Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
According to the Princeton Review's 2009 survey, these 10 colleges are the most socially conservative.
The single public university (excluding service academies): Texas A&M
The 10 most socially liberal colleges are these.
The one red-state school Warren Wilson in North Carolina.
The single public university (excluding service academies): Texas A&M
The 10 most socially liberal colleges are these.
The one red-state school Warren Wilson in North Carolina.
05/08: On the Road Again
Just returned from a trip to California to the wedding of my older son.
Twice on the trip heard On the Road Again.
Ironically, it became the traveling song playing in my head.
I say ironically, because it is a typical blues theme: I'm headed out again on the road, baby, and you can't come along. The rootless man, always moving on, baby may be gentle on his mind, but he's just gotta keep moving because he was born a rambling man. A free bird, yeah.
Once upon a time in America, the rambling man was an outsider to mainstream culture. Almost all men settled down, married, had children, joined a bowling league, maybe a church, and only occasionally dreamed of the road.
But now, the rambling man is the norm. Not in the stick-out-my-thumb, hop-a-freight, town-to-town fashion. But in the more comfortable form: no ties that bind, one-night-stands, perhaps marry but probably will divorce if married. Everyman's life a blues song, but the sorrow is now supressed far below the surface.
My wife of almost 30 years and I, and our daughter and her husband, were on the road to a wedding. Where my older son pledged as-long-as-we-both-shall-live to a young women. He chose to be a rooted man, keeping his baby in his arms as well as on his mind, to move together if moving on is necessary.
Perhaps my greatest achievement is that I seem to have raised counter-culture children. Praise be to God.
Twice on the trip heard On the Road Again.
Ironically, it became the traveling song playing in my head.
I say ironically, because it is a typical blues theme: I'm headed out again on the road, baby, and you can't come along. The rootless man, always moving on, baby may be gentle on his mind, but he's just gotta keep moving because he was born a rambling man. A free bird, yeah.
Once upon a time in America, the rambling man was an outsider to mainstream culture. Almost all men settled down, married, had children, joined a bowling league, maybe a church, and only occasionally dreamed of the road.
But now, the rambling man is the norm. Not in the stick-out-my-thumb, hop-a-freight, town-to-town fashion. But in the more comfortable form: no ties that bind, one-night-stands, perhaps marry but probably will divorce if married. Everyman's life a blues song, but the sorrow is now supressed far below the surface.
My wife of almost 30 years and I, and our daughter and her husband, were on the road to a wedding. Where my older son pledged as-long-as-we-both-shall-live to a young women. He chose to be a rooted man, keeping his baby in his arms as well as on his mind, to move together if moving on is necessary.
Perhaps my greatest achievement is that I seem to have raised counter-culture children. Praise be to God.
05/08: Sodom on the Bay
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
LGF has links to photos (from Zombie) taken on the public streets of San Francisco during the Up Your Alley Fair this summer. Warning: not for the faint of heart or stomach. Public male nudity including masturbation and fellatio.
San Francisco provides us with a view of what the fully-developed, public gay culture is. Not the sanitized version seen on television. Middle America is not homophobic in the sense of fearing homosexual men as such; Middle America is homophobic in not wanting our streets ever to look like San Francisco.
San Francisco provides us with a view of what the fully-developed, public gay culture is. Not the sanitized version seen on television. Middle America is not homophobic in the sense of fearing homosexual men as such; Middle America is homophobic in not wanting our streets ever to look like San Francisco.
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
Interesting. More American blacks are converting to Judaism. The numbers are very, very small, but fascinating that such conversions are happening at all. Blacks and Jews, as groups, have had some antagonism since the Civil Rights struggles which united the two groups. And, Judaism does not seek out converts.
Story here from The Christian Science Monitor.
Another recent study by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research in San Francisco estimates that there are as many as 150,000 practicing black Jews in the US today, with synagogues across the country reporting increasing numbers of blacks either exploring or converting to Judaism.
Story here from The Christian Science Monitor.
Another recent study by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research in San Francisco estimates that there are as many as 150,000 practicing black Jews in the US today, with synagogues across the country reporting increasing numbers of blacks either exploring or converting to Judaism.
