I just have a fleeting thought to share right now.  I'd have more to say, but I've felt like I've been hungover all day.  I didn't stay up particularly late last night, nor did I drink.  But here I am, feeling like I've been run over by a bus and wanting to off myself.  Not really, but you know the feeling.

Anyway, as I sit here trying to nurse this apparent hangover and staring at a television showing some obscure football game I care nothing about, I am curious about something.  How many people could afford to buy their significant other a Lexus sport utility vehicle for Christmas?  In a commercial that's now been shown at least two dozen times this afternoon, a husband gives his wife a brand new Lexus RX (including a big red bow on top, of course!) for Christmas.  The wife is totally surprised by this gift (partially because the husband lied about being hung up at work over the phone to get her outside) 

The Lexus website shares with us that 2008 RX starts at $37,000.  Including financial aid checks (which, in a way are negative income in the longterm) and free agent summer teaching assignments, Amy and I make considerably less than this each year, so certainly this advertisement is not aimed at us nor our demographic group.

Okay, duh.  Well, assuming that financing would be in order to make this a Merry Christmas, what would the payments be on the base model?  You know, the model that's nearly impossible to find in stock at the dealership because they want people to buy all the options, and the one that, in this case, is $37,000. 

Well, a couple more assumptions are in order here. For one, we have to assume that there's no trade-in of any sort.  This is generally unlikely, but remember, the lady in the ad was supposedly completely surprised.  This means that, in order for it to be a surprise, the couple had not talked at all about getting a different car.  In addition, if this car truly is for the wife, even though it's assumed to be a replacement for her car, if the husband is smart he hasn't sold off her car just yet. I couldn't imagine what Amy would say if I took the Volvo, a car that's in both of our names anyway, and got rid of it without asking.  The husband would likely be risking a Bobbitt-style reaction if he had gotten rid of a car that the wife was in any way attached to.

So, no trade-in, and we'll just assume that there's no down payment either for the same reason (spending a signficant portion of savings without discussion would certainly merit a similar reaction, right?)  With these variables, and an average new car interest rate of 6.38% spread over four years, the monthly payment for this base model Lexus RX is $1,170.89, not including taxes or other fees.  Add a small 7% sales and usage tax, and this payment jumps to $1,252.85. 

Most financial advisories suggest that no more than 25% of a family's take-home pay should be spent on automobiles.  (Rent/housing takes up the lion's share, with no more than 35%.)  Let's assume the family has no other car payment (also unlikely if they have the tastes necessary for a new Lexus).  This means that the family must have a take-home pay each month of at least $5,011.40, or about $60,000 per year.  Not impossible, right?   I mean, that's firmly within the middle class, certainly. 

Well, not quite. First of all, that's take-home pay.  If we account for insurance and taxes and retirement funds, we can safely assume that 30% of the family's gross income went out the door before they ever saw it, meaning their gross income was $85,909.71.  Now, we're into upper-middle-class territory, and remember, this is a sort of best-case scenario, where the family can just barely afford this car.  But much like the possible problem that would be caused by trading off my wife's car without her permission, taking on a debt load so significant for a surprise holiday gift without her permission, one that our family would just be barely able to afford... that would get me in trouble as well, right?  Most husbands would agree.

So, how in the world do we figure out what category of people actually give this damn Lexus RX as Christmas gifts?  We have to assume that the purchase of the Lexus is something that financially wouldn't make waves in the family budget.  Of course, if this is the case, chances are the husband has enough cash sitting in his swimming vault to simply take an envelope to the dealership and not deal with financing.  That's not really quantifiable, though.  Let's say that this family is going to get financing, is trading in another similar luxury car to replace with this Lexus, and that doing so isn't going to break the bank.

I'll say in this case, then, that the total automobile financing in such a family would be less than 5% of the family's income.  Of course, since this family is more "normal," we're going to say that the husband also drives a rapidly depreciating piece of machinery that he's still paying off as well, so let's halve that transportation budget for our Lexus gift.  We'll assume the trade-in factor is nil, no negative nor positive equity, which is also unlikely considering the way that such families Simple math now, since we've cut the portion of the budget made up by this purchase by 90%.  This means that the family must be making $50,114.90 per month take home, or $601,139 per year take-home, or gross $859,978.02 per year.

According to the United States Census, only 1.5% of households make $250,000 or more (there's no higher category), but that this percentage accounts for a whopping 1,699,000 households.  No, that's not the $859,978.02 that is really necessary to make such a gift possible.  Since we can't really be terribly precise about subdividing this income bracker further, I think we very conservatively can say that maybe half a million households can afford this luxury.  Of course, this says nothing about what number of this half-million are partial to Lexus products, nor anything about what portion is in "need" of a new car, nor anything about how many of these families have female householders that wouldn't still be insulted by a husband buying such an extravagent gift, let alone a car she's never had a chance to drive first.

