Mesa Canals 2: Eastern Canal

The SRP canal map calls this the last mile or so of the Eastern Canal. Supposedly, the distance between the place the EC crosses McKellips and where it joins the Southern Canal (the north endpoint of the map above) is 1.68 miles. From where the red route line starts at essentially Hermosa Vista and Gilbert Roads, is probably three-quarters of a mile, and unpaved. The northwest bank of the canal is blocked close to McDowell Road with an SRP complex of pumping stations and dams maybe 200 yards from the junction with the Southern Canal. The stretch, however, since it parallels the edge of the mesa for which Mesa is named, has excellent views of the McDowell and Goldfield Mountains, as well as Red Mountain. If one could follow this canal far enough, one could finally reach Granite Reef reservoir. In later posts, I'll point out the barriers on this canal between McDowell and Greenfield Roads, at which point the canal right-of-way becomes clear on the South bank all the way to Granite Reef.

This was the originating point of most of my searches for the location of the Lehi marker, and is also a good connector from the neighborhoods west of Gilbert Road in Mesa to the Lehi Road intersection north of McDowell. The two-mile stretch of Lehi Road north of McDowell is isolated enough to provide nice riding for either road or mountain bikes, though the neighborhoods are beginning to build up. However, there are still orange groves and a gravel operation that border the road at present.

First Week at Cambridge/London Excursion/Nate and Tana

This is my first try at putting video into my blog. Nate and Tana came to visit from Oxford this week, just after the first week of classes. They came with us to Henry IV, Part 1 at the London Globe Theater. It was great to see them again, after almost a year. They seem to be doing quite well, and are making the most of their time, it seems. Above is a bit of London before we went into the play. It's been both a smooth and a bittersweet start to the program, as we begin our last year as director couple.

We met Nate and Tana in London as we went into the National Observatory for a special presentation of Early Modern maps; they'd trained in from Oxford, and had been dropped about half a mile from the Observatory (and our bus). After the presentation at the National Observatory, we were dropped off at the Embankment, where we crossed on the Golden Jubilee pedestrian bridge and walked down the South Bank to the Globe. The performance was great, and we all took the bus back late to Cambridge.

Thwarted in our attempt to drive to Leeds Castle in Kent, we ended up going to Ely instead, and touring the town and cathedral. Yesterday, we went to the Orchard in Granchester (twice in one year for Chris and me), and enjoyed (so far as that is possible) the unseasonably hot weather by canoeing (not punting) the Cam. We took in an entertaining 3-person history of Britain production in the Corpus Christi Playhouse, but almost had an Arizona sweatlodge experience (you all know what I mean) when the ushers would not open the doors or windows during the performance. Today, we made a tour of Trinity and St. John's colleges.

The Fitzwilliam Museum (above) is one of the best in the world, and the four of us spent a morning there. It is a unique feeling to stand near 4000-year-old antiquities; they have one granite sarcophagus that one can stand right next to, look at the scribing on the stone, and think "The hands that carved this have been lifeless for four millennia." To be confronted with this level of human antiquity and culture is to realize how small one really is, and how short one's life. One can gain perspective in other ways than by looking at and thinking about the stars.

Oh, one more thing about the Fitz--lots of paintings. This time as I wandered through (I did spend most of my time at the local history exhibit [it's amazing the things they've dug up in town and dredged from the river] and in the ancient cultures section) I noticed the beginning of what we would think of as landscape at the middle of the 18th century, though I did notice one bird's-eye view of the city of Florence (I think) from the 1450s. There really is a change in the way people saw things between the medieval and the Augustan periods in England.

My search for the Lehi Trail--First in the Mesa Canals Series

 

 

For several years, I've vaguely tried to find out exactly what that monument north of the 202 in east Mesa was about. You can see it from the freeway, right by the river as you zip by. Also for years, I've ridden the canal roads and have considered them unsung gems of mountain biking. These two things have come together in the last several weeks, as I ride the canals near our home. A major canal parallels McDowell Road to the south and crosses the 202 near Lehi Road. Where the canal crosses McDowell, near the Lehi Road turnoff (see the map), I see small brown signs, reading "The Lehi Trail." An Internet search has just deepened the mystery; the city has an urban recreation plan that mentions the trail, but there is no description of just what it is, or what its history is. As I have ridden down Lehi Road, I see signs for the trail until the turnoff to "the bridge to nowhere, which comes off Lehi Road, crosses the 202, then goes into an orange grove. However, after much poking around, I found the Lehi trailhead, on a turnoff just north of this bridge. Halfway out, one comes to the monument. It is an apparent Boy Scout project commemorating a pioneer camp that was made at the ford here. I believe there had been an intermittent ferry service and camp here already.

