NCTE and Disney Hell: The Happiest Bloody Place on Earth

I haven’t seen a Starbucks in three days. I’m sitting here on the floor in a hall at the Coronado Springs Hotel, bereft of Internet access, jacked into a hallway plug for power. First, a message to NCTE—DO IT BETTER NEXT YEAR! Let me elaborate, in structured paragraphs.

First—Internet access. Supposedly we are at a conference for 21st century educators. Not everyone, however, has the money to have the 4G data plan up and running, either on smartphone or netbook. This would not be too much of a problem, were a) everyone staying at the conference hotel, getting $10-20 per day tacked onto their fees (though I hate that, too, when I can stay at a Comfort Inn in Flagstaff Arizona and get free Wi-Fi with my inexpensive room), or b) if Wi-Fi were transferable between Disney Resort Hotels, the problems would be solved as well, since Disney owns everything within 8 square miles, or c) if the conference had arranged consistent, free, wi-fi. But they didn’t. Apparently (and I’m just guessing here), there are times of sponsorship by companies that give the fleeting illusion of decent wi-fi access. However, these times come and go without warning, or instruction for that matter. To try to hold a convention with educators used to ubiquitous access is nuts, if you don’t have the very tech tools you exhort them to use.

Second—Choose a better place. The Disney World experience is beyond the scope of this particular paragraph (more later), but, simply put, the hotels are too far apart and too difficult to get around between. When I found out that the route to my residential hotel (Disney’s Caribbean Beach) would be shut down for two hours in the mid-afternoon, I checked to see if it was possible to walk back. The two-word answer, “Not safely.” The other possibility was taking the Disney Resort shuttle service, which would whisk (or chug) me to a theme park, from which I could grab a connector back to my resort. I decided to wait until 4:30 and grade essays. Even the two convention hotels are a couple of miles away from each other. Disney World is so structured that one almost must take motorized transport (preferably a Disney shuttle) to get between any amenities.

As an addendum to the previous paragraph—I hope you got a SMOKIN’ deal on the venues, NCTE, because otherwise it’s not worth it. Disney’s certainly got a lot of the attendees’ money to boost the corporate bottom line, so I hope the organization benefited as well.




So, what color is the sky in Disney World? Totally other. Walt Disney’s vision of an integrated amusement center has come true over the last almost 40 years, and it’s a brave new world. Most of this world’s elements relate to the complaints I’ve voiced. But where shall we start?

It’s impossible to walk anywhere safely except inside the demarcated areas of the resorts and attractions. All the broad boulevards and freeways are bordered by pine woods (probably planted), with that difficult-to-penetrate thorny undergrowth and hanging moss characteristic of Southern forests. But there are no sidewalks or trails, either beside the roads, or into the woods. The only choice is to walk on the pavement or the relatively narrow grass verge.

However, all is pristine—no trash along the roadways, no billboards, few advertisements, and, interestingly, not that much traffic. I assume the ubiquitous buses on their routes are responsible for that lack of clutter. This does come at a cost; if the bus doesn’t come, you’re stranded, as I was for an hour and a half this afternoon.

And, by the way—pristine? It’s too pristine. The colors are there, the music is there (as in Aruba, the Holiday Inn-like complex where I’m staying), the beach is there, the water [no actual swimming in it] is there, but the life . . .? Here is the Caribbean, inhabited by Americans, Canadians, Japanese—an international set of consumers. The slums, the dive bars are nowhere to be seen. This is the Disney vision; a sanitized version of culture.

But it’s all good. I’ve just never been into the amusement park experience, and this is certainly the ultimate amusement park experience. What’s intriguing, though, is the way reality is screened from view in a place like this. As one rides the shuttle buses, one becomes aware that, half-glimpsed behind a screen of trees, are maintenance yards and commercial parking lots, lots that hold all the garbage trucks that haul the trash to keep the parks pristine.

And I’m conscious of a certain irony—Starbucks is an international chain, so why do I have a problem with Disney? (But I actually like Starbucks coffee, and the less tasty Disney version costs more.) I remember being impressed by places like Browns or Loch Fyne in Britain, until Nathan told me they were chains. But—again—I like their food or fish. So what does this mean? Do I just want choice in my patronization of conglomerates? But there is something more, something real. I see it in Mexico, at J.J.’s and Xoltis, in the Mazatzals and elsewhere. But, enough. At the top is a picture of my hotel, from across the lake, below, a picture of some flamingo-like birds that congregate like gulls around the resort, and, in the middle, the resort central restaurant and store where I do most of my eating.