(And of course, how many of these are watching football games on Sunday afternoon on television anyway?)

Apparently, the ad schemes are effective.  Lexus reports that some 10% of its sales in December are holiday gifts.  Hrm... that's the holiday spirit!  Give a luxury car to someone who doesn't really "need" anything.  At the same time, millions starve.  I don't get that.

Now the only question is, where do people get those fucking obnoxiously huge bows?  Does the dealership throw those in?

Posted by Your Friendly Neighborhood DJ at 05:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was really surprised at the amount of response to my last entry on the expectations of parenthood.  To be honest, I didn't know if more than about two or three people ever actually read this shit heap.  I mean, sure, if you look at the little map thing, there's dots all over, but those have to mostly be spambots and the like, because certainly no one in Iran gives a rat's ass what I have to say.

Anyway, with that, the response.  I got a lot.  At least nine people responded in various forms of communication, including direct comments to both the Radio Free Akron page and the Facebook simulcast, and a few direct emails.  Some were positive, some negative.  Either way, the comments made it so I need to address a few points, simply because they made me reread my entry and notice some deficiencies in my communication.

For one, I don't hate children or parents as a rule.  I don't despise people for having kids, nor do I want to  devalue their decision.  For some people, that's exactly what they want, and that's great.  It is their life, their decision, and their prerogative.  Kids and parents do, sometimes, absolutely annoy the shit out of me.  Poorly parented kids can make any experience in public miserable.  Kid-obsessed parents can make a social situation unbearably boring.  However, my annoyance with them is on the same level as idiot drivers, shopping old people and reaching Indian people on tech support phone calls.  Annoying, even faceless, but nothing I can personally do even one fucking thing about.

I've already talked about the reasons why not.  Kids are limiting, expensive, annoying, helpless, not terribly interesting.  The world sucks, and why would I bring a new person in, especially with my genes?  I'm a terribly irresponsible person.  I'd be a horrible father.  Etc.  And so forth.  To eternity.  These reasons are nothing new.

Now, as for the last entry... my main message was intended to be that choosing a childless life should not have such ridiculous amounts of stigma attached to it.  The same way that a couple of parents who, remarkably, choose to read this shit heap were offended because they took that entry as an assault on the value of parenthood, I deal with constant assaults on our decision to not have children from not only family and friends, but acquaintances to which this should be none of their fucking business in the first place.  Having children is the "norm," and any alternative idea is dysfunctional, weird, or just wrong.

Simply, if my bitching about the idea of parenthood, written from only a personal perspective of what goes on in my head (remembering that because I think that my prospective parenting experience would be a miserable one doesn't mean I think that everyone else's will be as well) is so offensive to proud parents to the point that it inspires spirited response to a relatively obscure blog.... should I just duck and cover when people in my life basically call me stupid, weird, naive, unethical, selfish, and even sinful when they find out my decision to not procreate?  If parents are allowed to get defensive about being a parent, why would I not be allowed the same courtesy in regards to not being one?

One thing this whole not-quite-an-ordeal made me think about was how Amy not-so-secretly despises my blogging most of the time.  Why?  Well, my blog is mostly a medium I use to clear my head on various topics, and sometimes that head contains frustrations about my relationship with her, whether it's miscommunication or whatever.  Well, because those are the times that I write about her in my blog, her presentation is overwhelmingly negative, or at least far more negative than my actual relationship will ever be.  Unfortunately, it's this portrayal that (rightly) leads to her wanting me to shut the shit heap down.

Well, much like when I write about Amy in this space, whenever I talk about kids here, it's overwhelmingly negative.  Why?  The good or the reasonable or the expected never warrants the effort from my lazy ass to write.  Why are the optional comment cards for any eatery always overwhelmingly bad?  Because it takes a ridiculously positive experience for someone to seek out such a card to write about a happy time, but just one little piss-off makes people write novels about how horrible the place is.  Point is, probably 99% of the kids/parents I cross paths with don't even make an impression in my life, but it's the 0.9% that are ridiculously annoying (and the 0.1% that are somehow newsworthily positive) that prompt some sort of expression.  That 0.9% of my experience isn't the only thing that I base my opinion of parenting upon, but it's the only thing I talk about here.

Meh.  See what happens when y'all read and respond?  I write too much crap. 