As an added note, the trail goes on past the monument, where it gets lost in a maze of tracks around Val Vista Road. One can parallel the canal and follow the river, however, all the way to Higley Road. One gets a bit lost in the undergrowth north of some isolated horse stables between the freeway and the trail. It does appear that the trail and tracks are used relatively regularly by horses and riders, as I found on my exploratory journey of June 26.



Quick timeline: trip to the monument: June 6, 2010; exploratory trip ending up at Higley Road, June 26.

Meeting Jesus at University

The first thing that strikes the reader about this book is that this is a graduate thesis or dissertation in sociology. That being the case, Edward Dutton uses plenty of academic terminology and attempts to cultivate an objective stance. But he’s clearly engaged in a sociological project, unlike Samuel Schuman in Seeing the Light. I would say that Dutton is less sympathetic to Christian and religiously-based collegiate life than Schuman seems to be. But he is looking at different things.

Dutton is interested in the subculture of evangelical Christian groups at European universities; he looks specifically at Oxford, Aberdeen University, Durham University, and universities in Holland, the U.S., and the Caribbean.

The gist of his question is this: he had been exposed to and participated in the activities of an evangelical student group at his university (Durham), and wondered why these groups seemed much more active (as he saw it) at universities like Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham, than at the other colleges his friends had gone to. His hypothesis is that there is something different at the three universities above that encourages the development of “fundamentalist” [his term] evangelical Christian groups. The analysis is going to depend on a number of somewhat arcane terms: “leveling” rituals, liminal experiences, rites of passage, communitas, contestation. Some definitions might help here: leveling rituals bring people of various backgrounds together in a single experience, or set of experiences, during which the differences of these backgrounds (especially in terms of social status) are broken down. “Liminal” (in psychological terms) has to do with threshold or intermediate experiences. “Communitas” is a “feeling of togetherness and bonding in which social distinctions break down, often brought on by a rite of passage” (6). Rites of passage end up being rituals designed to bring people through a liminal phase in their lives. The other possibility in a rite of passage is contestation, in which participants in an experience create new boundaries, which the experience of “communitas” attempts to break down.

The most interesting part of Dutton’s book is his description of the evangelical groups he studied at Durham and Oxford. He doesn’t really have enough information about U.S. and Caribbean universities to make any firm conclusions, since he relies on others’ research for it. For the rites of passage he has experienced, he describes well the things that evangelical student groups do, concluding that the more intellectually and socially demanding the environment, the more students gravitate to groups that will re-establish some kind of structure for their lives. Other students are also attracted to religious groups, he theorizes, because of the innate stress of this “liminal” experience and rite of passage that college is perceived to be.

If you want the most efficient way to read this book, the chapters to focus on would be 1, 2, 4 (because of the research he cites on American Christian colleges), and 8, his short conclusion. In addition, his bibliography shows some interesting titles that might be worth pursuing.

The interesting thing is that this research doesn’t “go anywhere.” Dutton doesn’t do any more than note that this type of thing happens in situations that constitute rites of passage. One might theorize (if one were an evangelist) that this study suggests the specific receptivity of campus students, away from home for the first time, to making significant changes in their behavior and worldview, simply because of the nature of the experience. Whether one would see that as good or bad would depend on the nature of one’s own commitments.

Musings—COLA Humanities and Social Sciences Majors

As Director of Academic Excellence for the College of Liberal Arts (COLA), I have the chance to collect statistics on the number of students in our majors on campus and on line. My own field of study is English Language and Literature, and I also head up the Humanities Department. Though we talk about COLA as the “foundational” college of the university, we don’t often think of ourselves as a “liberal arts university” the way we used to. We don’t actively promote, for example, our undergraduate programs in English Literature, History, or Communications, though courses from these majors are part of our General Education and College of Education programs (as emphases).

