20210120.0430

Another term will soon begin
And many think that they did win
While others look at it as sin
But Stupid God wears yet a grin
And too few wonder why

20201103.0430

I don't have a poem today. There is no need. Instead, I have this to say:

If you haven't, and you're eligible, VOTE.

What passes for regularity here will resume tomorrow. I hope.

20201102.0430

The shrapnel wounds became tattoos
Recovery and acceptance of the sacrifices made
But they read them instead as covering in shame
Badges they would never want to bear

20201101.0430

As the day draws near that many dread
As making to snap the remaining thread
By which that hangs that is now near to dead
And never was as hearty or as hale
As held the myth that for long did prevail
Because they lifted it with great travail
Who wanted to believe it, terror grows
From sources that the Stupid God well knows
Inasmuch as knowing acts in its repose
And it convulses, squamous, eldritch, foul,
Within the multitudes that are its cowl,
Puppets shaken hard upon its dowel
And joying in the rod applied behind,
Thinking its abuse is acting kind.

20200120.0430

The time approaches.
It can be seen.
In but a year,
If we are here,
We'll get to see
If we should flee
Across the sea
And seek new land.
We understand
That the command
May well demand
We take a stand,
But we well know
That what we show
Can stand few blows
That others throw,
Not with fists, no.
We can scarce go
Against that flow;
We'd feed the crow.

20190821.0430

I have often toyed with the idea of writing a memoir of one kind or another, of setting down in pages printed or pixelated the days and deeds of my life. Who would read such a thing is unclear to me; those who might be most interested are those involved in the events and who recall them, or who would have access to the root sources from which I would be most likely to work. Ms. 8 will have access to my personal journals at some point, presuming she will be able to read my writing--a comment I make not because "kids these days can't read cursive" but because my pen-hand has never been good (even though I cannot get anyone to tell me what, exactly, makes it bad). Why she would need a more "public" version, I am not sure--and, again, I don't know who else, save perhaps family, would want to read the damned thing.
Thinking on the idea of a memoir, though, or autobiography (and where the difference between the two is, I am not certain), the idea occurs that the major break-points in my life have largely related to schools. (Ms. 8 starting Kindergarten this week is still very much on my mind, as might be imagined.) School through fifth grade was different for me than school in sixth grade through eighth; it changed again when I went to high school, yet again when I went to college, still again when I went to graduate school. There was a perhaps subtler shift when I completed the PhD, since I had already been at work in the field where I spent the next few years, but those years still revolved around different schools and the search for work among them. The birth of Ms. 8 is, of course, a major break-point; being a parent is different than not being one. But even many of the markers with her have involved school, and I expect that quite a few more to come will do so, as well.
Such breaks help in framing narratives, of course. Periodization is perilous, admittedly, but boundaries have to be drawn for the mind to take in things even close to well. Series have volumes and books have chapters for reasons, and categories can be aids to understanding and interpretation, even as their determinations are always fraught with meanings that may not be intended but are present, nonetheless. They also serve to remind me how much of my life has been bound up with learning, and I have to wonder how many other people's lives function similarly. Given the prevalence of alumni merchandise I see on display (and I am not immune to its allure), given the alignment of people with colleges they and their families have never attended, I think it is no few.
Given that, I wonder that we do not hold teachers and schools in higher esteem, collectively. I know well that many individuals have reasons to hold formal learning in contempt, and I know that specific political entanglements always skew things. (Yes, your curriculum was and is political. It always has been. Think about who makes the decisions about what gets taught; it's not only the people in the classroom.) But for as many as trumpet the schools they attended, for as many as mark their lives through their schooling, perhaps it would make a bit more sense to be a bit more favorable towards such institutions.