We've been in Muncie now since Sunday night.  We exchanged presents with Amy's family on Sunday early-evening.  They gave me a set of exercising clothes, a remote controlled truck, and the Wii Carnival game.  Good times.  We couldn't afford to give them anything, which was terribly sad.

It's been nice enough, being home.  Very peaceful.  Monday night was Christmas Eve with my mom's side.  Since there's like 30 of us and we only see each other on holidays, we do the white elephant exchange... you know, where everyone throws in a gift labeled "man" or "woman" and everyone pulls one out.  Usually, there is some really random shit in this exchange, like whatever people find in their house that they want to get rid of.  I got a couple of low quality DVDs with episodes of "I Love Lucy" on them.  My young cousin, who's like eight, begged me to trade these for the John Wayne DVD collection he got.  I told him it wasn't a fair trade, which I did believe because I felt like I would be taking advantage of his youth (and slight autism).  He persisted, so I traded, and we both felt like winners.

Funny thing is (and I really don't care, because what I got is still awesome in the tacky way), the "John Wayne" collection (which boasts 20 films on DVD, with a big picture of The Duke) doesn't actually have any John Wayne films on it.  It has 20 westerns from the 1930s (and yes, I'm still excited about those) and a 30 minute collection of trailers for John Wayne movies.  Bizarre?  Yes, but a good white elephant gift, indeed.

On Christmas Day, we went down to see Tim in Greenwood.  My parents and Aunt Janet decided to got together to get us a big freezer.  This is a wonderful gift, because now we can stockpile food from Sam's Club and GFS when we get financial aid checks.  Tim got me a couple of books on Katrina and an Etch-a-Sketch, which were also good gifts.  Even though I didn't just get the gift certificates for books I would have much prefered, at least the gifts we got were mostly practical. That's a lot better than random crap.

Oh, and once again, I am ridiculously impressed with my parents' cable.  They've got like every channel ever, and they've got a bunch of free on-demand stuff.  Amy and I have been taking advantage of this to watch the entire third season "Weeds" on the giant television for free, catching us up with what we had previsouly only been able to download.  It's a ridiculously addicting show.  Of course, I have to say that the Dean character on "Weeds" (Celia's ex-husband) is probably one of the most tragic characters on television right now, on par with Ted, the pathetic hospital lawyer on "Scrubs."  I also paid about 12% of my attention to some movie about Narnia as Amy watched.  I couldn't make any sense out of it, which isn't surprising since it was a fantasy film with talking animals based on a book written by some guy who went on an opium bender while trapped in a room with a bible.

Having cable like this would kill my research.  It already has during break.  I haven't managed to do shit since we've been in Indiana.

My parents took us to a place downtown in the old NY House called Morton's Pub and Grub.  It was a nice place, with organic and locally produced food with vegetarian and vegan friendly dishes (as well as enough meat to make my parents happy).  The food was slow (they subscribe to the slow food philosophy, that it'll be there when it's ready) but quite tasty.  I was quite satisfied with my food.  Sadly, this place is being sued by Morton's Steakhouse in Chicago for trademark infringment, even though the owner's name is Morton. 

I hate people sometimes.

Our trip to see my parents' has reminded me of one major reason we never want to move back to Muncie or a town anything like it.  The best bookstore in town is a "Books-a-Million" in the mall, which actually opened after we moved away.  Tonight, when we went there so I could check out the local interest section for my next big project that I'm just starting to think about.  (It's going to be about Muncie, and will probably be a book, in case you were wondering.  Other details are forthcoming.)

ANYWAY, this bookstore was a fucking dump.  It was the least organized bookstore I've ever seen (The Gangs of New York was in the New York travel section), the local interest section had more books on Bloomington, Vincennes and Evansville (five plus each) than Muncie (only one), and the place was completely fucking wrecked, with books all over the floor and only one employee.  Also, the standard Muncie Mall patron was looking a hell of a lot more ragged than they did before we moved, which was also a little disheveling.

What was traditionally the next-best bookstore, which, while to its credit is independent, was a bored-middleage-housewife social project (you know, the type of place that has a few shelves of romance, mysteries, a shelf of local interest, and a big fucking sitting area for old hens to drink tea and talk about the latest entry in Oprah's bookclub).  Well, three years after moving away, this place had moved and become a gift store selling yarn and shit.  When we went there to ask about books, they replied that they sold yarn now, that they could order me any book I wanted and that they weren't really a bookstore anymore.  I muttered something about how they never really were a bookstore and that I could use the fucking internet anyway as I left.

I'm going to hit the pseudo-Barne's and Noble that serves as the Ball State University Bookstore tomorrow in search of some books on local issues.  I can't focus on this new research agenda for a while, but that's no reason not to start some reading, right?

