many students look at it as beach time stolen from them. Hmmmm . . . If they would have been in class^† anyway, and now they have that time to spend, not in class, but anywhere on campus they please, how is beach time that they never have somehow stolen from them? “Don’t give me one hundred dollars. I want two hundred!” is the attitude I sense.

“As for me and my house . . .”^◊ we will sleep in and play the piano until our fingers fall off and write lab reports and read textbooks and in general study our brains out. Our diligent procrastination on Saturday has been rewarded. We have Saturday, observed tomorrow. Eat drink and get married, for the day after tomorrow we die.

* While I am still a registered Republican, I am drifting more and more to the Libertarian shore. ‘Tis a pity, but we don’t even have what I would consider a true Republican party in this country any more. Except for its position on the necessity of war, our current GOP would have passed for Democratic fifty years ago.

Vote Bush: Not as bad as the other guy.

† At PCC, attendance to all class sessions is required except in the case of illness or emergency, in the which cases the requirement will be administratively waived. You may laugh at that, but it’s what keeps our academics so strong here. We regularly get students placed into such institutions as Columbia, Harvard, Mayo, Loma Linda, and other medical schools (my department, so I am most familiar with those), law schools, organizations such as the Secret Service (two PCC grads on the Secret Service right now, I think) — and that’s with us not accepting accredition (not that it hasn’t been offered).Specifically, a friend of mine, Anastasia Spencer, was commended by Columbia Medical School last year, as was PCC, for her being their strongest applicant of the year.

◊

“And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

—Joshua 24:14–16

Crosspost: Harbour and Academic Musings

Eratosthenes

2004-09-29T00:14:00.000-04:00

Eratosthenes

   Eratosthenes had my job. Or anyway, I want his job. The life of a scholar is one not often available in our common times (for I would venture to say that times past were most uncommon). Life, and even learning, must be ever compartmented — and he who would venture to another compartment not alotted to him . . . he might be thought “worse than an infidel”* by this pragmatic world.
   Not too terribly long ago, I would not be looked at askance for being a writer studying to become a professor of Biology and Biochemistry. Eratosthenes was a librarian (and I am firmly convinced that there is no other profession more suited to my tastes — in being closer to work as a scholar of the classical type), but he also was a scientist (say, “natural philosopher”). In fact, he was the first to accurately measure, or calculate, the circumference of the earth; he did it with an accuracy of only several hundred miles different from what we now know to be the correct value.
   As well, some of his other accomplishments would, in such common times as today, be compartmented out of his reach, he being librarian of Alexandria or not!

Known for his versatility, he wrote poetry and works (most of them lost) on literature, the theater (notably on ancient comedy), mathematics, astronomy, geography, and philosophy; he also drew a map of the known world and evolved a system of chronology.
— The Columbia Encyclopedia, Ed. 6, 2001

Oh for the life of a scholar! I believe I could be happy ad infinitum surrounded by books and ink and — oh well, I suppose these days I must put up with computers musn’t I? — forever writing and reading and writing about what I read. But you see what I’m saying, don’t you? Now most people would think it odd that a mathematician would write poetry; and much less philosophy! I suppose there is no rule absolutely against such a mix as I, but there is definitely sentiment — expectation, perhaps — against me. I also suppose I don’t care.
I would not live in any other fashion. Boxes, cells, compartments are not for me.

But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
— I Timothy 5:8

I view askance a book that remains undisturbed for a year. Oughtn’t it to have a ticket of leave? I think I may safely say no book in my library remains unopened a year at a time, except my own works and Tennyson’s.

— Carolyn Wells

Crosspost: Scraps, Harbour in the Scramble, and Academic Musings

Spare the Rod

2004-09-07T15:52:00.000-04:00

Spare the Rod

Going to school at Pensacola Christian College, but living in California, I have a long trek to make at the beginning of each new semester. My grandparents (along with most of my dad’s side of the family) live in northwest Georgia, about a six hour drive from northern Florida.
Hence I usually make the airborne leg of my trek to their house, and then drive (or more accurately, am driven) to Pensacola several days later. These regular and uneventful road trips provide more than plenty in the way of “interesting” observances, as this bumper sticker:

SPARE THE ROD:

Use a belt!