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
Tonight I have Harry Chapin songs playing in my head. Don't know why. For those of you too young to remember him, Chapin was a brilliant songwriter who also sang. Most (all?) his songs were sad, about lost love, lost dreams, lost souls.
One of his biggest popular hits was "Taxi," about a man who picks up his high school love late one night. Brilliant lyrics. Here's the end of the song:
There was not much more for us to talk about,
Whatever we had once was gone.
So I turned my cab into the driveway,
Past the gate and the fine trimmed lawns.
And she said we must get together,
But I knew it'd never be arranged.
And she handed me twenty dollars,
For a two fifty fare, she said
"Harry, keep the change."
Well another man might have been angry,
And another man might have been hurt,
But another man never would have let her go...
I stashed the bill in my shirt.
And she walked away in silence,
It's strange, how you never know,
But we'd both gotten what we'd asked for,
Such a long, long time ago.
You see, she was gonna be an actress
And I was gonna learn to fly.
She took off to find the footlights,
And I took off for the sky.
And here, she's acting happy,
Inside her handsome home.
And me, I'm flying in my taxi,
Taking tips, and getting stoned,
I go flying so high, when I'm stoned.
Full song lyrics.
Chapin had a social conscience, and helped found an organization to fight hunger. Before his early death, he was playing 200 concerts a year, half of them benefits. His own brief autobiography is here. (From this front page click on "keepsakes" then at the far right near the top click autobiography.) He died in 1981 in a car wreck at 38 years of age. His final project was to write the music and lyrics for the musical "The Cotton Patch Gospel", a reverent retelling of the Gospel based on Clarence Jordan's book of the same name.
Taxi, a live performance.
Mr. Tanner, live.
30,00 Pounds of Bananas, his funniest song, but even here someone dies
Cat's in the Cradle, his most famous song
One of his biggest popular hits was "Taxi," about a man who picks up his high school love late one night. Brilliant lyrics. Here's the end of the song:
There was not much more for us to talk about,
Whatever we had once was gone.
So I turned my cab into the driveway,
Past the gate and the fine trimmed lawns.
And she said we must get together,
But I knew it'd never be arranged.
And she handed me twenty dollars,
For a two fifty fare, she said
"Harry, keep the change."
Well another man might have been angry,
And another man might have been hurt,
But another man never would have let her go...
I stashed the bill in my shirt.
And she walked away in silence,
It's strange, how you never know,
But we'd both gotten what we'd asked for,
Such a long, long time ago.
You see, she was gonna be an actress
And I was gonna learn to fly.
She took off to find the footlights,
And I took off for the sky.
And here, she's acting happy,
Inside her handsome home.
And me, I'm flying in my taxi,
Taking tips, and getting stoned,
I go flying so high, when I'm stoned.
Full song lyrics.
Chapin had a social conscience, and helped found an organization to fight hunger. Before his early death, he was playing 200 concerts a year, half of them benefits. His own brief autobiography is here. (From this front page click on "keepsakes" then at the far right near the top click autobiography.) He died in 1981 in a car wreck at 38 years of age. His final project was to write the music and lyrics for the musical "The Cotton Patch Gospel", a reverent retelling of the Gospel based on Clarence Jordan's book of the same name.
Taxi, a live performance.
Mr. Tanner, live.
30,00 Pounds of Bananas, his funniest song, but even here someone dies
Cat's in the Cradle, his most famous song
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
This past Friday evening my wife and I went down to our city park on the creek bottom at the west edge of town to watch the community fireworks display.
Earlier in the evening had been games for the youngsters supervised by volunteers from the Chamber of Commerce, and a carry-in dinner ("please bring a covered dish to share") with hamburgers provided and grilled by the volunteer fire department (donations appreciated).
About half an hour after sunset, with a waxing crescent moon hanging low in the western sky, the rockets fired their cargoes into the air: starbursts, whistling comets, bright clusters of stars hanging in the night--blue and red and yellow-white in different shades.
A small town in Oklahoma celebrating Independence Day.