We've still got until Wednesday morning in Indiana.  On Saturday afternoon, we're heading back to Amy's parents for a few days to see the New Year and such.  I do want to see Amy's parents, but I'm really starting to feel ready to go back to Ohio.  I miss my home, and I miss the dogs. 

Stupid, huh?  Maybe I'm meant to be a parent after all, but just to kids with approximately four legs, some sort of tail, extensive body fur and shorter lifespans.

Posted by Your Friendly Neighborhood DJ at 01:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We're in Indiana.  We got to Westfield late Friday night, and we're sticking around here until late tonight, going to Muncie for Monday morning thorugh Saturday afternoon, and then back to Westfield for New Years.  The crazy schedule was made because my parents are actually off during the week, and Amy's are only off during the weekends.  This way, we get to see both sets of parents and equal amount of time and get to be there when people aren't at work.

Amy is at church with her people, which actually doesn't mean that I'm going to bitch about religion.  It should, but it doesn't.  There are a lot of things going through my mind right now about religion, partially because of the experiences of others.  I'm not terribly interested in finding any sort of resolution today, because I need some external things to resolve in order to find some more clarity.  More about all of that sometime later.  Maybe.

A couple of fleeting thoughts about being home for Christmas... first, I'm really tired of the fact that everyone seems to assume that parenthood is in our future.  Amy and I have both thought about it and discussed it at length, and we've decided that having kids isn't something we want to do.  It honestly seems like a miserable experience. 

Yes, I know just about anything you could possibly say in response to the whole "parenthood must be miserable" statement, because I've heard at least a majority of them in the past 30 hours.  Because Susan, Amy's sister-in-law was sick yesterday, Amy's parents and us were charged with watching our niece for a few hours.  While she really behaved herself very well, she was completely helpless and way too much effort.  Yes, I realize that everyone professes that our feelings on the matter "would be different if it was our kid," but I really don't give a shit.  It's a lot of effort that I don't want to take.  I don't want the ruination of our lives that comes from having kids.

Now, with that in mind, I just wish people would shut up about them.  Yes, Amy and I are a fairly young married couple.  And yes, we've been married now for nearly four years.  That doesn't mean, though, that children are in our minds or are automatically on our radar.  So, my demands are as follows:

1. Don't ask us when we're having kids.  We're not, and we're sick of avoiding the issue.
2. Don't assume we want to have kids, or that we'll experience stupid parental moments later.
3. Don't assume that any interaction we have with a little kid is "practicing for later."
4. Don't insult me by saying that I just don't know that I want kids yet.
5. Don't insult me by saying that I will change my mind about having kids.
6. Don't tell me how the really retarded aspects of having children (like cleaning poop 15 times a day) is so much better when it's my kid.  Poop will always smell like... poop.  And no, it's probably not "all worth it."
7. Don't get offended or treat me like a weirdo when I say I don't want to have kids, and really don't insult my intelligence on the issue.   No, I don't know everything about kids or anything of the sort, but I don't want to find out.  Besides, having kids for "the experience" is far more selfish reasoning than not having kids to avoid opportunity cost.
8. Shut up with your "useful" parenting advice.  I don't need it, because it's irrelevant when you don't/won't have kids.

As soon as I have full coverage insurance on my body (and yes, I know that full coverage implies automobiles, but with a capitalist-based health insurance system in this country, my body is calculated into nothing more than an expensive and ultimately unnecessary commodity, just like a car) I'm getting snipped.  Then, when people tell me about how I'm going to do whatever when I'm a parent, I'm going to keep a pocket-sized x-ray of my junk in my pocket (the same way that people ridiculously do with ultrasounds) and I'll pull it out when people hound me about it.  I'll show them how my swimmers have more dead-end roads than a residential suburban wasteland, and less chance of escaping than an inmate from Alcatraz.

The awkwardness will be... awkward, but the point will get across.

Second thing: I've already preached at great length about the evils of the capitalist Christmas.  I know, you get it already.  With that in mind, I've told anyone who might actually buy gifts for us that I don't want anything.  I've done this, because I really don't want anything for Christmas.  I told the same people that if they felt this impossible-to-ignore urge to buy me something (because, yes, I understand that Christmas is awkward when people don't have gifts) that they should buy me gift certificates to either Borders, Barnes & Noble, or (preferably) Amazon.com. 

Why books?  I get more use and enjoyment out of books than anything on the planet besides friends, family and animals.  You can't buy friends (unless you join a fraternity, and I'm too old/smart for that), you can only buy family if you poop out children (which, I'm a bit opposed to, I think) or take on another wife (after which snipping would no longer be necessary, as Amy would ensure), and we don't need any more animals, god-please-no.

