Today I am thinking about what an odd and difficult thing it is to translate content from one genre to another. As an easy example, suppose I give you a short story or a novel that is not overtly philosophical in its language or dialogue and then I ask you to spell out a metaphysical or ethical theory that is "behind" the narrative somehow, the metaphysical assumptions that underly the character's thoughts and actions.
Then of course, you must see the ambiguity in reconstructing the metaphysics of the character distinct from the metaphysics of the author. When you do tease out that theory somehow, whose is it after all?
And assuming you find a place to stand in that difficulty, at what point is one confident that the resulting theory in any way bore a "causal" relation to the events of the narrative? Was the character driven by such a structured theory? Perhaps in doing this theory construction we are really just taking what appear to be motivations and assumptions and creating something with the quality of logical coherence to help us pigeon-hole the actions of the character in question.
These seem to be troubling for all social sciences, most of philosophy, and even theology. For what is Gospel Theology generally but the translation of a narrative into a logical metaphysical/ethical framework.
But the natural sciences are perhaps not safe either. It is still curious to me that we can take a narrative (when we perform an experiment, we essentially tell a story of events... and the "events" are those portions that we discretize from experience to mark the progress of the narrative), and translate that into a theory. In this light the provisional status of all of science is highlighted. The natural world obeys no laws. Rather, we have a theoretical framework that we have put together from a set of defining narratives (experiments). There is no guarantee that those same defining narratives could not be discretized in another way (what are the "events" in question?), or that a large set of stories would not contradict the current theory. To me this, again, is an issue of genre.
In addition to the curiosity of translation from one genre to another (if you put The Raven in prose, what exactly is preserved??), there is the peculiarity of the ostensible human necessity of doing so. Our experiences are the story that we take from it, and then we create other stories which are the logical relations between stories. Theories are in some ways meta-narratives, stories of how our stories relate to one another. How do I understand this-person-now as being the same person as that-person-then? We seem to sacrifice much of the detail of the continuous narrative of experience in favor of a theoretical roadmap that changes the scale (think of drawing a map to your friend's house on a napkin in order to remember rather than committing to memory the entire visual narrative of the car trip there). We don't recall to mind then entire chronology of our interaction with another person; we say "Jack is my friend," or, "Jack is a bastard."
You may have guessed that I have progressed from the first paragraph above about translating a story into a theory to the question of translating our experiences into physical, historical, or philosophical theories. An analogy remains between theory and narrative, but what is the strength of that analogy? (think again of The Raven, what analogy holds between the prose and the poem?)
And when we "explain" something, we seem either to offer an immediate narrative of what happened, as in "How did the garbage wind up on the floor? Ah yes, the dog turned over the can," or to point to a family of narratives by analogy as in "Why does the dog continue to disturb the trash can? Ah, because his evolutionary heritage is that of a scavenger..." or something along those lines. In the latter story we "explain" the dog's drive to invade the trash can as a genetic proclivity, but this "genetic proclivity" is itself a name for a body of stories, in this case a combination of anthropomorphism (proclivities) and definitive scientific narratives in biology.
And where I am getting in this round about way is to suggest that theorizing is an altogether too privileged endeavor. Failing to recognize that theory is little more than an aid to memory (a road map to past narratives) has led to near worship of "rational explanation". If theory points to canonical experiences or narratives, then is it akin to pointing to an object labeled "this"?
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Presence
So, first I should say that I pray twice a day, or at least that's how it looks to most people. That's to say that I go through a set liturgy of common prayer twice a day (these are not necessarily the only instances of prayer, if "instance" is even appropriate): morning and evening prayer of the Episcopal Daily Office as set out in the Book of Common Prayer, 8am and 5:30pm respectively. We do it five days a week at the church and in the privacy of home (or wherever) on the weekends.
Why?
Well, there are as many answers to this as there are individuals who find it worth asking. One answer is that we are Episcopalian and the Book of Common Prayer is only common if we actually use it and that it provides the Daily Office as a daily commitment to prayer. Once upon a time it was a requirement that priests observe the Office every day, and at the church whenever possible. That has been relaxed, and in fact you might be challenged to find priests who do so. I know of a couple. When, under the guidance of a great priest, I began to learn of the importance of the Office, I found that there was only one church within reasonable distance (for daily attendance) that even said the Office more than twice a week. It just happened that said church was only about a ten minute walk from my house.
It gets better. The only reason that this particular church said the Office twice a day for 5 days per week is because this loony grad student got it into his head that common prayer was important. So he volunteered to his vicar to lead the Office with said frequency. In fact, he did so alone for about a year before anyone started joining him. And about a year after that I showed up on his church step and thereafter reappeared daily. He admitted being a little freaked out that this guy (me) kept coming every day, twice a day. Surely there must be something wrong with such a person (don't miss the reflexivity of that statement!). In fact, C entertained the thought that something was wrong with him for showing up to lead the office everyday.
A word about C. He's not what you might picture a guy who prays a lot. True, he's a New Testament Ph.D. student... but he's also orthodox in his beliefs (more surprising than you might think). And one of the more orthodox things that he thinks is that you can't be orthodox in belief without being orthodox in practice. So, I think he'd agree that the first indication that he's a Trinitarian Christian might be that he walks to the church twice a day for common prayer, often to pray by himself (the Trinity is present in the strangeness of that statement). But he's also a former college athlete, a self-professed jock who didn't start thinking until late in college. He's a big guy, for whom basketball and tennis are the default setting. The only thing that would make him happier than crushing me in each of those sports were if I was much better at those sports and he still crushed me. As it is, he must enjoy it, because we do it a lot and I almost never win. Anyway, C is most likely to show up for prayer wearing athletic shorts and a "Beefcake" t-shirt riding a bike that's much too small for his 230 lbs frame (until I gave him a bigger bike). He has little patience with people, although he's not confrontational. He'd just prefer to avoid people with whom he shares little in viewpoint. He's very focused on three things: the church, theology/NT, and sports (sometimes in that order). But if you saw him, and maybe if you chatted with him for a few moments, you'd swear that his natural setting is in a bar watching ESPN after having spent a few hours at some sports practice.
Not long after I started showing up I learned a group of homeless fellows lived in the church parking lot. When the police came to rid the parking lot of the nuisance the church decided to make an open declaration to both the police and the homeless that the homeless were under no circumstances to be run off the property: they were welcome so long as they obeyed the law. Score one for the church. It's never so simple though. The police still harass the guys because the church is near a strip of retail stores whose business is ostensibly hurt by the presence of the homeless.
I guess people don't buy as much crap when they see homeless people.
And that's a problem.
Anyway, we've gotten to know these guys pretty well. They have their problems, and some have gotten help (rehab, housing, etc.), but the important thing is presence. Our presence with them and their presence with us. There is a great myth in society that we can apply a label to a group of people and thereby explain the situation, that "homeless" means lazy, addicted, aggressive, and/or deviant. The myth is that somehow this group is inherently different from professionals or middle-class or the rich. So, by being present we haven't really done anything positive, we've just declined to perform a negative action by relegating them, or us, to some defining group. We've just declined the offer to dissolve community. The next step, of course, is to find some community.
C and and I agree on these topics, but we have also struggled to understand how we can be a community with these guys, especially amidst all the anxiety and fears that accompany modern life, especially with a family. Let's face it, inviting a guy in off the street is a completely different action when you have a wife and maybe also a child.
Enter M. M has a life story that is too unbelievable to post. Let's just say he has a unique testimony. He's also now a regular fixture at the Office and has cultivated friendships with the homeless guys. M has two advantages over myself and C: 1.) he's single and 2.) he's fearless. His presence has done more than either of us, and it is developing every day. My only caveat is that we have to keep his presence with the guys from becoming a singularity. Certainly M has the ability to be present with them more often simply because he has no responsibility to a wife, but we have to figure out how this all works toward community rather than M's mission to the homeless or as a competitive model where M is better at being among the homeless. The diversity of our interactions with these guys is a boon.
