I look good in stripes...

I have recently been involved in a discussion on Facebook about "hateful atheism," which has led to some interesting conversations with friends off-line as well. I tend to find the hardline arguments on both sides to be pretty absurd, so lately I've been taking on the role of "referee." In this capacity, I have noticed that the two sides make frequent use of non sequiturs ("Illegal Procedure, Theists - 5 yard penalty..."). Another favorite illegal argument is the ad hominem attack on the previous poster ("Unnecessary Roughness, Atheists - declined, the play stands.")

What is most fascinating to me, however, is how often they use the very same arguments. For example:

"I am saving them from X!"
In this case, X could be hell, or it could be irrationality. Both camps assert that their agenda is based in concern for the other. To both, I have to say, "no one believes you." The hardest fighters in each camp seem to be motivated mostly by dislike of the other side. I will admit that I find the "holier-than-thou" Christian pretty irritating, but no more so than the "more-logical-than-thou" atheist. Be honest folks - you don't like people who differ from you, because you are convinced your position is correct.

"I am sick of being pushed around by them!"
Both sides make some pretty ludicrous arguments about how oppressed they are. Christians; there is no war on Christmas. It's the largest, most universally observed holiday in the world - get over yourselves. Atheists; Christianity is not putting an end to science, reason, or logic. They are alive and well, and they have more impact on daily life now than they ever have - get over yourselves.

"But their ideology is dangerous!"
Yes - Religion has spawned wars and witch hunts and abuse... and science and reason continue to give us bigger and better ways to kill each other and destroy our health and that of the planet. Just about every ideology worthy of the title is guilty of something shitty, past or present. Let the ideology that is without a skeleton or 20 in its closet cast the first stone.

Now, if both sides of a given dispute are using the same arguments, it might indicate that they have other things in common. I think the commonality here is faith. No atheist wants to discuss it, but it is just as difficult to categorically prove that god doesn't exist as it is to prove that he does. Certainly, they can show that it is very unlikely that such a being exists, but improbability is not proof when you are dealing with a universe that is believed to be infinite (or a finite local universe within a larger megauniverse which is infinite in nature, if you're really into this sort of thing...). Just as theists take it on faith that there is a god, atheists have faith in his absence. To the atheist who argues that at least his belief is bolstered by logic and the scientific method, the theist will reply that his belief is based on his own experiences of the holy spirit or whatever he choses to call it. Regardless of the support, these are cases of belief, not certainty. Instead of these futile attempts to convince the other side, we could talk about ways that theists and atheists and everyone in between could coexist more smoothly. But then there would be no need for a ref - what fun is that?

So, this is Christmas...

Friday is taking the hustle and bustle of Christmahanakwanzaka in stride. She likes her new hollowdaze dress well enough, but she was really hoping for an elf costume... maybe next year.

Actually, the reason she looks so calm in this picture is that she is high as a kite on Tramadol. She just got spayed yesterday, and her pain meds are keeping her very mellow. She's got a few days left on this prescription while her sutures heal, and I think it's making the craziness of the season much easier for her to handle. I recommend it for everyone at the holidays. The Tramadol I mean, not the spaying...

I have taken no end of shit from others in Flockhall for buying this little outfit. The very same people, mind you, who wanted desperately to dress her up for Halloween. I argued that she didn't need a halloween costume because she wasn't going trick-r-treating (she can't reach the doorbells) but she IS going to Grandma's house for Christmas, so a new outfit was a must. At least I stopped myself from getting the fuzzy red boots...

The Angries

I don't want to be angry anymore.

I thought this lying in the dark a few nights ago, waiting for sleep. It's hard to imagine me without anger; it's my idiom, my identity. I have a black belt in anger; it's an emotional Swiss army knife for me - it has so many uses. I'm the guy who is funny because he's angry; in fact, I have a radio show because I'm that funny/angry guy. When faced with difficulties, I use anger as fuel to get through. We've talked many times on this blog about my competitive nature - that savage gameface is based in anger. I can wring what I want out of customer service reps with anger. I have pried open bureaucratic puzzles using anger like a crowbar. I can deflect and ignore pain through anger. In fact, with anger, I can put up a shield that Montgomery Scott would envy.

