Search Engine Wars

My statcounter.com statcounter has a feature that allows me to see if a person came to my blog via a Google or similar search engine. Here are the last eleven searches that have led to my blog:

cary elwes beer belly [this search came from Germany]
special x-mas gift for husband
have i fell out of love with my husband
i think my husband is gay.
atlantic okinawa playset
sarcastic letter of resignation
christmas letter ideas for husband
need more attention from husband
ohoopee river georgia
take easy with husband in bed [this search came from The Islamic Republic of Iran]
letters to a husband when you get offended

Sadly, I don't think my blog has been useful for any of these; at least, I hope not.


Peace

Why? It's the Freedom Stupid! and The Media's Big Board!

Warning: Political post following. Stop now if you do not like my politics or if you just don't like politics.

On October 26, 2006, the AJC staff cartoonist, Mike Luckovich published this cartoon to commemorate the 2,000th American death in Iraq. At the time I thought it a pretty cheap and tasteless rhetorical trick, yet fairly indicative of the media's addiction to numbers and death. Some of my strongest memories of 9/11 and Katrina are those concerning the media's grotesque obsession with numerical estimations. It was as though the disaster wasn't complete until an exact number was determined. If my memory is correct, (I said my memory was strong, not accurate), then the highest estimations reported by the media for 9/11 were 40,000 and the highest for Katrina were "over 10,000". The networks fell over each other in competing to find the highest estimation they could from someone, anyone in fact. If someone said it, they reported it and let it crawl across their banner every ninety seconds: "40,000 may be dead."

With the war in Iraq, the numbers game continues. Every day that an American is killed in Iraq, the fact is reported and the tally updated. I see nothing wrong with the report of the death if the appropriate context is given, which it rarely is, but the running tally reveals either a macabre, Rainman-like obsession with numbers or an acute editorial bias. The phenomenon sadly reminds me of the overly cheerful public TV/radio telethons, "Wait, Doris, a caller from Fallujah is pledging three more deaths! That only puts us four more under our goal for the year. Come on terrori...I mean insurge....I mean Freedom Fighters. I think we can reach our goal of 2,000 dead before the hour is up. Plant those IEDs, strap a bomb to your wife and kids, and go shopping!" It's disgusting.

I am vaguely reminded of Dr. Strangelove, a movie about very different types of obsessions. The general, "Buck" Turgidson" and played by George C. Scott, is obsessed with "the big board". The big board so obscures his thinking that he cannot make rational decisions or see the obvious beyond the big board. The board provides some great comedic moments; I can still hear Scott's particular way of pronouncing it. Numbers in Iraq have become the Media's big board. Like the tally board on a telethon, they cannot see anything of significance beyond the numbers. Luckovich's cartoon only underscores that sad truth. He asks the question "Why?" with the names of the 2,000. Never mind that the large majority of those 2,000 knew the answer. Luckovich's own newspaper reports the answer despite itself at least every few weeks. How many elections do the Iraqis have to hold, how many constitutions do they have to write, how many of them have to lay down their own life defending their new nation? Where is the tally of Iraqis who have paid the last full measure fighting for their new government? A seventeen year old, Danielle of Fairburn, Georgia, and an 11th-grader at Arlington Christian School provides the obvious answer to Luckovich's question:

Luckovich should feel like I did the day I was caught stupid the first time I taught American government. We were discussing the three branches and the differences between the House and Senate. A student asked how many members are in the House. I confessed that I didn't know. The student continued to expose my ignorance by asking if the number was set constitutionally. I opened my mouth, unsure whether to lie to cover myself and hope for ignorance on the part of my students or further confess my own ignorance (note to new teachers: confess your own ignorance). Another student stepped in, "Actually, there are 435 members of the House, and the number is set by statute." That night I went home and did my homework and have never been caught quite so stupid again. Mr. Luckovich needs to do his homework. I credit him with responding to Danielle's cartoon, but I think that for him, there is still no answer for the question. For Luckovich the war remains pointless and the dead died in vain.

I think it is appropriate and necessary to ask the question, "Why?" about any public endeavor, including the decision to go to war. But to continue to ask it after the answers continue to pile up is ignorant. You didn't hear people asking, "Why?" in 1943. Or "Why?" in 1780. They knew. They knew that: "THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated." Duh! It's the Freedom Stupid.

I wish that I could claim Danielle as my student. Follow the links to read more, including Danielle's letter, but free registration might be required.

Original Why?