So, to wrap up, the Office is about transformation. It's daily training, daily practice, and daily petition. For some, it is even more important that it is a daily presence. The Office has been forgotten just enough that its observance is almost radical, but the radical-ness only makes the transformative powers more apparent, not more efficacious. So far, at this little church down the street, the Office has done much to transform the lives of a few middle-class Christians along with their homeless friends. It has even begun to have more widespread effects in the community as the transformation of the Office influences community discussions about how to view and interact with its poorer members.
These widespread effects are a blessing, and may even be inevitable, but they can never be said to be a goal of the Office. Christians don't see things so linearly. Anamnesis is a better model. The effects are experienced in the liturgy itself, as a presence. Time is compressed into a celebratory moment, and thus causality is indistinguishable in the atemporal moment. In the Office, as an extension of the Eucharist, we have no goals.
It's about presence.
Why?
Well, there are as many answers to this as there are individuals who find it worth asking. One answer is that we are Episcopalian and the Book of Common Prayer is only common if we actually use it and that it provides the Daily Office as a daily commitment to prayer. Once upon a time it was a requirement that priests observe the Office every day, and at the church whenever possible. That has been relaxed, and in fact you might be challenged to find priests who do so. I know of a couple. When, under the guidance of a great priest, I began to learn of the importance of the Office, I found that there was only one church within reasonable distance (for daily attendance) that even said the Office more than twice a week. It just happened that said church was only about a ten minute walk from my house.
It gets better. The only reason that this particular church said the Office twice a day for 5 days per week is because this loony grad student got it into his head that common prayer was important. So he volunteered to his vicar to lead the Office with said frequency. In fact, he did so alone for about a year before anyone started joining him. And about a year after that I showed up on his church step and thereafter reappeared daily. He admitted being a little freaked out that this guy (me) kept coming every day, twice a day. Surely there must be something wrong with such a person (don't miss the reflexivity of that statement!). In fact, C entertained the thought that something was wrong with him for showing up to lead the office everyday.
A word about C. He's not what you might picture a guy who prays a lot. True, he's a New Testament Ph.D. student... but he's also orthodox in his beliefs (more surprising than you might think). And one of the more orthodox things that he thinks is that you can't be orthodox in belief without being orthodox in practice. So, I think he'd agree that the first indication that he's a Trinitarian Christian might be that he walks to the church twice a day for common prayer, often to pray by himself (the Trinity is present in the strangeness of that statement). But he's also a former college athlete, a self-professed jock who didn't start thinking until late in college. He's a big guy, for whom basketball and tennis are the default setting. The only thing that would make him happier than crushing me in each of those sports were if I was much better at those sports and he still crushed me. As it is, he must enjoy it, because we do it a lot and I almost never win. Anyway, C is most likely to show up for prayer wearing athletic shorts and a "Beefcake" t-shirt riding a bike that's much too small for his 230 lbs frame (until I gave him a bigger bike). He has little patience with people, although he's not confrontational. He'd just prefer to avoid people with whom he shares little in viewpoint. He's very focused on three things: the church, theology/NT, and sports (sometimes in that order). But if you saw him, and maybe if you chatted with him for a few moments, you'd swear that his natural setting is in a bar watching ESPN after having spent a few hours at some sports practice.
Not long after I started showing up I learned a group of homeless fellows lived in the church parking lot. When the police came to rid the parking lot of the nuisance the church decided to make an open declaration to both the police and the homeless that the homeless were under no circumstances to be run off the property: they were welcome so long as they obeyed the law. Score one for the church. It's never so simple though. The police still harass the guys because the church is near a strip of retail stores whose business is ostensibly hurt by the presence of the homeless.
I guess people don't buy as much crap when they see homeless people.
And that's a problem.
Anyway, we've gotten to know these guys pretty well. They have their problems, and some have gotten help (rehab, housing, etc.), but the important thing is presence. Our presence with them and their presence with us. There is a great myth in society that we can apply a label to a group of people and thereby explain the situation, that "homeless" means lazy, addicted, aggressive, and/or deviant. The myth is that somehow this group is inherently different from professionals or middle-class or the rich. So, by being present we haven't really done anything positive, we've just declined to perform a negative action by relegating them, or us, to some defining group. We've just declined the offer to dissolve community. The next step, of course, is to find some community.
C and and I agree on these topics, but we have also struggled to understand how we can be a community with these guys, especially amidst all the anxiety and fears that accompany modern life, especially with a family. Let's face it, inviting a guy in off the street is a completely different action when you have a wife and maybe also a child.
Enter M. M has a life story that is too unbelievable to post. Let's just say he has a unique testimony. He's also now a regular fixture at the Office and has cultivated friendships with the homeless guys. M has two advantages over myself and C: 1.) he's single and 2.) he's fearless. His presence has done more than either of us, and it is developing every day. My only caveat is that we have to keep his presence with the guys from becoming a singularity. Certainly M has the ability to be present with them more often simply because he has no responsibility to a wife, but we have to figure out how this all works toward community rather than M's mission to the homeless or as a competitive model where M is better at being among the homeless. The diversity of our interactions with these guys is a boon.
So, to wrap up, the Office is about transformation. It's daily training, daily practice, and daily petition. For some, it is even more important that it is a daily presence. The Office has been forgotten just enough that its observance is almost radical, but the radical-ness only makes the transformative powers more apparent, not more efficacious. So far, at this little church down the street, the Office has done much to transform the lives of a few middle-class Christians along with their homeless friends. It has even begun to have more widespread effects in the community as the transformation of the Office influences community discussions about how to view and interact with its poorer members.
These widespread effects are a blessing, and may even be inevitable, but they can never be said to be a goal of the Office. Christians don't see things so linearly. Anamnesis is a better model. The effects are experienced in the liturgy itself, as a presence. Time is compressed into a celebratory moment, and thus causality is indistinguishable in the atemporal moment. In the Office, as an extension of the Eucharist, we have no goals.
It's about presence.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Legal thriller...
A friend loaned me a week old copy of the New Yorker. It includes a 12 pg article on the Dickie Scruggs scandal in MS. The abstract for the article can be found here. It's really a compelling read, especially if you want a nicely written account of MS networking.
For me the article further reinforces the fact/prejudice that I have yet to meet a lawyer that I admire (I can think of a couple of folks who might fit the bill if I knew them better, but...), although Judge Lackey sounds like an admirable fellow. And yet, the article troubles me so much that it almost makes me want to go to law school. Reasons? I don't really have those yet, but here are some influencing factors:
I have a pretty odd perspective on the law, coming as it does, in part, from Alasdair MacIntyre's Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, Anthony Trollope's novels, and a host of friends, my age and older, who are lawyers from a range of law pedigrees (Stanford, Berkeley, University of MS), etc. So, first of all, I'm not much enamored with worshiping the legal system. I see the system as an ad hoc attempt to keep things civil, and there's little about it that endears it to any higher degree (please don't tell me that it is about justice!). What makes it interesting is the sort of ongoing cultural debate that it represents. Law and economics are the new religious language of secular culture (see for example Economics as Religion by Nelson). It's the higher framework that we all seem to agree on, the one "system" that we all allow to shape our daily lives. Legality almost implies morality for much of the population (perhaps particularly for lawyers). "It's not like he did anything illegal..." It's the objectivity that finds its way into a pluralist culture, and even that objectivity is elusive.
So I have a fascination with the notion of working with the law first-hand from an outsider's point of view. "Outsider" because, as I mentioned, I have no faith in the law. I don't see the law as the moral authority in modern life. Nor do I see law as the mechanism by which societies problems are ironed out. I'm no determinist. The right legal system will not magically make the world a better place. Environmental law will not save the environment. Human rights law will not save humanity. The average lawyer/social scientist would do well to at least digest MacIntyre's critique of management of human institutions in After Virture even if they do not find it debilitating. So I wonder if there would be a place for someone who at least purports to share many fewer assumptions about how the world works and what it is that the law is all about.
I come laden with theological assumptions, one of which is that lawyers have no business living in luxury (see Chrysostom, and nearly every other Church Father on the topic of wealth). You don't see many ascetic lawyers.
How many folks do you reckon are out there practicing law with this sort of theological bent? I reckon the number is in the hundreds.
I'm sure this interest is just a phase. On the other hand, I do like to argue...
