Proud to be a badger

My seminar ended late (we actually finished early, but it felt late – one has to be precise in one’s words), everything about this day ended late, but I did manage to stop at Border’s on the way home to pick up a book for the week-end trip that I have ahead of me (more on that later). In the end I got two books, and it is the second, the unintended purchase that I am now remembering. Why? Because amongst all those front page reviews (that I read with great diligence and that I always way over-analyze) I found, snuggled between the NYT and the Library Journal, a review from the Madison Capital Times! It says:

His taut narrative language is direct, strong and original with a restraint lyricism full of trenchant observations. Particularly outstanding are the descriptions of Berlin crumbling from war and the oppressive ordinariness that accompanies apocalypse.

Aren’t you proud of our little Madison paper? That’s pretty heady language! [though in reality, I bought the book because of its really terrific smell. If you don’t believe me, go to Border’s and pick up a copy of “The Pieces of Berlin” by Michael Pye. You’ll see.]

A post scriptum to the entire “Fed Ex was late” saga

On January 29, I posted a blog about not trusting Fed Ex to pick up my grant application in a timely way (is anyone except me sick of this story yet?). A few weeks later I posted a related (according to me) story about Fed Ex not picking up 30 UC Berkeley applications for Fulbrights on time, thereby causing the Department of Education to summarily reject all 30 applicants because their applications came in a day late. Okay. That’s just a quick summary.

Today I read that Berkeley has been negotiating with the Department of Education so that they would reconsider their position in rejecting the late applicants. After all, Fed Ex has claimed responsibility for the pick-up and delivery error.

The resolution: the 30 applicants will get their grant proposals reviewed. Successful applicants (predicted at around 50%) will be able to call themselves “Fulbright Scholars.” But they will not be under the Fulbright program administered by the Dept of Ed. – they will be under a separate special program for them administered by the Dept of State. And the government will not pay for their scholarships. Berkeley (which will obviously milk Fed Ex for this) will have to come up with the funds. Truly the work of legal minds. This isn’t about adhering to principles of fairness, it is entirely about living within the “letter of the law.”

BTW (a term I seem to have used three times in my posts and 5 times in emails just today… the mind is getting tired), I remember that when university applicants are attempting to meet deadlines, they are given language that specifically states that the apps have to be in by January 1, and nothing, not an act of God (or Goddess, or secular entity), or war, or a late Fed Ex delivery will excuse tardiness. Maybe the Dept of Ed should look to academia for guidance in setting its application guidelines to avoid ambiguity. Dept. of Education -- academia, you’d think the two would keep in touch.

Astrology

Okay. The time is now. I have been asked in class, I have been asked in the hallways (of life), I have been asked repeatedly: do I think the constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman will pass? I have avoided giving my opinion – possibly to make it seem like I have an inside track, or at the very least infinite wisdom on the matter. I have neither, but I will give my answer nonetheless (prompted in part by Ann’s blog, which gives the completely opposite answer): yes, if the amendment were to require a vote today, I think it would pass.
I don’t want to get into a detailed and terribly serious analysis as to why. Let me just keep it short and simple:

1. Ann (who speaks with a great deal of credibility here because she is, after all, a Constitutional scholar, and so I realize I am tip-toeing over terrain that is near and dear to her heart, whereas the Constitution is virtually silent on family matters, and the number of important Supreme Court cases addressing the family can easily be counted on the fingers of both hands, and that is only a slight, journalistic exaggeration) concludes that Americans treat the Constitution as an instrument that confers, and rarely (if ever) removes rights.

Answer: Maybe. But there are no words in the Constitution articulating a right to marriage (let alone gay marriage) and so we can’t really say that the amendment is “removing” a right. Only in 1967 did the Supreme Court even attempt to link marriage to a fundamental rights discourse. And, in subsequent decisions, it became clear that even though marriage is considered a fundamental right, the state may regulate it if it can demonstrate a compelling state interest. No one wanted to permit under-age kids, or fathers and daughters to marry with the state’s blessing. So, from day one, limits on who can marry have been acceptable. This train of thought is obviously not what the MA court chose to develop (in a split decision), but we are talking about the national read on the Constitution.

2. Many (including Ann) say that Americans are not that mean-spirited and they will not indulge this type of bigotry.

Answer: Americans are not inherently any more mean-spirited than anyone on the planet (except for a small contingency from some political... okay—off topic). But the reality is, I think, that Americans are made to feel that they are already giving in to things that run against their belief systems: they will feel themselves to be generous in granting same-sex couples access to some benefits. There are, after all, some 70 million Evangelical Christians in this country. Not to say that they ALL have uniformly strong feelings about gay marriage, but they certainly are under the influence of religious leaders who will not say kind things about this type of union. (n.b., did anyone read the story today about the woman in Texas who was arrested for having sex-toy Tupperware parties? The so-called "Christian" groups are a powerful force.) Can those that align themselves with the groups that repeatedly condemn same-sex marriage withstand the (almost certain to escalate) pressure to support the amendment?