And it did not cost any government a cent. Even the fireworks were provided by the Rattlesnake Association from a portion of the Rattlesnake Festival proceeds. The American armies of volunteers and volunteer organizations, making community happen.
The Democrats seem to have a vision of society in two parts: the individual and the (Federal) government. Traditional conservatives know better. In a healthy free society, citizens form communities, and volunteer their time and wealth as individuals and in organizations. Governments are for things that are too big to do by handing out grilled hamburgers, donations accepted.
God Bless America.
Earlier in the evening had been games for the youngsters supervised by volunteers from the Chamber of Commerce, and a carry-in dinner ("please bring a covered dish to share") with hamburgers provided and grilled by the volunteer fire department (donations appreciated).
About half an hour after sunset, with a waxing crescent moon hanging low in the western sky, the rockets fired their cargoes into the air: starbursts, whistling comets, bright clusters of stars hanging in the night--blue and red and yellow-white in different shades.
A small town in Oklahoma celebrating Independence Day.
And it did not cost any government a cent. Even the fireworks were provided by the Rattlesnake Association from a portion of the Rattlesnake Festival proceeds. The American armies of volunteers and volunteer organizations, making community happen.
The Democrats seem to have a vision of society in two parts: the individual and the (Federal) government. Traditional conservatives know better. In a healthy free society, citizens form communities, and volunteer their time and wealth as individuals and in organizations. Governments are for things that are too big to do by handing out grilled hamburgers, donations accepted.
God Bless America.
28/06: Indian Funerals: A Repeat
In the last two weeks I have had 3 funerals. All of them were Indian. I take the liberty now of repeating an early post from 2006.
Last fall I helped bury a Ft. Sill Apache. He was 97 and had been born while the Apaches were held as prisoners of war. The tribe was released in 1913. It is thought that he was the last such in Oklahoma; there may be one other surviving Apache POW in New Mexico. He had been living with his daughter in Norman, OK, the last several years following the death of his wife. For years he was Headman of the Ft. Sill Band of the Apache Nation. I saw him in the hospital in Norman several times in the last week, though he was lucid only at my first visit when I took him communion. The past is not so very far away: I have had contact with a living link to the Indian Wars.
more below
Last fall I helped bury a Ft. Sill Apache. He was 97 and had been born while the Apaches were held as prisoners of war. The tribe was released in 1913. It is thought that he was the last such in Oklahoma; there may be one other surviving Apache POW in New Mexico. He had been living with his daughter in Norman, OK, the last several years following the death of his wife. For years he was Headman of the Ft. Sill Band of the Apache Nation. I saw him in the hospital in Norman several times in the last week, though he was lucid only at my first visit when I took him communion. The past is not so very far away: I have had contact with a living link to the Indian Wars.
more below
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
In this article in Christianity Today, Chuck Colson urges our political candidates to raise and debate the problem of our growing prison population. He points out that in the last 35 years there has been a six-fold increase in the number of prisoners, and that currently 1 in every 100 U.S. citizens are incarterated. State governments spend $50 billion per year in prisons.
Colson advocates programs to change the lives of those imprisoned. Citing studies he notes
Though many sociologists of the 19th and early 20th centuries attributed crime to environmental factors like poverty, an inadequate criminal justice system, and racism, landmark studies in the last 30 years have shown that crime is really about wrong moral decisions. For example, in their 17-year-long study The Criminal Personality, psychologists Stanton Samenow and Samuel Yochelson found that crime, in every case, was "the product of deliberation," and gave the antidote of "conversion to a whole new lifestyle." And in their definitive study Crime and Human Nature, Harvard social scientists James Q. Wilson and Richard Herrnstein found that crime is caused by a lack of moral teaching during the morally formative years.
Colson's point echoes two of my recent posts, on the spread of crime in Memphis, and on the shaping of killers by the Nazis.
At bottom, what we need to debate nationally, is how to become a society that provides positive shaping of the human conscience, and encourages healthy family life.
As you can guess, I am not a Libertarian.