Quite enlightening, don’t you think? It brings to mind that ADD and ADHD are really just forms of DDD/DDD: Discipline Deficit Disorder/Disappearing Dad Disorder.

Crosspost: Academic Musings and Harbour in the Scramble

Green Tea and Red China

2004-09-03T18:36:00.000-04:00

Green Tea and Red China

or The Way of Tea

   Jun loved his tea. About my age, or a little older, or a little younger perhaps, Jun was on his way to William Penn University, a small Quaker institution outside of Des Moines.
   He grew up in Communist China with its grey prospects and simplified characters. True, the western Schezuan area was not as oppressively militarized as more populous areas such as Beijing; still, Chairman Mao’s flabby hand lay heavy on Jun’s life.
   But he loved his country all the same. I guess patriotism is a concept foreign to me — but after experiencing for three years America, how could he rationally love China?
   Green tea.
   Yes, I mentioned my love for tea to him; and for the next quarter of an hour, received a monologue both historical and technical, with some generous helping of fervor and nearly-religious zeal thrown in.
   Five kinds — and all expensive: that’s all he brought with him to the states. And a tea-pot, clay (or “soil”, as his broken translation-dictionary English put it), because you can’t make good tea in a metal pot.
   “The Way of Tea,” he kept saying. “The Way of Tea” dictates you cannot just “make a pot of tea.” Tea is nearly supernatural, to be catered to, appeased, and worshipped through its preparations.
   Funny, isn’t it? All he really wanted was a perfect cup of hot green tea. China was the only place in the world where one could be had. Red China. Communist China. Chairman Mao’s China. So he loved China.
   Though, if we are not prevented from enjoying — and I mean really enjoying, falling-into-a-reverie enjoying — a cup of tea, are we really oppressed? Are we really misused?
   Not for that moment, however short.
   Not for that moment.

Wonder ’tis how little mirth
Keeps the bones of men from lying
On the bed of earth.
— A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad

Crosspost: Scraps and Harbour in the Scramble

Project English Language (on Leet)

2004-08-28T01:46:00.000-04:00

Project English Language

on (LEET, L337, 1337) and its followers

I may be part of an breed unwelcome online, so the following may not be a common opinion. Then again, I hope I only attract an audience of the quality which would share this opinion (and yes, that is a biased statement). I hate weblogs run by dumb thirteen-year-old girls which overuse (read: “use even once”) any of the following “leet”-type words, phrases, and practices.

fren(s) lol ttfn rotfl nvm omg jk imho brb ttyl lmao lmfao atm g2g stfu wtf w/e Â banned words: neenjaaaaar ppl grrl guestbook ne1 neways every1 cya rox rawks womyn da dat lyk u w/ 4 2 n o u y? r yur ur peeps wen gurl boi sry any1 thanx ya wel teh sk8 gr8 [any substitution of the number 8 for the letter sequence A T E] luv dat plz jus 2moro cuz enuff yu yr wut nuthin meen leet sux pwn[3d] skewl tho liek w00t!@# wateva hear/here no/know their/they're/there rite/right to/too/two your/you're waste/waist -ors -0R5 -orz -z ALL CAPS sTiCkY cApS [Capitalizing Every Single Word In A Title Sentence] !!!11!!111!! a/s/l <g> :) <3 31337 L337