Despite all of that it carries a downside that far outweighs its usefulness. Regardless of how scathing my ire might be toward the topic of the moment, I always reserve my greatest fury for myself. I am often moved to trembling rage at my own lack of focus and forgetfulness. For example - I brought a bottle of flavored water with me to work today. Once I got in the building and got to work, I realized I had left it in the car. For some inexplicable reason, I was enraged by this. I am not dying of thirst, and I could easily slip away from my desk for a few seconds to retrieve it, but instead I spent a few minutes berated myself for not remembering it.

This was a minor incident. You should see the personal fury that can arise when I misplace my car keys or wallet. Worse yet are the days when I can't remember where my sunglasses are. These spacey moments sometimes create a rage in me that, albeit brief and self-contained, is still ridiculously out of proportion to the moment. I have, thankfully, become adept at containing these fits so that no one has to endure their full brunt but me, but this is pale comfort.

It should be noted that not all of my anger is without merit. If you can read the news and you're not angry, you're not paying attention. Wars, the economy, intolerance, and the short-sighted wrangling of our elected officials is reason enough to make the blood boil. It's just that I don't dissipate it well. I stay angry, to my own detriment.

It is a trained response, I think. There is the proper, healthy anger that aids you in survival situations, and then there is the anger that takes the place of other, more useful responses. In our modern world, there is little opportunity for the former; the greatest threats to my survival each day are my own eating habits, not actual struggles for life. In most cases, the anger I feel could be more productively replaced with another response - compassion, humor, etc.

I know - I'm late to the party on this. I know that most of you are thinking, "Yes - and this is why you're a jackass, Linus." Sorry. I'm slow. Better late than never, right?

Facebook 1, Blog 0

Yikes - over a month without a post.

Is it because I'm too busy?
Is it because I'm working three jobs?
Is it because blogging is SO 2005?

Yeah, probably. But I'm going to blame it on Facebook.

I didn't understand Facebook at first. I've had a page for some time, but I never checked it unless I got an email telling me that someone had sent me a message on it. Even then I was irritated by it - I just didn't understand how people could spend any time on it. It always took me about 5 minutes to become bored by it, so I'd read my messages, remind the people who sent them that I could be reached on Gmail, and leave.

What irritated me about it was the way it turned the internet into a popularity contest on several levels. First, you have the question of friend count. Who has more than you, and why? Why is that person friends with her and not with you? Should I mine her friend list to increase my own? All pitiful things to ask yourself. Shouldn't your friends be more a matter of quality than quantity?

Then you have the daily contest of status updates. Should I be honest about what is actually on my mind, or is today a day for song lyrics, movie quotes, or your "Which Twilight Character are You?" quiz results? Score is kept in "likes" and comments, but it's not a simple process of addition. You must also figure in the content of the comments, subtracting half for those who both like and comment, and then you must consider the "likes" OF the comments - do you get those points, or do you share them with the commenter? I'm not sure - I believe the scoring system is actually based on a combination of the rules for the BCS rankings and Quidditch...

There are other arenas for Facebook combat as well. Pictures, for example - you can post, caption, tag, like, comment, untag, and generally bore everyone with the photos that aren't good enough to use as wallpaper on your phone. These fall into three broad categories; 1) profile pics so heavily 'shopped that your mom wouldn't recognize you, 2) horrible pics of you tagged by someone else, and 3) a category simply titled, "dude, we were so faded that night..." Incidentally, none of those albums are going to be particularly flattering to you twenty years from now when you run for office.

Despite how ridiculous I find this all to be, Facebook now occupies far too much of my time. For all its narcissism and shallow quantifications of net friend worth, it actually does what it claims to do - help people stay connected.

