An anniversary

Twelve years ago, on a Tuesday night, April 16, 1996, I met Stephanie, Vincent, and Papa Larry for the first time, as Stephanie and I - set up by my cousin Diana, Stephanie's co-worker (even though I told her I didn't want to date someone with a kid or someone who was younger than I was and I wasn't told that Stephanie already had a boyfriend, or two) - went on our first date to Little Professor bookstore, near campus on Lane Avenue (we were rained/closed out of two (one indoor, one outdoor) plant areas we talked about visiting on our date)(where Stephanie shared with me her perspectives and close shave with abortion, my dissertation research topic and - outside in the Lane Avenue Shopping Center (pictured above top - after a recent renovation), realized and nearly confessed about our age gap - and, at a nearby pet store, visited where our first turtle, Sawyer, came from a few weeks later), and to La Chatelaine Lane, a French cafe (pictured above bottom), where I had a lemonade. On the way home we listened to Linda Ronstadt sing "When You Wish Upon a Star," and on a cold, clear, windy, starry night, I looked up to the stars and got my wish as Stephanie and I kissed good night. Five days later, on the night of Vincent's birthday, the three of us went for a walk in a Columbus metro park, went to Taco Bell, and hung out at Stephanie, Vincent, and Larry's house. Apparently that night when I sufficed a statement with " . . . if your Mom and I are still friends," Vincent piped in: "I think you and my Mom will ALWAYS be friends." And so it was/has been.

Taxi to the Dark Side

This Academy Award-winning documentary (which won earlier ths year and which I watched tonight) beat out my favorite, "No End in Sight," the anatomy of how the United States went wrong to go into war in Iraq and how the Iraq war itself went wrong. In a sense, this is a companion piece, the story both of how a young Afghan cab driver (pictured above to the right) got tortured to death in U.S. custody and how a whole network, rationale, and regimen of torture (both psychological and physical - as the two merge and overlap) developed, particularly in Afghanistan, Iraq, and more than anywhere else Guantanamo Bay. We'll see how the new Harold and Kumar movie treat Guatanamo Bay. And, of course, it's treated as a great place in the other documentary that "Taxi" beat out for the Oscar, Michael Moore's "Sicko." "No End in Sight" shares with "Taxi" an overlapping set of villains - the "axis of evil" - Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, President Bush, Secretary Powell, then National Security Advisory Rice, and - unlike in "No End in Sight" - a set of lawyers and generals who justified and implemented torture from above, then stood aside as a few enlisted people got in trouble on the rare occasions that it went awry and anyone got blamed for it. (On the top of the bad lawyer list: John Woo, and later Attorney General Gonzalez.) (Some of the most chilling scenes in the movie - which includes some apparently staged scenes - come in interviews with entlisted people who did the torturing - including the killing of the taxi driver - clearly not guilty of being a terrorist (in fact, it later turned out that a U.S. "ally" warload was shelling U.S. bases in Afghanistan, then rounding up unsuspecting civilians and blaming them in order to collect reward money from the U.S.) - who were later tried and convicted by the U.S. military - as they chillingly and remorsefully recount their deeds. It's also chilling to watch U.S. policymakers and lawyers continue to justify and obsfucate on torture.) (It's also chilling to watch the intellectual/social scientific research that begat "psychological warfare" and eventually torture: sleep deprivation, standing for 40 hours straight, sensory deprivation, and - eventually - sexual/gender humiliation and - reaching back to the Middle Ages - waterboarding (simulated drowing - a chilling still picture showed a place where the Khmer Rouge carried out waterboarding during the "killing fileds' time)(and - in the tax driver's case - repeated beatings). But, really, it becomes clear: we're all to blame. The documentary briefly shows scenes of the hugely successful Fox TV series, "24," as the lead character, played by Kiefer Sutherland, tortures alleged terrorists. It also shows Vice President Cheney drily and President Bush almost casually, in his cowboy way, justify torture (without using that word, of course), including in addresses to Congress as all of Congress - including Senator Clinton - give him a standing ovation. The term "the dark side" comes from some of Cheney's remarks, about where we have to go in the new war on terror. The movie also overlaps with the fictional "Rendition," the poorly selling movie from last year that shows the entire of cycle of torture with an individual, and sympathetic victim. It's clear from the movie that torture rarely gets us good information, that it leaves rights and the rule of law trampled in its wake, and it also turns many people in Iraq and Afghanistan - if they weren't already against us - against us - and tears away at our very souls. Equally chilling scenes show Senator John McCain - who the North Vietnamese tortured for 6 1/2 years in the "Hanoi Hotel" - speak on camera from a prison cell, in 1968, then speak out against torture in Congress. Late in the movie, however, even McCain - looking for the Republican nomination for president - buckles to White House pressure and supports a bill that throws him and torture opponents a few morsels but essentially gives the Administration the green light to continue to do what it's been doing at least since the weeks after 9/11: empower the state in a kind of Foucauldian way to gain extreme discretion and extreme power and to let Americans either directly or vicariously act out all of our fears and hostility towards Muslims, towards Middle Easterners, towards people of color, towards people from other countries, and towards people who question U.S. military and economic power and secular, consumerist, and corporate culture. (Michel Foucault was a French philosopher and sociologist who analyzed how prisons and punishment shifted from physical torture to more subtle (and often internalized) surveillance/self-surveillance of which Weber's Protestant ethic was a prime example. But our post-9/11 strategy mixes "modern" psychological techniuqes with old-fashioned Medieval physical torture (even if at some level the more psychological torture is - in some ways - preferable to the more physical torture - for example, depicted in "Syriana.")

