Children of Adam

I will never be a Systematic Theology fan, much less actually engage in it myself. Seminary courses have convinced me of that. What a misguided use of energy and brainpower.

We are children of our father Adam.  We practice gardening, farming and animal husbandry.  We classify, we categorize, we identify processes and codify procedures; we apply, assess, adjust and repeat.  We are botanists and zoologists, biologists and geologists. But when we try to take the same approach to THEOlogy.. we are doomed to failure, out of our depth, grasping for what is beyond our reach. You can classify the finite, the natural. But you can't classify the infinite, the supernatural.  You can reduce natural processes to repeatable steps, and optimize them.  Sometimes you can get lucky and even do this with people - for a while.  But you definitely can't apply the natural or the behavioral sciences to the Person of God, as if God were subject to Newton or Darwin or Pavlov or Skinner.

Still, it doesn't stop people from trying, from Augustine to Aquinas to Calvin to Erickson. And none seem to make any significant improvements over the efforts of the others. They all miss the mark. Systematic Theology: 1,600 years of chasing after the wind.

I, for one, won't add to the muddle.  Vive le mystère!

From the sublime to the ridiculous

... all in one afternoon, with NCAA basketball and a blue plate special in between. Nice day Satuday. :)

The sublime part came in the form of a local exhibit of pages from the St. John's Bible, a modern illuminated Bible being created by the Benedictines at St. John's Abbey in MN. It really is stunning up close. I want a framed print!

Got back from that in time to watch Butler give Florida the same kind of trouble they gave Wisconsin, and muscle their way into the Final Four. There are lots of people with busted brackets out there after this weekend, me included! Still have a chance to win my office pool, but only if someone knocks out North Carolina before the final.

That was followed by some mediocre meatloaf at a local diner, and to top the evening off, for the first time ever in person:

Rooooooooller Derbyyyyyyyyy!

What an oddball sport. Speedy little women in the back that try to slip through a line of big (but curvy) bruisers, to lap the field and thereby score points.

Fishnets rustling, elbows flying, hip checks and tripping penalties galore, the action was furious. The local announcer loved to call out the name of our home team's speedster when she got out front: "Stellaaaaaa Italianaaaaaa is the leeeeead jammerrrrrr!"

Packed house, too. Who would believe that something this campy would sell out? But then, tough girls mixing it up in public does have a certain prurient appeal. I mean, you know it's bad, but it's so hard to look away...

Fad or trend?

What will last and what will fade?  How to know?

Here are two from recent days.  Which will persist for more than a few weeks?

#1:  "crowdsourcing", which is the idea that people agree to invest in information-gathering technology and then transmit that information to a central collection point, to be aggregated and then posted on the web, in order to collectively learn.  The most recent example is in Japan where people are buying geiger counters and taking local radiation readings, which then get mapped and posted, to learn about fallout patterns.

#2:  "3 goggles" (or as I refer to them, "shot glasses"), which is a gesture made by basketball players when they drain a big three-pointer in a clutch situation.  Examples found here.  Personal favorite illustrated below:

Number 2 requires no investment and is really fun to do, whether singly or in a group.  Number 1 requires spending potentially hefty sums of money, and can produce really depressing results.

But as to persisting more than a few weeks?  My bet's on #1.

Out of that chair!

When I watch sports on TV, I'm normally not a vocal guy, or particularly demonstrative.  I will "talk" to the athletes, and offer advice and encouragement, but delivered in a tone one might use if one was next to them on the bench or walking down the fairway.  I don't holler.  If I get emotionally involved in a game or a match, I will get up from my chair and leave the room for a bit to use up a smidge of my built up tension, and calm down enough to come back and watch some more.

Except for last night.  :)  Watching the NCAA game between Marquette and Syracuse, all the above behaviors were in evidence until about the last minute & a half:  talk to the players, get out of the chair, head to the kitchen or pull up the internet, look in the fridge, etc., come back, check my brackets, sit down. Repeat.  Commercials are useful for these needed breaks from game intensity.

Then Syracuse does the over-and-back violation, MU takes the ball and DJO buries the three...  and, um...  I believe I lost my composure momentarily.  ;)  Explode out of the chair, hand claps, fist pumps, a deep-throated roar... hm.  Real fan behavior!  Once in a great while it shows up.

Watching the game in an empty house may have lowered my inhibitions a little.  And during all the excitement, I didn't think about my missing cell phone once.

Thanks, MU, for a thrilling distraction.

knucklehead

Back now from a pretty great trip to Chicago... but missing my cellphone!  :((  Got off the Blue Line train and left it on a seat.  By the time I got to where I parked the car and noticed the phone was gone, the train had pulled out - with my phone on it!  (maybe.. could be someone picked it up and just kept it, since it wasn't turned in.)

So now I'm in the market for a used model of the same phone (since I have all the cool accessories for it), and am bidding on eBay on a couple.  Local Craigslist ones are too high priced.

Ah, well.  The only thing really lost are my photos of the trip.  137 of them, including all the Chagalls..  Waaaah.

I hate cleaning up after my own mistakes.

3.14159

Ode to Pi

.