20190624.0430

I only managed to post five times previously on this date, 2014 though 2018. Most of them have been poems; the one that wasn't (2015) is commentary on the 2014 poem, and it runs with the metaphor of tending a garden by fertilizing it abundantly. (I'm reasonably happy with it, and with the poem it references.) The 2018 poem, again, is one of the limericks I thought to write in something resembling a heroic narrative. The project...did not go quite as well as I might have liked, which is my fault and none other's. But the 2016 and 2017 poems might do with a bit of attention, if not as much as I give the 2014 poem in the 2015 prose.
The 2016 poem is a reference to Brexit, since the referendum that started the still-ongoing-as-of-this-writing process of Great Britain leaving the European Union happened the day before. I do often write topical poetry, though I'll admit I do not always do so well, and I often comment that I ought not to be commenting any more than many do who still make comments about the events of the day. John Bull and Marianne are national emblems; I was not able, in the brief research I remember doing as I wrote the poem, to find the parallel figure for Germany, but that is my failing. The child of John Bull is, of course, Uncle Sam; he is explicitly named as an uncle, and there is a prevailing notion of America and Americans as crude and money-obsessed. (I embody it more than is perhaps comfortable. Again, that is my failing.) Neither of the reactions from that figure are good ones, honestly, though I saw enough of both--and still see them, in fact.
I wonder if I might put together an addendum to that piece, something to the effect of

The music jerkily plays on
And dancers still crowd the floor
Sleep-ready Michel still twirling with Marianne
But John Bull lingers at the exit
Looking back with sadness and anger
Demanding that he be able to hear the music
Drink the drinks
And eat the hors d'oeuvres
Again and again
Without paying for a membership in the club
And the fattest of his children
Whose hands seem small and hair seems thin
Anymore
Still sniggers in the corner
Unwilling to stand on feet that show spurs unmerited

However that may be, as I read the brief 2017 poem, I am glad of it. Short though it is, it still rings true; I am glad to look to my side or behind me and see my wife there, supporting me as I try to make some sense of the world and to find a better place in it for her and for Ms. 8. It is gratifying to have such faith placed in me, and I continue to hope I may someday come to merit it.

20190112.0430

I noted in yesterday's post that I have a persistent fantasy about getting a couple of days to myself to recover and to write. It is not the only writing fantasy I have, of course. There is still some part of me that hopes someday to revise my dissertation into a fuller monograph, for what little that will matter now that I am so far off the tenure track that I cannot even see the stadium anymore. I may, perhaps, put the limerick sequence into print, although the more I think about it, the less likely I think it to be that I will; I have no re-read it in a while, but I do not think it is the best work I can do. The hymns against the stupid god are likely a better candidate for printing, although, given the way things look to be going as I write this, their publication might become something of a danger to me; dictatorship looms.
But more closely akin to what I discussed yesterday is the thought that I might sometime take a writing retreat. I have seen no few of them advertised, but I know them to be directed towards writers who are in a position to focus more fully on their writing than I can afford to do--whether that is because their professional lives are more conducive to such things than mine or because their personal lives are, or both. I cannot take a week away from work simply to sit and write, or I feel I cannot, though I earn paid time off in my current position and, with enough advance notice, can make arrangements for it. More, though, I cannot take a week away from my family to do so; they need me, and I them, far more than I need to spend isolated days with pen in hand or keyboard under fingers (and, as I've noted, the distinction matters).
It is not a weakness, though. There are many things that call to me to do, some more strongly than others. That I acknowledge more of them than I can achieve in the short term, and likely even in the long term, does not mean I am a failure; it means that there is always room for me to improve, always a way for me to get better, always something new to which I can turn my attentions and efforts. I am never done, and that is good, because it means I never have to be done; I always have something else to do. I always have a means to move ahead, even if "ahead" occasionally shifts direction. And that is something worthwhile, I think.
While I will not pretend that having an ever-open set of tasks to accomplish is a panacea, I do think it has helped me to avoid some of the missteps I have seen others make. And if I can learn from others instead of the pain of direct experience, I think I am better off for it.

