The "Hasslington" blog-site started in April of 2008, which means that I have today reached the relatively round-number total of 150 posts in less than a year's time. These posts have dealt with political, social, cultural, artistic, and even sport-related themes, and it is therefore the case that this site has provided me with a platform from which to voice my concerns about, questions regarding, and advocacy for a variety of things from a variety of topic areas.
Yet there comes a time when just about everyone needs to take a break from even some genuinely good habits (which I usually consider blogging to be), and, having reached my 150th post, I feel as though this is as good a time as any to take a few weeks off in order to catch-up on such things as that old-fashioned art of reading books (as opposed to computer screens). Indeed, over the last few months, I've noticed that I've read one book for every two I've added to my "evening reading" stack; these days, the pile has long-since reached such a height that it's a wonder it hasn't toppled over, to the point where I have recently found it necessary to divide it into multiple piles.
Hence, I'm not going to post anything for a few weeks, during which time I'll enjoy being blog-free. That being said, I plan to return to fairly regular blogging patterns (at least by my standards) sometime in March. (Events--both national and international in focus--that occur between now and then ought to give me plenty to write about when I return....)
So, as a snapshot of my feelings for where things stand right now, at least with regards to the Obama presidency, I have this to say: overall, I believe that President Obama has done a good job in the presently very difficult foreign policy arena in his first month in office, and though only time will tell regarding the eventual impact of his recent domestic policy decisions, I believe that he has navigated those very choppy waters with an impressive sense of what might be called "presidential bearing." (Whether or not that will make a difference, we'll just have to wait and see.)
I'm more interested in U.S. foreign policy than U.S. domestic policy, probably because I consider foreign policy to be the only true "big picture" area of politics in this international era. This is because even the domestic policy realm in a country as large as the U.S. is dependent heavily upon foreign policy decisions and realities, as anyone paying attention knows. As this is the case, with this post I am providing a "foreign-policy-themed" poll in which I encourage folks to cast their well-considered vote, as I hope to use the results in a post to be published soon after I return to blogging. (And, yes, I know I included one country twice, due to its direct involvement in two different scenarios.)
Until then, I wish you all the best.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Is Hasslington The Judge And Jury? No, He's Just A Member Of The Jury.
It was bound to happen sometime, and that sometime proved to be this past week....
At the age of thirty-three, I have finally been told by the powers that be that I am to show up to a local courthouse for a week in late March in order to join a pool of potential jury members. (I had hoped that this might happen when I was living in Europe--and I would therefore be unable to attend--but, alas, it happened now.) The week in question happens to be "Spring Break" week in the educational district in which I work, so Mrs. Hasslington and I have cancelled our plans for a brief Midwestern road trip in order for me to spend my week off of work reading dime store novels while waiting to be placed on a jury.
I suppose we could have asked for a deferral, but we decided not to, as we plan to travel back to England for an extended visit this coming summer. That's the most important trip for us this year, so we decided to scupper our March vacation plans. At any rate, this scenario will most likely allow us to save more money than we otherwise would for the summer trip.
I'm actually looking forward to "jury duty," even if it will be an often tedious experience with little chance of actually sitting on a jury, as I have been told it very well might be. At any rate, it will probably provide me with enough time to catch up with the latest books published by some of the authors I enjoy. In these rather lean, frugal times, such simple pleasures mean an awful lot, which, when you think about it, isn't a bad thing at all.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Curtail The Purchasing Of Unnecessary, Lavish "Techie" Items, Sure, But Please Keep The Libraries Open
Due to the worldwide economic downturn, I understand that some tax-supported services will have to be curtailed and others even cut altogether, at least for the time being, despite the stimulus plan that looks set to take effect in the U.S. This is, after all, the way of things in rather anemic economic times such as these. As a (tax-supported) teacher, I have seen my educational district tighten its economic belt over the last few months, which is to be expected as part of the reality of the present local, state, national, and international situation.
Yet, at the risk of sounding "nit-picky" and a bit overly-precious, I'm worried about the reported potential library closings in the Twin Cities metro area. (I assume that many other metro areas around the world are currently wrestling with related potential closings.) This may seem "squeamish" of me, but here's why: each year I teach English--and I've done it for a decade or so now, both in the U.S. and in the U.K.--I notice that more and more students (and their parents) compensate for a lack of an extensive vocabulary by using what I rather inelegantly term "filler non-words," and this compensation process is happening to an alarming extent. The following might be an example of someone struggling with this phenomenon: "She, like, told us, um, that, like, we should go, ya' know, over there...." Again, these sentences are not just uttered on a consistent basis by youngsters; just listening to adult discussions in restaurants, stores, and so forth would inform anyone who cares to pay attention that people in their twenties, thirties, and even early forties are now often tending to talk like this...and not just in the United States, either.