Do I think it might do that at the expense of face-to-face communication? Yes.
Do I worry that it is killing internet exchanges in longer formats? Absolutely.
Do I believe that it's creating an even more dysfunctional and self-aggrandizing generation than my own? Almost certainly, and that's saying something because let's face it, we Gen X babies are pretty much the poster children of me-theism. Never the less, it expands the neurological boundaries of our ability to establish network ties, allowing us to build "friendships" in numbers unknown to humans at any previous time in our existence. The ties are weak, certainly, but it is the sheer quantity that is remarkable - it has enabled humans to maintain sociality at a level beyond our cranial capacity. For that alone, it may be one of the most important things to arise on the internet so far.

So that's my excuse. I haven't blogged for over a month because I have become far too enthralled with Facebook. Sorry, but it's true. I'm sure that's not a shock to any of you - you probably got here via a Facebook link anyway...

Wandering the Wastes

I didn't get to bed on time. There was a thesis meeting, then work until 9:00pm, then an election party, then... Fallout: New Vegas.

I am not thrilled with this game - not yet, anyway. I keep playing it because I am hoping to recapture all the fun I had in Fallout 3 as the "Last, Best Hope of Humanity" and savior of the D.C. Wastes, Tyranthraxus Malabraxacor Jones (I have a naming issue - let it go). But this game is decidely NOT Fallout 3.

It looks like Fallout 3, but some of the mechanical changes they've made in this game make no sense. For example - the changes to the chems in the game are pretty silly. I used to love the moments just before entering a lair full or baddies - shooting up a cocktail of Med-x and Psycho, then popping Mentats, huffing some Ultrajet, taking a hit of Buffout, and washing it all down with vodka and a Nuka Cola. There is nothing quite like assaulting a lair full of slavers armed only with a shotgun, a supersledge, and a pharmacy in your veins...

Ok, I get that the chems were too powerful before, and reducing their duration while increasing their addictiveness is a way to address that, but it feels like they've taken it too far. Last night, my little weenie of a character, Skinhead McTavish, had only barely achieved 4th level and he was already addicted to scotch, Med-X, Psycho, Mentats, and Steady - and he was most decidely NOT the raging methhead of death I was hoping he'd be. In fact, he was pitiful. He was, at one point, killed by a pack of coyotes. COYOTES, for fuck's sake. The mighty Mr. Jones would be appalled.

I am also underwhelmed with the changes they've made to the healing substances in the game. I want my hit points back NOW, damn it, not slowly over the next 20 minutes. That is decidedly shitty, especially when some Powder Ganger is lobbing dynamite at your crippled ass.

As irritating as these changes may be, they are a small thing compared to the utter bullshit that is the "skill magazine." For those who don't know, when you read a magazine in the game it increases your score in certain game skills. For example, when you read an issue of Locksmith's Reader, the game reflects your new knowledge by increasing your lockpick skill by 10 points. This make perfect sense until you realize that it wears off, just like a chem. Now, I don't mean you forget it after a month or two - you forget it in about 5 minutes. How exactly does that work?

This is just a poorly concealed attempt to insert the tired-ass fantasy gaming concept of magical scrolls into the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout. It effectively turns magazines into spells that improve your skills long enough to get you past a tough door or to unlock an important safe, and then expire. While I understand the desire of the game designers to offer the players found items ("treasure" if you will) that are helpful enough to be interesting, but not so helpful that they imbalance the game, I can't understand why they went this route with it. You could easily come up with a way of increasing skill scores that is wrapped in techno-babble more appropriate to the setting. Perhaps instead of a magazine, the character finds an electronic lockpicking device, and it only has a few uses left on its battery... or they discover a bottle of lubricant that makes lock innards move more easily, but there is only enough for one application in the bottle. Given how easy it is to come up with clever, skill-specific ways to temporarily increase a players game skills, this generic "there is a magazine for everything" approach seems kind of phoned in.

In fact, the claim that Fallout is just "Oblivion with guns" seems truer to me all the time. Except that I hated Oblivion, and couldn't care about it long enough to accomplish anything in it. My total time investment in it was about 45 minutes, and it only lasted that long because Patrick Stewart was talking to me...

That said, I will, no doubt, continue to play New Vegas. I am, at heart, a Pipboy...