For me the article further reinforces the fact/prejudice that I have yet to meet a lawyer that I admire (I can think of a couple of folks who might fit the bill if I knew them better, but...), although Judge Lackey sounds like an admirable fellow. And yet, the article troubles me so much that it almost makes me want to go to law school. Reasons? I don't really have those yet, but here are some influencing factors:
I have a pretty odd perspective on the law, coming as it does, in part, from Alasdair MacIntyre's Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, Anthony Trollope's novels, and a host of friends, my age and older, who are lawyers from a range of law pedigrees (Stanford, Berkeley, University of MS), etc. So, first of all, I'm not much enamored with worshiping the legal system. I see the system as an ad hoc attempt to keep things civil, and there's little about it that endears it to any higher degree (please don't tell me that it is about justice!). What makes it interesting is the sort of ongoing cultural debate that it represents. Law and economics are the new religious language of secular culture (see for example Economics as Religion by Nelson). It's the higher framework that we all seem to agree on, the one "system" that we all allow to shape our daily lives. Legality almost implies morality for much of the population (perhaps particularly for lawyers). "It's not like he did anything illegal..." It's the objectivity that finds its way into a pluralist culture, and even that objectivity is elusive.
So I have a fascination with the notion of working with the law first-hand from an outsider's point of view. "Outsider" because, as I mentioned, I have no faith in the law. I don't see the law as the moral authority in modern life. Nor do I see law as the mechanism by which societies problems are ironed out. I'm no determinist. The right legal system will not magically make the world a better place. Environmental law will not save the environment. Human rights law will not save humanity. The average lawyer/social scientist would do well to at least digest MacIntyre's critique of management of human institutions in After Virture even if they do not find it debilitating. So I wonder if there would be a place for someone who at least purports to share many fewer assumptions about how the world works and what it is that the law is all about.
I come laden with theological assumptions, one of which is that lawyers have no business living in luxury (see Chrysostom, and nearly every other Church Father on the topic of wealth). You don't see many ascetic lawyers.
How many folks do you reckon are out there practicing law with this sort of theological bent? I reckon the number is in the hundreds.
I'm sure this interest is just a phase. On the other hand, I do like to argue...
Friday, May 23, 2008
Homework
No narrative today. These are just some things I'm thinking about. Ethics, you might say.
I. Practice seeing:
Find out who and where the elderly are in your neighborhood.
Find the homeless.
Look at every person you pass, try to imagine who they are, where they come from, and why they dressed that way today. Why are they making that face at that moment?
What plants are blooming? Where are the mulberry trees? Why are there so many Japanese maples?
What birds are around? How many songs do they have?
What soil is under your feet, and how did it get there? Can water penetrate it? Would anything grow in it? Could you sustain a garden on it? How far down would you have to dig to find water?
When was the last time it rained? Without watching the weather, take bets on the next time it will rain.
How many cars pass your house in a day? What kind of cars are they? Who drives by? Why do they pass YOUR house? Where are they going?
II. Practice doing:
Say something that will require a lot of your time. Ask the elderly for their life stories. All of them.
Work for someone for free. Work hard.
Sell your television. Plant a garden. Try to see every living thing in the garden one at a time. Get a magnifying glass; keep going.
Walk aimlessly through the neighborhood. Make eye contact with strangers. Speak to everyone familiarly.
Go where you fear, in spite.
Memorize.
Try to understand why.
Change postures. Sit. Kneel. Change speeds. Run. Walk. Jump.
Don't hoard life. Give it freely.
III. Practice Daily -> return to I.
I. Practice seeing:
Find out who and where the elderly are in your neighborhood.
Find the homeless.
Look at every person you pass, try to imagine who they are, where they come from, and why they dressed that way today. Why are they making that face at that moment?
What plants are blooming? Where are the mulberry trees? Why are there so many Japanese maples?
What birds are around? How many songs do they have?
What soil is under your feet, and how did it get there? Can water penetrate it? Would anything grow in it? Could you sustain a garden on it? How far down would you have to dig to find water?
When was the last time it rained? Without watching the weather, take bets on the next time it will rain.
How many cars pass your house in a day? What kind of cars are they? Who drives by? Why do they pass YOUR house? Where are they going?
II. Practice doing:
Say something that will require a lot of your time. Ask the elderly for their life stories. All of them.
Work for someone for free. Work hard.
Sell your television. Plant a garden. Try to see every living thing in the garden one at a time. Get a magnifying glass; keep going.
Walk aimlessly through the neighborhood. Make eye contact with strangers. Speak to everyone familiarly.
Go where you fear, in spite.
Memorize.
Try to understand why.
Change postures. Sit. Kneel. Change speeds. Run. Walk. Jump.
Don't hoard life. Give it freely.
III. Practice Daily -> return to I.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
When it's time for intervention...
So, today had its little adventure.
M, a friend from a local church, had met someone who was recently evicted from an apartment and was living homeless. In an effort to help M let the person stay with him for a night or two. During the stay M spoke with some representatives of a local non-profit engaged in homeless affairs and they staged a sort of intervention to convince the person of the need to get help. In fact, the person had something of a realization and asked to go to rehab/detox. M felt a little strange about the whole intervention-style event and was visibly shaken by it. When I saw him yesterday, he said that the person had just asked that he go by the locked apartment (with landlord's help) and pick up a few personal belongings to put in storage until the detox program ended. Certainly. As there might be furniture, etc. I volunteered my services as needed. Turns out the house is just a couple of blocks from my own.
I arrived by bike this morning at the duplex a few moments before M and some other help. The front door and screen door had been screwed shut. Just before M arrived, a truck with three Mexicans arrived. The leader, a diminutive and energetic soul name Ulisias, asked me if I knew how bad it was. I said no.
He then proceeded to pass out masks and latex gloves.
As he unscrewed the front doors, I scrutinized the foul buildup on and proceeding from the bottom of the door. Ulisias pushed the door open 5 inches.
That's as far as it could be pushed open. Trash was piled and packed too tightly behind it for it to be opened any further. Hmmm... It smelled of stale cigarettes and beer among other things. There was a healthy population of flies. All one could see through the door was an ashtray and a continuous heap of beer cans and trash bags stacked three feet high. Hmmm... How did she get in and out? "A window," Ulisias offered questioningly.
I walked around back. As I walked, Ulisias chimed in, "If you guys will clean it all out, I'll buy you a coke and lunch at a Mexican restaurant."
Ulisias the comedian.
The back door was also screwed shut, so I called the guys around to open it. This one opened, maybe 2/3 of the full swing. You could see the front door from the opened back door, over the continuous pile of rubbish. The floor was only visible for the foot or two that allowed the back door to open. EVERYTHING else was under a heap of rubbish. There pile was nowhere shallow
enough even to infer that it did not also cover furniture. Whatever lay beneath was pure mystery. Thousands of Busch beer cans and twelve-pack boxes. I could just see the top of the stove peaking through the rubbish over on one wall. Spider webs hung from the ceiling. No one was willing to venture over the pile to locate any belongings.
Then Ulisias dropped the bomb, "Yeah, [the person] has been living here for over 10 years."
I doubt M feels uncomfortable about the intervention now. In fact, everyone present was vocal about the relief they felt knowing that this person was actively getting help. Surely no one in this situation should ever live alone. And this was going on literally two blocks from my house.
The Mexican guys get the task of removing the filth from the property. They've reserved a dump truck, and hopefully a lot of antibiotics. Ulisias figures three dump truck loads will probably empty the apartment.
Wow.
M, a friend from a local church, had met someone who was recently evicted from an apartment and was living homeless. In an effort to help M let the person stay with him for a night or two. During the stay M spoke with some representatives of a local non-profit engaged in homeless affairs and they staged a sort of intervention to convince the person of the need to get help. In fact, the person had something of a realization and asked to go to rehab/detox. M felt a little strange about the whole intervention-style event and was visibly shaken by it. When I saw him yesterday, he said that the person had just asked that he go by the locked apartment (with landlord's help) and pick up a few personal belongings to put in storage until the detox program ended. Certainly. As there might be furniture, etc. I volunteered my services as needed. Turns out the house is just a couple of blocks from my own.
