Lately my wife and I have been watching AFV (America's Funniest Videos) before we go to bed. Last night we talked about how watching and mocking the videos helps us to avoid becoming openly rude like others in NJ. We also talked about our lack of family pictures and videos. When we lived in Irvine, we came to the realization that when we took the camera to Disneyland we didn't have as much fun as a family. We would much rather enjoy the time interacting with our boys and creating memories than having photos or videos of family events.
Still, my wife is an excellent photographer! She loves taking still-life pictures. She has just posted two excellent pictures on her blog - I highly recommend them.
Looking forward to the holiday season this December,
Brad
Friday, May 30, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Commencement...
Last Thursday I attended commencement for Ocean County College. It was the first time since my school graduation that I had put on a graduation gown (so I needed a little help from my wife and the other faculty when it came to the Masters hood.) The weather was a little chilly, and we had to endure a little rain as we paraded to our seats, but overall the scene was great and the event went off without a hitch. The keynote speaker was the head of New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection. She gave a short talk that was inspiring and practical without being preachy. My only critique of the entire event was that too many of the recognitions and awards were directed at people other than graduating students. Commencement is about the students! I don't really care how much money or time or effort these other people have put into OCC or education in general, we're here to recognize the students!
I won't get into a rant about some of the idiots who give graduation speeches (I don't have that much time!) Rather, I will give an excerpt from a graduation speech that I think perhaps should be given after enduring years of college.
Maybe I'll incorporate this into my class next week,
Brad
Fairness, idealism and other atrocities
Commencement advice you're unlikely to hear elsewhere.
By P.J. O'Rourke
May 4, 2008
Well, here you are at your college graduation. And I know what you're thinking: "Gimme the sheepskin and get me outta here!" But not so fast. First you have to listen to a commencement speech.
Don't moan. I'm not going to "pass the wisdom of one generation down to the next." I'm a member of the 1960s generation. We didn't have any wisdom.
We were the moron generation. We were the generation that believed we could stop the Vietnam War by growing our hair long and dressing like circus clowns. We believed drugs would change everything -- which they did, for John Belushi. We believed in free love. Yes, the love was free, but we paid a high price for the sex.
My generation spoiled everything for you. It has always been the special prerogative of young people to look and act weird and shock grown-ups. But my generation exhausted the Earth's resources of the weird. Weird clothes -- we wore them. Weird beards -- we grew them. Weird words and phrases -- we said them. So, when it came your turn to be original and look and act weird, all you had left was to tattoo your faces and pierce your tongues. Ouch. That must have hurt. I apologize.
So now, it's my job to give you advice. But I'm thinking: You're finishing 16 years of education, and you've heard all the conventional good advice you can stand. So, let me offer some relief:
1. Go out and make a bunch of money!
Here we are living in the world's most prosperous country, surrounded by all the comforts, conveniences and security that money can provide. Yet no American political, intellectual or cultural leader ever says to young people, "Go out and make a bunch of money." Instead, they tell you that money can't buy happiness. Maybe, but money can rent it.
There's nothing the matter with honest moneymaking. Wealth is not a pizza, where if I have too many slices you have to eat the Domino's box. In a free society, with the rule of law and property rights, no one loses when someone else gets rich.
2. Don't be an idealist!
Don't chain yourself to a redwood tree. Instead, be a corporate lawyer and make $500,000 a year. No matter how much you cheat the IRS, you'll still end up paying $100,000 in property, sales and excise taxes. That's $100,000 to schools, sewers, roads, firefighters and police. You'll be doing good for society. Does chaining yourself to a redwood tree do society $100,000 worth of good?
Idealists are also bullies. The idealist says, "I care more about the redwood trees than you do. I care so much I can't eat. I can't sleep. It broke up my marriage. And because I care more than you do, I'm a better person. And because I'm the better person, I have the right to boss you around."
Get a pair of bolt cutters and liberate that tree.
Who does more for the redwoods and society anyway -- the guy chained to a tree or the guy who founds the "Green Travel Redwood Tree-Hug Tour Company" and makes a million by turning redwoods into a tourist destination, a valuable resource that people will pay just to go look at?
So make your contribution by getting rich. Don't be an idealist.
3. Get politically uninvolved!
All politics stink. Even democracy stinks. Imagine if our clothes were selected by the majority of shoppers, which would be teenage girls. I'd be standing here with my bellybutton exposed. Imagine deciding the dinner menu by family secret ballot. I've got three kids and three dogs in my family. We'd be eating Froot Loops and rotten meat.
But let me make a distinction between politics and politicians. Some people are under the misapprehension that all politicians stink. Impeach George W. Bush, and everything will be fine. Nab Ted Kennedy on a DUI, and the nation's problems will be solved.