Just ask any teacher worth his or her salt and that teacher will tell you that, along with other factors, a rather limiting vocabulary is often a contributing factor to school violence. The reason for this is obvious, if you think about it: we all want to be understood, and rather precisely, because we all want to get our unique perspectives across. Those who cannot do that well--often due to lacking the words necessary to make their points explicit--tend to become very frustrated. When frustration bubbles over, violence can burst forth. And it does, as pushing and shoving takes the place of argument construction. (A technical way of putting this is as follows: individuals who for whatever reason do not possess a consistent conceptual framework for argument construction tend to show how they "feel" about something in a rather base-level, physical manner more often than those who do possess a consistent conceptual framework for argument construction.)
Furthermore, I've personally found that individuals who show a proclivity toward consistent pushing-and-shoving during their formative years often display similar attitudes later in life. (This is not necessarily the case for individuals who show only occasional, innocuous levels of these types of behaviors.) Having spoken about this recently with several other current-educators and former-educators I know, I've discovered that most of them seem to feel the same way.
I know, I know--this is "liberal nonsense," blah, blah, blah. Well, whether we care to acknowledge it or not, this happens with, and to, people of all ages. In both good economic times and bad, I feel that we need to ensure that our libraries remain open and accessible. Though many people will not visit them, many others will, and those who will visit them are not just the folks one might imagine would be "library types." We don't need any potentially avoidable negative factors contributing to an already tense time in our world just now--and I use the term "world" in both a micro- and macro- sense. Though at present the world economy is in a state of regression and recession, we cannot afford to simultaneously regress in a literary sense. If we wish to curtail expensive visual and technological elements of libraries in the name of fiscal restraint, I'm just fine with that, but we need to keep the rent-able books accessible to those who both can and cannot afford to buy them on a fairly consistent basis.
Yet, at the risk of sounding "nit-picky" and a bit overly-precious, I'm worried about the reported potential library closings in the Twin Cities metro area. (I assume that many other metro areas around the world are currently wrestling with related potential closings.) This may seem "squeamish" of me, but here's why: each year I teach English--and I've done it for a decade or so now, both in the U.S. and in the U.K.--I notice that more and more students (and their parents) compensate for a lack of an extensive vocabulary by using what I rather inelegantly term "filler non-words," and this compensation process is happening to an alarming extent. The following might be an example of someone struggling with this phenomenon: "She, like, told us, um, that, like, we should go, ya' know, over there...." Again, these sentences are not just uttered on a consistent basis by youngsters; just listening to adult discussions in restaurants, stores, and so forth would inform anyone who cares to pay attention that people in their twenties, thirties, and even early forties are now often tending to talk like this...and not just in the United States, either.
Just ask any teacher worth his or her salt and that teacher will tell you that, along with other factors, a rather limiting vocabulary is often a contributing factor to school violence. The reason for this is obvious, if you think about it: we all want to be understood, and rather precisely, because we all want to get our unique perspectives across. Those who cannot do that well--often due to lacking the words necessary to make their points explicit--tend to become very frustrated. When frustration bubbles over, violence can burst forth. And it does, as pushing and shoving takes the place of argument construction. (A technical way of putting this is as follows: individuals who for whatever reason do not possess a consistent conceptual framework for argument construction tend to show how they "feel" about something in a rather base-level, physical manner more often than those who do possess a consistent conceptual framework for argument construction.)
Furthermore, I've personally found that individuals who show a proclivity toward consistent pushing-and-shoving during their formative years often display similar attitudes later in life. (This is not necessarily the case for individuals who show only occasional, innocuous levels of these types of behaviors.) Having spoken about this recently with several other current-educators and former-educators I know, I've discovered that most of them seem to feel the same way.