I arrived by bike this morning at the duplex a few moments before M and some other help. The front door and screen door had been screwed shut. Just before M arrived, a truck with three Mexicans arrived. The leader, a diminutive and energetic soul name Ulisias, asked me if I knew how bad it was. I said no.
He then proceeded to pass out masks and latex gloves.
As he unscrewed the front doors, I scrutinized the foul buildup on and proceeding from the bottom of the door. Ulisias pushed the door open 5 inches.
That's as far as it could be pushed open. Trash was piled and packed too tightly behind it for it to be opened any further. Hmmm... It smelled of stale cigarettes and beer among other things. There was a healthy population of flies. All one could see through the door was an ashtray and a continuous heap of beer cans and trash bags stacked three feet high. Hmmm... How did she get in and out? "A window," Ulisias offered questioningly.
I walked around back. As I walked, Ulisias chimed in, "If you guys will clean it all out, I'll buy you a coke and lunch at a Mexican restaurant."
Ulisias the comedian.
The back door was also screwed shut, so I called the guys around to open it. This one opened, maybe 2/3 of the full swing. You could see the front door from the opened back door, over the continuous pile of rubbish. The floor was only visible for the foot or two that allowed the back door to open. EVERYTHING else was under a heap of rubbish. There pile was nowhere shallow
enough even to infer that it did not also cover furniture. Whatever lay beneath was pure mystery. Thousands of Busch beer cans and twelve-pack boxes. I could just see the top of the stove peaking through the rubbish over on one wall. Spider webs hung from the ceiling. No one was willing to venture over the pile to locate any belongings.Then Ulisias dropped the bomb, "Yeah, [the person] has been living here for over 10 years."
I doubt M feels uncomfortable about the intervention now. In fact, everyone present was vocal about the relief they felt knowing that this person was actively getting help. Surely no one in this situation should ever live alone. And this was going on literally two blocks from my house.
The Mexican guys get the task of removing the filth from the property. They've reserved a dump truck, and hopefully a lot of antibiotics. Ulisias figures three dump truck loads will probably empty the apartment.
Wow.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Kindergarten Pup
Last night H and I took Jax to a puppy kindergarten obedience class. Jax is a little on the aged side for the class, but we just squeezed in.
We arrived at the Kennel Club having forgotten to bring the check for the tuition. They let us take part anyway, thank goodness. there were 10-15 puppies ranging from gargantuan (~50 lbs at only 18 weeks) to the teeny-tiny (maybe 1 lbs). Jax falls right on the median at about 25 lbs. The first thing that surprised me was that most of these puppies were calm. I swear there must be a an unwritten rule of giving the dogs sedatives before puppy class that we didn't know about. We had the only hyperactive "ohmagosh let me meet that one, ohmagosh ohmagosh let me meet that one, oh here's a person ohmagosh ohmagosh..." puppy in the class. In fact, I don't think Jax stopped pulling at his leash for the full hour. H has the blistered hands to prove it.
When we did the socialization exercise (where a line of people sit on the floor with treats and each puppy works down the line getting praise for approaching the strange people) half the dogs were afraid at least initially. Jax, well, let's just say you haven't seen a crowd worked like that since Bill Clinton was campaigning for his first term in the presidency. Jax's only problem was the fact that he had to wait for three timid pups to go ahead of him.
And yes, he did sort of embarrass us. It's tough to see a dog that knows how to sit, down, stay, and heel (sometimes) at home go completely bonkers in a group setting. Of course, we sort of expected as much. That's one of the big hopes for the class, to get Jax to improve his behavior in public. He's just too darn friendly.
Anyway, we're off to sit in a public place as part of our socialization homework. I'll work on research while Jax learns to behave himself. We'll see if this is even remotely productive.
We arrived at the Kennel Club having forgotten to bring the check for the tuition. They let us take part anyway, thank goodness. there were 10-15 puppies ranging from gargantuan (~50 lbs at only 18 weeks) to the teeny-tiny (maybe 1 lbs). Jax falls right on the median at about 25 lbs. The first thing that surprised me was that most of these puppies were calm. I swear there must be a an unwritten rule of giving the dogs sedatives before puppy class that we didn't know about. We had the only hyperactive "ohmagosh let me meet that one, ohmagosh ohmagosh let me meet that one, oh here's a person ohmagosh ohmagosh..." puppy in the class. In fact, I don't think Jax stopped pulling at his leash for the full hour. H has the blistered hands to prove it.
When we did the socialization exercise (where a line of people sit on the floor with treats and each puppy works down the line getting praise for approaching the strange people) half the dogs were afraid at least initially. Jax, well, let's just say you haven't seen a crowd worked like that since Bill Clinton was campaigning for his first term in the presidency. Jax's only problem was the fact that he had to wait for three timid pups to go ahead of him.
And yes, he did sort of embarrass us. It's tough to see a dog that knows how to sit, down, stay, and heel (sometimes) at home go completely bonkers in a group setting. Of course, we sort of expected as much. That's one of the big hopes for the class, to get Jax to improve his behavior in public. He's just too darn friendly.
Anyway, we're off to sit in a public place as part of our socialization homework. I'll work on research while Jax learns to behave himself. We'll see if this is even remotely productive.
Time
So in the last post, I wondered in typescript where the notion of the "good life" as some sort of atemporal object emerged, and whether it was a fair rendering. For those of us who think about such things, it seems to require a solid idea of the rough outline of the "good life" even before we can start to make decisions about daily practices. That seems a little demanding (maybe impossible). On the other hand, while I'm not sure we should demand an account of the necessary framework of the good life, I think we also want to retain the ability to declare some vocations as lying off the path to realizing a good life. Who knows which vocations are which...
But let's back up for just a moment. I think the "good life" rests on a particular way of conceiving of time. Maybe we should have a look at that. At least in contemporary discussions (in the US to be specific) there is a great deal of implicit belief about time in any inter-personal exchange. Time is the sequence of events, measured in precise increments. It seems to me that we can thank Newton for this. Our notion of time is tied up with framework of the infinitesimal calculus, differential equations, and the like. Some are bold enough to proclaim that statement the wrong way around, that instead our notions of the calculus are driven by the "real nature" of time. Tenuous. I have more to say about Newton's insights and their "necessity", but some other time. For now, let's stay on time.
Science has given us a very precise notion of time based on the resonance of cesium molecules in their gaseous state (go here and if anyone is reading carefully, please tell me how we are sure we've gotten a 5MHz signal if we in the process of building the clock?). The parenthetical point is the naive observation that at some point our measurement of time relies on a definition of the basic unit. In this case we've chosen a certain number of resonant cycles of cesium as the unit (1 second). This makes some sense because it is "objective" at least in that it is an external (outside the human body) measure of time.
But again, let's step back. Why is time linear (meaning just that 2 seconds is exactly twice as along as 1 second, and 6 seconds is exactly twice as long as 3 seconds, etc. It could be that the "increments" of time go as some power, so that 2 seconds is 4 times longer than 1 second for example, or they might just be random increments)? And for that matter, if entropy introduces the arrow of time, why shouldn't it also act as the measure. Is there a way of measuring the rate of entropy increase in the universe (oh wait, what is a "rate" if entropy is intrinsic to the definition of time!? paradoxes abound!)? That's getting out of my depth. For now, let's take the answer to be that time is linear because we say so. We have chosen to look at time as if it were the regular ticking off of moments, and we've imposed this view in a very structured way (mathematics and physics). The assumption is one of uniform increments. That is, that seconds are the interchangeable parts of the progression of time. This has had all sorts of practical effects from the industrial revolution to scientific management (see the bio of Fred Winslow Taylor) to personal digital assistants. Treating time this way, one might argue, is even at the root of the "timelessness" of much of our experience today. Seasons are manifest by the climate control settings in our buildings, and perhaps by what we see outside (even if we perhaps see much less than we could), but not by the availability of foods, the challenges of the weather, or the work that has to be done. We experience time these days in much the same way that computers do, and not coincidentally.