What don't I want?  Junk.  Our house is filled with junk.  We don't need any more junk.  We don't want any more junk.  At least 90% of the crap purchased during the holiday season is worthless junk.  A lot of the stuff we got for Christmas last year is collecting dust somewhere in our house, because we don't use it, but we can't throw it away or sell it because of "sentimentality."  Useful gifts are hard to come by because very few people (if anyone) has a solid inventory of what useful things we have, such as kitchen appliances.  Example: say someone buys us a toaster, thinking that everyone needs a toaster (as they do, because toast is great, right?).  Well, we've got one, it works great, and we don't need another one.  Therefore, most people won't buy us a toaster because they probably haven't kept tabs on our toaster situation (why would they?) and they want to avoid this kind of duplication.  This is where the purchasing of knicknacks comes in, many of which don't match our taste, nor do we have anywhere to put them.

On the other hand, I use books a lot.  Every day, in fact.  Books are how I make my living, basically.  I enjoy books so much that the ability to make my living by reading/writing/teaching with books is a major reason that I've stayed in school for (now) nine consecutive years after high school.  I've asked for nothing but the ability to buy books for Christmas.  Sadly, I can almost guarantee that by the time we head back to Akron after New Years, no books will have exchanged hands, but that our backseat will be filled with other crap labeled with my name.

I don't want anything, so don't waste your money.  If you do waste your money, waste it on books.  Is this too difficult?  

I guess time will tell....

Posted by Your Friendly Neighborhood DJ at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

	From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Manor: How Maps Name, Claim and Inflame by Mark Monmonier (Cool deconstruction of toponymy and cartography)
	The Right to the City by Don Mitchell (About the struggles for public space)
	Written on the Hills: The Making of the Akron Landscapes by Frances McGovern (Book about history/geography of Akron area, leftover from Amy's History of Ohio class)
	Steeltown USA: Work and Memory in Youngstown, Ohio by Sherry Lee Linkon and John Russo (Book about nearby Youngstown, another one of Amy's leftovers)
	Justice, Naturea and the Geography of Difference by David Harvey (An [mostly-failed] attempt by the premier Marxist geographer to write a "Book of Everything")
	The Production of Space by Henri Lefebvre (One of the first books to recognize how society changes how space is produced.)

Posted by Your Friendly Neighborhood DJ at 08:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just a couple of things:

Mona, our coonhound foster dog, got adopted on Thursday night by a nice couple in Garfield Heights.  I was very sad to see her go, because I had gotten way-too-attached to her.  I was actually hoping that these people were like Satan-worshippers who wanted a dog to sacrifice.  If something awful like this had been the case, Mona would have come back to our house and become permanent dog number five under our roof.  But, I know she went to a good place, and even though I miss her terribly that aching is medicated by the love of her new parents.

Here is Mona.  She was such a docile sweetheart.  I loved her too much:

The other sorta-important news is that I finished with all of my competency exams, my oral exams and proposal defense.  What this means is that I am now a doctoral candidate, ABD (All But Dissertation).  As Jim, my adviser, said afterwards, all that stands between me and a PhD is myself and about 200 pages of writing.  The ABD thing is a good thing because it means that I have fully completed all coursework, all exams, all everything but the dissertation.  It also means that I am eligible to start applying for jobs, even though to make it work with the academic timeline correctly, I can't even really start looking until late this summer. 

I honestly don't remember much about the defense itself.  I was too nervous. 

To celebrate my ABD-edness, Amy and a very incoherent version of myself went to Mariachi Locos for dinner.  Mariachis, which is known for its consistency of quality and service, was putrid.  The waitress came to the table twice, the food she brought was cold (which is oh-so-nasty when you're talking about vegetarian fajitas) and she never filled our drinks.  It was honestly the shittest celebration dinner of all time, and the only saving grace was that one of the TVs featured the old-school American Gladiators.

After eating bad Mexican food, we traveled to Vanessa's house for a holiday party.  We expected only a stop-by, but ended up staying late.  Now, this morning, I just woke up at like 10:30, and Amy was gone taking Petey, our last remaining foster to the vet.  He's got some sort of digestive problem that's really gross.  I can't wait for him to go to the prison.  He's kind of a stupid dog.

Today, to recelebrate me being ABD, we're getting Indian food in Canton.  That will be our last eating-out until we go to Indiana for the holidays.  Luckily, because our various sets of parents are generous, we are going to Indiana from December 21 to January 3.  That's actually nearly two weeks, which I'm certain will be long enough that our parents will be totally sick of us.  Either way, if you totally cool grownup friends from back home wanna hang with a couple of lame-assed squares, drop me a line at my various points of contact.