Literary magazine

Vincent had four poems in the Brown School literary magazine that came out this month: "Aging Too Slow," "High School," "Subversive," and "The Shinobi Resignation" (double click the pictures to be able to read the poems). Two things surprised me: Vincent had appeared to be writing these at the last moment, minutes before copy for the literary magazine was due. But now I realize that can't entirely be true, as the poems are too polished and too good to have been written entirely over night. Also, asked by the Murray State creative writing professor whether he was interested in writing fiction or poetry, Vincent said fiction, dismissing poetry. But clearly he has some interest in poetry, at least at school. The last poem connects with/follows up on a short story/novelette Vincent began working on several months ago.

Ironic

I was nervous about going to the dentist today because I feared that a tooth between the two back teeth I got root-canaled a year ago might be in need of root-canaling. Anticipating going to the dentist for the past couple of weeks, I had been flossing and brushing more frequently and, apparently, more ferociously. Ironically, apparently as a result of this brushing - much as often the case with brushing - I had damaged my gums - the area nearest that tooth that had started to feel sore - which had, I realize in hindsight, triggered yet more furious brushing. I always say that the real reason to go to the dentist is to instill fear in yourself, so that you do the preventive flossing and brushing (lest you bleed too much at the dentist, incur costly dental work, and/or get lectured by the dentist). But, in this case, at least with brushing, I would have done better to forget that I was going to be going to the dentist shortly. I've got to lay off the brushing, use sensitive-tooth toothpaste, and hope the gums heal a little. The dentist, Dr. Burton (her office pictured above), rejected the idea of gum grafts - which my father got when he was in his early 30s - as not necessary, yet. (After going to the dentist at least every six months, I skipped going for more than two years after moving to Louisville, as I hoped to get back to my Tallahasse dentist and lacked money - Stephanie and Vincent went. When I went after two years, I needed those two root canals. I have had bad gums for years, partly because of rough brushing, and might often do better just to floss.)

Math walk

Vincent and I spent Tuesday morning on the Brown School Math Walk, mostly with other high school juniors. Working in groups of 35, all o fhte juniors and some other advanced math students walked around downtown Louisville and and gathered data and solved math problems like calculating the slope of the stairs in front of the Louisville Gas and Electric company building and what percentage of Kentucky Center for the Arts recognized donors gave the center more than $100,000 last year. Each grop carried a backpack with a calculator, measuring tape, and other equipment. Some of the math was beyond me. But we had a senior taking precalculus who was not only good at redirecting kids that needed that but also at math. Vincent and i were in different groups. I recognized some kids, but others in my two groups I had never seen. This is one of those occasions when the Brown School made use of both its downtown location and its stress on independent and collaborate learning. Although it started out cold, it was a beautiful day, and we spent a lot of time on West Main Street, which reportedly features the largest collection of cast iron work in the country. The kids were mostly involved, though with 8 or 9 people tota in the two groups some kids were more engaged than others.