I know, I know--this is "liberal nonsense," blah, blah, blah. Well, whether we care to acknowledge it or not, this happens with, and to, people of all ages. In both good economic times and bad, I feel that we need to ensure that our libraries remain open and accessible. Though many people will not visit them, many others will, and those who will visit them are not just the folks one might imagine would be "library types." We don't need any potentially avoidable negative factors contributing to an already tense time in our world just now--and I use the term "world" in both a micro- and macro- sense. Though at present the world economy is in a state of regression and recession, we cannot afford to simultaneously regress in a literary sense. If we wish to curtail expensive visual and technological elements of libraries in the name of fiscal restraint, I'm just fine with that, but we need to keep the rent-able books accessible to those who both can and cannot afford to buy them on a fairly consistent basis.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Wanderlust
No matter what their political affiliation or where they are from, I have found that adults who travel eagerly to new places fairly consistently--both inside and outside of their native country--have a strong tendency to hold both realistic and complex viewpoints regarding national and geopolitics, society, and life in general. They also tend to display their viewpoints in manners that are respectful, intellectually impressive, and culturally insightful, and they tend to be open to other viewpoints if they are displayed in similar manners.
On the other hand, I have found that many adults who lead almost exclusively provincial lives, despite having the resources to travel fairly widely (and there are many people who fall into this group, though they will disingenuously claim that they "can't afford to travel"), tend to display their viewpoints in repetitious, bluster-filled, slogan-esque manners that are somewhat juvenile in nature. (I am not speaking of those folks for whom travel is indeed economically impossible; they are obviously exempted from my critical viewpoint regarding this issue. I simply dislike middle class Americans who insist that they don't have the means to travel; they often have far more than "middle class" folks from other industrialized countries, and yet the non-American folks often tend to travel more than their American counterparts.)
Travel, it seems to me, is indeed important. I've always gravitated toward people who have a mindset that tends toward wanderlust. Having returned to Minnesota relatively recently, I simply cannot wait to begin traveling extensively again (and maybe, a year or so down the line, living and working abroad again...or perhaps simply elsewhere in the U.S.). This is not due to a "dislike of Minnesota," as a cynic would suggest, but rather a sense that there is always a whole wide world out there to explore. Because she is from England, Mrs. Hasslington and I plan to fly across the Atlantic in order to revisit our old British stomping grounds this coming summer. That being said, though she has explored the West Coast and has been to New York and parts of Canada--and though we currently live in the Upper Midwest--Mrs. Hasslington has yet to travel extensively in many parts of North America.
Hence, we're in the early stages of planning brief trips, via car and via plane, to various cities across the U.S. that we find "intriguing" for one reason or another. (We'll likely expand this to include Canada and elsewhere from there.) Though we have far from a lot of travel funding--we're "teacherly" types, after all--we're excited to save money in order to visit what we gather are "up-and-coming" places in the forthcoming months. Here are a few of the "up-and-coming" places we are considering visiting, though in what order we've not yet decided:
--Boise, Idaho (...we've heard great things about its attraction to book-readers of all varieties, as well as its beauty...)
--Natchez, Mississippi (...cycling The Trace seems like fun...)
--Omaha, Nebraska (...I cheated just there, as I went to university in that city; still, I haven't been back for a visit in a half dozen years, and I hear that it has changed quite a bit over that span of time...)
--Portland, Oregon (...it's been "up-and-coming" for years now, but we added it anyway...)
--Santa Fe, New Mexico (...and its larger nearby neighbor, Albuquerque...)
--Also, Maine's coastal towns, and Bangor (...none of which might at present be considered "up-and-coming," but which have always seemed interesting nonetheless...)
Then there are the "places-of-the-moment," as it were (Austin, Texas; Charlotte, North Carolina; etc.), which also look intriguing.
I have traveled quite a bit outside of my own country over the past several years, but in part because of this I have scaled-back on traveling inside of the U.S. So, I'm really looking forward to spending a weekend here or there when the funds become available in order to better "rediscover" my nation from the point of view of a former (and perhaps future) expatriate. Mrs. Hasslington--who is an extensive world traveler--is British, so she looks forward to exploring the vast American landscape, which is far different from her native country.
I simply cannot for the life of me see why more people don't travel more often, even if just for a few days here and there. A fellow teacher, who happens to be married with two young children, once told me, "The worst thing parents can do is be boring. It sets a bad example for their kids to emulate." His growing family travels quite often. They aren't perfect--no one is--but they certainly aren't boring, and neither are their kids.
On the other hand, I have found that many adults who lead almost exclusively provincial lives, despite having the resources to travel fairly widely (and there are many people who fall into this group, though they will disingenuously claim that they "can't afford to travel"), tend to display their viewpoints in repetitious, bluster-filled, slogan-esque manners that are somewhat juvenile in nature. (I am not speaking of those folks for whom travel is indeed economically impossible; they are obviously exempted from my critical viewpoint regarding this issue. I simply dislike middle class Americans who insist that they don't have the means to travel; they often have far more than "middle class" folks from other industrialized countries, and yet the non-American folks often tend to travel more than their American counterparts.)