20181228.0430

On 25 December 2018, Fareed Zakaria's "Everywhere, A Growing Backlash to Populism" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. The article opens with a focus on French president Emmanuel Macron's political trajectory, initially a symbol of hope but currently (as of this writing) facing falling poll numbers and the Yellow Vest protests decrying some of the reforms he has sought to push through. Macron is used as a case study for a first-blush pessimism Zakaria proceeds to explicate and undermine. Despite the ongoing populist, nationalist fervor that has hold on much of the West, broadly defined, there is quite a bit of pushback against reactionary ideas and measures; political developments across Europe and in the United States are referenced as examples. Zakaria ends with a call against despair, noting that work is yet to be done but that it can be done to effect.
As I read the article, I have to consider where Zakaria writes from. He is not here, so far as I know; I somehow doubt that the Texas Hill Country is much on his itinerary, unless perhaps it is Austin--but Austin is barely geographically in the Hill Country and even less so, culturally. From here, at least, things do not look like Zakaria describes; if anything, the reactionary rhetoric is more emphatic here now than earlier in the year, the attitudes it reflects more deeply entrenched despite the provision of data. It matters less that a thing is true than that the right person says it, and the right person looks more like me than I am comfortable with. But my discomfort is nothing against the danger others face, here and elsewhere, because those who spout such stupidity as they do are increasingly emboldened.
And why would they not be? This place is something of a stronghold for them, though the foundations for such things are not so solid as they might be pretended to be; there is only so much limestone will support, after all, and it is not for nothing that so many come to the Hill Country to find healing. But if they do, it is because they need it, and an injury once incurred can be renewed far more easily than might be hoped. Perhaps it is the fear of that that spurs so much retrenchment here, so much clinging to thoughts of guns and glory, even or especially by those who ought to know better than they give evidence of doing.
Such an implication, if voiced more plainly to particular people, would prompt more pushback than is currently in place, and if those hands are so few as Zakaria would have us hope, still do they feel heavy for those upon whom they are laid. I may not be among them, and I hope not to be, but I know that too many others are who ought not to be--and that there will likely be more as phantom fears intensify. There always are, and then things come that are rightly feared, to the loss of us all.

20181206.0430

On 2 December 208, Craig Riley's "Put 'None of the Above' on the Ballot" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. In the article, Riley responds to Express-News reporting about the proportion of party-affiliated and -unaffiliated and suggests that a "None of the above" option should be added to general electoral ballots. Riley then expands upon the idea, noting problems with it intermixed with benefits; he also remarks upon his increasing dissatisfaction with the higher-level races. Ultimately, the author notes the unlikelihood of his idea coming to fruition--it is not directly achievable, and elected officials are not apt to make changes that imperil their reelection--but it is an entertaining idea, at least.
It's not the first time I've seen such an idea; I recall reading it before, though I cannot recall where at this point. It would, as the author asserts, allow ballots to reflect the opinions of those who cast them; many of those who do not vote likely don't because they find none of the options on the ballot desirable or palatable. (I know many are prevented from voting by other circumstances; I do not cast aspersion on those people. But I also believe in 1) voting against people and 2) damage mitigation when that is the available option. So there are those towards whom I am not sanguine.) But that's part of the rub, as well; there are already mechanisms for parties to select preferable candidates and for those who dislike all of them on the ballot to make their dislike known. The notion that a "None of the above" option would prompt better candidate selection thus rings as relatively naïve; losing election after election has not prompted selecting better candidates as it is, so losing another way is not like to, either.
It will remain thus as long as people are voting based on party rather than person or platform--and even after, like as not. As long as people align in such ways, chiefly based on party but not seldom based upon a cult of opprobrium, they will find any candidate acceptable as long as that candidate is not that other asshole; they will find any candidate acceptable as long as the party approves him or her--because s/he's not the other party's candidate. The 2016 election showed it abundantly; the 2018 elections were much the same, if perhaps slightly less vitriolic. (Perhaps. Slightly.)
But Riley's concluding statement is spot-on. There is a lot of room for things to change for the better. That laws--even the highest--can be amended is an acknowledgement that change may be needed, that things are not yet as they ought to be. And while the ability to change necessarily means there is an ability for things to get worse--and they can always get worse; never challenge the universe for how, as it will oblige--there is always the chance that things will go otherwise and improve. It may not be a big chance, given human nature; if offered stupidity, most people will engage in it. But it is still a chance.