I won't be offended by the chirping-cricket-indicator-of-silence as a response to that call (or at least I tell myself that........) 

Alright, I'm finished.  I have a tired headache and lazy eyes.  I need some relaxation. 

Posted by Your Friendly Neighborhood DJ at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apparently, there was a massive sex-scandal in my parents' church.  To be fair, it didn't involve kids, just a married preacher who was having a three-year affair with a married member, behind the backs of everyone.  Of course, this was shocking to most of the membership, and just plain odd to me since he was our Lutheran-side (you know, back when I tried to actually reconcile myself with that brand of thought) wedding counselor and just a plain goofy guy.  My dad, being congregational president (whatever the-hell that even means) has been dealing with the fallout from that since Thanksgiving.  What a fucking mess!

The whole thing got me thinking about religion once again.  I mean, think about this: if a "man of the cloth," someone who studies the word for his livelihood and is intimately familiar and forever reminded of what his role in the world is and what he's supposed to do, can stray that far, imagine how fucked up I could soon become without any sort of guide.  Sure, I know that Jesus doesn't hold a monopoly on morals or ethics, and that I could find guidance elsewhere, but I am (mostly) a Christian, though a non-excluding one, so that is my primary source.  Right now, I have no such guide.  I mean, Amy's great for keeping me more on the straight and narrow, but how much can I really put on her plate in this way?  That's not fair to her!

I think about my religious wanderings a lot, but I don't pay it any mind most of the time.  I've been something of a lost religious free agent ever since my freshman year of high school.  The church I grew up in was a bad congregation of a bad church, the Lutheran Church of the Missouri Synod, which is an exceptionally conservative schism group within Lutheranism.

(Keep in mind here that while I respect the rights of those folks to believe whatever the hell they want, I ultimately found the beliefs to be convoluted and particularly obtuse, and that finding is part of the reason for my problems today, hence my personal label of the entire sect as "bad.") 

When I was in the seventh and eighth grade, I was required to take a bible study class to "confirm" my membership there as begun by infant (read: no idea it ever happened) baptism.  As I worked through this class, many of the teachings didn't gel well with me, but I submitted to them because I knew that was what I was supposed to do.  The preacher there "taught" me that my grandparents would all be going to hell since they weren't baptized in a Lutheran Church of the Missouri Synod, among other such distortions of the bible made by humans to fulfill political objectives.

These problems really started to bug me, but I knew I was fairly insignificant and certainly not as learned as my teachers, so I kept my mouth shut.  When I asked other kids in school about such doctrine, and they had never heard of such a thing, I allowed my disenchantment to come to the surface.  I was emboldened by the fact that there were other ideas, which I had never really been allowed to take as a possibility before.  When I was a freshman in high school, I would go, but pay little attention to what was going on, just going through the motions of the service.  By the time I was a sophomore, I refused to go, which just pissed my parents off, because they thought it was nothing more than teenage rebellion (though, if they had simply examined the membership rolls of my confirmation class, they would have realized that all save one particular exception disappeared from the church at the same time).  I went to a Lutheran music camp after my sophomore, junior and senior years of high school and realized that not all Lutherans are crazy, but couldn't convince my parents of this.  By this time, the (now different) preacher was prescribing a certain list of hymns that could be sung, requiring his approval of choir anthems, and endorsing fringe conservative political candidates from the pulpit.  These things, of course, beyond the shouting he would unleash on anyone that questioned the church or his decisions therein.

I hated how much my parents had been brainwashed by this organization that I fell quickly away from religion altogether in college.  I toyed with agnosticism and even atheism, until (mostly) Carla talked me out of it and gave me some books.  I've been a drifter ever since.  My parents finally got fed up with their church and moved to a more liberal brand of Lutheranism.  At that time, they transferred my membership with them (which, I was certain should not have existed anymore by this point) to their new church.  I went there quite a few times, but by this point felt just as empty as before.  I'm still officially a member there (I really don't understand how!), which is how I found out about this sex scandal.  In our mailbox after Thanksgiving, an oddly explicit letter arrived from the bishop (which, appart from a chessboard, I'm not sure why that office exists) telling us what had happened.  And hence, my wandering restarted again, as suddenly questions in my head that I had been happy to leave unanswered resurfaced. 