Response Freedom

Peace

All Cars Go to Heaven

Friday was our last day of school before break. I was looking forward to the day. All I had to do was input a few grades, go to the high school Christmas party, and go home at noon. Since my wife would not need our good car that day, I decided to take it instead of our mortally wounded mini-van. I should have taken it as a divine sign that the driver's side door was frozen shut. Alas, I forced open the passenger side door and pushed open the driver's side door. It was cold. The entire car was covered in a thin layer of ice. I let the car warm up. Just as the first warm drafts of air began wafting into the cabin, the car cut off. It cut off and refused to restart. My gut told me that it was the end. It was the same feeling that I had the other two times that I have had cars give up the ghost under my foot. Actually, on the other two times it was the same car on two separate occasions, but that is another story. I left our good car's carcass there to thaw in the sun and got into the mini-van. It too was covered in a thin layer of ice. I gingerly let it warm up a bit and turned on the wipers to help break up the ice. Half of the wiper is still glued to the windshield, but I made it to work.

With the cloud of an auto-funeral hanging over my head, I tried to enjoy the day and the party. I discovered another of the little known benefits of teaching freshmen: the parents are still in a middle school mindset and are generous with their gifts. One of the nice things that my school does is take up a cash collection and distribute it equitably to all of the teachers. This avoids any problems with favoritism, bribery, or etc. Every year I get an envelope filled with cash. I count on it for Christmas shopping. It is so much better than another "Best Teacher in the World" apple-shaped ornament. I got $175 in cash this year. In addition, individual parents gave me:
$50.00 American Express Gift Cheque
$15.00 Atlanta Bread Company Gift Card (lousy service-good food)
$5.00 Zaxby's Gift Card
$50.00 Publix Gift Card
A ubiquitous tin of shortbread cookies
A ubiquitous bag of chocolate turtles
A box of See's Chocolates (oh man these were good--great; I am glad that it was a small box; best chocolates I have ever had)
A bag of homemade cookies

A grand total of $290 dollars and 7,540 calories! It may not be much in the way of a Christmas bonus by the business world's standards, but it does make one feel appreciated.

Back to the car. The word came Monday that it had indeed expired. We had been counting on that car living a few more years and buying new one to replace the van. My son burst into tears when his mother told him that the "blue car" died. He was desperately worried about his smiley face stickers, "Did my stickers die, too?". The news that we were buying a new silver car only made him more upset, "I don't like silver, I like blue." I am sure that we will be reaping the theological whirlwind of this event in the middle of some night real soon; we just need to let these ideas percolate around in his curious brain for a while.

Today, I bought my first new car. It is a 2006 Toyota Corolla. It had seven miles on it when I signed the papers. It is a beautiful thing. I drove it home and have not driven that carefully since I had bought my children home from the hospital. In fact, the "blue car" was the car in which I drove my children home from the hospital. I will not dwell on that, or I too shall be crying over smiley face stickers. Money will be a bit tight for the next 63 months, and we only have one car. But it is Christmas, my children are thrilled with the holidays, and there is joy in the world (and one more dark chocolate--marshmallow--caramel in my box of See's).


Peace

Encounters with Santa, Part III

Getting to sleep on Christmas Eve is a real challenge for a youngster. I had two basic strategies when I was growing up. The first and earliest strategy related to the Christmas Eve tradition of opening one present per person. I would spend the days and weeks before Christmas Eve weighing, shaking, squeezing, and analyzing each gift under the tree that was addressed to me. Then I would choose the one gift that I thought could sufficiently distract me on Christmas Eve with hours of fun. Ideally, the hours of fun, hopefully with a new Lego set, would culminate with a satiated and exhausted me climbing into bed and actually falling asleep. Despite the expertise in gift assessment that I developed, there were years where I would choose poorly, and I would be left trying to figure out how a new set of school clothes could get me to sleep.

As I grew older, my Christmas Eve insomnia did not abate, but my strategy changed as my gifts evolved. That Christmas is a bittersweet one when a boy first asks for clothes or tools for Christmas. It is another step on the road to manhood and away from childhood. Needless to say, clothes and tools will not put me to sleep on Christmas Eve. I went from searching for Lego to searching for baseball cards, video games, or books. In addition, my second strategy developed after a school chum gave me a boxed set of Lord of the Rings. After that, I would read LOTR over Christmas break. My reading would culminate on Christmas Eve when I would read LOTR (usually somewhere in The Two Towers) by the light of the two foot tall artificial tree in my room. Three hours of reading would usually do it. If not, I would read some more.