20181106.0430

In the United States, today is Election Day, something about which I've written before (here, here, here, here, and likely elsewhere that I do not recall at the moment). For those who are eligible and able and have not done so yet: vote. (I took care of my voting early; an early voting site is near my workplace, and I don't usually take an hour to eat my food.)
Given where I am and what my predilections are, I typically vote with little hope, and more against people than for them. I acknowledge that they may not be healthy attitudes, being convinced that my vote will not much or at all matter and that nobody actually deserves my endorsement even if a fair number deserve my condemnation. But they are what I have to spur me on in such dismal matters, and they did, at least, serve to spur me this time, as has not always been the case. I am given to understand that I am not alone, either, and that is held by many to be a good thing.
Of course, such holding presupposes that the aggregate will make the right decision, and that is fallacious. Ad populum has long been recognized as an error of reasoning; that many people do a thing does not mean it is a thing that ought to be done. (And I know that "ought" is fraught.) I've heard it expressed by my parents no few times, as I am sure many others have: "If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you, too?" (I don't remember if I made a smart-ass self-pitying reply like "It's a bad question; since when do I have friends?" But it seems the kind of thing I'd've said at many points in my youth.; I was a little shit, as I've often observed.) But elections work from the premise that the group will decide well.
I know, too, that "well" is a slippery term. Like most, I count as good that which conduces to my benefit and the benefit of those about whom I care. My background and experience circumscribe the latter substantially, I admit, although I do not think I am even close to alone in that. Ultimately, I know that I am compromised and biased--I have made no secret of it, nor do I do as others do and try to claim I am not when it is clearly untrue--but that does not mean I am not correct. Nor does it mean that I am not immensely frustrated by things going as they too often seem to go--or that I do not look forward to and strive to create a time in which they go otherwise, and better.

20161108.0602

Today's US Election Day,
So I've only one thing to say:
If you've not already, and
You are allowed to set your hand
To the task, go vote today.
It may well come to what you say,
And if it doesn't go your way--
The results will depend on what your way was.

20161031.0554

It seems odd to celebrate fake fear
When real threats are all too near,
As we have been told through the year,
And many months before.
It seems odd to put kids in masks
When much has been made of the tasks
Of stopping crime, but no one asks
About the coming "more."
It seems odd to pump full of sweets
Children we bemoan that treats
Are too much what each one eats,
But I'll go to the store.
It seems odd I on holidays
Seem to seek out sundry ways
That I can not while others play--
But, then, I am a bore.

20161024.0601

Things to do today:
Wake up
Caffeinate
Write
Caffeinate
See them off
Caffeinate
Eat
Drive
Caffeinate
Vote
Caffeinate
Grade
Teach
Teach
Meet
Eat
Caffeinate
Read
Teach
Drive
Teach
Drive
Caffeinate?
Eat
Write?
Sleep

It is an A-Z day
Not an E-Z day
And I have to wonder
If Æ, Ð, Þ, Ƿ, and Ȝ will factor in, as well.

20161020.0616

I have largely kept myself apart
From the 2016 election
I know whom I am voting against
And I know it is voting against
In many cases
Or most
But I mean to make a mark
At every level on the ballot
Although there are not so many where I will vote
Uncontested "elections" are a thing here
And no write-ins are allows

All the talk of
"Vote your conscience"
Matters little where
The clearest means of doing so
Is forbidden

20160927.0607

The Stupid God wears many faces.
They appear in many places,
Not least of which are 'lection races--
As we have had to see.
As the people dance and sing
And trumpet every little thing
That upjumped puppets forward bring,
The Stupid God feels glee,
For worship gives the gods their power
And worship is in every hour
That a god's works are in flower;
Stupid God's grow free.
In the gods' place, there is war
Eternal; it was fought before,
And now it works out quite well for
Stupid God's devotee.
Come fight the Stupid God with me.
Starve the god; help people see
That better things can come to be
Although they won't come easy.