But the problem isn't politicians -- it's politics. Politics won't allow for the truth. And we can't blame the politicians for that. Imagine what even a little truth would sound like on today's campaign trail:
"No, I can't fix public education. The problem isn't the teachers unions or a lack of funding for salaries, vouchers or more computer equipment The problem is your kids!"
4. Forget about fairness!
We all get confused about the contradictory messages that life and politics send.
Life sends the message, "I'd better not be poor. I'd better get rich. I'd better make more money than other people." Meanwhile, politics sends us the message, "Some people make more money than others. Some are rich while others are poor. We'd better close that 'income disparity gap.' It's not fair!"
Well, I am here to advocate for unfairness. I've got a 10-year-old at home. She's always saying, "That's not fair." When she says this, I say, "Honey, you're cute. That's not fair. Your family is pretty well off. That's not fair. You were born in America. That's not fair. Darling, you had better pray to God that things don't start getting fair for you." What we need is more income, even if it means a bigger income disparity gap.
5. Be a religious extremist!
So, avoid politics if you can. But if you absolutely cannot resist, read the Bible for political advice -- even if you're a Buddhist, atheist or whatever. Don't get me wrong, I am not one of those people who believes that God is involved in politics. On the contrary. Observe politics in this country. Observe politics around the world. Observe politics through history. Does it look like God's involved?
The Bible is very clear about one thing: Using politics to create fairness is a sin. Observe the Tenth Commandment. The first nine commandments concern theological principles and social law: Thou shalt not make graven images, steal, kill, et cetera. Fair enough. But then there's the tenth: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's."
Here are God's basic rules about how we should live, a brief list of sacred obligations and solemn moral precepts. And, right at the end of it we read, "Don't envy your buddy because he has an ox or a donkey." Why did that make the top 10? Why would God, with just 10 things to tell Moses, include jealousy about livestock?
Well, think about how important this commandment is to a community, to a nation, to a democracy. If you want a mule, if you want a pot roast, if you want a cleaning lady, don't whine about what the people across the street have. Get rich and get your own.
Now, one last thing:
6. Don't listen to your elders!
After all, if the old person standing up here actually knew anything worth telling, he'd be charging you for it.
P.J. O'Rourke, a correspondent for the Weekly Standard and the Atlantic, is the author, most recently, of "On The Wealth of Nations." A longer version of this article appears in Change magazine, which reports on trends and issues in higher education.
I won't get into a rant about some of the idiots who give graduation speeches (I don't have that much time!) Rather, I will give an excerpt from a graduation speech that I think perhaps should be given after enduring years of college.
Maybe I'll incorporate this into my class next week,
Brad
Fairness, idealism and other atrocities
Commencement advice you're unlikely to hear elsewhere.
By P.J. O'Rourke
May 4, 2008
Well, here you are at your college graduation. And I know what you're thinking: "Gimme the sheepskin and get me outta here!" But not so fast. First you have to listen to a commencement speech.
Don't moan. I'm not going to "pass the wisdom of one generation down to the next." I'm a member of the 1960s generation. We didn't have any wisdom.
We were the moron generation. We were the generation that believed we could stop the Vietnam War by growing our hair long and dressing like circus clowns. We believed drugs would change everything -- which they did, for John Belushi. We believed in free love. Yes, the love was free, but we paid a high price for the sex.
My generation spoiled everything for you. It has always been the special prerogative of young people to look and act weird and shock grown-ups. But my generation exhausted the Earth's resources of the weird. Weird clothes -- we wore them. Weird beards -- we grew them. Weird words and phrases -- we said them. So, when it came your turn to be original and look and act weird, all you had left was to tattoo your faces and pierce your tongues. Ouch. That must have hurt. I apologize.
So now, it's my job to give you advice. But I'm thinking: You're finishing 16 years of education, and you've heard all the conventional good advice you can stand. So, let me offer some relief:
1. Go out and make a bunch of money!
Here we are living in the world's most prosperous country, surrounded by all the comforts, conveniences and security that money can provide. Yet no American political, intellectual or cultural leader ever says to young people, "Go out and make a bunch of money." Instead, they tell you that money can't buy happiness. Maybe, but money can rent it.
There's nothing the matter with honest moneymaking. Wealth is not a pizza, where if I have too many slices you have to eat the Domino's box. In a free society, with the rule of law and property rights, no one loses when someone else gets rich.
2. Don't be an idealist!
Don't chain yourself to a redwood tree. Instead, be a corporate lawyer and make $500,000 a year. No matter how much you cheat the IRS, you'll still end up paying $100,000 in property, sales and excise taxes. That's $100,000 to schools, sewers, roads, firefighters and police. You'll be doing good for society. Does chaining yourself to a redwood tree do society $100,000 worth of good?
Idealists are also bullies. The idealist says, "I care more about the redwood trees than you do. I care so much I can't eat. I can't sleep. It broke up my marriage. And because I care more than you do, I'm a better person. And because I'm the better person, I have the right to boss you around."
