ALEMANIA, YOU GOT ONE WHEEL IN THE DITCH, AND A WHEEL ON THE TRACK?

I'm from Alabama. I live in Germany. And I'm just sayin' . . .

sausages, beer, no speed limits on some highways, 4-wheelers are street legal, Texas Lightning was the German entry for the most recent Eurovision, Fußball, Michael Schumacher, the Scorpions, David Hasselhof, losing two world wars (and starting at least one of them), genocide,
smoking is allowed (not banned by law in any way) everywhere, Benny the Rat.

I could see a Tallulah Bankhead and raise a Marlene Dietrich, offer a Berthold Brecht in response to a Tennessee Williams, and put William Faulkner between Günter Grass and Thomas Mann.

Granted, I could write a much longer list of things that carry precisely the opposite implication, but still.

Du bist womöglich einen Rotnacken.

THE WAITING IS THE HARDEST PART

Recently Carlton posted about abortion rights and, in the comments section, I wondered why it has been deemed necessary that there should be a "waiting period". I wasn't being entirely ingenuous, since I had a ghost of an opinion about why these exist. Shortly after making my comment I saw, on Pandagon (which is generally excellent), something that gave a bit more form to my ghost of an opinion. It all boils down to the general effort to make abortions as difficult to obtain as possible while still keeping them legal.

After I read the Pandagon piece I thought a bit more about it and then sent an email to Carlton. I said that Pandagon summed up my suspicion, "otherwise the waiting periods make nothing more than symbolic sense. I mean, honestly, how many people were popping in for abortions-while-u-wait in the years before these laws came into effect? Even if [one is] ambivalent/hostile about children (like me) and pleased as punch to have the right to an abortion, the fact that one is pregnant would, I suspect, incline most women to, perhaps, consider what to do before taking action. This [getting an abortion] is hardly the equivalent to 'well hey! There's an assortment of chewing gum! And right here next to the checkout! Well, I didn't WANT gum, but now that I've got a shot at some I think I'll just help myself!'''

I might have continued by pointing out that while the other famous American waiting period - for guns - is designed in part to encourage an over thinking of It, the more important function is to give the dealer time to check public records for the legality of the purchase. Even without the second function, however, thinking over whether to by a gun is very different from thinking over whether to get an abortion. Although it is clearly possible that some women might find out they are pregnant and immediately storm down to the nearest clinic for a snap abortion, I find it difficult to believe that this sort of thing happens very often. In the (perhaps equally unlikely) event of a heat-of-the-moment gun purchase, however, there is a clear threat to public safety at stake.

And before you splutter that abortion is murder, I'm going to tell you that a fetus is not capable of being a victim of murder, since it is not a person. A fetus is a potential person, in much the same way that lump of coal is a potential diamond.

Carlton prompted me to blog about this (I forget, sometimes, that I have a blog) and so now I have.

I will continue with a related point. I am not happy with the "sincere" handwringing pose pro-choice politicians so often strike (the safe, legal, and rare mantra, which is often delivered with a slight quaver in the voice). Perhaps these folks really are sincere, but I still don't like it. There is entirely too much emotion swirling around this issue (most issues, in fact) and I think it is bad strategy, and just plain bad, to add to it. Abortions are medical procedures. Politicians who say things like the decision is "between a woman and her god" make me sick. Freighting abortions with so much public guilt and hooha does nothing more than increase the pressure on the people who are thinking about having one. If you think someone should be able to have the choice but should "think it over", then shut the fuck up, shove your piety up your ass, and let her think.

If you don't think they should have the choice, of course, you are well within your rights to be an ass about it, but you'll never get invited over to my house.

YOU'RE ON THE AIR!

At some point when I was in college (this would have been some time between 1990 and the end of 93) I was on the road from Hattiesburg to Bessemer. This was coincidental with the brief moment in which there was a pretty cool classic rock station in Tuscaloosa. During this some point, I passed through Tuscaloosa and have a clear recollection of hearing something like the following taking place:

DJ: Rok 109, whatchu wanna hear?

Caller: Yeah, uh, can y'all play "Intruder" bah Snow?

DJ: Uh, no.

And away we went into "Locomotive Breath" by Jethro Tull. The Honda's speakers barely made it past Cottondale.

I am listening to that wonderful song right now, and it is the anti Snow. The all time winner has got him by the balls, still.

NOAM CHOMSKY: KILLS BUZZ FAST!