3. One last point for now: there is the ever burning fear of the slippery slope. The perception is that the amendment is necessary so that other forms of marriage that are repugnant to our values wont also be pushed down our throats. Today = same-sex, tomorrow = bigamy. And why not (the argument goes)? The law is suddenly unstable here. Bigamous marriages based on religious beliefs have been rejected by the Court because of our adherence to a traditional belief system that favors monogamy. Oh-oh. That’s it? Gulp.

So, as of today, February 11, 2004, I am predicting that an amendment will pass. And, having said that, let me also say that many things can happen to change the mood of the country or to change my mind. Astrology is a tricky thing.

Now wait a minute...

Yesterday we got a really friendly call from a Clark supporter asking for our vote this coming Tuesday. Now what if that one call (and the fellow emphasized that he was NOT a recording, though our phone recorder recorded his call and so this then became an untruth, because he turned out to BE a recording – but I don’t think the misstatement is what caused Clark to withdraw), okay, sorry for the digression, what if that call had directed me to make up my mind once and for all, so that I was ready to throw away all literature on anyone else and plunge ahead in support of Clark? Where would I be now? It reminded me of the campaign requests you get from candidates AFTER the race, so they can better address their accumulated debt (and who is going to address MY accumulated debt?), though it is even more eerie to ask for my vote where there is no longer a "candidate" behind the name on the ballot.

Right on the heels of this I get in the mail a nice flashy card from Dean, all about how he and no one else is willing to stand up to George Bush. I liked the quality of the card, and indeed, in the photo, Dean appears to be standing, but I am thinking that my presidential choice wont have to stand up to Bush after next November because there will no longer be a Bush in DC. Instead he’ll need to be president. So I take the card to be a statement about what Dean can do in the next few months, that’s all. Interesting, but not persuasive as to ultimate leadership capability. But I will keep it in mind. I did like the fact that Wisconsin was the direct target for the card – the name of the state appears right there on the glossy front. State pride and all that. Also not dispositive, but very attractive.

Speed your way to bankruptcy

This, very buried in the paper today (buried, I suppose, because if you have stocks or caches of gold, you don’t want to give anyone on this side of the ocean legislative ideas):

Jussi Salonoja, the 27-year-old heir to a large sausage business, has been fined $216,000 for driving 50 miles an hour in a 25-mile-an-hour zone in Helsinki, the police said. The fine is believed to be the largest ever given for speeding in Finland, where traffic offenders are penalized according to their ability to pay. Mr. Salonoja's 2002 income was $8.9 million, Reuters said. The Finnish Internet millionaire Jaako Rytsola held the previous record for a speeding fine: $101,700. Walter Gibbs (NYT)

I’m really all for this: I mean, imagine the wealth we could tap into. And the headlines this would generate. And the smug satisfaction all of us would get from seeing rich people zapped by radar guns and being made to pay, pay, pay. [BTW, how does a traffic cop know if s/he’s cornered a wealthy person?]

I can’t keep to my own schedule

Though in a previous blog I suggested (to myself) that I review readers’ comments on Sunday (that was because it was a particularly slow moving Sunday and I predicted many more such Sundays this winter given my work load this semester), I am now departing from my rule. Actually it never became a rule, because there hasn’t been a Sunday since I wrote that. Anyway, ANY day is reader-comment day.

To the reader who asked if I knew about the drug trade that went on at night on the hill where she found out I went sledding – the answer is yes, I remembered and left shortly thereafter. However, sledding at the local hill near the high-school is/was perfectly safe and so I took a handful of runs there. You see a lot of sky – it’s open and quite beautiful at night.

To the reader who had gone back to a blog from the early days of January and read about my warped floors, let me give you an update: the floor boards now are so separated that I could store enough winter provisions in the cracks and keep us going for a whole month. I will call my floor person for another conversation on this come Spring. Update will follow.

To the super nice reader (I’m not suggesting that other readers aren’t super nice, it’s just that this one lives far away and doesn’t know me and still took a moment to be super nice) with the preference for rats over mice, just a note of reassurance: though you may feel bad about neglecting and not challenging your favorite rat in the past and worry that this made her (him?) unhappy – actually you don’t KNOW that the rat was less happy being left alone. Maybe s/he liked retiring from cerebral maze games: maybe s/he had burnt out and wanted a hiatus from all that intellectual stardom. Maybe s/he had been faking enthusiasm all along. What do we know about rat feelings anyway. I mean, it’s not the same level of guilt as, say, I would have over not filling the bird feeder (update: it is now filled and I have attracted wood-peckers to it and so now we are in the next stage of the vicious orbit of neglect-entice-expunge-entice etc..)