20160630.0754

I took a chunk out of the pad of my thumb yesterday.
I am reminded by the event
Of the finger condom
The cut-out from a latex glove
Or vinyl
Meant to keep holes in things
From impregnating food and such
With something not desired
But it occurs to me
That it does not stop the spread of disease by hand
At least not the disease most pernicious that hands can spread
The smallest germs that have the biggest effects
When they find purchase
Infecting brains and altering behavior

I will not say there is no prophylactic
The politics of 2016 show that there is
And widespread
Showing up in Brexit and thoughts of
Frexit and Texit and Departugal
And other cunning portmanteaus that could be imagined
But it is not a simple shred of material strapped over something
Dangling
That serves as the barrier involved

20160624.0813

John Bull has left the dance
Marianne is still twirling
Her partner in black and red and yellow
And the harper looks on sadly
While the others shake their heads

One of Bull's kids
Everybody's uncle, somehow
And THAT uncle
(You know the kind
You have one
Or you are one
Or both)
Is either sniggering in the corner
Or has just realized something about his wallet
Even though John Bull's problems
Leave his wallet looking smaller
Pound for pound

20160408.0622

For something of a retrospective today, a look back not at last year's treatment of The Patriot Threat, but rather earlier years' treatments of limerick (and the NSFW label should apply):

Political games played by fools
Often transgress many rules
Of couth and decorum
The people ignore 'em
And watch, entertained by the tools

The verses come in no real order
No system applies to their hoarder
Who gathers together
The arrayed words whether
Or not they've been through a sorter

The cat out of the window stares
Looking at birds or at hares
We feed the damned thing
It eats like a king
And like a king, it never cares

And so it has come to pass
That thunder proceeds from the ass
That heavenly farting
That leaves the ear smarting
And makes the celestial a gas

Looking for jobs really sucks
The frantic search for a few bucks
That come from done work
For an arrogant jerk
Will leave me ungiving of fucks

20160405.0643

Work continues, as ever it must.

My students have begun to fill out the survey I noted yesterday. (I made sure to point out to them that they are getting a choice in their exam from me--and from few if any of their other professors.) At this point, half of the responses are asking for the essay about an assignment not already included in first-year composition. It seems to keep with the overall curricular theme of my classes this term. (I may have noted that I am having my students make arguments regarding their courses of study. It seems they should be interested in such things, although they have voiced complaints about being "bored" with their topics. One or two have noted changing their majors and post-graduate plans as a result of the projects this semester; I feel I have done them a service.) It remains to be seen, of course, if the tendency will continue, as there are still many students who have yet to fill out the survey, but I am struck at seeing the assignment that shows up as preferred at this point doing so.

Also, after a longer-than-preferred hiatus, a freelance order has shown up for me. I have not looked over the details of the order yet, although I soon will. Having the time to attend to other matters that I have had has been nice; it has allowed me to slow down a bit. It has also had a detrimental effect on the family finances, though, and that is far less desirable. Perhaps this new order will be the first in a series of them, and I will be able to get some funding put back a bit in advance of the removal from Sherwood Cottage. We will need the money, as getting from here to there with all of our things in tow is not the least expensive thing that can be done. I do not mind doing the work to that end, even if I am an "entitled and lazy" Millennial. (And I am a Millennial, evidently, although at the leading edge of that age-bracket; I turned 18 in 2000, scant days before the election that resulted in W being promoted from governing Texas to presiding over the Union. Election law in place there and then prohibited me from registering in time to be able to vote.)

So I will be looking over a few papers today, as well as looking at some other work--likely reading a new novel and beginning to make some kind of informed and insightful commentary about it. I hope to get some writing done, as well, both of the sort that I do to help guide my students (and there is more of it to do) and of the sort that pleases me. Some of the tasks are more likely to be completed than others, especially since the Mrs. works all day today, and so I will be playing with and looking after Ms. 8 in earnest. Still, I am in a reasonably good position (although it could be better), and I am not unmindful of it; I am well aware that it could be worse. I could not have work to do, and I would not know what to do in such a circumstance.