Several years ago, my nephew was in town for Christmas. It was to be his last Christmas of Santa belief. We could not get him to go to bed on Christmas Eve at my parent's house. He was just too excited and pumped up on Christmas sugars. The hour was getting late and time was required for "Santa" to deliver the goodies. Someone had the brilliant idea of using the extra phone line in the house to call the other line and act as Santa. My nephew's father played the role of Santa. The phone rang in the kitchen and I picked it up. "Its Santa," I told my nephew as I handed him the phone. His eyes grew round as plates, and he nodded into the phone, speechless. After a few moments of wide-eyed listening, he handed the phone to me and said, "I have to go to bed right now!" He almost ran into his dad coming downstairs as he sprinted up the stairs to bed. Today, I believe he claims that he knew it was his dad.


Peace

Encounters with Santa, Part Two

I grew up a firm believer... in Santa. When other friends had cast him aside or backslide into a lazy agnosticism, I still believed. Even when the evidence began to pile up against his existence, I felt that the evidence for was just too strong. Every time I aired my doubts to my parents, they had a scientific explanation. For example, after seeing Santa in two different malls, I asked, "How can Santa be in so many malls at the same time?" The answer was quick and decisive, "Santa is a very busy man so he hires helpers who report their findings back to him." I was fully satisfied in this answer. Here are a couple of incidents that re-affirmed my faith:

The first proof: One year, I don't remember which one, we were going to go to Missouri for Christmas to be with my mom's family. I was excited about that, but concerned about our own traditional family Christmas. We had no tree so we put red balls on a two foot tall evergreen houseplant. I have a vivid memory of sitting at the couch and looking wistfully at the only reminder of Christmas in our home. Even that small thing was enough to bring me joy. I wondered though, how would Santa know where to find us? Looking back, I am sure my parents were wondering how they would haul all of our presents all the way to Missouri and then all of the way back home.

The solution came on a Sunday. My dad did not come to mass with us that day. When we returned, we entered the house to a terrible racket. There was a loud banging and yelling coming from the basement. My dad was locked in the basement! He said that he had been waylaid by Santa, forced into the basement at gift point and locked in! We entered the living room, and there was the full spread of Christmas. According to my dad, Santa knew that we were going to Missouri and had come early to drop off our gifts. Truly, proof that Santa is omniscient. Some in my family have wondered why dad didn't just go out of the basement by the exterior door and use the key hidden in the garage and have brought up the fact that it is a simple matter to lock one's self in the basement. They are unreasonable skeptics. Clearly, Santa intended dad to stay in basement until the family returned and honored Santa's wishes by remaining obediently in the basement. I admire his sacrifice.

The second proof: We always left Santa a drink and some sugar cookies. He always consumed the offering and left a thank you note. I always thought that it was really cool that Santa's handwriting looked a lot like my mom's. Why was this sugar sacrifice such a strong proof? Well, my parents were and continue to be obsessive about cleaning. When we go over to their house for dinner, you have to watch your drink glass. If you leave it unattended for more than 120 seconds, it will be confiscated, washed, dried, and returned to cabinet, where you will have to retrieve it and refill it. Santa was a messy eater and always left a scattering of crumbs and a few leftovers. I reasoned that if my parents were Santa, then they would have wiped up the crumbs, put the dish in the dishwasher, and put the leftovers in a Ziploc. My parents could have never slept in a house with dirty dishes in it. The skeptics again answer this incontrovertible proof with the postulation that my dad, who always had to go downstairs before anyone else on Christmas morning to "check on things", could have easily made a quick mess and scribbled a quick note. A silly argument considering the basic fact that my father never ate anything in the morning before his bowl of Post Raisin Bran.

I must go and make arrangements for our broken car(s).

Peace

Encounters with Santa, Part One

Popular wisdom suggests that couples should discuss their expectations of family size before considering marriage. It is good advice. The popular wisdom, as usual, does not go quite far enough. Couples should also discuss approaches to child-rearing in as much detail as possible. Granted, pre-child wisdom about child-rearing goes right out the window as soon as your son bites your daughter hard enough to make a impression deep enough for the creation of a legally admissible plaster cast. Everything changes when you actually have children. If you have children then you know what I am talking about. If you don't have children then you think you know what I am talking about.

In particular, a couple should discuss Santa. My wife and I knew from before marriage that we disagreed on the subject but avoided examining the subject like one avoids looking at the crumb on the cheek of one's boss at a formal affair. My wife was raised to believe that belief in Santa was akin to Satan worship. I mean, one only has to move a few letters... Like a wolf in a fat man's clothing. I might be exaggerating a bit. Meanwhile, I was raised to believe that he was a supernaturally gifted man who delivered wonderful things to all the children of the world on Christmas day.