(listening to Pete Townshend's demo of Behind Blue Eyes)
I got Noam Chomsky's "Failed States" for Waronchristmas (in the original German "Der Gescheiterte Staat". I just took it with me to The Bar. Dudes. Not nearly as conducive to a high as the book I just finished (The Fellowship of the Ring for the billionth time, if you must know).

(listening to Rock It by Herbie Hancock)
Recently I've become convinced that, come hell or high water, Dubyah is going to attack Iran and/or Syria. I don't know whose army he will use (his own Navy, if the entrails are read correctly), but I don't doubt it. I really want to doubt it, though. I wonder (as Sting's Fortress Around Your Heart comes on) where that will leave me. As some of you may know, the Lady Birgit and I are betrothed. Should the US start yet another war I would, I think, be honor bound to Do Something. As it happens, my passport is due for an update.

This is, of course, a great time to be an American (foreign policy aside) because of David Beckham's imminent arrival in Los Angeles. (ooh! Wynton Marsalis and the Eastman Wind Ensemble performing Napoli--Variations on a Neopolitan Song!) I hope he fares better than Lothar Matthäus. I suppose his English is marginally better, so he has that going for him. It is worth pointing out that Miroslav Klose is on the market, and he would score 10 goals a game in the MLS if he had half of an asshole feeding him.

(Marvin Gaye, Got to Give it Up, Part 1) I'm just going to groove for a bit.

To get back to Matt's comments in the most recent post, I have to ask if the Ben Folds Five album "Whatever and Ever, Amen" counts as nerdrock. Because the song "Kate" is nerdy, rocking, and touching. And North Carolinian.

(Cloudbursting by Kate Bush) My New Year's resolution, aside from maintaining my blog, is to follow NCAA college football again. My mother seems to get into it more and more as the years go by and I need it so as to make conversation. There was a time when I was on top of things, but I'm way out of the loop now. Help me? I know that the (hated, but SEC) Florida Gators won It All. Beyond that I'm stumped. For example, Boisie State? The Fuck?

I DON'T WANT THE WORLD. I JUST WANT YOUR HALF

I think "Ana Ng" by They Might Be Giants deserves an award. I nominate it as having the strangest lyrics that still make sense of all songs I have recently listened to.

The opening is great:

Make a hole with a gun
perpendicular to the name
of this town on a desktop globe
Exit wound in a foreign nation
showing the home of the one
this was written for

Cool, eh?

IS DAN SAVAGE JOE QUEENAN?

The latest Savage Love (an advice column written by Dan Savage) includes a clever reference to To Kill a Mockingbird. This is just the latest in a long line of Proofs of Mr Savage's betterness. It is also weird that I would come across this, so soon after having read an article and written a blog post dealing with TKaM. I wonder if this has something to do with one of Occam's laws. I don't think it's Occam's Hammer. Anyone know?

And can you spot the reference?


UPDATE: It turns out this IS Occam's Hammer coming down upon my head.

YA GOT ME, YA GOT ME, YA GOT ME, YA LOST ME

This morning, while readying myself for work, I had a quick look at this article from the Guardian. The author of the piece, Joe Queenan, is focused on the new movie "Blood Diamond". I haven't seen the movie yet, so I won't make the slightest effort to counter Queenan's arguments regarding it, which center on the tendency of Hollywood films (or films made by white people) to portray black people as foes to be battled or victims to be saved. He doesn't mention it, but the phenomenon he is describing reminds me of the Noble Savage and White Man's Burden (which, incidentally, I am convinced Kipling was being ironic about).

Queenan notes similar themes in "Glory" (which I haven't seen, believe it or not), "Glory Road" (unseen), "the Constant Gardener" (unsee), "the Interpreter" (unse), "A Dry White Season" (uns), "Cry the Beloved Country" (un), and a couple I HAVE seen.

"In all of these movies," Queenan argues, "the same message comes through: Yes, some white people are bad. Oh, so very, very bad! But when white people are good, well, nobody does it better. That's just the way white people are." I think that's a good point well made.

Except. He had to go and say that "[t]he template for the Up With Caucasians! film was established . . . with the release of . . . To Kill a Mockingbird. Based on a beloved, fabulously successful, thoroughly absurd novel by Harper Lee, who never wrote another book." I won't quibble with any aesthetic points regarding either the film or book TKaM, which I loved and he hated (or didn't actually see/read [wait for it]), but I have to comment on what seems to be his misunderstanding of them. Read no further until you have either read or seen TKaM, because it is awesome and I don't want to spoil you.