The combination of the fact that I'm generally spiritually unhappy with the fact that Amy's a little unhappy at her specific church right this second because of the revolving-door preacher situation they've got going on, means that I gave it more thought than usual.  I mean, if Amy's really unhappy, now would be a good time to find a compromise, right?  I know it's not likely to happen, but that was my train of thought.  How great would it be for us to find a religion we could both be an active part of?  That's kind of the holy grail of our relationship, the one seemingly unattainable prize that's oh-so-worthy of searching for because of its wider implications in our lives.

While she was at church on Sunday, I was doing some looking, but getting nowhere as always.  As I do occasionally, I took the "Belief-O-Matic" Quiz, which is an inherently flawed internet thing, but at least a place to start.

Belief-O-Matic quiz results:
1.    Orthodox Quaker  (100%)
2.    Liberal Quaker (94%)
3.    Unitarian Universalism (88%)
4.    Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (76%)
5.    Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestants (68%)
6.    Seventh Day Adventist (66%)
7.    Reform Judaism (63%)
8.    Mahayana Buddhism (63%)
9.    Theravada Buddhism (63%)
10.    Eastern Orthodox (60%)
11.    Roman Catholic (60%)
12.    Neo-Pagan (56%)
13.    Jainism (55%)
14.    Taoism (55%)
15.    Bahá'í Faith (54%)
16.    Hinduism (52%)
17.    Sikhism (52%)
18.    Secular Humanism (51%)
19.    New Age (50%)
20.    Islam (49%)
21.    Orthodox Judaism (49%)
22.    Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (42%)
23.    Scientology (39%)
24.    Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (35%)
25.    New Thought (35%)
26.    Jehovah's Witness (31%)
27.    Nontheist (27%)

That's not a surprise.  I knew that Quakerism best fits my belief structure, but I knew that it wasn't an option because for one thing, the only Quaker meetings within a decent drive are populated by small handfuls of people 30+ years older than I am.  Plus, if Amy and I were ever to agree on a place, it probably wouldn't be Quaker because it doesn't work for her.  Too bad.  I really liked Quakerism. 

Of course, option three on the quiz was Unitarian Universalism, which doesn't really work for either of us.  Remember the Unitarian Sundae that Lisa Simpson orders at the church ice cream social?  An empty cup.  And so true.

The other option I came across was the United Church of Christ.  See, it's the liberal cousin of Amy's church, which is called the Church of Christ.  I came across the UCC for a couple of reasons.  For one thing, it's named similar to Amy's church, which is promising at first thought.  Secondly, as I've combed through the environmental justice literature for my dissertation, the UCC has come up a number of times as a defender of social justice, peace activism, civil rights, minority rights, gay rights, and other issues I find important.  Plus, it offers a religious style that is similar to Amy's in that it trusts the bible as God's word, has a traditional service (unlike the silent worship of Quakerism). Really, it sounds like it combines the best of Quakerism with the best of Church of Christ-ism.

I don't think this minor new interest of mine will go anywhere, though.  If I wanted to go to church on Sunday, I wouldn't have reliable transportation because Pedro is still broken and Amy, being the one whose affiliation has been going on the longest, fairly gets the use of the Volvo.  Plus, even with her general displeasure with the way her church is going, I don't see her leaving.  She's very loyal and dedicated, and she'll stick it out.

I told Amy last night that I figured things were hopeless for us to ever have the same thing religiously, or for me to do anything at all, and that we should go ahead and sell my soul to the devil now so that we could at least get some cool shit out of the deal.  I mean, that cat will give anything, and imagine the good work we could do with a "zillion dollars," which I offered as my starting point. 

She wasn't impressed. 

Posted by Your Friendly Neighborhood DJ at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rose's Rescue, the animal rescue we've worked with for the past year, has imploded over the past couple of weeks.  This group, which was supposedly initially formed for the betterment of the world through saving animals, has been undermined by the very flaws which created a need for such a group in the first place.

Certain parties, through the planning and execution of power-seizing actions, have abruptly transformed the rescue from a communally functioning organization focuses on animal rescue and rehabilitation, to an arena through which bored and wealthy housewives can find purpose through the creation of unnecessary drama.  Because of the power-hungry wishes of one such overzealous volunteer, one of the founders and chief members, not to mention our main contact with the group, was essentially forced out after four years of hard work and sacrifice without even a thank you.

Because of this, we decided to end our volunteer activities in that group, effective upon the completion of our fostering of our current animals, Mona, Petey and Carlton. Such organizations run on two currencies: appreciation and trust.  Without appreciation for one another, trust doesn't happen. And in any organization, communalism can only go so far, because as other less-trustworthy members join, the ability of the system to function falters.  Once a certain threshold is met, a benevolent dictator is needed to run the show, or a totalitatian will claw to the top of the pile of shit.