So, what if we decided to buck this notion for a moment. Suppose that instead of seeing time as a thing which we could measure into a string of interchangeable and precise increments, we look at time a little more in the way that we experience it. Our time seems to move at varying speeds whether we are in the initial moments of a first date or eating dinner in our fifth year of marriage, whether we are playing the first minutes of a sporting event or the last tense seconds, whether we are driving comfortably down the interstate or swerving in the brief moments before an accident. There are cycles by which we measure time experientially. Those are the diurnal and seasonal cycles as well as the cycles put in place by our practices. The ticks of the experiential clock have a quality as well as a quantity. Seasons are mild or harsh, days are long or short, meals with others are comfortable, tense, short, satisfying, tender, etc.
It is precisely the notion of time as a thing that is the root of the fear that we do not have enough of it.
Instead of seeing time as a string of uniform increments, I think perhaps we should understand that what we do, the practices to which we remain faithful day after day, are what give us time. The scarcity of time lies in measuring always by the "watched pot" (that's what a cesium clock is, right??) and never by the holiday mealtime. It really matters little how many seconds are in a life.
This may sound like "it's not how much time you have, but what you do with it" but that's only a caricature of what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to say something harder to imagine. I'm trying to say that how much time you have IS what you do with it. We're equivocating, of course, because in one sense we're talking about cesium-clock-time and in another sense we're talking about time-prior-to-a-measure (scientists balk!) or at least time by some other measure. I want to suggest that two people who live through the same number of cesium oscillations do not necessarily have the same time (particularly if one of them spends his/her life watching that cesium beam!).
Am I being touchy-feely philosophical? Well, you may think so, but I don't really. I think that science is a system of producing a highly effective economy of objects (that's what a computer is right, it just determines who gets which electrons, when, and how). That is not to say that science has a monopoly on describing the world, or even to say that it is right because it is effective. I can make a dog sit effectively with violence, but we could have serious words about whether this has anything to do with a deep understanding of the dog or oneself. And it may just be that science does a certain violence (if only conceptually) to the world for the sake of effectiveness. Regardless whether you think it better or worse, it is undeniable that science has impacted our understanding of time. I claim that this scientific understanding is impoverished and breeds a notion of scarcity. It is also my contention that when we talk about time, we needn't mean anything more precise than what we create by a set of living practices.
And in the end, God has given and continually gives us time via the practices of daily, weekly, and yearly worship. If the amount of time we have just is what we do with it, then time is redeemed by observing seconds in terms of the cycles of worship. By this means God gives us eternity.
But let's back up for just a moment. I think the "good life" rests on a particular way of conceiving of time. Maybe we should have a look at that. At least in contemporary discussions (in the US to be specific) there is a great deal of implicit belief about time in any inter-personal exchange. Time is the sequence of events, measured in precise increments. It seems to me that we can thank Newton for this. Our notion of time is tied up with framework of the infinitesimal calculus, differential equations, and the like. Some are bold enough to proclaim that statement the wrong way around, that instead our notions of the calculus are driven by the "real nature" of time. Tenuous. I have more to say about Newton's insights and their "necessity", but some other time. For now, let's stay on time.
Science has given us a very precise notion of time based on the resonance of cesium molecules in their gaseous state (go here and if anyone is reading carefully, please tell me how we are sure we've gotten a 5MHz signal if we in the process of building the clock?). The parenthetical point is the naive observation that at some point our measurement of time relies on a definition of the basic unit. In this case we've chosen a certain number of resonant cycles of cesium as the unit (1 second). This makes some sense because it is "objective" at least in that it is an external (outside the human body) measure of time.
But again, let's step back. Why is time linear (meaning just that 2 seconds is exactly twice as along as 1 second, and 6 seconds is exactly twice as long as 3 seconds, etc. It could be that the "increments" of time go as some power, so that 2 seconds is 4 times longer than 1 second for example, or they might just be random increments)? And for that matter, if entropy introduces the arrow of time, why shouldn't it also act as the measure. Is there a way of measuring the rate of entropy increase in the universe (oh wait, what is a "rate" if entropy is intrinsic to the definition of time!? paradoxes abound!)? That's getting out of my depth. For now, let's take the answer to be that time is linear because we say so. We have chosen to look at time as if it were the regular ticking off of moments, and we've imposed this view in a very structured way (mathematics and physics). The assumption is one of uniform increments. That is, that seconds are the interchangeable parts of the progression of time. This has had all sorts of practical effects from the industrial revolution to scientific management (see the bio of Fred Winslow Taylor) to personal digital assistants. Treating time this way, one might argue, is even at the root of the "timelessness" of much of our experience today. Seasons are manifest by the climate control settings in our buildings, and perhaps by what we see outside (even if we perhaps see much less than we could), but not by the availability of foods, the challenges of the weather, or the work that has to be done. We experience time these days in much the same way that computers do, and not coincidentally.
So, what if we decided to buck this notion for a moment. Suppose that instead of seeing time as a thing which we could measure into a string of interchangeable and precise increments, we look at time a little more in the way that we experience it. Our time seems to move at varying speeds whether we are in the initial moments of a first date or eating dinner in our fifth year of marriage, whether we are playing the first minutes of a sporting event or the last tense seconds, whether we are driving comfortably down the interstate or swerving in the brief moments before an accident. There are cycles by which we measure time experientially. Those are the diurnal and seasonal cycles as well as the cycles put in place by our practices. The ticks of the experiential clock have a quality as well as a quantity. Seasons are mild or harsh, days are long or short, meals with others are comfortable, tense, short, satisfying, tender, etc.
It is precisely the notion of time as a thing that is the root of the fear that we do not have enough of it.
Instead of seeing time as a string of uniform increments, I think perhaps we should understand that what we do, the practices to which we remain faithful day after day, are what give us time. The scarcity of time lies in measuring always by the "watched pot" (that's what a cesium clock is, right??) and never by the holiday mealtime. It really matters little how many seconds are in a life.
This may sound like "it's not how much time you have, but what you do with it" but that's only a caricature of what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to say something harder to imagine. I'm trying to say that how much time you have IS what you do with it. We're equivocating, of course, because in one sense we're talking about cesium-clock-time and in another sense we're talking about time-prior-to-a-measure (scientists balk!) or at least time by some other measure. I want to suggest that two people who live through the same number of cesium oscillations do not necessarily have the same time (particularly if one of them spends his/her life watching that cesium beam!).
Am I being touchy-feely philosophical? Well, you may think so, but I don't really. I think that science is a system of producing a highly effective economy of objects (that's what a computer is right, it just determines who gets which electrons, when, and how). That is not to say that science has a monopoly on describing the world, or even to say that it is right because it is effective. I can make a dog sit effectively with violence, but we could have serious words about whether this has anything to do with a deep understanding of the dog or oneself. And it may just be that science does a certain violence (if only conceptually) to the world for the sake of effectiveness. Regardless whether you think it better or worse, it is undeniable that science has impacted our understanding of time. I claim that this scientific understanding is impoverished and breeds a notion of scarcity. It is also my contention that when we talk about time, we needn't mean anything more precise than what we create by a set of living practices.
And in the end, God has given and continually gives us time via the practices of daily, weekly, and yearly worship. If the amount of time we have just is what we do with it, then time is redeemed by observing seconds in terms of the cycles of worship. By this means God gives us eternity.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
A Life
I am a worrier, which is perhaps another way of saying that I think a lot and that my glass is generally half empty while doing so. A typical style of worry for me is of the "should" type: What should I do? What should we all do? I mean that both in the particular and the general. In my mind the shoulds are very different depending on what you think is true of the world, and even when you have some basic tenets nailed down (let's say, for example, that "truth" is a person and not a concept) other things still do not become entirely clear (like whether Christ would have you move to an affluent suburb for increased personal security and a better school system).
For me, the questions are often very philosophical/theological. Supposing I take Christ as a given (which is not always easy in the first place... I am subject to the blackest of moods), then what does that mean about all the interactions I have with the rest of the world? How should I live? As a scientist in a university (serving to educate others and generate knowledge)? As a subsistence farmer (because the surplus of the western world may actually be built on exploitation... I mean the Church Fathers claim that loans made with interest, !any interest!, between Christians are sinful. Ahem, stock market, banks, etc. Granted these were all before "economies" were recognized as mechanistic structures of exchange subject to, so the economists claim, predictable and thus manipulable, for the common good of course, behavior. But we have to think hard about how that really changes the debate.)? Anyway, how should we then live?