First, it is neither here nor there that Harper Lee only wrote one book. When asked why, she once told (I think it was the Birmingham News) that "that was all that happened." The book was clearly semi-autobiographical, and though I will grant that the South was and is in many ways an inherently absurd place full of absurd people, the story in TKaM is more or less true, apparently. And even if it wasn't, it is manifestly bullshitty of Queenan to say that "[t]he notion that a black farmhand accused of raping a white woman in the 1930s - 30 years before the film was made - would have ever reached the courthouse in Dixie is somewhat fanciful," unless of course one knows dick all. What IS fanciful is the idea that said black farmhand could count on a fair trial, but there were loads of show trials. Of course, Tom Robinson (said black farmhand) DIDN'T get a fair trial in TKaM. He had a passionate white lawyer who failed to save him.

In the same paragraph, Queenan criticizes "the director's refusal" to dress the mob who tried to lynch Tom Robinson as Klansmen. Again, this is only worth criticizing if you are ignorant. The sad reality is that the Klan, though potent, was not omnipresent and certainly not the only thing black farmhands had to fear. Most lychings were carried out by precisely the "Good Ol' Boys" Queenan jokingly refers too as cop outs. Queenan has thus cited two examples from TKaM (and made one ad feminam attack on Harper Lee) which undermine his central argument. Strange.

The next paragraph is worth quoting in its entirety.

Pioneeringly foolish, To Kill a Mockingbird establishes the basic theme of all Three Cheers for Whitey! movies: Yes, there are many bad white people out there who do some terrible, terrible things to black people. But when the chips are down and black people are poised on the very precipice of disaster, they can always rely on some thoroughly decent white folks to step in and make sure that justice prevails.

What? I can't find my copy of the book, or else I'd start throwing quotations at the computer, but lemmie see if I've got the plot right:
Scout and Jem are the children of upstanding widower-lawyer Atticus (a white man). Upstanding (insofar as a black farmhand could be in that place and time) Tom is accused of rape by the Ewells, who are on the lowest rung of white society. There is no proof. Racism, however, is so virulent in the town that no lawyer wants the case. The judge asks Atticus to take it (in part due to his own doubt, and in part out of residual fairness). Atticus takes the case, despite the fact that he and his family are harrassed by their fellow townsfolk, and makes an effort to have Tom acquitted. Atticus does this, apparently, because he is a genuinely fair-minded man, and explains to his daughter (Scout) that it is simply not ok to not do the right thing when given the chance. The (white, male, Good Ol' Boy) jury finds Tom guilty anyway. Tom is later "shot while trying to escape" from prison (a southern euphemism for murder). Bob Ewell (the actual rapist) then seeks revenge on Atticus for humiliating him in court by attacking Scout and Jem one night. Scout and Jem are saved by Boo Radley, a mysterious hermit/autistic/deus ex machina from across the street, and Bob Ewell is dead. And that's that.

Justice prevails? Well, certainly not from Tom's perspective! Bob Ewell IS dead, of course, but it wasn't Atticus who smote him. Boo did it, and he did it for reasons having nothing to do with the racial theme of the book.

What's my point? I suppose it is twofold. One thing I wanted to do is get that off my chest about TKaM. The other one brings us back to this morning, though. Is the first bit of his article to be trusted? I found it compelling until his bullshit about TKaM made me doubt him. He did reel me back in a little in attacking "Mississippi Burning" (well done but a horribly inacurrate, and probably dangerous, portrayal of the FBI's role in the Civil Rights Movement) and "A Time to Kill" (which was just silly).

What do you think?

I BELIEVE MY SHIRT IS WEARING THIN, AND CHANGE IS WHAT I BELIEVE IN.

A friend has promised to send me a copy of Richard Dawkins’s book “The God Delusion”, so I hope to read it soon. I was an atheist long before I’d ever heard of Mr Dawkins, however, and I’ve yet to read anything by him (though I did hear an interview he did on Air America’s late, great Morning Sedition) so I don’t look for the book to buttress my lack of faith. Rather, it seems like a book worth chewing on. I read a provocative review essay in the November issue of Harper’s (by Marilynne Robinson) which I won’t yet go into here (perhaps after reading Dawkins).

Here in Germany, unlike in the US (where I’m from) or Mexico (where I’ve lived), there is relatively little public discussion of religion.* There is talk about Islam, but that’s more of a political issue (and something I’ll come back to), and talk about Benny the Rat (who is famously German, but is also a politician), but not much real religious talk. Politicians don’t say much about religion (their own or anyone else’s), even though one of the largest political parties is expressly Christian. My partner, B, has had issues with her parents about her lack of religiosity, but even in their case it’s not the sort of heat generated by American friends I’ve known.