   Just so perpetrators of this linguistic murder know, I automatically write off any infested web page, with whatever content contained, however otherwise-useful it may have been, as worthless. Yes, worthless, uneducated junk. Trash. Shmuts and shmattes*. Scraps of thoughtlessness not worth my time. I don’t care how smart and web-savvy you think you are, if you use “leet”, you are either stupid or fast becoming so.
   Which brings me to the irony of the very moniker the system (if you want to glorify babble by calling it a system) proudly bears. Derived from, or more accurately, a corruption of the word “elite”, “leet” marks it users as far from such. It would fit under the phrase “legends in their own eyes”, I think.
   Anything but elite, “leet” users are merely part of a growing, glassy-eyed herd of media thralls who, like James Whitcombe Riley’s “wee little worm”, imagine themselves as the rulers of all the world, because they know nothing outside their inconsequential hickory-nut:

A wee little worm in a hickory-nut
Sang out, as happy as he could be,
“Oh, I live in the heart of the whole, round world,
“And it all belongs to me!”

Which brings me to the banner and link introducing this entry. Opposition to “leet” is important to anyone who values his language, and especially to teachers who I’ve heard tell of students daring to turn in papers written in this garbage. Project English Language maintains a blacklist of “leet” words, phrases, and typographic/grammatical practices which I highly recommend (the list, that is: not the words). Though not exhuastive, it comes close enough to make its point — and mine too!

Oh, and if you use so much as a single word from the above unfortunate lexicon, I will assume, until shown otherwise, that you are a thirteen-year-old know-nothing (or are at least on a similar intellectual level). You probably also had to use a dictionary (do you know how to use a dictionary?) to read this post.

Crosspost: Scraps and Harbour in the Scramble

The Art of Good-bye

2004-08-27T03:41:00.000-04:00

The Art of Good-bye

or The Sixth of May

The astonishing finality of what just happened took my by a languid surprise. I was finished, now. After several definite conquests, executing a gesture (pleasant, at that) of mere friendship was immensely satisfying and filling.

No, ceremonius good-byes are my thing. I was going to say that they weren’t, but that would have been a lie. I suppose I really do adore the carefully-chosen words, the expertly-crafted last impression (which, skillfully-executed, can make a passing acquaintance or even an often-snubbed feel like he not only matters in your conceptions of the universe, but that he holds a special place within it), and the (in the case, usually of a very pretty girl) satisfied emptiness of spirit which accompanies it.
There is something worshipfull in a good-bye — no matter to whom it is spoken — and it cannot be treated lightly even to scorn one most deserving. Indeed, the power of a good-bye is at its best and most reverent when it is also necessarily insincere.

This was written on May 6, 2004. It is actually a combination of two journal entries related in idea.
Crosspost: The Random Quill and Harbour in the Scramble

An “Edumacation” Devoutly to Be Wished

2004-08-24T15:06:00.000-04:00

Now, I can’t say I would recommend the weblog this came from as a general rule, but the irony of someone as liberal as the author making this suggestion just kills me. (I’m not going to provide a link, since many of the other posts are downright foul.)

Mothers let their wild little beasts roam free like giraffes on the Serengeti. They apparently believe that to control them will somehow stunt the growth of their self-esteem. In the radiology waiting room, there was one wild little beast, age approx. three who kept licking his mother's arm and laughing like Hannibal Lechter until she said, “Stop it, go away”, at which point he crawled over to me and started licking MY flip-flopped feet. I had a feeling that I couldn't gently kick him to get him to stop, so I just glared at the mother. She gave me a sheepish look like, “Well, what can you do, haha.” What can you do? Oh I don't know, you could yank your little [brat] up off the ground and edu-ma-cate him a little with the ol’ spankin’ hand. Conclusion: Parents today are . . . wimps that want to be “pals” with their kids instead of parents.

   An “edumacation” devoutly to be wished, in the case of many wild little beasts, no? “Spare the rod and spile the chile,” is some down-home wisdom which could make many parents better wild animal trainers — which our society has thrust aside to its own undoing.
   You know, that brat is going to grow up to be shocked when the world does not cater to him as does his misguided mother. How much better would it be for him to grow up strong and self-controlled than pampered? And as far as a healthy relationship goes, I know that well-disciplined children are much closer to their parents than free-roaming Serengeti wildlings. One British woman who had never much disciplined her children, soon after beginning a systematic, fair, and predictable order of discipline, was told by her now under-control and loving son, “Mummy? You do a very good job being a mummy.” (No Greater Joy, Jul/Aug 2004, pg. 20)
   It’s certainly not for no reason the Bible says, “He that spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” (Proverbs 13:25)

Crosspost: Scraps, Harbour in the Scramble, Academic Musings

Philosophy: What Is an Artist?