Historic Churches in Scotland

Well, standing at John Knox's house in Edinburgh is an interesting experience. Knox--Scottish reformer, friend of John Calvin, revolutionary, political activist, founder of the Presbyterian Church--is one of the pivotal figures in the history of the Protestant Reformation. He steered the Scottish church (the Kirk) away from Anglicanism, though he got some strategic support from reformers in England under Elizabeth I. But he had written a misogynist attack against Mary of Guise and her daughter Mary, Queen of Scots, "The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women," that offended Elizabeth I. He took intransigent and sometimes contradictory political positions, depending on the situation in which he found himself.

That may explain the difference I saw between historic churches in Scotland and those in Britain, though I really don't have enough evidence to pronounce anything definitively. In Britain, as my video blog shows, churches still have standing as places of worship, and the interpretive material connected with them really makes their devotional purpose explicit. In the Scottish historic churches I visited, there is really no attempt to describe or explain the reformation in Scotland. One gets little sense of the history or development of Protestant Christianity.

I am at a loss to explain this. Reform in Scotland was a messier, yet more theological, process than in Britain. Yet, from all I see, Scotland is a more secular place even than Britain, one of the most secular societies in Europe. But then again, I didn't go to Saint Andrews, and didn't visit any Highland churches.

Video Blog for August 2, 2010

Here is the video blog on my GCU Facebook site, for last week. Over the next few days, I'll have more to say about historic churches and religion in Britain and Scotland. I'll also be talking about the Highland moors and the Scottish outdoors.

English Serendipity

In my video blog, I mentioned two things, that I'd gone to Oxford, and that I'd seen the Codex Mendoza (above). I pointed to both this, and a picture of Shakespeare that I'd seen exhibited last year, as examples of serendipity--useful blind luck of the find.

Anyhow, I'm interested in the Codex Mendoza because sometime around 1587, Richard Hakluyt, my research subject, who was working in France at the time (spying for Sir Francis Walsingham?) received this manuscript from Andre Thevet, the Geographer Royal of France at the time. Interestingly, around this time, Thevet and Hakluyt may or may not have had a falling out, because Thevet accused Hakluyt and Martin Basanier of essentially stealing a narrative about a French colony in Florida from him. But they must have worked it out. The Codex Mendoza is an important Aztec manuscript: in fact, if you could see the writing on the illustration on the left page, it's Aztec spoken language in Roman characters at the top, the Aztec ideogram in the middle, and Spanish on the bottom. But Hakluyt couldn't get anyone to engrave the illustrations, so he didn't print it before his death in 1616. It came to his self-appointed literary heir, Samuel Purchas, with the rest of Hakluyt's manuscripts upon his death, and Purchas printed it in his collection Purchas his Pilgrimes. From there, the manuscript came into the possession of Robert Selden.

So imagine my surprise, when on just an informal visit to the Bodleian Library exhibit room with no idea that it was there, I see the codex on display in an exhibit of the donation of Robert Selden, an exhibit which was to close on the next day. One doesn't always get that kind of luck.

That was just like my luck with the Shakespeare portrait last year, when in walking around Stratford, I came to the mini-exhibit of this portrait and its provenance (narrative of transmission). The portrait had just been in the news at that time, and I got to see it in detail. I wasn't supposed to take pictures in either case, as it turns out, but I did. It's better to apologize than to ask for permission beforehand.

RSC As You Like It 2010

The RSC Trailer

Before you read the rest of this, take a look at the RSC's trailer for this production (click on the link above). Keep in mind that this is one of Shakespeare's comedies, in fact from what's sometimes called his "golden period," the sunniest ones he ever wrote.

I hate to break it to them, but it still turns out a comedy, even when you skin a dead rabbit on stage. Even when you put Touchstone into a straitjacket and crazyman pants. Even when songs that generally would be sung by Amiens and Touchstone are put into the mouth of noir-Jethro Tull costumed Jaques. Even when you make "The Lusty Horn" song into a nightmare sequence for Celia.