Now, I'm open to the proposal that the shoulds lead us to a mess of compromises and hypocrisy. We choose our battles. But HOW do we choose those battles?
Before this goes on forever, I want to get to my point. Much of this is dependent on the notion of leading a "good life". How do we live a life of virtue and meaning? How do we ensure by our present actions that we have not wasted our short time here? Those questions, I think, pop up in nearly everyone's mind even if, looking around, we see a great diversity of answers. It seems to me though that in asking about the "good life" there is always this implicit image of watching one's life run by as if on a DVD. There's this atemporal notion of "a life" that exists as an object to be judged good or bad. And this is precisely the question that I wanted broach. Where do we get this notion of the life-object and is it helpful? For you Christians, is it Biblical? There may be a perfectaly easy answer, but it seems interesting to me at the moment.
So, give it some thought. Are ethical questions about creating a finished tapestry that can be judged in its whole-objectness... that is, perhaps, objectively. I don't know, but it also does not quite seem as intuitive as we treat it in our casual thoughts about the shoulds in life.
Enough.
For me, the questions are often very philosophical/theological. Supposing I take Christ as a given (which is not always easy in the first place... I am subject to the blackest of moods), then what does that mean about all the interactions I have with the rest of the world? How should I live? As a scientist in a university (serving to educate others and generate knowledge)? As a subsistence farmer (because the surplus of the western world may actually be built on exploitation... I mean the Church Fathers claim that loans made with interest, !any interest!, between Christians are sinful. Ahem, stock market, banks, etc. Granted these were all before "economies" were recognized as mechanistic structures of exchange subject to, so the economists claim, predictable and thus manipulable, for the common good of course, behavior. But we have to think hard about how that really changes the debate.)? Anyway, how should we then live?
Now, I'm open to the proposal that the shoulds lead us to a mess of compromises and hypocrisy. We choose our battles. But HOW do we choose those battles?
Before this goes on forever, I want to get to my point. Much of this is dependent on the notion of leading a "good life". How do we live a life of virtue and meaning? How do we ensure by our present actions that we have not wasted our short time here? Those questions, I think, pop up in nearly everyone's mind even if, looking around, we see a great diversity of answers. It seems to me though that in asking about the "good life" there is always this implicit image of watching one's life run by as if on a DVD. There's this atemporal notion of "a life" that exists as an object to be judged good or bad. And this is precisely the question that I wanted broach. Where do we get this notion of the life-object and is it helpful? For you Christians, is it Biblical? There may be a perfectaly easy answer, but it seems interesting to me at the moment.
So, give it some thought. Are ethical questions about creating a finished tapestry that can be judged in its whole-objectness... that is, perhaps, objectively. I don't know, but it also does not quite seem as intuitive as we treat it in our casual thoughts about the shoulds in life.
Enough.
Friday, May 16, 2008
The Hospitality State...
I heard a piece about my native state this morning on NPR. Following the leadership of new Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant (of state auditing fame), MS has now made it a felony to work as an undocumented worker, or "illegal alien". According to one article:
"Anyone caught "shall be subject to imprisonment in the custody of the Department of Corrections for not less than one (1) year nor more than five (5) years, a fine of not less than one thousand dollars ($1000) nor more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000) or both." Anyone charged with the crime of working without papers will not be eligible for bail. The law is set to become effective for large employers on July 1."
Interesting. According to NPR Phil Bryant has overwhelming popular support. They even played a couple of sound bites in which he first tried to play the charming bumpkin on accusations of xenophobia ("...I thought that was some kind of musical instrument...") before stressing his career in law enforcement and his supreme faith in the rule of law. Honestly, I fail to see how escalating the categorization/penalty for a crime either enhances or detracts from the rule of law. The law is the law. The same logic would dictate that jay walking should be made a capital offense if we really believe in preserving and upholding the rule of law.
What he seems to be saying is that he's a born and bred Mississippian, sick and tired of illegal workers and wants to add deterrent. The great irony is that according to one such illegal worker in Gulfport (interviewed on NPR), back in the immediate aftermath of Katrina the police would personally escort these undocumented workers from the Home Depot parking lot to their daily work sites. Now the police come to run them off as a nuisance.
Mississippi, the "hospitality state".
Phil Bryant responded to this contradictory stance most articulately: "Well, I wasn't Lt. Gov. at that time [the aftermath of Katrina]."
Undocumented is undocumented, there's no getting around that. But there's nothing compassionate or hospitable about the "rule of law" in MS on this issue. I'll go so far as to call it a bigoted response. Certainly something should be done, but it is an uncreative, simple-minded and heavy-handed approach to think that "doing something" is conscionably a matter of self-serving hostility.
Mississippi, where hospitality is code for "We'll use you if we can, and if we can't, get the hell out."
"Anyone caught "shall be subject to imprisonment in the custody of the Department of Corrections for not less than one (1) year nor more than five (5) years, a fine of not less than one thousand dollars ($1000) nor more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000) or both." Anyone charged with the crime of working without papers will not be eligible for bail. The law is set to become effective for large employers on July 1."
Interesting. According to NPR Phil Bryant has overwhelming popular support. They even played a couple of sound bites in which he first tried to play the charming bumpkin on accusations of xenophobia ("...I thought that was some kind of musical instrument...") before stressing his career in law enforcement and his supreme faith in the rule of law. Honestly, I fail to see how escalating the categorization/penalty for a crime either enhances or detracts from the rule of law. The law is the law. The same logic would dictate that jay walking should be made a capital offense if we really believe in preserving and upholding the rule of law.
What he seems to be saying is that he's a born and bred Mississippian, sick and tired of illegal workers and wants to add deterrent. The great irony is that according to one such illegal worker in Gulfport (interviewed on NPR), back in the immediate aftermath of Katrina the police would personally escort these undocumented workers from the Home Depot parking lot to their daily work sites. Now the police come to run them off as a nuisance.
Mississippi, the "hospitality state".
Phil Bryant responded to this contradictory stance most articulately: "Well, I wasn't Lt. Gov. at that time [the aftermath of Katrina]."
Undocumented is undocumented, there's no getting around that. But there's nothing compassionate or hospitable about the "rule of law" in MS on this issue. I'll go so far as to call it a bigoted response. Certainly something should be done, but it is an uncreative, simple-minded and heavy-handed approach to think that "doing something" is conscionably a matter of self-serving hostility.
Mississippi, where hospitality is code for "We'll use you if we can, and if we can't, get the hell out."
Thursday, May 15, 2008
What's going on these days...
Well, I am currently (when I finish this post) working in harried fashion to finish writing an academic paper for publication that I promised myself that I would have finished this week. The prospects are not favorable at the moment. I'm trying to get two research projects into publication form before H and I go on vacation in June for a week. It's going to require some late nights.
Jax successfully passed his tapeworm only about 6 hrs after I gave him the 2-pill treatment. Fascinating stuff. I looked for the scolex in the stool, but confess that I gave up after a few minutes of digging with a stick. Thankfully, Herr Worm was short enough not to cause any great difficulties in being passed. I confess that I had thought of the scenario of my poor dog running around with an incompletely passed tapeworm trailing him. My only plan involved needle-nosed pliers. Enough of that.
In other news, some friends and I met last night as the inaugural meeting of a weekly discussion group on Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy. I'm calling it the Anti-Metaphysical Club. For you historians, there's a direct allusion to the Metaphysical Club from the late 19th century which included William James and C.S. Peirce among others. The allusion is intentional, if for no other reasons than these two: 1.) Wittgenstein has an "anti-metaphysical" air about his work, and 2.) William James is the most alluded to philosopher in Wittgenstein's work. As the folks involved in the study are all theological types, we're mostly interested in how Wittgenstein has been used, or should be used, in doing theology (incidentally, we want to tackle the question of whether Wittgenstein presents a framework that can be "used" at all). This includes his influence on Stanley Hauerwas and also perhaps A. MacIntyre, the recently trendy Wittgensteinian-Thomism (a la Fergus Kerr and others), and the possibility of reading Barth with the aid of Wittgenstein.