Travel, it seems to me, is indeed important. I've always gravitated toward people who have a mindset that tends toward wanderlust. Having returned to Minnesota relatively recently, I simply cannot wait to begin traveling extensively again (and maybe, a year or so down the line, living and working abroad again...or perhaps simply elsewhere in the U.S.). This is not due to a "dislike of Minnesota," as a cynic would suggest, but rather a sense that there is always a whole wide world out there to explore. Because she is from England, Mrs. Hasslington and I plan to fly across the Atlantic in order to revisit our old British stomping grounds this coming summer. That being said, though she has explored the West Coast and has been to New York and parts of Canada--and though we currently live in the Upper Midwest--Mrs. Hasslington has yet to travel extensively in many parts of North America.
Hence, we're in the early stages of planning brief trips, via car and via plane, to various cities across the U.S. that we find "intriguing" for one reason or another. (We'll likely expand this to include Canada and elsewhere from there.) Though we have far from a lot of travel funding--we're "teacherly" types, after all--we're excited to save money in order to visit what we gather are "up-and-coming" places in the forthcoming months. Here are a few of the "up-and-coming" places we are considering visiting, though in what order we've not yet decided:
--Boise, Idaho (...we've heard great things about its attraction to book-readers of all varieties, as well as its beauty...)
--Natchez, Mississippi (...cycling The Trace seems like fun...)
--Omaha, Nebraska (...I cheated just there, as I went to university in that city; still, I haven't been back for a visit in a half dozen years, and I hear that it has changed quite a bit over that span of time...)
--Portland, Oregon (...it's been "up-and-coming" for years now, but we added it anyway...)
--Santa Fe, New Mexico (...and its larger nearby neighbor, Albuquerque...)
--Also, Maine's coastal towns, and Bangor (...none of which might at present be considered "up-and-coming," but which have always seemed interesting nonetheless...)
Then there are the "places-of-the-moment," as it were (Austin, Texas; Charlotte, North Carolina; etc.), which also look intriguing.
I have traveled quite a bit outside of my own country over the past several years, but in part because of this I have scaled-back on traveling inside of the U.S. So, I'm really looking forward to spending a weekend here or there when the funds become available in order to better "rediscover" my nation from the point of view of a former (and perhaps future) expatriate. Mrs. Hasslington--who is an extensive world traveler--is British, so she looks forward to exploring the vast American landscape, which is far different from her native country.
I simply cannot for the life of me see why more people don't travel more often, even if just for a few days here and there. A fellow teacher, who happens to be married with two young children, once told me, "The worst thing parents can do is be boring. It sets a bad example for their kids to emulate." His growing family travels quite often. They aren't perfect--no one is--but they certainly aren't boring, and neither are their kids.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Vice President Biden Scores In Germany, But The "Russian Situation" Is Far From Over
The most important U.S. political event from this past weekend, which was so under-reported by the U.S. news media as to be almost unreported, was not the work done on behalf of the congressional "economic stimulus" plan, but rather Vice President Biden's trip to, and subsequent speech and meetings in, Germany regarding U.S. strategic relations with Europe and Russia. (The stimulus plan will be enormously important news when it comes up for a vote, of course. I don't mean to discount its importance, but rather to show that other news items are being under-reported due to the media's fixation on it.) The Russian response to Mr. Biden's words was positive in nature in that their representatives seemed genuinely impressed with Mr. Biden's sincerity and generally impressed with his calming, realistic comments regarding U.S./Russian relations.
Quite frankly, Russia's piggy bank is smashed to pieces right now (what with the low price of oil and the worldwide financial collapse), so they can't really afford to be as belligerent in tone towards the West as they were in the recent past. For its part, the U.S. government realizes the necessity to avoid getting caught up in any sort of strategic conflict with Russia at present, given the various powder-keg Middle East issues with which it must deal, as well as the potential for increasing tensions with China and an understandably jittery India desperate to avoid getting dragged into any of these messes.
If worst came to worst and the situation in one or more of the potentially crucial Middle Eastern and/or Indian Subcontinental countries (Israel/the Palestinian territories; Iraq; Iran; Afghanistan; Pakistan; etc.) deteriorates badly, or if relations with China sour over China's perceived artifical currency valuations, the U.S. will want to avoid any sticky situation with Russia, whether it would have to do with Eastern Europe or the region including and around Georgia. (And if the present financial squabbles between the West and China escalate, Russia might very well be needed as a potentially leveraging factor against China, particularly with India's attention turned at present in the opposite geographical direction.)