I mean, there are anxieties in this play, chief among them the Freudian (note anachronism) male anxiety about cuckolding, which the intelligence and female friendship of Celia and Rosalind do nothing to allay in the comic version. But nihilistic anxieties of the type that the changed stage business attempts aren't really convincing.

The structure and language are too strong to push against, even though the play with its "humorous" (in the Early Modern Renaissance sense of character determination) elements suggests a kind of dispositional determinism that gets subverted by the "conversion" plot. In fact, this interplay produces a kind of happy chaos in which anything can happen, and in which characters end up overcoming their dispositions.

This is also my favorite script of a play, in pretty much a tie with Midsummer Night's Dream. I'd forgotten just how witty it is when played by stage experts. So, the language is too exuberant to be tamed to nihilism as well. It's free play instead.

But different takes are always enjoyable, and the attempt to heighten the negative emotional tension between Celia and Rosalind actually worked to underline some elements that generally go unnoticed in the play when worked as a comedy (like the adjudication scene at the beginning of MSND; that verdict could be pretty serious for Hermia).

So, two thumbs up (as opposed to index and middle finger up, palm facing the gesturer. It's a British thing.).

Video Blog for July 27, 2010

Video Blog for July 27, 2010

I'll write more later on several topics that I bring up in this video blog. For now, I need to teach!

Wicken Fen Odyssey (Redux)

Quick Note: Apparently I didn't write about our little odyssey last year, up the Southeast bank of the River Cam. But we did it. I promise.

For at least two years now, Chris has had a fixation with one of the last remaining wild fens (marshes) in the vicinity of Cambridge, Wicken Fen. Maybe it's because the visitor's center is called the Thorpe Visitor's Center (her maiden name). Cambridge lies at the edge of the Fens, which used to reach north to to King's Lynn from around Cambridge (http://www.cfsa.co.uk/denver_complexintroduction.htm). Wicken Fen is toward Ely, one of the major historic towns in the fens, and the year before last, Chris and I had bicycled to and from Ely. Of course, it's a 15 minute trip by train.

So now, we've been intrigued by the trails and towpaths that parallel the River Cam up to Wicken Fen. Allegedly, they are part of two major routes of the National Cycle Network, and a route from Cambridge to Newmarket (which Chris also wants to visit because of the horses) is also supposed to exist (http://www.cycle-route.com/routes/Cambridge_to_Newmarket-Cycle-Route-68.html).

Last year, we attempted Wicken Fen by the bike path leading out of Cambridge on the Northwest side of the river. Somewhere around Waterbeach last year, we switched sides of the river from northwest to southeast bank. They really should put out a mountain biking recommendation for that side of the river. With wide knobbys, it would be decent (outside of lifting the bikes over stiles), but with street tourers, not so much (see my post last year about it).

Well, this year, we decided to stay on the Northwest side, using Long Drove to get up to where the path supposedly begins in earnest again just on the other side of the river from Upware. Of course, there's no bridge there, so one would theoretically have to make about a 3-mile loop anyway, to get back down to Wicken Fen (then, again theoretically, on to Burwell, a scenic, interesting town, and on to Newmarket).

Alas, it was not to be. Another mountain bike recommendation is needed here, starting at the end of Long Drove. Again, city bikes, and this time we stood opposite a pub in Upware where we had had a meal last year. But we couldn't get there, nor could we face another mile and a half of jolting on what is in actuality a rough footpath. The panorama above commemorates the farthest point north that we got. That's Upware across there with those narrow boats. Sounded like a good party.

Instead, we turned back to Waterbeach, and to a nice pub there. The weather was partly cloudy and the wind flowed over the flat fenland. And so, the odyssey (and jinx) continues.

Love's Labours Lost and GCU Videos

I thought that I'd embed my GCU video blog posts in this site, for those of you who don't have, or want to have, Facebook accounts. I'll start with the July 5 one, go on to the July 11 one and finish with the one I did yesterday. After this, I'll just embed each video blog as I do it.

Now, to Love's Labours Lost: We saw the production at one of the Downing College interior courts, east of St. Catharine's. It was a bit hard to get to, as we had to go on a busy road next to Parker's Piece to find the college entrance. There happens to be bicycle parking well into the college itself, so we walked our bikes (which we'd just rented that morning) to the area, locked them, and went into the garden with our light supper of sushi. We'd spotted a bento box Japanese restaurant earlier in the week and though that a bento box apiece would be a great way to have dinner at garden Shakespeare. But bento boxes are only for lunch. . . . . So, in a compromise, we got sushi to take away: shrimp nigiri, cucumber roll, and cucumber and crab. Gotta love the wasabi and ginger (Jim only).