2004-08-20T17:32:00.000-04:00

I am
a scribe
and a reader
and a poet
and an artist.
So I write
and I read
and I write
and I live.
2002

I wrote that, as you can see, quite a while ago, but it still holds true. I believe that one does not truly live, or get all of life there is, if one is not an artist in how one lives one's life. In trying to explain to people what I mean by “artist”, and why I feel honest in taking that title to myself, I usually use the following definition and illustration.

An artist is one who sets things as they must be, not as they merely can be.

   When I was taking a creative writing class in college, the instructor looked over our first papers and made some comments so we could change things before we turned them in for a grade. In my paper she pointed out two things, one “minor” and the other “major” which I would do well to change before turning the paper in.
   First was diction. She disliked the word “phosphorescent” as being too cold and technical. Her suggested replacement was “glowing”. Needless to say, since “phosphorescent” had to be there, and “glowing” was merely permissible, I left the word in its proper place.
   Second was point of view. My point of view character was unconscious in the last few sentences of the story, but rather than have him awake a captive, I switched point of view briefly to show him being taken an unwitting captive. Of course, she [the instructor] thought that a fixed point of view was absolutely necessary, so that too was to be axed. I left it as well in its proper position.

I received a C+ on that paper. Later in the semester, after she had often commented about how my writing tended to be gloomy and depressing, though not downright dark, I wrote a story which could be construed as happily-ending. Though pensive, it was not gloomy. For that effort I received an A+. If you were to ask me which story I am most proud of, and which grade I am most proud of, I would tell you that it is the first. I am more proud of the C+ I chose than of the A+.
Many people have told me I should have made the changes for her, and kept the originals for myself. That is not an artistic thing to do. An artist would, on grounds of artistic integrity, never put out something not how it was of a necessity, rather than how it was requested to be. And that, in my definition of the term, is an artist.

Crosspost: Harbour in the Scramble and The Random Quill

"I Only Had an Eighth Grade Education."

2004-08-20T03:35:00.000-04:00

In reference to The Book of Confusion, August 17, 2004.

Jason asks an interesting question. Could you have passed the eighth grade in 1895?

This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina, Kansas, USA. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, KS, and reprinted by the Salina Journal.

You’ll find below some highlights from the exam (an ordeal which required, or granted, up to five hours for its completion.

“Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.”
I’m not so sure that today’s high-schoolers could do that. Wait. On second thought, I know most of today’s high-schoolers could never do it: not well enough for me to grant them a “C”, anyways.

“Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.”
Do they teach anything of the sort these days? Mayhap the word “fundamental” is too politically incorrect for most educator’s tastes.

“District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at Â $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?”
Again, a comparison with today’s high-schoolers. Do they even teach such concepts before Accounting 101 in college these days? I don’t think so.

“7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
“8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
“9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.”

With the loss of phonics in reading instruction has come the loss of etymology in orthographic instruction. I was fortunate enough to be home-schooled, and so had access to a superb etymological curriculum in high school, and I as well learned spelling etymologically throughout elementary school — like the proverbial child who can sound out any word (q.v. NRRF), I can spell any word, and tell you what most words likely mean, from simply hearing them.

My answer to this travety — may I call it such? — is to ask you to take a moment of your time to read another page from the National Right to Read Foundation, entitled “ADD: America’s Deficit Disorder”. Are we as Americans so eager to classify and label our children with “ADD” and “ADHD” that we forget our own responsibilities?
I have seen too many children “doped up” on Ritalin, etc. merely for being kids, to deceive myself, or to allow anyone else to deceive themselves, that psychiatrists and pediatricians are prescribing medications only to children who truly need them. I have seen too many children walking around looking hung over because of their medicine to allow America off the hook on this one. I plead with you: before you give that kid a pill, ask yourself,

“What could I be doing differently?”