Yet given that U.S. military equipment is bound for Poland sometime soon (though proposed interceptor missiles are not bound for that region, at least for the time being), this will be a delecate balancing act to pull off. So far, so good, so score one for Joe.
Not that anyone in the rather myopic major U.S. media outlets seemed to notice....
Quite frankly, Russia's piggy bank is smashed to pieces right now (what with the low price of oil and the worldwide financial collapse), so they can't really afford to be as belligerent in tone towards the West as they were in the recent past. For its part, the U.S. government realizes the necessity to avoid getting caught up in any sort of strategic conflict with Russia at present, given the various powder-keg Middle East issues with which it must deal, as well as the potential for increasing tensions with China and an understandably jittery India desperate to avoid getting dragged into any of these messes.
If worst came to worst and the situation in one or more of the potentially crucial Middle Eastern and/or Indian Subcontinental countries (Israel/the Palestinian territories; Iraq; Iran; Afghanistan; Pakistan; etc.) deteriorates badly, or if relations with China sour over China's perceived artifical currency valuations, the U.S. will want to avoid any sticky situation with Russia, whether it would have to do with Eastern Europe or the region including and around Georgia. (And if the present financial squabbles between the West and China escalate, Russia might very well be needed as a potentially leveraging factor against China, particularly with India's attention turned at present in the opposite geographical direction.)
Yet given that U.S. military equipment is bound for Poland sometime soon (though proposed interceptor missiles are not bound for that region, at least for the time being), this will be a delecate balancing act to pull off. So far, so good, so score one for Joe.
Not that anyone in the rather myopic major U.S. media outlets seemed to notice....
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Ten Heavenly Reasons To Daydream About Spring
I love George Harrison's spring-themed Beatles tune "Here Comes The Sun," in which he sings, "...it's been a long, cold, lonely winter." Anyone who has spent a dark, damp, chilly winter in England could tell you why such a line resonates with everyone there. Though I lived in England for some time, at present I'm back in my native land--the Twin Cities, Minnesota, U.S.A. Minnesota winters are far colder and far snowier, but also far sunnier and (thankfully) far less damp, than English winters. Hence, I found that in moving to England I simply exchanged one "not-to-be-sniffed-at" set of winter circumstances for another, and I've found in recently moving back to Minnesota that I have simply closed the winter loop; I'm right back where I started.
While the song is obviously set in England ("...it seems like years since it's been clear..."), anyone who has spent a winter in Minnesota might be forgiven for thinking that Mr. Harrison also had our neck of the proverbial woods in mind ("...I feel that ice is slowly melting..."). As I spent my university years in Nebraska, which features a winter that is milder than in Minnesota but still often quite vicious, it's the case that Mr. Harrison's song is ubiquitous when measured against the winter experiences of folks in the three places I've lived for years at a time.
There is a lovely line in the song that cannot help but bring about in the listener the same change that the people in the song are undergoing as winter morphs into spring, as Mr. Harrison observes, "...the smiles [are] returning to the faces." I say this because even Minnesota has occasional winter thaws (though for some odd reason folks here insist on referring to the word "thaw" as "un-thaw," which when you think about it would seem to mean, uh, "freeze"). In the midst of a cold, classic winter, this coming weekend is predicted to feature a few days of above-freezing temperatures and thawing snow banks. It will also certainly bring smiles to the faces of my fellow Twin Citians, and it will most likely send our thoughts in the direction of spring, which is still many weeks away but for a few days might seem deceptively near.
So, what follows are ten heavenly reasons for me to daydream about the coming springtime, which, to borrow Mr. Harrison's words, "...seems like years since it's been here." These reasons are listed in no particular order. Here they are:
1.) I'm a runner. I run outdoors year-round (even in Minnesota's "freeze-your-rear-end-off" winter). Running in the springtime leaves me with a sense of vitality and renewal unmatched by even my favorite season, which is autumn.
2.) Listening to Major League Baseball on the radio is one of my favorite past-times, and something I missed terribly while away from the United States.
3.) I miss riding my bicycle during cool springtime mornings and/or evenings, meandering through the local neighborhoods with no real destination in mind.
4.) Here's a yearly Hasslington ritual: reading Jim Bouton's book "Ball Four" prior to Major League Baseball's opening day. I defy today's athletes to try to write as effectively as did Mr. Bouton, a former major league pitcher.
5.) Just thinking of sitting outside on the patios at the local pubs makes me hope that the winter blows itself out early this year, though I'm sure there's not much of a chance of that happening.