Springtime in St. Matthews

Good news

In the midst of bad health news, Vincent and I joined Stephanie in greeting some good school/job/career news. Recall that Stephanie and her students hosted her school district’s superintendent and a school board member, with whom she spoke about her students’ test scores and her students’ work (and the school board member wrote her back a nice note Friday). Recall also that I found out that there are NOT supposed to be mass layoffs on May 1, as there often are at the Presbyterian Center every other May 1.

Friday evening I learned that – for only the second time in my 15 years of experience participating in American Sociological Association annual meetings – the association has accepted a presentation I proposed as a presentation at a full-blown session, where I will sit with several other presenters and speak to a real audience. I’ve participated in plenty of ASA meeting roundtables (which sometimes go well and sometimes don’t) and I’ve given presentations at full-blown sessions at various religion and history conferences. But, only once before, at an ASA meeting did I make such as a presentation, about masculinity themes in the stories men involved in the abortion conflict told about their lives.

This time, I’ll be talking about another, non-Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) research project, ongoing, my “Minnesota project.” I’ve explored the experiences of Hmong (pronounced MUNG) and Korean Americans in the Twin Cities in Minnesota and Cuban Americans and Haitian Americans in South Florida. Through looking at their experiences, I’ve theorized that, if immigrant communities are oriented towards the United States and a single other culture tied with a national state (such as Korean Americans and Korea, Haitian Americans and Haiti), they are more likely to try to assimilate in the United States. If they are linked with the United States and either a continental culture (such as Cuban Americans and Latin America) or a diasporic culture with no national state (such as Hmong Americans and the Hmong diaspora) (the Hmong are a minority group primarily in south China and Laos), they are more likely to form a more self-contained enclave communities. The presentation will be called: “Bright Lights, Big Cities: Incorporation Paths of Diverse Cultural Communities in U.S. Metropolitan Areas.” The meeting is in Boston, where I hope to be reunited with several old friends. How I will get there, where I will stay, and how much my office will support my trip/stay, as training and development, remains to be seen.

Monday Vincent also got good news. Unfortunately but predictably, after half a week home with his father in Ohio, he came home sick Sunday night. But he was home Monday to check the mail and found in the mail the report of his ACT scores, from the test administration just a month ago, at school, that the state of Kentucky had paid for. Vincent had scored a 19 on the ACT pre-test he took a year ago. We hoped he’d get a score in at least the low 20s, which with some schools might make them pay less attention to his mediocre grade point average/class rank. If he earned a score in the high 20s, he might even be a plausible candidate for merit scholarships at private schools (although his grades would continue to limit this effect).

When Vincent opened the mail Monday, he had scored a 27! He’s been continuing to review math (and will take pre-calculus next year), which may help him raise his math score of 22. (The other scores were: ). We’re excited and proud him and this is a nice birthday present to himself (Vincent’s birthday is Sunday) that may open some college options for him (not only in terms of admissions but possible also in terms of aid/scholarships). Good work, Vincent!

Late-breaking news from Stephanie: Stephanie's principal (pictured in an earlier blog entry) completed and revealed to Stephanie today her annual evaluation of Stephanie's work, an evaluation which was very good. Stephanie received "Excellent" ratings for everything. Stephanie reminded me that an ACT score of 27 would be good enough - if Vincent's overall high school grade-point average - to qualify Vincent for the prestigious Honors program at Western Kentucky University, which is the school he's most keen about attending so far. (In his ACT report, Vincent is ranked as in the top 50% in his class (by grade point average), but - for absolute GPA - apparently both supplied by high school counselors - they cite Vincent's first-year GPA, which was not very good (and would not have put him in the top 50% of his class). I'm not sure why the counselors did this. To enter Murray, for example, Vincent would need either a GPA of 3.0 or above, or in the top 50 percent of his class, and an ACT score in the mid-20s, so this might do it.

(Pictured above are Hmong American children performing at the sixth grade graduation ceremony at Vincent's St. Paul Hmong American majority school, towards the end of our year in Minnesota five years ago.)