I am also reading An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears which is compelling though I've only just begun (approx. pg. 115 of a possible 725). Should prove to be a fantastic vacation read, and might be the first to rival my enjoyment of Cryptonomicon. Also on the "soon to read" bookshelf at the moment is the second volume of Jean-Pierre Torrell's biography of Thomas Aquinas (which I started from shear impatience but have not devoted full attention to as yet), about half a dozen books on the Gospel according to Luke, mostly focusing on wealth and poverty (more posts about this later), and Reasoning About Uncertainty by Halpern which is a semi-technical volume (semi-technical because it's definitely technical but not quite a textbook, but certainly not a popular book either) about how to deal with uncertainty and is I guess best described as being broadly about the theory of plausible reasoning (the theory of probability is insufficient to cover the entire range of plausibility structures). The latter feeds my fascination with formal approaches to uncertainty and probability.
So that's what's going on with the bookshelf. In more embodied activities: We're still training Jax, who is now going through a singularly frustrating bout of adolescent-ism. I've also just installed Linux on my laptop and am looking forward to exploring that world (maybe not a very embodied activity...). Having done two days ago a nice 18 mi out-and-back with a very nice hill at the half way, I am happy to report that I'm back on my bike . I'm really out of shape. But to improve on physical conditioning I'm biking, running, and playing tennis (with sprints between games). If I can just convince H to enjoy one of those activities I'll be very happy. No luck yet.
There's more going on, like breakfast with the homeless guys etc., but that's probably best in another post.
Jax successfully passed his tapeworm only about 6 hrs after I gave him the 2-pill treatment. Fascinating stuff. I looked for the scolex in the stool, but confess that I gave up after a few minutes of digging with a stick. Thankfully, Herr Worm was short enough not to cause any great difficulties in being passed. I confess that I had thought of the scenario of my poor dog running around with an incompletely passed tapeworm trailing him. My only plan involved needle-nosed pliers. Enough of that.
In other news, some friends and I met last night as the inaugural meeting of a weekly discussion group on Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy. I'm calling it the Anti-Metaphysical Club. For you historians, there's a direct allusion to the Metaphysical Club from the late 19th century which included William James and C.S. Peirce among others. The allusion is intentional, if for no other reasons than these two: 1.) Wittgenstein has an "anti-metaphysical" air about his work, and 2.) William James is the most alluded to philosopher in Wittgenstein's work. As the folks involved in the study are all theological types, we're mostly interested in how Wittgenstein has been used, or should be used, in doing theology (incidentally, we want to tackle the question of whether Wittgenstein presents a framework that can be "used" at all). This includes his influence on Stanley Hauerwas and also perhaps A. MacIntyre, the recently trendy Wittgensteinian-Thomism (a la Fergus Kerr and others), and the possibility of reading Barth with the aid of Wittgenstein.
I am also reading An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears which is compelling though I've only just begun (approx. pg. 115 of a possible 725). Should prove to be a fantastic vacation read, and might be the first to rival my enjoyment of Cryptonomicon. Also on the "soon to read" bookshelf at the moment is the second volume of Jean-Pierre Torrell's biography of Thomas Aquinas (which I started from shear impatience but have not devoted full attention to as yet), about half a dozen books on the Gospel according to Luke, mostly focusing on wealth and poverty (more posts about this later), and Reasoning About Uncertainty by Halpern which is a semi-technical volume (semi-technical because it's definitely technical but not quite a textbook, but certainly not a popular book either) about how to deal with uncertainty and is I guess best described as being broadly about the theory of plausible reasoning (the theory of probability is insufficient to cover the entire range of plausibility structures). The latter feeds my fascination with formal approaches to uncertainty and probability.
So that's what's going on with the bookshelf. In more embodied activities: We're still training Jax, who is now going through a singularly frustrating bout of adolescent-ism. I've also just installed Linux on my laptop and am looking forward to exploring that world (maybe not a very embodied activity...). Having done two days ago a nice 18 mi out-and-back with a very nice hill at the half way, I am happy to report that I'm back on my bike . I'm really out of shape. But to improve on physical conditioning I'm biking, running, and playing tennis (with sprints between games). If I can just convince H to enjoy one of those activities I'll be very happy. No luck yet.
There's more going on, like breakfast with the homeless guys etc., but that's probably best in another post.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Tapeworm!
Well, add it to the list of trials. Today, perhaps giving away my strange nerdy-ness, I went to inspect Jax's stool after he finished his morning pass. What did I see but a little white body. Upon using a stick to probe the stool a bit more thoroughly, I discovered not one but a few of these small white bodies, moving ever so slowly. You guessed it: tapeworm segments.
So, I hit #1 on the speed dial (because that's the vet these days) and asked what action to take. Happily, it's no big deal. For $12 I got a couple of vermicidal pills and the prospect of seeing my dog pass a dead tapeworm very soon.
I thought I was getting a puppy. I got a walking biology lab.
The next question is obvious, I think. Why did he get it, and where might he get it again? I can think of three possibilities. According to the vet the tapeworm is transmitted by flees and rodents (our own little Plague!). Jax can get the worm either by ingesting an infected flea or rodent (I think the also "ingesting" applies to the rodent, but not clear). The first possibility is that Jax got the worm from a decomposing squirrel head that he found a few weeks ago. A singularly unpleasant trinket to take away from him, I assure you. The second possibility involves our back yard. Just about two weeks ago I saw some sort of rodent bouncing around our yard. I'm really not sure what it was, but my guess is a vole. I saw it again two days ago. So, there is the possibility of flea transference, or that Jax has found at some point the by-products of natural selection in the vole community. I dunno. And the final possibility is that he got the worm during his stay at the animal hospital after the mitaban dip. The only reason I suspect this is because he had been noticeably putting on weight just before we took him up for the vaccines and dip, and has been thinning pretty much since then. We'll see. I may go on a crusade against voles in the yard. I'm not sure.
Anyway, the ivermectin is treating him very well. We're up to the full dosage now for his demodectic mange. No nasty neurological side effects that we can tell. If anything it makes him hyper. He's reached the terrible adolescent stage and I'm feeling pressure to quash some troublesome behavior (like his little fits of insane exhuberance when he meets strange people or dogs) before it's too late.
But for now, I have to continue writing a paper on the nonlinear dynamics of rainfall. My self-imposed deadline is this week and I'm woefully behind.
So, I hit #1 on the speed dial (because that's the vet these days) and asked what action to take. Happily, it's no big deal. For $12 I got a couple of vermicidal pills and the prospect of seeing my dog pass a dead tapeworm very soon.
I thought I was getting a puppy. I got a walking biology lab.
The next question is obvious, I think. Why did he get it, and where might he get it again? I can think of three possibilities. According to the vet the tapeworm is transmitted by flees and rodents (our own little Plague!). Jax can get the worm either by ingesting an infected flea or rodent (I think the also "ingesting" applies to the rodent, but not clear). The first possibility is that Jax got the worm from a decomposing squirrel head that he found a few weeks ago. A singularly unpleasant trinket to take away from him, I assure you. The second possibility involves our back yard. Just about two weeks ago I saw some sort of rodent bouncing around our yard. I'm really not sure what it was, but my guess is a vole. I saw it again two days ago. So, there is the possibility of flea transference, or that Jax has found at some point the by-products of natural selection in the vole community. I dunno. And the final possibility is that he got the worm during his stay at the animal hospital after the mitaban dip. The only reason I suspect this is because he had been noticeably putting on weight just before we took him up for the vaccines and dip, and has been thinning pretty much since then. We'll see. I may go on a crusade against voles in the yard. I'm not sure.
Anyway, the ivermectin is treating him very well. We're up to the full dosage now for his demodectic mange. No nasty neurological side effects that we can tell. If anything it makes him hyper. He's reached the terrible adolescent stage and I'm feeling pressure to quash some troublesome behavior (like his little fits of insane exhuberance when he meets strange people or dogs) before it's too late.