Colson advocates programs to change the lives of those imprisoned. Citing studies he notes
Though many sociologists of the 19th and early 20th centuries attributed crime to environmental factors like poverty, an inadequate criminal justice system, and racism, landmark studies in the last 30 years have shown that crime is really about wrong moral decisions. For example, in their 17-year-long study The Criminal Personality, psychologists Stanton Samenow and Samuel Yochelson found that crime, in every case, was "the product of deliberation," and gave the antidote of "conversion to a whole new lifestyle." And in their definitive study Crime and Human Nature, Harvard social scientists James Q. Wilson and Richard Herrnstein found that crime is caused by a lack of moral teaching during the morally formative years.
Colson's point echoes two of my recent posts, on the spread of crime in Memphis, and on the shaping of killers by the Nazis.
At bottom, what we need to debate nationally, is how to become a society that provides positive shaping of the human conscience, and encourages healthy family life.
As you can guess, I am not a Libertarian.
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
The Scottish Parent Teacher Council blasted Wikipedia, and other internet sources for providing inaccurate information to students. Article. Link from Drudge.
I remember in graduate school that someone kept a list on the bulletin board of the Religion faculty mailroom of errors in Wikipedia entries concerning history and religion. When I worked in the Baylor library we tried to steer students toward scholarly material, both on and off line. My advice to my students for their writing is: don't use Wikipedia as your sole source. And don't believe everything you read.
A former British prime minister once said that the primary purpose of an education was to enable one to tell when the other fellow was talking rot. You need your own base of good, reliable information to make that judgment.
One of the major problems I have noted with student use of the internet for research is a lack of digestion. Back in the day (I was in college in the mid-70s) when we did library research we read books and periodicals. Since photcopiers were in their infancy, expensive and poor qualitity, we took notes of what we read. The process of reading and then writing summaries required us to digest the material. Now, students too often skim an internet source, then copy and paste into a paper, perhaps changing a few words in the hope of avoiding plagurism. Pages of books and periodicals, if consulted, tend to be scanned and used the same way.
The papers too often read like undigested material thrown together.
I remember in graduate school that someone kept a list on the bulletin board of the Religion faculty mailroom of errors in Wikipedia entries concerning history and religion. When I worked in the Baylor library we tried to steer students toward scholarly material, both on and off line. My advice to my students for their writing is: don't use Wikipedia as your sole source. And don't believe everything you read.
A former British prime minister once said that the primary purpose of an education was to enable one to tell when the other fellow was talking rot. You need your own base of good, reliable information to make that judgment.
One of the major problems I have noted with student use of the internet for research is a lack of digestion. Back in the day (I was in college in the mid-70s) when we did library research we read books and periodicals. Since photcopiers were in their infancy, expensive and poor qualitity, we took notes of what we read. The process of reading and then writing summaries required us to digest the material. Now, students too often skim an internet source, then copy and paste into a paper, perhaps changing a few words in the hope of avoiding plagurism. Pages of books and periodicals, if consulted, tend to be scanned and used the same way.
The papers too often read like undigested material thrown together.
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
I am reading the book The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness by Simon Wiesenthal.
In the first part of the book Wiesenthal relates a disturbing experience during his time in a Nazi concentration camp in Poland. While on a work detail outside the camp at a school (his old "high school") that had been converted into a hospital for wounded German soldiers, he was summoned by a nurse. She led him into the room of a dying SS soldier and left him there. The young man had asked that a Jew be brought to him. He then proceeded, in words interupted by pain, to relate his life story, working up to what he wanted to tell a Jew.
He had been a good boy, he said, raised in the [Roman Catholic] Church by a pious mother, and truly believed. Then, he joined the Hitler Youth, and gradually was turned against the Church, giving higher alliegance to the Furher than to his parents. When the war started he volunteered for the SS. Moving east with the invasion of Russia, he and his squad were given an order one day.
"An order was given," he continued, "and we marched toward the huddled mass of Jews. There were a hundred and fifty of them or perhaps two hundred, including many children who stared at us with anxious eyes. A few were quietly crying. There were infants in their mothers' arms, but hardly any young men, mostly women and graybeards.
"As we approached I could see the expression in their eyes--fear, indescribable fear . . . apparently they knew what was awaiting them . . .