We were forced to address the issue when our boy was born almost five years ago. So we talked of other things, his eyes, his hands, his poop, and moved on. We have talked of other things in the almost five years since. In unspoken agreement, we have left the issue in a kind of salutary neglect. We have actively taught our children neither one thing nor the other. Family, friends, movies, TV, and school have done the rest. The result is that my boy is a believer, though not a devout one.

Yesterday, he came home late from a long day out. We never know what he will say when he is in an over tired state (last year he seemed to hearing voices in the wall). He told me that last year he had met Santa Claus. I, surprised at the revelation, asked him when and where such an event had occurred. He lacked details and ended with "Is that funny?" My wife and I did not discuss the conversation. I doubt that we will.

Peace

Monday Miscellany: Bleeding Noses

On Saturday morning, my son woke us up crying from the hallway. He had awoken with a nose bleed, a common occurance for him in the winter. Later, I tried to teach him (again) how to blow his nose. He tried it and inhaled for so long that I thought he was going to pass out. He claimed that he was doing it. Then he went on to explain to me that one nostril is for breathing in and one is for breathing out. That is why we have two.

Tonight, just after his great aunt, Grandma J, and Grandad P left, he walked into a doorknob and began profusely bleeding from his right nostril. We don't think that it is broken. He always bleeds from his right nostril. I don't know if that is significant or not. I only cry from my right eye. Can you be right-eyed or right-nostriled like being right-handed?

My wife of ten years has cleaned up a lot of blood lately.

My wife informs me that my son asked her if Star Wars was real. Later, when she offered to let him watch Star Wars IV, he refused and said that he had to watch it with his daddy.

I previously commented on the use of "previously owned", "pre-owned", and "previously new" to describe used cars. I heard a new one on the radio the other day: "previously enjoyed". Brilliant!

The AJC (Atlanta Journal Constitution) is our one major newspaper. In general it is a generally poor affair (last month I read an article reporting on the large number of metro Atlanta students choosing to attend Georgia Southern University that claimed that GSU sits among rolling green hills!). That being said, they have done an above average job at integrating blogs into their online news. One that is particularly interesting (at least some times) is their education blog. Go here. It might require registration (I did say that the paper is generally poor).

Good news from Afghanistan! Al-Qaida #3 killed. From the article it is not clear how he was killed. That being said, I think we did it.

Peace

X-Mas Boxes

Christmas has always been a special time of the year for my family. Strike that. Too cliche'. Christmas has always been the most wonderful time of the year for my family. Strike that. Too trite. Forget the introductory sentence. Let me get to it.

Yesterday, my little brood, led by my wife, put up a tree, and the four-year old boy and the two-year old girl decorated it with a minimum of fighting and a surplus of good cheer. Yes, only the lower half of the tree is decorated. Yes, several branches are about to snap from the weight of the four or five ornaments hanging from them. This despite the fact that the branches are metallic, an event that I never thought would take place in my home (years of " 'tis the seasonal" allergies and the introduction of children to the home has made me more realistic). Yes, my son tried to group the ornaments by theme only to be stymied by his sister.

I digress. My children are having a joyous Christmas season. They enjoy the daily Advent readings and prayer, if only in anticipation of blowing out the candle. My son's theological worldview continues to develop in its own unique way. Last night he explained that we celebrate Christmas as the birth of Jesus who came to save us from a meteor. I am sure this ties into theories of dinosaur extinction but am not quite sure how. They enjoy the daily opening of another day of the Lego Advent calendar (note to self: next year buy one for each child; I just went to the Lego website to get the link only to find that now they have Viking sets). They had a wonderful time with Grandma J. making sugar cookies and eating copious amounts of sugar. The boy has been making cards for all friends and family. It has been good.

I always remember my family Christmas seasons as a time of family, warmth, and the celebration of the birth of Christ. I hope that my children will have the same memories of Christmas when they grow up. One of the things that I have tried to become cautious of as my children have matured is my tendency to try to recreate my happy memories for my children. As a teacher I have frequently noticed this tendency in other parents . Parents tend to try to recreate their own childhood (or what they wished their childhood had been like) by pushing an agenda on their kids. Often, this explains the parents who spends $2,000 on their kid's prom or buys them a $50,000 car, or pushes them into a sport or other activity. It explains why Christian schools that stress modesty, humility, and stewardship maintain cheerleading programs and sponsor proms, programs and events that all too often contradict the principles of the school.