Crosspost: Harbour in the Scramble, Ergle Street, and Academic Musings

Philosophy: Vow of Silence

2004-08-16T02:07:00.000-04:00

or, Love is a secret thing.

. . . in all that divided them, in the distance that held them apart, there was room for desire without terror, there was room and time for love without effect, without penalty or pain. The only price was silence.
She was silent.
— Ursula K. LeGuin, The Beginning Place

   The price is silence, isn’t it? The price for desire without terror, and for love without penalty, is silence. Loving, without asking anything in return, is free. Only, you must be very careful to truly ask nothing in return, and that includes asking the loved to know of your love.
   One of the most difficult things to ask someone to do is to knowingly allow themselves to be the object of your dreams and affections. For love is above all a secret thing. Love does not display itself, and love overtly displayed is merely pride making use of another.
   Love is a thing which must always be acted upon. One cannot knowingly be loved and do nothing. When the discovery is made, one must choose to allow it or to disallow it. There is no way, no matter what the previous situation, to remain neutral: which is why it is such a grave demand to make of someone that they know that you love them.

If someone knows that you love them — and believes that you have a true and deepening love, rather than simple infatuation — it is very likely they will be taken aback. “Thrown for a loop” might be one way of phrasing it. In fact, whether their reaction ultimately will be accepting or not, a disappearance on their part may likely be in order. When she returns, it will be definite. If she does return, no matter what she may say, some degree of acceptance exists.

And to a heart that has broken the vow of silence, whatever little there is, is enough.

Crosspost: Random Quill and Harbour in the Scramble

Movie: Oceans 11

2004-08-13T18:54:00.000-04:00

From a time less objective (Jason).

Later that day I went to Sara’s house to watch Ocean’s 11 for the first time. It was really stylized and witty, but I found it rather dry for deeper themes and ideas. The good guys are the ones who steal $160,000,000.00 of legitimately earned cash…it’s kind of sad in hindsight that American culture this desperate for entertainment ideas. It may relect some kind of Robin Hood theme, but one on a massive steroid overdose.

   And might I contrast my view with Jason’s implied approval of Robin Hood. While the original Robin Hood, I would argue, was a capitalist, stealing from the thieves (rich tax-collectors and extortioners) and giving to the robbed (poor tax-payers and extorted), he has in our present day been recast as a social (read: socialist, communist) “hero” — so much so in fact that ”steal from the rich and give to the poor” has become an idiomatic synonym for Robin Hood.
   The fact, then, that Ocean’s 11 can be viewed as having a “Robin Hood theme” is one more count against it, philosophically. Ayn Rand’s John Galt, in fact, vowed to slay Robin Hood (meaning the present misinterpretation of Robin Hood as an ideal), and never to rest until he did.
   Ocean’s 11, then, is just philosophically bankrupt in one more way. Not only does it glorify thievery, it flaunts socialism (and from there, humanism and relativism) in the face of capitalism (and hence the “Protestant work ethic” and the Law of Sowing and Reaping).

Crosspost: Scraps, Academic Musings, Harbour in the Scramble, and Ergle Street

News: N.J. Governor Admits to Homosexual Affair

2004-08-13T14:59:00.000-04:00

From Yahoo! News, via The Book of Confusion.

“‘My truth is that I am a gay American,’ McGreevey said.”
My Truth? Folks...there is no my truth or your truth. There is truth and falsehood. Now I admit that it can be difficult to tell the two apart sometimes, but we can’t go calling everything Truth. If everything is true…then NOTHING is true.
There are lot of ways he could have said that. That phrase more than anything shows his world view. It’s not one I can support. I honestly have more respect for someone who holds to a standard of absolute truth – even if it’s different than mine – than I do for those who think it’s all good.