Get a pair of bolt cutters and liberate that tree.
Who does more for the redwoods and society anyway -- the guy chained to a tree or the guy who founds the "Green Travel Redwood Tree-Hug Tour Company" and makes a million by turning redwoods into a tourist destination, a valuable resource that people will pay just to go look at?
So make your contribution by getting rich. Don't be an idealist.
3. Get politically uninvolved!
All politics stink. Even democracy stinks. Imagine if our clothes were selected by the majority of shoppers, which would be teenage girls. I'd be standing here with my bellybutton exposed. Imagine deciding the dinner menu by family secret ballot. I've got three kids and three dogs in my family. We'd be eating Froot Loops and rotten meat.
But let me make a distinction between politics and politicians. Some people are under the misapprehension that all politicians stink. Impeach George W. Bush, and everything will be fine. Nab Ted Kennedy on a DUI, and the nation's problems will be solved.
But the problem isn't politicians -- it's politics. Politics won't allow for the truth. And we can't blame the politicians for that. Imagine what even a little truth would sound like on today's campaign trail:
"No, I can't fix public education. The problem isn't the teachers unions or a lack of funding for salaries, vouchers or more computer equipment The problem is your kids!"
4. Forget about fairness!
We all get confused about the contradictory messages that life and politics send.
Life sends the message, "I'd better not be poor. I'd better get rich. I'd better make more money than other people." Meanwhile, politics sends us the message, "Some people make more money than others. Some are rich while others are poor. We'd better close that 'income disparity gap.' It's not fair!"
Well, I am here to advocate for unfairness. I've got a 10-year-old at home. She's always saying, "That's not fair." When she says this, I say, "Honey, you're cute. That's not fair. Your family is pretty well off. That's not fair. You were born in America. That's not fair. Darling, you had better pray to God that things don't start getting fair for you." What we need is more income, even if it means a bigger income disparity gap.
5. Be a religious extremist!
So, avoid politics if you can. But if you absolutely cannot resist, read the Bible for political advice -- even if you're a Buddhist, atheist or whatever. Don't get me wrong, I am not one of those people who believes that God is involved in politics. On the contrary. Observe politics in this country. Observe politics around the world. Observe politics through history. Does it look like God's involved?
The Bible is very clear about one thing: Using politics to create fairness is a sin. Observe the Tenth Commandment. The first nine commandments concern theological principles and social law: Thou shalt not make graven images, steal, kill, et cetera. Fair enough. But then there's the tenth: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's."
Here are God's basic rules about how we should live, a brief list of sacred obligations and solemn moral precepts. And, right at the end of it we read, "Don't envy your buddy because he has an ox or a donkey." Why did that make the top 10? Why would God, with just 10 things to tell Moses, include jealousy about livestock?
Well, think about how important this commandment is to a community, to a nation, to a democracy. If you want a mule, if you want a pot roast, if you want a cleaning lady, don't whine about what the people across the street have. Get rich and get your own.
Now, one last thing:
6. Don't listen to your elders!
After all, if the old person standing up here actually knew anything worth telling, he'd be charging you for it.
P.J. O'Rourke, a correspondent for the Weekly Standard and the Atlantic, is the author, most recently, of "On The Wealth of Nations." A longer version of this article appears in Change magazine, which reports on trends and issues in higher education.
Friday, May 16, 2008
One semester ends and another begins...
Spring semester classes were over as of last Tuesday (5/13) and the grades were due on Friday. I spent the better part of Wednesday and Thursday grading the last exams and most of Friday finalizing the grades. The grades have been available to the students since Saturday evening and I have only heard from two students. Fortunately, the reason they e-mailed me was to thank me for being such a good teacher.
Summer session started on Monday. I am teaching one class during the first 5-weeks (5/19-6/24) and hope to teach two during the second 5-weeks (6/25-7/29.) I would have taught 2 classes during the first session but my 8am International Relations class only had 6 students registered in it. Officially a class needs to have 10 students for the administration to let it run. The dean of my department will argue for keeping a class if it has 9, but 6 is just too few. Although that means I don't get to teach my favorite subject (and I lose out on the income) it's been nice to have a little more time to myself and my family in the morning after seminary.
Starting the lazy days of summer,
Brad
Summer session started on Monday. I am teaching one class during the first 5-weeks (5/19-6/24) and hope to teach two during the second 5-weeks (6/25-7/29.) I would have taught 2 classes during the first session but my 8am International Relations class only had 6 students registered in it. Officially a class needs to have 10 students for the administration to let it run. The dean of my department will argue for keeping a class if it has 9, but 6 is just too few. Although that means I don't get to teach my favorite subject (and I lose out on the income) it's been nice to have a little more time to myself and my family in the morning after seminary.