6.) "How will the Minnesota Twins do this year? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Let's speculate...."
7.) The prospect of the forthcoming summer vacation is always an appealing thought to teachers. Lucky for me, that's what I do for a living.
8.) "Shall we go inside and buy something or just stay out here? I guess it doesn't matter. What matters is that we suddenly don't feel compelled to automatically go inside, so I vote for staying out here."
9.) A lot of local cats will be released from their necessary all-indoor winter living arrangements. As I love watching cats trot around town, this is an appealing thought.
10.) "It's spring. I guess we should plan our forthcoming trip back to England, and our forthcoming road trip to somewhere here in the U.S.A...."
While the song is obviously set in England ("...it seems like years since it's been clear..."), anyone who has spent a winter in Minnesota might be forgiven for thinking that Mr. Harrison also had our neck of the proverbial woods in mind ("...I feel that ice is slowly melting..."). As I spent my university years in Nebraska, which features a winter that is milder than in Minnesota but still often quite vicious, it's the case that Mr. Harrison's song is ubiquitous when measured against the winter experiences of folks in the three places I've lived for years at a time.
There is a lovely line in the song that cannot help but bring about in the listener the same change that the people in the song are undergoing as winter morphs into spring, as Mr. Harrison observes, "...the smiles [are] returning to the faces." I say this because even Minnesota has occasional winter thaws (though for some odd reason folks here insist on referring to the word "thaw" as "un-thaw," which when you think about it would seem to mean, uh, "freeze"). In the midst of a cold, classic winter, this coming weekend is predicted to feature a few days of above-freezing temperatures and thawing snow banks. It will also certainly bring smiles to the faces of my fellow Twin Citians, and it will most likely send our thoughts in the direction of spring, which is still many weeks away but for a few days might seem deceptively near.
So, what follows are ten heavenly reasons for me to daydream about the coming springtime, which, to borrow Mr. Harrison's words, "...seems like years since it's been here." These reasons are listed in no particular order. Here they are:
1.) I'm a runner. I run outdoors year-round (even in Minnesota's "freeze-your-rear-end-off" winter). Running in the springtime leaves me with a sense of vitality and renewal unmatched by even my favorite season, which is autumn.
2.) Listening to Major League Baseball on the radio is one of my favorite past-times, and something I missed terribly while away from the United States.
3.) I miss riding my bicycle during cool springtime mornings and/or evenings, meandering through the local neighborhoods with no real destination in mind.
4.) Here's a yearly Hasslington ritual: reading Jim Bouton's book "Ball Four" prior to Major League Baseball's opening day. I defy today's athletes to try to write as effectively as did Mr. Bouton, a former major league pitcher.
5.) Just thinking of sitting outside on the patios at the local pubs makes me hope that the winter blows itself out early this year, though I'm sure there's not much of a chance of that happening.
6.) "How will the Minnesota Twins do this year? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Let's speculate...."
7.) The prospect of the forthcoming summer vacation is always an appealing thought to teachers. Lucky for me, that's what I do for a living.
8.) "Shall we go inside and buy something or just stay out here? I guess it doesn't matter. What matters is that we suddenly don't feel compelled to automatically go inside, so I vote for staying out here."
9.) A lot of local cats will be released from their necessary all-indoor winter living arrangements. As I love watching cats trot around town, this is an appealing thought.
10.) "It's spring. I guess we should plan our forthcoming trip back to England, and our forthcoming road trip to somewhere here in the U.S.A...."
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
K.B.O. Through The Detritus Of Cyberspace
I have recently inserted a "blurb" or "tag-line" under the title of this blog, due to the fact that sarcastic responses such as "Obama's going to save the world!" have found their way onto the comments section of this blog-site of late. Of course, such unhelpful comments are part and parcel of the blog-o-sphere, and I therefore accept some of them as the waste product from an otherwise useful communication tool.
What I do not accept, however, is the notion that people who wish to engage in actual political give-and-take should be forced into simultaneously engaging in such emotionally-stunted exchanges, which are the domain of point-scoring individuals who seem either incapable of or unwilling to discuss differences of opinion in manners that are constructive. Yet this may be the ultimate point for some people, who for whatever unfortunate reason would rather hide behind the moniker "Anonymous" while writing things to which no adult would ever want their name attached than carry on actual discussions with their peers. After all, real conversations tend to frighten them.