So, imagine my surprise when I found out that in the early Spring Term of this year, we had 244 Communications majors, 167 English majors, 155 Interdisciplinary Studies majors, and 125 History majors. And this is just listed majors, not including College of Education students who are taking these subjects as emphases within their Education majors. Most of these Humanities majors are online students. These numbers are growing, all without a coordinated program of promotion for any of these majors; in fact, these majors are sometimes thought of as less important because they don’t lead to a specific job immediately upon graduation.

It’s clear though, that many students know what most employers tell us: traditional liberal arts majors are in demand, because they teach students how to think, how to read and interpret texts, and how to express themselves. Added to that, liberal arts majors are often more motivated learners, because they’re concentrating on something that they love for its own sake, rather than just for the sake of getting a diploma. Because a student of (say) literature or history interprets many kinds of writing (including writing by authors who are sometimes trying to lie to the reader), and because a student has to make arguments (both verbal and in writing) about what is being said, a liberal arts major is prepared for the kinds of reading and writing that are a part of higher-status professions like law, and upper business management (by the way, the higher one progresses in an organization, the more one has to write and communicate in other ways).

The interesting thing is that Canyon is a national leader in online liberal arts offerings; we are one of the relatively few universities across the country to support a range of liberal arts majors delivered entirely online. Students value that, and other major universities are now developing online humanities programs. We are working to keep our lead.

Silent Sundays, Redux

Great Silent Sunday today--we did a kind of serendipitous trip out to South Mountain Park with Bill Bubnis and Heather Bateman. When we got there, Sally and Brian McGuire were there too. Instead of going out to the San Juan ramada first, we just climbed the hill. I've been to the South Mountain intersection before, but this time we went up to the antennas.

By "we," I mean Heather, Brian and me. Bill had an allergy attack halfway up the hill, Chris was walking the dog, and Sally took a look at a study site for work. Those last few inclines from the intersection to the antennas were pretty steep. But the view was so worth it. Also, one is "humbled" by all the actual hard-core riders up there, doing intervals several times up the incline that you barely survived climbing.

An open letter to the pusillanimous executives in charge of “South Park”:

As a Christian, I am often offended by Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s “South Park.” However, I am also a scholar of literature and an advocate of traditional American freedoms. Your craven decision to edit the second half of the South Park “universal offense” episode has prompted me to boycott your channel, and to call on others to do the same.

Yes, I’m often offended by the show, just as the British were offended by Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” and the Los Angeles funeral industry was offended by Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One. That’s the point of satire—to skewer sensibilities. That’s what makes it different from simple abuse: it has a serious point, often expressed indirectly. Though in my opinion, “South Park” does contain gratuitous abuse and salaciousness (as do John Dryden’s satiric poems, and Swift’s as well), they often incisively zero in on the stupidities and contradictions of almost every religious and political opinion. No one has gotten a free pass . . . until recently.

I almost took a similar action after the “Respectful Depiction of Mohammed” episode, but that was close enough in time to other Muslim atrocities perpetrated on the outspoken and the innocent that I let it pass. But this shows that you, the producers of the show, are more concerned with salaciousness and the promoting of gratuitous offense than you are with actual satire. So, if Muslims get a pass, then I’m offended that you let other depictions of revered religious figures pass without comment or action. And by the way, Muslims should be offended as well—this action implies that their religion is too intolerant to participate in the often-messy free speech that is the practice of satire in America.

As a Christian, I wrestle with the fact that I do, in fact, view material that could be offensive to others, or morally detrimental to me. I justify that with the sense that at least satire makes valid points aimed at getting people to objectively look at their own behavioral contradictions. But now, I can’t be sure that any of your satirists, from Jon Stewart to Stephen Colbert, to Matt and Trey, are really allowed to make points that they otherwise might make. I question their objectivity and freedom to speak.

So, while I will sorely miss “The Daily Show” and the “Colbert Report,” along with new “South Park” episodes, it’s worth it to me; I’ll have to get by on “My Name is Earl” reruns and “The Simpsons.” Just a quick and clichéd reminder—“Freedom isn’t Free.” Aren’t you guys even half as good as Google? They put their money where their mouth is. It’s clear that Matt and Trey were willing to take the physical risk; you might at least risk some monetary loss.

Sincerely,

James Helfers