Not Just a Job

One of my jobs these days is tutoring student athletes. I took it for a number of reasons; I need the money, it looks good on resume/CV, it has flexible hours - but mostly it was for the money; the Pontifex Niger got to get paid. I am as poor as a church mouse these days, and not one of those non-denominational megachurches, either. Tutoring pays the least of my three jobs, but to my surprise, it's the best job I've had in a long time.

The students are all struggling to balance school with major sports commitments. They lift weights, they practice, they go to therapy for injuries, they watch game films, they attend meetings - and THEN they go do their homework. On the weekends they have games, so they often travel extensively. They are almost universally exhausted, and frequently they are not the most serious or attentive students.

Despite that, I really look forward to working with them. I have always enjoyed teaching, but this is a unique challenge. Usually, they come to see me because they are struggling in a subject. Most often it's Sociology, but I'm also helping some with Women's Studies, English Comp., and general academic writing. Their scholarships sometimes hang in the balance, so it's very rewarding for both of us when their grades begin to improve. Once they have a little taste of success, they start coming to tutoring sessions with more eagerness. They begin to see that they can master the material, and they start to see themselves differently. Many believe that they're "just an athlete," but once they begin to see Bs and As on their work they start to believe they can graduate. That kind of energy is infectious - even after putting in 12 hour days with them, I come home in a good mood.

The job is not without its frustrations, though. I am struck by how poorly some of them were prepared by their high schools - and not just high schools in the U.S. We like to bitch about the failings of the American education system, but I've seen international students who were no better off. It's easy to see that the battle between sports and academics began for most of them many years before they arrived at Black Vatican U. They need help now because someone years ago made the decision to let them slide, to pass them and let them just be jocks. It angers me, but I try to turn that anger into the energy to help them be better students.

This is just the latest in a long line of revelations that have pushed me to make some new choices. My exposure to the work of Jonathan Kozol, meeting Bill Ayers and hearing him speak, knowing Education majors like Mandy, G-Fresh, and SciFi Heroine, meeting all the candidates for State Superintendent during campaign events this year, and now this job - it's all pushing me toward Education as a career. Yes, I still want a PhD, but I think I have more to add to the field of Education than I ever would contribute to Sociology.

I have an appointment with a counselor in the College of Education next Wednesday. I'm looking into the Post-Baccalaureate Teacher Certification Program, to see how long it will take - I am still planning on leaving this town before next fall. If it can be done in that timeframe, I'm off to Financial Aid to see if I can afford it.

My Place

Soon my time at Black Vatican U must come to an end. I know - I've said that before, but this time, I mean it. Once this thesis is defended and I've taught a class or two, I will have mined this place for all it has to offer me, aside from future letters of recommendation. As I plan for this departure, I am troubled. I don't know where to go.

You see, I have plenty of experience in living where I am not wanted. Not me personally, but me as a liberal, a Democrat, a non-Christian, a queer ally, and one of those damned elitist academic types. After almost a decade of being a politcal and cultural outsider, I'd like to find a place to live where my views are closer to the median.

I want to teach, either at the secondary or post-secondary level, without having to constantly pander to fundies and fanatics. I want my taxes to primarily fund social programs that build local communities, and not the defense budget. I want to live in a place that respects and supports the arts, multiculturalism, and the practice of the world's religions. This place should have ethnic diversity, and it should be celebrated. I have no idea where this place is.

In fact, I've been thinking for years now that this place is no longer in the U.S. Throughout my adult life I've been consistently stepping to the Left, while much of America has been stumbling to the Right. Even as we elected a black Democrat to be POTUS I knew it was too little, too late. As the GOP and the Teabaggers shriek about Socialism and Fascism, I find that he's nowhere near as far Left as I'd like. I want him to socialize medicine, empower labor, regulate the hell out of banking, and put the nuts of the corporations in a vice. I'm not just marching to a different drummer here - I'm in a completely different parade.

When I try to match an actual country to my fantasies about this place, I always end up looking at places like Sweden or Holland. Do I really have to learn a new language and move overseas just to live among my kind?