I find it one of the least amusing ironies of the internet that those who would lower considerably the conversational bar in a given blog-site are also sometimes that blog-site's most consistent readers. ("After all," they must think, "how else can we spread the angst around so efficiently?") I also find that open-minded, adventurous people who tend to read widely and travel widely both inside and outside of their own country tend to shy away from the childish, emotionally-stunted crowd. Then again, saying this will elicit little more than blathered shouts of "Elitist!" from the aforementioned culturally myopic crowd, so....
If anyone is interested in seeing how someone might approach an actual adult conversation (whether it focuses on agreement with or disagreement between two people), they might be interested in modeling the tone of--and the language in--the comment posted by "Travis" on my January 21st post called "Preserving the 'Inaugural Moment'...." Then again, anyone who is willing to view that exchange in an open-minded manner is not likely to need to model it, because they most likely write (and talk, and think) in an adult manner already.
As for my "gut" response to this latest bit of depressing childishness, I'll use a Winston Churchill term that the man himself used many times: "K.B.O." For Mr. Churchill, this stood for "Keep Buggering On." I'm no Winston Churchill, to be sure, but I have the feeling that he'd let me borrow his term for this particular occasion. So, I'll keep buggering on, and on, and on. And on some more.
Call me presumptuous, but I have the sense that I am most certainly not alone in the blog-o-sphere in my willingness to K.B.O., despite those who would rather force everyone into neatly-labeled, trademarked groupings so that they don't have to deal with those wonderful traits called "complexity" and "ambiguity" that are where the real fun is at. They just don't know what they're missing. Or perhaps they do know what they're missing, but for whatever reason they refuse to engage in it, anyway.
What I do not accept, however, is the notion that people who wish to engage in actual political give-and-take should be forced into simultaneously engaging in such emotionally-stunted exchanges, which are the domain of point-scoring individuals who seem either incapable of or unwilling to discuss differences of opinion in manners that are constructive. Yet this may be the ultimate point for some people, who for whatever unfortunate reason would rather hide behind the moniker "Anonymous" while writing things to which no adult would ever want their name attached than carry on actual discussions with their peers. After all, real conversations tend to frighten them.
I find it one of the least amusing ironies of the internet that those who would lower considerably the conversational bar in a given blog-site are also sometimes that blog-site's most consistent readers. ("After all," they must think, "how else can we spread the angst around so efficiently?") I also find that open-minded, adventurous people who tend to read widely and travel widely both inside and outside of their own country tend to shy away from the childish, emotionally-stunted crowd. Then again, saying this will elicit little more than blathered shouts of "Elitist!" from the aforementioned culturally myopic crowd, so....
If anyone is interested in seeing how someone might approach an actual adult conversation (whether it focuses on agreement with or disagreement between two people), they might be interested in modeling the tone of--and the language in--the comment posted by "Travis" on my January 21st post called "Preserving the 'Inaugural Moment'...." Then again, anyone who is willing to view that exchange in an open-minded manner is not likely to need to model it, because they most likely write (and talk, and think) in an adult manner already.
As for my "gut" response to this latest bit of depressing childishness, I'll use a Winston Churchill term that the man himself used many times: "K.B.O." For Mr. Churchill, this stood for "Keep Buggering On." I'm no Winston Churchill, to be sure, but I have the feeling that he'd let me borrow his term for this particular occasion. So, I'll keep buggering on, and on, and on. And on some more.
Call me presumptuous, but I have the sense that I am most certainly not alone in the blog-o-sphere in my willingness to K.B.O., despite those who would rather force everyone into neatly-labeled, trademarked groupings so that they don't have to deal with those wonderful traits called "complexity" and "ambiguity" that are where the real fun is at. They just don't know what they're missing. Or perhaps they do know what they're missing, but for whatever reason they refuse to engage in it, anyway.
Monday, February 2, 2009
President Obama's Environmental And Political Pragmatism
The Bush Administration worked actively to obstruct states from setting up many of their own tough environmental standards, particularly insofar as carbon emissions are concerned. Given that the incoming Obama Administration was clearly more left-leaning in these regards, the question that consistent political observers tended to ask themselves was not whether or not President Obama would work to tighten and toughen environmental standards having to do with CO2 emissions, etc., but rather how he would go about the process of tightening and toughening them. We now have an early answer to this question (with more to come, I'd guess), and this answer is probably indicative of a savvy sort of political pragmatism that President Obama is at present applying to a number of items on his political agenda.