"A truck arrived with cans of petrol which we unloaded and took into a house. The strong men among the Jews were ordered to carry the cans to the upper stories. They obeyed--apathetically, without a will of their own, like automatons.
"Then we began to drive the Jews into the house. A sergeant with a whip in his hand helped any of the Jews who were not quick enough. There was a hail of curses and kicks. The house was not very large, it had only three stories. I would not have believed it possible to crowd them all into it. But after a few minutes there was no Jew left on the street."
. . .
The dying Nazi went on: "Then another truck came up full of more Jews and they too were crammed into the house with the others. Then the door was locked and a machine gun was posted opposite."
. . .
"When we were told that everything was ready, we went back a few yards, and then received the command to remove safety pins from hand grenades and throw them through the windows of the house. Detonations followed one after another . . .My God!"
Now he was silent, and he raised himself slightly from the bed: his whole body was shivering.
But he continued: "We heard screams and saw the flames eat their way from floor to floor . . . We had our rifles ready to shoot down anyone who tried to escape from that blazing hell . . .
"The screams from the house were horrible. Dense smoke poured out and choked us . . ."
. . .
". . .Behind the windows of the second floor, I saw a man with a small child in his arms. His clothes were alight. By his side stood a woman, doubtless the mother of the child. With his free hand the man covered the child's eyes . . . then he jumped into the street. Seconds later the mother followed. Then from the other windows fell burning bodies . . . We shot . . . Oh God!"
More below.
In the first part of the book Wiesenthal relates a disturbing experience during his time in a Nazi concentration camp in Poland. While on a work detail outside the camp at a school (his old "high school") that had been converted into a hospital for wounded German soldiers, he was summoned by a nurse. She led him into the room of a dying SS soldier and left him there. The young man had asked that a Jew be brought to him. He then proceeded, in words interupted by pain, to relate his life story, working up to what he wanted to tell a Jew.
He had been a good boy, he said, raised in the [Roman Catholic] Church by a pious mother, and truly believed. Then, he joined the Hitler Youth, and gradually was turned against the Church, giving higher alliegance to the Furher than to his parents. When the war started he volunteered for the SS. Moving east with the invasion of Russia, he and his squad were given an order one day.
"An order was given," he continued, "and we marched toward the huddled mass of Jews. There were a hundred and fifty of them or perhaps two hundred, including many children who stared at us with anxious eyes. A few were quietly crying. There were infants in their mothers' arms, but hardly any young men, mostly women and graybeards.
"As we approached I could see the expression in their eyes--fear, indescribable fear . . . apparently they knew what was awaiting them . . .
"A truck arrived with cans of petrol which we unloaded and took into a house. The strong men among the Jews were ordered to carry the cans to the upper stories. They obeyed--apathetically, without a will of their own, like automatons.
"Then we began to drive the Jews into the house. A sergeant with a whip in his hand helped any of the Jews who were not quick enough. There was a hail of curses and kicks. The house was not very large, it had only three stories. I would not have believed it possible to crowd them all into it. But after a few minutes there was no Jew left on the street."
. . .
The dying Nazi went on: "Then another truck came up full of more Jews and they too were crammed into the house with the others. Then the door was locked and a machine gun was posted opposite."
. . .
"When we were told that everything was ready, we went back a few yards, and then received the command to remove safety pins from hand grenades and throw them through the windows of the house. Detonations followed one after another . . .My God!"
Now he was silent, and he raised himself slightly from the bed: his whole body was shivering.
But he continued: "We heard screams and saw the flames eat their way from floor to floor . . . We had our rifles ready to shoot down anyone who tried to escape from that blazing hell . . .
"The screams from the house were horrible. Dense smoke poured out and choked us . . ."
. . .
". . .Behind the windows of the second floor, I saw a man with a small child in his arms. His clothes were alight. By his side stood a woman, doubtless the mother of the child. With his free hand the man covered the child's eyes . . . then he jumped into the street. Seconds later the mother followed. Then from the other windows fell burning bodies . . . We shot . . . Oh God!"
More below.