Constant

Present in all nature

Nonrepeating

A reminder of our finitude

In the face of a limitless universe around us

Unless of course, you feel this way about it:

http://vihart.com/blog/pi-is-still-wrong/

Winding Down on Winter Quarter

Several business trips are interrupting the flow of classes this term, but one of the two classes will be wrapped up within two weeks (right after yet another business trip), and then the pace of life will drop a bit.  I have been running on empty when it comes to the capacity to absorb, concentrate, and create.

A special project at work (also the reason for the out-of-town travel) has been eating up all the white space in my calendar, and while it's been interesting and challenging professionally, I still have a final research paper to write in HS620DE and would dearly love to get it done before heading to Chicago on Sunday for a conference.  It would be swell to be able to concentrate on the seminar, enjoy the business dinners with colleagues in the evenings, and fill a couple of days off grabbing some culture and some rest, without all the while engaging in wordsmithing on a laptop.  But precious few days remain to get that task done.

So, it makes sense to lay blogging aside temporarily, yes? at least until responsibilities are met, restoration happens, and my natural capacity returns.

Back in a couple of weeks... with photos.

struggling

.


still in winter's grip
struggling to make it to spring
seems to take so long


.

Maybe Daylight Savings Time will help...  that, and St. Patrick's Day, March Madness, Spring Training, some crocuses...

Unions, then and now.

To my bemusement (and chagrin, I guess), my home state is once again a hotbed of radicalism, squaring off against reactionaries over an old, old divisive issue: labor unions. Not since May Day, 1886 in Milwaukee has collective bargaining drawn as many Wisconsin protesters into the streets. Not since the 70's has there been a decent political riot in Madison. Could we have Molotov cocktails on Mifflin street once again? One could only hope!  (not.)

What's more, the idea is spreading to other states. Wisconsin is leading the way, apparently. But to where?

This whole business is making me think about unions and what place they have in American life. They used to have a place of achieving social good. From the 1880s to the 1930s, they fought for shorter work days, child labor protections, equal pay for equal work, safe working conditions, etc., etc., all of which were reactions to capitalist excesses. And they made good headway. Too much headway, in fact. All that progress led to the Taft-Hartley act in the 1940s, to dial back the restrictive strong-armed nature of what they call the Closed Shop.

So what are unions fighting for now?  It makes a big difference whether they are private sector unions (auto workers) or public sector (government workers).  Private sector unions are fighting against job cuts and wage cuts.  Public sector unions are fighting against paying more for benefits (health insurance and pensions).  The private sector employers can (and sometimes do) go out of business if they can't get concessions from the unions.  Public sector employers can't go out of business.  They have to keep going - they're the government.  So that ultimate threat of "closing the plant" is gone.  All they have left is layoffs, and those are restricted by collective bargaining contracts.  Ever tried to get rid of an underperforming teacher who is tenured?  Forget it.

So what to do, if you're a Governor facing a ridiculously large deficit?  Raise taxes 66% like in Illinois?  Or bust the union and revert to the 1870s?  Is either extreme really necessary?

I can see the arguments for either side.  The unions now are no longer fighting for 8 hour days, minimum wages, non-discrimination, equal pay.. this stuff is all law.  They are fighting now to keep a certain standard of living for themselves.  I sympathize, dudes.  Really.  But I don't have that same luxury.  I'm lucky to have a stinkin' job at all after my last layoff.  (actually, it's a pretty good job, even though I had to settle for 13% less pay to keep working.)  I'll keep what I have, thank you very much, and accept what my employer gives me in benefits without making a fuss.   At the same time, I don't think that denying government workers collective bargaining rights just because they're government workers is the right path, either.  There's got to be a middle ground.

Catholic Social Teaching has a section on worker rights.  In Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II wrote,

In close connection with the right to private property, Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical also affirms other rights as inalienable and proper to the human person. Prominent among these, because of the space which the Pope devotes to it and the importance which he attaches to it, is the “natural human right” to form private associations. This means above all the right to establish professional associations of employers and workers, or of workers alone.[19] Here we find the reason for the Church’s defense and approval of the establishment of what are commonly called trade unions: certainly not because of ideological prejudices or in order to surrender to a class mentality, but because the right of association is a natural right of the human being, which therefore precedes his or her incorporation into political society. Indeed, the formation of unions “cannot..be prohibited by the State,” because “the State is bound to protect natural rights, not to destroy them; and if it forbids its citizens to form associations, it contradicts the very principle of its own existence.”

And yet, should we consider the worthy right of free association to also become an association forced on certain people, by what is known as a "closed shop", where union membership is a prerequisite to employment?  Worker's rights cut both ways.  There is no question that workers should have the right to bargain collectively.  But, an individual worker should also have the right to bargain individually.  Closed shops deny a worker that right.  Maybe what we need is the "agency shop" model?

I have to admit I have mixed emotions on this issue, and that the topic is complex.  When my son was denied the right to work because he didn't have the cash to pay his dues to the painter's union in Chicago, should I be proud of what the unions have accomplished?  Sorry.  I'm not.  But neither do I want to uniformly deny the rights of unions to exist.  I want a third way.  Collective bargaining with an opt-out provision.  Any labor union worth its salt should be willing to compete in the marketplace and provide workers some value for those hefty dues they pay... without intimidation of, and blocking the path to the time clock for, someone who wants to work for less than union wage and make their own deal on benefits.

Fair is fair.