The new president did not, for instance, push for increased environmental regulations at the national level in his initial moves in this policy area. (He may eventually push for tougher nation-wide standards, but he's yet to do it.) Instead, he eased a number of Bush Administration obstructions placed on states that were designed to discourage certain states from setting their own tougher standards. (California is often mentioned as a state that might quickly work to establish its own tougher standards, perhaps even in the current economic climate.) That is, instead of raising national standards across the board--which might have proven to be a political liability, even in this increasingly "green" era, given the dire national economic outlook--President Obama has thus far left existing national standards in place and encouraged states to set higher standards on their own.
This is savvy from a number of perspectives. First of all, it appeases a solid chunk of the environmentalist crowd (at least for the time being) who abhorred President Bush's policies and wanted President Obama to take some quick action to counter them, while at the same time it avoids a lot of the "business-vs.-environment" fighting that surely would have occurred in this financially-difficult time had national legislation been proposed. (Business groups, large and small, may have soured quickly on the new administration if they felt they were going to be squeezed financially due to increased national environmental standards.) Secondly, it allows states in which stricter environmental measures are at present a popular idea to move toward setting tougher standards, which would tend to prove politically beneficial to both environmental groups in those states as well as the president himself, who will surely be listed among the reasons that such statewide-standards were able to be put in place.
Then there's this third pragmatic reason why such a move makes political sense: it doesn't hurt the president's popularity in states that would rather avoid setting tougher emission standards for the time being, because those states will be allowed (again, for the time being) to stick with the existing standards and avoid the necessity of raising their standards considerably, the latter of which would come as part and parcel of national legislation. So, let's say California raises its environmental standards, but for the time being Ohio does not; in theory, the president looks okay on the issue to a majority of people in both states. In theory, then, this is a "win-win" scenario at a time when the president needs to stay popular in order to more effectively deal with the national economy, foreign policy, and so forth.
Cynics from both sides of the political aisle may initially dislike this "wishy-washy" strategy, but to me it seems to come from necessity, political and otherwise--the president clearly wants to toughen environmental regulations, but he also knows that he needs to be politically careful for the forseeable future. For the time being, then, he's attempting a "middle-way" approach to the environment and several other policy areas, knowing that even very centrist policies will seem quite progressive in the wake of the Bush years. As to whether these policies will work in the long-run or will have to be altered sooner as opposed to later, we'll have to wait and see.
The new president did not, for instance, push for increased environmental regulations at the national level in his initial moves in this policy area. (He may eventually push for tougher nation-wide standards, but he's yet to do it.) Instead, he eased a number of Bush Administration obstructions placed on states that were designed to discourage certain states from setting their own tougher standards. (California is often mentioned as a state that might quickly work to establish its own tougher standards, perhaps even in the current economic climate.) That is, instead of raising national standards across the board--which might have proven to be a political liability, even in this increasingly "green" era, given the dire national economic outlook--President Obama has thus far left existing national standards in place and encouraged states to set higher standards on their own.
This is savvy from a number of perspectives. First of all, it appeases a solid chunk of the environmentalist crowd (at least for the time being) who abhorred President Bush's policies and wanted President Obama to take some quick action to counter them, while at the same time it avoids a lot of the "business-vs.-environment" fighting that surely would have occurred in this financially-difficult time had national legislation been proposed. (Business groups, large and small, may have soured quickly on the new administration if they felt they were going to be squeezed financially due to increased national environmental standards.) Secondly, it allows states in which stricter environmental measures are at present a popular idea to move toward setting tougher standards, which would tend to prove politically beneficial to both environmental groups in those states as well as the president himself, who will surely be listed among the reasons that such statewide-standards were able to be put in place.
Then there's this third pragmatic reason why such a move makes political sense: it doesn't hurt the president's popularity in states that would rather avoid setting tougher emission standards for the time being, because those states will be allowed (again, for the time being) to stick with the existing standards and avoid the necessity of raising their standards considerably, the latter of which would come as part and parcel of national legislation. So, let's say California raises its environmental standards, but for the time being Ohio does not; in theory, the president looks okay on the issue to a majority of people in both states. In theory, then, this is a "win-win" scenario at a time when the president needs to stay popular in order to more effectively deal with the national economy, foreign policy, and so forth.
Cynics from both sides of the political aisle may initially dislike this "wishy-washy" strategy, but to me it seems to come from necessity, political and otherwise--the president clearly wants to toughen environmental regulations, but he also knows that he needs to be politically careful for the forseeable future. For the time being, then, he's attempting a "middle-way" approach to the environment and several other policy areas, knowing that even very centrist policies will seem quite progressive in the wake of the Bush years. As to whether these policies will work in the long-run or will have to be altered sooner as opposed to later, we'll have to wait and see.
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