I have wandered far off trail. In setting up our tree, the duty of fetching the boxes of Christmas decorations from the attic over the garage fell to me. It is a dark, cold, and forbidding place. It reminded me of many past Christmas times. My parents kept (and may still keep) their Christmas decorations in "the hole". The hole is a pseudo-attic that can only be reached through the bonus room. A board a little over two feet by three feet can be removed from the wall, revealing a space that stretches the length of the bonus room. In the summer it is quite hot. In the winter it is quite cold. Opening the hole to retrieve the Christmas decorations always signaled to me the official beginning of the Christmas season. My dad would get a flashlight, and we would go up to the bonus room to bring down the Christmas decorations. Upon opening the hole, a blast of cold air that smelled, to me anyway, like Christmas would flow out. My dad's torso would disappear into the darkness of the hole and would return with various boxes filled with Christmas wonders marked, variously as "X-Mas", "Tree", "Christmas". At least one of the boxes was, for a while, a liquor box, not because my parents were big liquor drinkers but because my mom was an expert box scrounger. I would carry the boxes before me like holy relics to my mom who would decorate the house.

All of this came back to me as I was pulling the Christmas boxes out of the cold, dark attic. I tend to read deep symbolism into too many things, usually trivial. This year I moved into a new classroom. The previous teacher, who had left the school, had left nothing behind, or so I thought. In preparing for classes, I cleaned the white board. Shadows of the teacher's handwriting were all that remained. As I wiped the faded marks and the last physical reminder of the teacher's sojourn at the school from the board, I thought that there was something deeply sad about it.

The spirit of symbolism came over me while carrying the boxes into the house. There is something deeply important and beautiful about reaching into a dark, cold, dead place and pulling out a thing of abiding joy. Why else do we celebrate Christmas in the depths of winter? What greater thing does a dark, cold, dead world need than Light and Life? Why not, in the deadest part of the year, put an evergreen tree in our home but to remind us of life and ever-life?


My wife deserves hearty thanks for her work in preparing the house for our Christmas decor and for assembling the tree despite the help of the little ones.


Peace

Coke: $4,000 a Bottle!

The following comes from Ernie Pyle's Brave Men (pages 110-111). He humorously describes the World War II Italian campaign and the ways in which the troops tried to dispose of their extra cash.

My regiment ran a lottery, and the grand prize was a bottle of Coca-Cola.

It all started when a former member, then back in the States—Pfc. Frederick Williams of Daytona Beach, Florida—sent two bottles of coke to two of his old buddies—Corporal Victor Glover of Daytona Beach and Master Sergeant Woodrow Daniels of Jacksonville, Florida. Nobody in the outfit had seen Coca-Cola in more than a year. The recipients drank one of the bottles and then began having ideas about the other. At last they decided to put it up in a raffle, and use the proceeds to care for children whose fathers had been killed serving in the regiment. The boys hoped the Coca-Cola company would match whatever amount they raised.

The lottery was announced in the little mimeographed newspaper, and chances on the coke were put on sale at twenty-five cents apiece. Before the end of the first week the cash box had more than $1,000 in it. The money came in quarters, dollars, shillings, pounds, francs and lire. They had to appoint a committee to administer the affair. At the end of the third week the fund exceeded $3,000.

Then Private Lamyl Yancey, of Harlan, Kentucky, got a miniature bottle of Coca-Cola and he put it up as second prize. Just before the grand drawing the fund reached $4,000. All the slips were put in a German shell case, and the brigade commander drew out two numbers.

The winner and new champion was Sergeant William de Schneider of Hackensack, New Jersey. The miniature bottle went to Sergeant Lawrence Presnell of Fayetteville, North Carolina. Sergeant de Schneider was appalled by what had happened to him. That one coke was equal in value to eighty thousand bottles back home. “I don’t think I care to drink a $4,000 bottle,” he said. “I think I’ll send it home and keep it a few years.”

The Rome radio picked up the item, completely distorted it, and used it for home-front propaganda. The way it came out was that our soldiers were so short of supplies they were paying as high as $10,000 for just one bottle of Coca-Cola. Not only did they give the story completely false meaning, but they deftly added $6,000 to the kitty. Well, that’s one way to fight a war.


The "spin" of war news has not changed. The only difference is that during World War II it was the enemy press "spinning" the news to make it look like we are losing. Today, it is our own.

As for me, I wonder what happened to the $4,000 coke.

Peace