But for now, I have to continue writing a paper on the nonlinear dynamics of rainfall. My self-imposed deadline is this week and I'm woefully behind.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
License Plate
black Mercedes in a restaurant parking lot: ALAHAKBR
Interesting, given the political climate. It's like "God is my co-pilot" with a jihadi ring.
Disclaimor: In case anyone chooses to take that last comment about jihad the wrong way, my comment is specifically on the statement that a person is seeking to make when he/she elects to have a customized license plate that not only expresses a Muslim belief, but does so on a vanity plate within the socio-political context of the US post-2001. So, while I'm cognizant of 1.) the innocence of the message as a statement of faith and 2.) the possibility that it is displayed specifically to challenge popular notions of Islam in the US, such only presupposes the popular connotations that I am pointing out.
Interesting, given the political climate. It's like "God is my co-pilot" with a jihadi ring.
Disclaimor: In case anyone chooses to take that last comment about jihad the wrong way, my comment is specifically on the statement that a person is seeking to make when he/she elects to have a customized license plate that not only expresses a Muslim belief, but does so on a vanity plate within the socio-political context of the US post-2001. So, while I'm cognizant of 1.) the innocence of the message as a statement of faith and 2.) the possibility that it is displayed specifically to challenge popular notions of Islam in the US, such only presupposes the popular connotations that I am pointing out.
Might-I-Ban Ami-trash? (total rant)
So, Jax is doing much better. It only took a full 3 days for him to start to regain some energy. And after 4-5 days he's also acting more like himself after showing some noticeable deviation from normal personality, including aggression and disobedience. His ears still aren't back to normal (he holds them back in a mild-fear sort of position most of the time now, as opposed to holding them forward in a curious/happy position like he used to), but at least he's playing again and acting generally like a happy puppy.
Frankly, I'm put off by this whole mitaban/amitraz treatment. It's pissing me off. We've chronicled in some detail what it did to the dog. That's bad enough, since it's supposed to be treatment, not attempted murder. And now, H and I are both fighting otherwise inexplicable allergic reactions. She's itching head to toe with only the faintest rash in a couple of spots while my face has broken out in a rash not unlike that caused by a poison ivy outbreak just a few weeks ago, albeit that this one is far less severe. H has even gone to the doctor about her symptoms. Again the medical profession has come up winners (sarcasm) as they shrugged and told her 1.) to ask the vet and 2.) contact dermatology and take some benadryl. So now we have to deal with the fact that dermatologists only work for approximately 4 hrs per week (the best skin treatment seems to be a light work week) and spend most of that time trouble-shooting acne outbreaks on insecure 18-25 year old females. Thus the unavailability of an appointment for H for a full two weeks. Does it come across in this post that I'm a little frustrated?
So, anyway, we're requesting ivermectin for the dog. I mean, for crying out loud, they don't even know if amitraz dips actually help get rid of the mites in young dogs, as it seems that just as many young dogs recover spontaneously (i.e., without treatment) as do with the dip treatment (the others, both treated and untreated, wind up on persistent ivermectin treatment). It's also not recommended for puppies (see "attempted murder" remark above) younger than 4 months. Jax is right at 4 months (plus or minus a fortnight). Oy! Frickin' chemical baths. I might as well drag my wife and dog through a hillside of poison ivy with a bleach chaser for all the good this seems to be doing. At least that would be accompanied by less uncertainty regarding the symptoms.
Oh, and Jax has lost all the hair around his eyes. He looks like a startled raccoon.
Frankly, I'm put off by this whole mitaban/amitraz treatment. It's pissing me off. We've chronicled in some detail what it did to the dog. That's bad enough, since it's supposed to be treatment, not attempted murder. And now, H and I are both fighting otherwise inexplicable allergic reactions. She's itching head to toe with only the faintest rash in a couple of spots while my face has broken out in a rash not unlike that caused by a poison ivy outbreak just a few weeks ago, albeit that this one is far less severe. H has even gone to the doctor about her symptoms. Again the medical profession has come up winners (sarcasm) as they shrugged and told her 1.) to ask the vet and 2.) contact dermatology and take some benadryl. So now we have to deal with the fact that dermatologists only work for approximately 4 hrs per week (the best skin treatment seems to be a light work week) and spend most of that time trouble-shooting acne outbreaks on insecure 18-25 year old females. Thus the unavailability of an appointment for H for a full two weeks. Does it come across in this post that I'm a little frustrated?
So, anyway, we're requesting ivermectin for the dog. I mean, for crying out loud, they don't even know if amitraz dips actually help get rid of the mites in young dogs, as it seems that just as many young dogs recover spontaneously (i.e., without treatment) as do with the dip treatment (the others, both treated and untreated, wind up on persistent ivermectin treatment). It's also not recommended for puppies (see "attempted murder" remark above) younger than 4 months. Jax is right at 4 months (plus or minus a fortnight). Oy! Frickin' chemical baths. I might as well drag my wife and dog through a hillside of poison ivy with a bleach chaser for all the good this seems to be doing. At least that would be accompanied by less uncertainty regarding the symptoms.
Oh, and Jax has lost all the hair around his eyes. He looks like a startled raccoon.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Snap out of it already!
So, Jax is still lethargic a full 48 hrs after the mitaban treatment. This is almost certainly a sign that the chemicals were too much for him. He has shown some improvement. That is, he will now follow me around the house, and he seems to have his coordination back. But still, he's shown no interest in playing, only sleeping and eating. I count us fortunate that he doesn't have vomiting or diarrhea as additional symptoms.
Unfortunately, he has been a grumpy dog. Last night we took him to a cookout, mostly just to keep an eye on him. I figured he would sleep in a corner. In fact he found a little more initiative to move around. Unfortunately, while he felt well enough to cruise around the crowd, he was still not at all playful. He growled at a couple of other dogs (very unusual) and then repeatedly tried to steal food from the tables, despite repeated correction (again, unusual). He even turned and nipped at me once when I pushed him off of the table. That was a first. He got a pop on the nose for it, but I'm hoping it was just the drugs.
In truth, we are a little worried. We almost took him to the emergency clinic today because the conventional wisdom is that if lethargy persists he should see a doc. I'm giving him until tomorrow morning simply because he has shown some improvement. But if he's not 90% or better tomorrow, it's back to the white coats.
Unfortunately, he has been a grumpy dog. Last night we took him to a cookout, mostly just to keep an eye on him. I figured he would sleep in a corner. In fact he found a little more initiative to move around. Unfortunately, while he felt well enough to cruise around the crowd, he was still not at all playful. He growled at a couple of other dogs (very unusual) and then repeatedly tried to steal food from the tables, despite repeated correction (again, unusual). He even turned and nipped at me once when I pushed him off of the table. That was a first. He got a pop on the nose for it, but I'm hoping it was just the drugs.
In truth, we are a little worried. We almost took him to the emergency clinic today because the conventional wisdom is that if lethargy persists he should see a doc. I'm giving him until tomorrow morning simply because he has shown some improvement. But if he's not 90% or better tomorrow, it's back to the white coats.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Back home...
Jax is back home. I can't say that he's as good as new. When we arrived to pick him up, I was very excited. I expected him to be excited too. What I found was a very lethargic puppy. He just mopes around, never going anywhere particularly quickly. He showed some interest in us when we first saw him, but nothing I would call excitement. He is also noticeably worse looking. In the last 24 hrs he has lost a lot of hair, especially around his face. I assume it's from the dip/bathing that he got. Anyway, we're home now and he looks like a mangy puppy, and moves around like 90 yr old. We didn't get to speak with the vet when we picked him up, so we're just assuming that this is part of it. Hopefully, he'll settle down for a nap and then we'll have some lunch.
Poor pup.
Poor pup.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Demodex!
That's right. The pup's got the mange. It chaps my hide. We had to leave the poor devil at the vet for a dip treatment and overnight observation (to beware of allergic reaction). This is Jax's first night away from home. Hannah says, "Great we can have a date!" but I'm just anxious to have the dog back.
Poor little beast.
Hannah had even set up a popsicle date for him at Locopops (they serve flavors for dogs). Alas, he's going to be upset tomorrow when we pick him up.
Let's keep our fingers crossed that the dip treatments work. The news only gets worse if they don't: chronic problems.
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