The forcing out of a founding member at the whims of a trouble-making volunteer showed not only a tremendous dysfunction within the group's internal dynamics, but a complete void of appreciation and therefore a huge violation of trust.  Because of that, we didn't feel comfortable continuing because we didn't feel as though we could trust the other people involved.

Since the time that we announced this decision, we have been ostracized as well, disallowed from accessing online adoption applications or questions sent through the Petfinder.com listings about our dogs.  The worst part is that despite our attempts to call the eponymous founder of the group to straighten things out, the efforts of this totalitarian volunteer who has now seized the online aspects of the group, has ignored all of our efforts to continue our involvement through the completion of these fosters and has continued to ostracize us as far as her powers will allow.  We're like 30 seconds from just taking our remaining fosters over and quitting for good.  The current set-up doesn't allow us to be effective fosters, because we don't get communications about our dogs.

Of course, this ridiculous turn of events just further eroded any faith I had in humanity.  No good deed goes unpunished, right?  Well, we wanted to help dogs, and instead of helping dogs, we've been sucked into a mess that consumes way to much mental energy, all because a bored housewife from Hudson wants something to do and is hungry for power.  It's a shame, because people with her traits ruin 99.9999% of all of life, from jobs (see: micromanaging bosses) to politics (see: Bush, 2001-2009) to economics (see: capitalism) to culture (see: Sony, Disney, et al.) to religion (see: well, just about everyone who participates). 

People with her traits, the aching desire for power and prestige, no matter how small the arena, profit from allowing unfixed dogs to breed into an overpopulation problem, take dogs to the pound when they mess on the carpet one time, and run dog-fighting rings.  Of course, the effects on the world caused by people like her is why we got into this rescue in the first place.  And now, she's the reason we're getting out.  One more good thing spoiled by the darknees of society's worst.  The lowest common denominator has been drug just a little bit lower.

We don't know what to do with the dogs we have now.  Chances are, if we take them back to the rescue, they'll end up at the APL in tiny kennels.  We can't adopt them.  And we can't, through the way the rescue is now functioning, trust that our line of communication won't be eliminated to potential adoptees.

Go humanity.  Whoo! 

Posted by Your Friendly Neighborhood DJ at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I haven't had a lot to say this past couple weeks.  I've been a touch preoccupied with a few things.

I spent most of the week after Thanksgiving grading term papers for my U.S. and Canada class, as I've mentioned before.  And as I mentioned before, some of the papers had some depressingly poorly written phrases in them... but unfortunately, that's to be expected from papers in a freshman-level class.  Sad, but true.  Of course, my earlier recognition of these shortfalls completely ignored about a third of the class which wrote very nice, well-thought and well-executed papers.

I also wrote that past entry before I came across the one paper that has given me headaches for the past couple of weeks now.   A student of mine plagiarized a large portion of the paper he/she turned in.  Badly.   Three out of the five pages were directly copied and pasted out of internet sources.  The only reason I knew this was that the first page was horrifically written, then page two was beautiful and publication quality.  I started looking, and found that the websites she cited in these passages didn't exist.  When I typed the text directly into Google, it popped right up.  Not only did she rip off massive amounts of text from online sources, but when she cited it, she intentionally covered it up.

I struggled for days with what to do with him/her.  He/She failed the paper, obviously, but I had to figure out if what he/she did was fail-the-class worthy.  I asked colleagues, read the university policy like 50 times, checked out his/her references again and had several long conversations with him/her about it.  I decided to fail the student, which was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made.

The other adventure this week has been dealing with my doctoral competency exams.  I've taken two (Jim's and Shawn's) and will be taking Scott's tomorrow morning.  It has seemed, though, that after grading tons of papers and writing a couple of 12 page exams, I haven't felt like writing much lately in this blog.  I suppose that's okay.  I've actually been enjoying writing my comps, believe it or not.  It's not often that I have four hours of uninterrupted and distraction-free time to think and write off the top of my head.

Good news is, if everything goes alright (and I say "if" because I truly believe that I could totally fuck things up this week somehow), then by next Friday, after my oral exams and dissertation defense, I will successfully be a doctoral candidate, "ABD" (All But Dissertation).  Not bad considering that I just started working on the topic in June.  Either way, it's been a full semester.  Once I'm finished next week, I'm going to take a few days off and start writing some other papers for publication.

If I make it, we're going to go out to dinner on that Friday at the new vegan place downtown run by Chrissie Hynde.  I think that Kory and Amy should join us (wink wink, people!).

Posted by Your Friendly Neighborhood DJ at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)