Relativism is definitely the scourge, intellectually of our age. I have had people, in very recent order, tell me that they “don’t believe in absolute truth,” in a scientific sense! If your disbelief in absolute truth goes so far as to encompass what you can see, measure, and repeat, God doesn’t really stand a chance, does he?

“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,” Romans 1:22

Crosspost: Scraps, Academic Musings, Harbour in the Scramble, Ergle Street

Missionary: Voices from the Gambia

2004-08-13T14:18:00.000-04:00

Voices from the Gambia
   The piercing voice breaks the stillness of the evening, disturbing the solitude. The noise was startling at first, then distracting, as other voices chime in.
   Is it an announcement? Some sort of singing? Chanting? The loudness of the P.A. system make it sound like it’s right next to our compound, but it is coming from the village mosque, over one kilometer away.
   The voices continue. Concentration is difficult.
   We ask: “What is happening?” “Oh, perhaps a ‘teaching’ for a special holy day; or maybe recitations for someone’s marriage or death. It’s in Arabic. Difficult to know what they are saying. Get used to it; happens often.”
   The voice returns. It’s still dark. It is 5:30 AM! “It’s a call to prayer:; the first of three over the next hour, each coming from a different mosque. We try to sleep; but we think . . . If they are praying, whay aren’t we? We who claim to know the Living God and call Him “Father”.
   It’s early Sunday morning: voices of children come drifting into the compound. They seem to be reciting verses and singing songs. What a beautiful sound! Is it a Sunday School class? “Yes, in a way. It’s the boys and girls attending classes at the nearby Koranic School going through their recitations and praises to Yallah.” We long to teach them about Jesus . . .
   A weekday afternoon: we hear the sound of singing. We go outside. A vanload of men passes by on the road, amplifying their songs as they drive through the town. “It’s a men’s retreat. A Muslim version of ‘Promise Keepers’.” We pray: “May it someday be a Christian group.”
   Evangelism and training go on almost daily in our village here. But we are not part of it. We are the “outsiders”, the “unbelievers”. How we wish this very religious atmosphere could be one of true worship — not only of God, but of His Son, the One Who came to be the Saviour of the world, the One they do not know.

So wrote Missionary Jim Entner on October eighth, 2003. It raises an interesting question, does it not? Why are so many lost, dying, and yet more devout than we who have the truth? Have we no care for their souls?
The Muslim has no Father God, since Islam teaches of an Allah who is a taskmaster: easily provoked and hardly appeased, capricious, even. We who know the true God, the one who loves and cares for the world, surely can be more devout worshippers of and witnesses for our God than they can theirs — don’t we have it infinitely better?

I read this prayer letter at Mission Prayer Band while at Pensacola Christian College
Crosspost: Scraps, Academic Musings, Harbour in the Scramble, Ergle Street

Review: The Devil's Disciple

2004-08-12T23:12:00.000-04:00

Bread and circuses!

That's about all I can say: it's Shavian to the core. I've never had a movie shake the foundations of reality so severely as did this one. Of course, it being a Shaw play originally, so I should have expected it: something along the lines of Arms and the Man in philosophy. Shaw was a great playwright, but completely Communist (or at least Socialist) in belief.
The general plot is “bad is good, good is bad“, leaving, of course the interpretation that it's better to be bad, and the good going bad is really becoming better, if you followed that. It breaks down like so:

Rev. Anderson: inherently good
Richard Dudgeon: inherently evil
Mrs. Anderson (Judith): purposely, but precariously, good

