Thoughts

Last week and today mark the twelfth week of the professional football season. Sure, statisticians and football mavens spend their energies predicting the outcome of these weekly contests. Bets run high on these outcomes. Some even consult the wisdom of the current version of EA Sports' Madden football game to predict who will reach and win the Superbowl. Amid this flurry of activity over who will emerge as champions, however, I believe a terrible injustice has occurred. I am certain that I am not alone in noting this negligence. Indeed, there may be many voices who have attempted to speak up about it before, but perhaps they did not have the stage on which to lodge their complaint. To address this problem, I take time today to answer a pressing question. It is this: while we pay such close attention to which NFL team will win each week, what of the mascots? What would happen if the actual animals, people, and inanimate objects were compelled to fight one another? What would the ou...

I jumped the other day. This was not a test of agility, mind you, but an effort to reach something high on a dew-covered pole. It took me four or five tries, but I retrieved the piece of paper taped to the pole, set as a prop for students to examine. Now, to some, this might be a nonevent; but to me, it was a moment of enlightenment. I realized at that moment that my twenty-five year-old self could school me in basketball if ever I had the chance to face him in some alternate reality. While the saying "White men can't jump" is not without merit, there was something more in this lack of athletic prowess. There came with it the understanding that so often creeps up on men, only to stun them with vivid perspicuity of their life position: I am getting old. It must be said from the start that I am not yet old . No, this would be a miscalculation, given man's current longevity. Still, my age and body both tell me that I have clearly moved from the apartment of young adu...

Here is a preliminary list of words that are cool. 1. Gossamer : something extremely light or delicate 2. Exchequer : a treasury 3. Blackguard : a low, contemptible person 4. Transubstantiation : the changing of one substance into another 5. Mendicant : a beggar 6. Zeitgeist : the spirit of the time 7. Ataraxia : tranquility 8. Vicissitude : a change in the course of something 9. Superfluous : excessive 10. Defenestrate : to throw (a person or thing) out of a window 11. Alacrity : cheerful readiness 12. Mercurial : changeable; volatile; erratic

In light of Veteran's Day, I thought it would be appropriate to highlight the words of C.S. Lewis in a speech he made in 1940 to a pacifist society at Oxford, titled "Why I am Not a Pacifist." Exploring the foundations of a man's conscientious objection to war--facts, intuition, and reason-- he argues that the pacifist position does not stand up to scrutiny. Regarding the facts, he addresses the position "Wars do more harm than good," arguing that the claims both for and against this position are speculative. No one can prove whether the consequences of avoiding a war would have been preferable to the consequences of going to war because no one can compare an actual event to one that never happened. Continuing with a discussion of intuition as a foundation of pacifism, Lewis defines intuition as an unarguable truth, one with which no moral man would disagree. He then claims that the important intuition in the pacifist stance is the idea that helping othe...

Your company was your agenda Each man a tally And when each mark was made You in turn felt comfort at your solitude Self-satisfied by your false candor Still, no mention was made of empathy No interest found in trust Only black on blank white It was not until you found That few of these tasks Favored your pen Writing away souls in dark contract ink That you saw yourself in color for the first time Lying flush against a blank page Pen in hand as you mulled your two dimensions You began to feel within yourself the third And baffled by the bindings at your flank You rose and wrote on the page anew Giving full voice to a story left untold Tears drinking in the words As they splashed down through a dark lighting fast With the comfort found in surrender By this new task’s end You peered at your tome Thick with meaning And sat now, open to the trusted pupil Read by Friend and friend alike Only to turn anew to a blank slate, pen in hand To make men of marks To write light into the shadows Of t...

I recently returned from two days in Los Angeles with family. My brother and sister-in-law auditioned for The Price is Right on Tuesday. This alone was worth the trip. After having our pictures taken and spending some time talking with others before the show, we were each interviewed by the show's co-producer. His intent was to assess whether we would be interesting contestants. I was convinced by the length of her interview that my sister-in-law would be chosen. It turned out that none of us were chosen, but it was well worth the experience. The studio itself is smaller than one would think, as is the audience. A director tells the audience when to applaud, and Drew Carey talks to people during commercial breaks. He spoke with all three of us individually. When speaking with me, Drew asked my profession. When I told him that I was an English teacher, he asked if I heard Weird Al's "Word Crimes." Moments later, the D.J. played the song for the audience. On Wednes...