The production itself ended up being one of the better I've seen at Cambridge. As usual, the players interacted often with the audience, and as usual, made use of the natural features (in this case some intervening bushes and trees) to enhance the performance's visual values. I'm constantly amazed by how much can be done with very few props. The company numbered about 12 people, so several parts were doubled.

The players themselves do play to members of the audience; in this case, one of the male comic leads played to a pretty girl sitting in the front on the grass with her boyfriend. Another feature of these productions is the fact that the audience members bring beverages, which the actors sometimes share. In this production, several of the actors ventured into the audience for alcohol, and worked their responses to the drinks into the production.

LLL is an interesting early comedy of Shakespeare's; as its name implies, it doesn't end in marriage as most of his comedies do. This can lead to an interesting dilemma for actors and directors, in that the humor needs to be kept going, but the ending does not resolve the conflict. These players were especially adept at working that ironic register in the production, while keeping the mood light. The Don Armando character, I think, hit just the right note (the rest of the audience apparently thought so too, since the cast got a good ovation at the end), but the Berowne character ended up being a little too, let's call it "precious," since he's one of the main characters who is supposed to be hopelessly in love with the French ladies.

Outside playing is interesting in another way in Britain--one never knows when it will rain. The performance started out under partly cloudy skies, and remained so until the end. But we did get lightly rained on several times during the performance (lucky Chris and I had brought our rain jackets). The upside to this was about act three, when the players were playing under an evening rainbow, which remained in the sky for at least 15 minutes.

As I say, an excellent production, well-received, then home on bicycles with generator lights, through the club-hopping crowds, under a spectacular fireworks show from the Shakespeare performance at King's College at about 10:15. One takes one's life in one's hands to ride at that time of night, but the fireworks were worth it, almost 4th of July level.

Students and I had a chance to go to the Parker Manuscript Library at Corpus Christi College today, thanks to the other professors, Asa Mittman and Albrecht Classen. Professor Classen showed several manuscripts of English and Irish pilgrimage narratives, including The Travels of Sir John Mandeville and The Voyage of Saint Brendan. We also had a chance to tour the exhibit and the main meeting room. Photography is prohibited there.

In the afternoon, Dr. Mittman took his class over to examine some medieval maps and bestiaries. He knew the librarian well, and explained that this is the best collection of medieval manuscripts in English in the world, in his opinion. I don't doubt it. The Parker Library has also digitized almost its entire manuscript collection, which can be seen at this link: http://parkerweb.stanford.edu/parker/actions/page.do?forward=home. Here's a picture of the Matthew Paris manuscript we saw above from that website. One can't go on using "a once-in-a-lifetime chance" when talking about this experience, but it can be unique for professors as well as students. Certainly it was a unique experience for me to hear an art historian talk about the beauty of these medieval manuscripts and the meanings and symbolism of the maps contained in them.

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

Christian Worldview and Christian Perspectives

It has been a while since I've posted; three months, in fact. Much water under the bridge, but also much work that continues.

Here are some notes on the next phase of worldview training here at school. It will be important for instructors here to understand, if not accept, the basic history and priorities of Christianity, so that they can respect historically held and tested Christian perspectives. What follows is the beginning of a list of learning topics for the next possible phase of faculty training, realizing that the ultimate goal is to provide teaching and a curriculum that operates from a Christian perspective.

Christianity sees as central the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Alister McGrath explains the significance of Christ in three points:

"1. Jesus tells us and shows us what God is like.
2. Jesus makes a new relationship with God possible.
3. Jesus himself lives out a God-focused life, which Christians are encouraged to imitate" (4-5).

It does seem that these three points encapsulate a distinctively Christian point of view on the person of Christ. This fleshes out the Power Point element in the original presentation to faculty.

Of the various points that McGrath makes about the person of Jesus, the most germane to a Christian worldview seem to be the importance of his teaching, the crucifixion, and the resurrection. Probably each of these should be unpacked, and the importance of the meaning of the crucifixion and resurrection further explained.