Of course, Germany is also a country where the state partially and indirectly subsidizes religious schools, has loads of religious holidays (I don’t have to work on All Saints Day, and some Germans don’t have to work on the day of Mary’s alleged ascension) and collects a tax on behalf of religions directly out of your paycheck (if you want it to). I don’t have the figures (I suspect they are readily available) but this is also a country with among the lowest church-attendance rates / professed-religiosity rates in the world. The US, with (and Dubyah aside, let’s be honest) almost no official government action of the sort just mentioned is a nation of bell-tinkling pharisees by comparison.

I find it all very interesting (and in many ways depressing).

I’ll plant my flag in the name of the inverse Pascale’s Wager. If you don’t know already, basically there was a guy named Pascale who bet dome other guy that there was a god. The other guy was all “No there ain’t!” But Pascale figured that, if there IS a god, the other guy is bound to have trouble come the hereafter, whereas he (Pascale) had very little to lose by believing in a god, and perhaps a lot to gain.** Greg’s Wager could be as follows: I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. No, wait. It is: unless you’ve seen some reason to assume that the normal rules don’t apply, you should assume the normal rules apply. In other words, when I look around, I see things that can be explained to me, and this is Good. I stopped accepting “Because I said so” as an explanation quite some time ago, and I ain’t starting back now.

Read Voltaire’s “Candide”. My guess is that M. Arouet said what Mr Dawkins wants to say long before the latter was a gleam in his parents’ eyes, but I’m ready to watch the dead horse get beaten further. I mean, which dead horse is more deserving of a beating, these days?


* A googlenews Germany search for Gott turns up 4,507 hits, a Mexico search for Dios will give you 16,839, and a US search for God yields 69,003. That’s got a lot to do with the number of sources the google machine crawls, but it is an interesting anecdote anyway.
** Somewhere on the Internets I recently read someone making the point that Pascale was thinking of a very particular god, but I’ll leave that aside, as well as a related point about the absurdity of deciding on whether or not to have a genuine religious belief (you either have it or you don’t, agnostics).

NOW WITH PICTURES!

A feature of Blogger that emerged at some point over the past couple of years is that it has become easy to post pictures. I haven’t done this in the past, but will now do it from time to time. The first one is an Afghan fellow who got put into the Internets at some point a couple of years ago. I like the picture a lot. I would like to think that he means what I mean when I make that gesture.

HELLO. I’M GREG.

I have decided to start this new blog.

This is not my first blog. My first blog burst onto the scene in late 2001 (some time in October, I think, or perhaps November). For a glorious few months I was not all that far behind the vanguard, and I did a decent job of posting with regularity (even when I didn’t have all that much worthwhile to say). I even used Blogger to create an information page for the students of a history class I taught at the time.

I ran out of steam in 2002 (or 2003?) and let the blog lie fallow. Given that by this time I was teaching high school students instead of university students, I became more sensitive to the potential downsides to expressing your thoughts to the world at large in a searchable, quasi-permanent forum. So I created a new blog and endeavored to keep my identity difficult to learn (I didn’t go as far as to think up a snazzy pseudonym). I’ve kept on top of that blog in fits and starts, and after I stopped teaching schoolchildren I stopped caring if random folks knew who I was. Lately, though (particularly since I went off on vacation in July), I’ve just not been able to get back into the swing.

I feel like I should do something, though. There was a time when I was a decent writer (I am an ABD historian), and writing is a skill you’ve got to use or lose. Also, I have Useful Insight from time to time, and it seems that I should share that with my fellow humans. Also, I have friends in several time zones whom I rarely see, and a blog is an easy way to give people the sense that they still know you (at least that’s how I feel reading friends’ blogs). There are other reasons, I suppose.

So my options were to revive one of my dead or dying blogs, start a new one, or give up altogether. The advantage to starting a new one is that I can be marginally mysterious, assuming that anyone who doesn’t already know me ever reads this. I can also talk more frankly than I might otherwise about people with whom I deal professionally. Revival lacks these advantages. Giving up has the singular advantage of requiring no effort whatsoever on my part, but means I’d have to come up with other ways of doing the things mentioned in the paragraph immediately above this one.

And that’s a partial account of how it came to be that you are reading this.