   Though she is not presented as the main character, the story is really about Mrs. Anderson. She begins as a “good woman” (quoth Mr. Dudgeon). However, as the plot progresses, it becomes increasingly apparent that her goodness is not inherent, but something she is constantly working at, fighting against her nature the whole time. All well and good, except a sin nature is presented by Shaw as a felicitous thing.
   The ever-present “good in everyone” theme is so specially strong in this story that Dudgeon, an avowed Satanist (to be fair, it’s not clear whether he actually worships Satan or merely said so to needle the minister: either way, though, he’s not a nice fellow), is the hero (and not in the Paradise Lost sense) whose every action is condoned and who is designed to be strongly sympathized with by the audience.
   In the end, Anderson renounces the cloth and becomes a revolutionary (not to say at all that I oppose the American Revolution, historical event though it may be), while Dudgeon is revealed as a sympathetic and all-around nice guy (in a still “bad” character, of course).
   The crowning event of the story is Anderson’s “test” of his wife: he offers her as wife to Dudgeon, who accepts the offer. In a short scene of frantic glances from husband to lover, she runs crying out of the town and up into the hills. After some comradely back-slapping between the two men, Anderson mounts, heads out, and picks up his wife who is running still uphill towards the woods.
   In the manner of A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, Shaw's attitudes of female liberty are even in his own writing shown as false. Like Nora, Judith’s striving for independence from her husband’s authority results in a less-than-satisfactory emotional state. However, while both Nora and Judith are patronized by their husbands, they are both inherently weak thinkers: characters naturally set up for patronization. The patronization of both women is less the fault of the men (though they are not entirely innocent) than of the women themselves, except for the fact that the men “married low” intellectually, and ended up with women they could not possibly respect.

Moral: Don’t marry outside your class (not social, but intellectual).

Literary Heroes (in the epic sense) are more protagonists than heroes in the modern sense. Lucifer (Satan) is the hero of Paradise Lost, in that much of the story is told from his point of view, even though his actions are not specifically condoned.

Crosspost: Scraps and Harbour in the Scramble

Things Which Are No Waste

2004-08-12T19:11:00.000-04:00

   Some things I can do without doing: I'm sure there are some things which are a genuine waste of time. However — and this list may reveal to you something of my temperament — there are certain things which I do not think, however untimely they may be, I could ever classify as true wastes of time.
   Reading a book is one. No time spent reading would I ever call a man into account for, even had much loss occurred because of it. Reading, and in a general sense, learning is in my view one of the truest acts in which a man can engage, since it makes use of the very faculty which separates him from the animals: reason. (My apologies to Aristotle.)
   Writing is kin next to reading, and provides for learning and improvement in much the same way. Writing not only fits when something as pragmatic as learning is to be shown, but as well it is an art, I would say, above all others. Though a painting can very nearly tell a story, no two people will see the same story. Though a piece of music may carry the heart on high emotion and low; be it never so well-played, two men will hear two different songs. I do not mean to say that by writing I can produce an identical impression on two different men, but certainly I may come closer to it than an artist of any other medium.
   Another thing which is no waste is time spent with nature, wheter in the roaming of woods and deserts or the watering of a garden. Again, like learning, the self-betterment which such provokes is worth, I think, more than anything which may be missed because of it, whether it be supper, or a train, or a thirty-thousand dollar bequest. (My apologies to a wise philosopher.)
   Time spent with a beloved I was going to say is no waste. However, that is neither strictly nor consistently true. Very many times, too much time spent with a loved one may destroy what time apart would build up; and too much doting may make for accidental bitterness towards the one doted upon. No, as cold as it may sound, time spent with one's beloved has a far greater danger of becoming a waste than does time spent alone with nature and nature's God, and even than time spent with Estella and Miss Havisham — as cruel as they are.
   There are certain needful things: things without which life, lived for its own sake, would not be worth the paper it would be printed on if a biography were to accidentally be written about such a life. There are certain things which are no waste, and if I don't hurry, I may miss them instead of dinner.