Starting the lazy days of summer,
Brad
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
How many televisions do you have? UPDATED
We have reached the part of the semester where I turn the class over to the students for group presentations. One of the groups chose to present on the influence that television has had on presidential elections. An overall fine discussion including the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debate and the 1964 "daisy" commercial:
Before the start of their presentation they polled the class to see how many TV sets each person had in their home. First they asked who had only one - and only Professor Young raised his hand. They then proceeded with "2 or more?", "3 or more?", etc. Most of the class still had their hands up at "6 or more?" The winner had twelve. Why does anyone need to have 6 TVs in his/her house?!?!
Well, without TV I would never have seen this:
Since all of my sibs normally agreed to watch Red Dwarf, I guess we really only needed one.
Still in a Britcom mood,
Brad
UPDATE: I've eliminated the embedded YouTube that had the "new" voice-over and replaced it with the one suggested by my wife in her comment.
Before the start of their presentation they polled the class to see how many TV sets each person had in their home. First they asked who had only one - and only Professor Young raised his hand. They then proceeded with "2 or more?", "3 or more?", etc. Most of the class still had their hands up at "6 or more?" The winner had twelve. Why does anyone need to have 6 TVs in his/her house?!?!
Well, without TV I would never have seen this:
Since all of my sibs normally agreed to watch Red Dwarf, I guess we really only needed one.
Still in a Britcom mood,
Brad
UPDATE: I've eliminated the embedded YouTube that had the "new" voice-over and replaced it with the one suggested by my wife in her comment.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Red Green & Politics...
I was first introduced to The Red Green show when I lived in british-comedy-friendly-saturday-night-pbs Utah. We only lost out to some station in Iowa when it came to supporting The Red Green show (even though it's Canadian - like the Royal Canadian Air Farce - not British.)
The British shows I came to know and love include:
'Allo 'Allo!
"listen carefully, I shall say this only once"
Fawlty Towers
"don't mention the war!"
Yes, [Prime] Minister
"Well, almost all government policy is wrong, but...frightfully well carried out."
Are You Being Served?
"And I am unanimous in that!"
Red Dwarf
"smeg-head"
Mr. Bean
"Christmas socks!"
and my personal favorite:
Blackadder
"Death and degredation stalk our land like two big stalking things."
So what the heck (did I mention I am from Utah?) does Red Green have to do with politics? First, it was the governing coalition that formed under Gerhardt Schroeder in Germany in 1998. Germany assigns colors to their political parties (similar to what we in the U.S. have done with our "Red State/Blue State" labeling.) Well, red is the color of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and green is the color of the Green Party (of course.) Which is why Europeans can't understand why we made the Republican states red when they make the left/socialist/communist parties red.
The second (and most important) thing Red Green has to do with politics comes from one of the political cartoon websites I used to frequent during graduate school - Iowa Presidential Watch. I was reviewing some of the old cartoons they had and found this one.
Being a conservative that has had major issues with John McCain since 2000, I was disappointed with the Republican primaries' results. However, I am pragmatic enough to easily accept the Conservative Man's Prayer and vote for McCain over either of the democrats.
Now that I've ranted about politics, feel free to post comments about your favorite Britcoms and episodes (Canadian shows accepted too.)
It's good my wife finds me handsome 'cause I'm certainly not handy,
Brad
The British shows I came to know and love include:
'Allo 'Allo!
"listen carefully, I shall say this only once"
Fawlty Towers
"don't mention the war!"
Yes, [Prime] Minister
"Well, almost all government policy is wrong, but...frightfully well carried out."
Are You Being Served?
"And I am unanimous in that!"
Red Dwarf
"smeg-head"
Mr. Bean
"Christmas socks!"
and my personal favorite:
Blackadder
"Death and degredation stalk our land like two big stalking things."
So what the heck (did I mention I am from Utah?) does Red Green have to do with politics? First, it was the governing coalition that formed under Gerhardt Schroeder in Germany in 1998. Germany assigns colors to their political parties (similar to what we in the U.S. have done with our "Red State/Blue State" labeling.) Well, red is the color of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and green is the color of the Green Party (of course.) Which is why Europeans can't understand why we made the Republican states red when they make the left/socialist/communist parties red.
The second (and most important) thing Red Green has to do with politics comes from one of the political cartoon websites I used to frequent during graduate school - Iowa Presidential Watch. I was reviewing some of the old cartoons they had and found this one.
Being a conservative that has had major issues with John McCain since 2000, I was disappointed with the Republican primaries' results. However, I am pragmatic enough to easily accept the Conservative Man's Prayer and vote for McCain over either of the democrats.
Now that I've ranted about politics, feel free to post comments about your favorite Britcoms and episodes (Canadian shows accepted too.)
It's good my wife finds me handsome 'cause I'm certainly not handy,
Brad
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