Crosspost: Scraps, Harbour in the Scramble, and Random Quill

If You're Raising a Lady, Don't Forget the Flowers

2004-08-10T11:43:00.000-04:00

or, A Lady Turns Three

     One of the families at church had a birthday party for their daughter, Lisa, who just turned three. It was held as a barbecue for the whole church and any of their family friends who wanted to come. Of course, the high concentration of adults made for a good pile of gifts for little Lisa, but I see another benefit to a child’s birthday party with adults.
     Since socialization is how children learn proper interpersonal skills and develop their interactive ability, oversocialization with their peers is actually damaging to their maturation and emotional development — contrary to widely-held psychiatric beliefs. Giving a child many chances to learn from those more experienced than they, especially in a non-threatening environment like a birthday party, is essential to their well-rounded development.
     Besides that, if you are raising a lady — which I think every parent of a daughter ought to strive to do — much hard work can be undone if appropriate examples are not constantly present to reaffirm “what a lady is”.
     And if you’re raising a lady, don’t forget the flowers. Royce, Lisa’s dad, bought her a bouquet — three pink roses. That little girl was carrying them around along with her new favorite toy, a plush stuffed dog she christened “Maggie”, after her “real” pet.
     Lisa is in for a good and proper life, the way she is going. Her daddy (and yes, you should let your little lady call you ”daddy” even when she is eighteen and twenty) is putting her well on her way to being a lady, and there is such a vast difference between a lady and a woman. That is a gift beyond all others — beyond the stuffed dog with which she made herself inseperable; and yes, even beyond the flowers.

Crosspost: Scraps and Harbour in the Scramble

Article: Home Schooling: Not Your Grandma's Social Movement

2004-08-04T18:29:00.000-04:00

“Home Schooling Gets More Students”
That was the quite pleasant subtitle of an article in my local newspaper (The Ventura County Star) today. It was subtitled with a statistic which has been long and opposed in its coming: since 1999, home-schooled students are up 29% nationwide, to nearly 1.1 million students (Education Department, National Center for Education Statistics). The article is from the AP wire; here is a shorter version I found online at the Indianapolis Star.
Ian Slatter, of the Home School Legal Defense Association’s National Center for Home Education, says,

Home schooling is just getting started. We’ve gotten through the barriers of questioning the academic abilities of home schools, now that we have a sizable number of graduates who are not socially isolated or awkward — they are good, high-quality citizens. We’re getting that mainstream recognition and challenging the way education has been done.

     The two cannons usually leveled at home education are its alleged lower quality of education and a lack of socialization. Since nearly every year the National Spelling Bee is won by a home schooler, home schoolers have SAT scores consitently in the top five and ten percent, and home schoolers (contrary to popular belief) can usually take their pick of colleges — all of which are more than happy to accept someone with such high standardized test scores — this first charge doesn’t worry me to terribly.
     As far as socialization, I think that over-, rather than under-socialization is detrimental to a child’s maturity and emotional well-being, I would level the “socialization” cannon at public schools. I realize that this position is not one usually taken, so I shall attempt to explain.
     When I play chess, I try to seek out opponents who are more skilled than I — better players. It is only from a better player that a less-skilled player can learn, improving his game. In the same way, it is only from those more skilled at life, more skilled with interpersonal relationships and etiquette, that a child can learn how to function in society.
     As evidence, I offer up myself. I never cared for the company of my peers, since it was not thrust upon me. My parents never forced me into situations where my only socialization outlet was my peers, and in the presence of adults, I usually ignored my peers — and this is from three years old and up. There are few who would call me socially maladjusted, introverted, or out of touch with the world. Growing up around grown-ups did in no way damage my current gregariousness and self-confidence.
     I’m not sure it would be exactly politic to propose this on a wide-reaching medium, or even here on my weblog, but may I submit to you that it is public schools which have a lower standard of education, and that it is public schools which are damaging to children’s social lives. I, for one (and one of many millions of satisfied home school graduates) would never trade my education for a public education: I would feel cheated.

Crosspost: Scraps, Harbour in the Scramble, Academic Musings

Welcome to Harbour in the Scramble

2004-07-29T17:01:00.000-04:00

I'm starting this weblog out with an Audioblogger entry. It's my first AB, so please forgive it.