VirusHead

The Supreme Court Nomination Blog

Check this one out for very detailed coverage on the John Roberts nomination – a great resource.

I’ve been interviewed by just-rambling, and here are my responses:

1. What are three words you would use to describe yourself?

fair-minded, spiritual, progressive

2. What do you consider your most significant accomplishment?

Finishing the PhD despite all setbacks and obstacles and after so nearly giving up.

3. If you had the power to change one (and only one) thing in the world, what would it be and why?

oooh, so many thoughts. Um. Well.

If I had the power to do so, I would increase every person’s capacity and inclination to make judgments based on a careful and compassionate attention to diverse perspectives – especially in the cases where prejudices would tend to preclude their consideration. Why? I think it would change almost everything if more people could tolerate a contextualist ethics. It would encourage the toleration of complexity and ambiguity without stranding anyone upon a helpless morass of indecision. It would decrease both the dehumanization and the romantic idealization of others. It might even make some headway into the problems of greed and corruption. It would certainly give us a decent ground for discussion, especially regarding difficult and controversial issues that divide us as well as “group” us. Anyway, it would be a start – and it would be something that I think would have a minimum of negative consequences.

4. If you found a penny on the sidewalk, would you pick it up or leave it there?

Pick it up – don’t you know all the day you’ll have good luck? (grin)

5. If you could go back in time and meet yourself 10 years ago, would you tell your former self anything about the future?

Only ten? Yes, I would tell my former self about the future – she really needed to hear that everything in her personal life was going to be ok – that she would be happily married, that she would have a wonderful son. I would warn her to spend more good time with Dad before he was gone. Most of all, I would tell her to stop researching, stop driving herself nuts trying to write the masterpiece of the century, and just start writing 8-9 pages a day on that dissertation. If I had finished writing it then, I wouldn’t be anywhere as deeply in debt, I would have been the first to write on the topic, and I would probably have gotten a tenure-track position while universities were still hiring in the humanities in interdisciplinary fields. I could have saved myself a truckload of misery if I had taken it all less seriously. I would tell her that the loans were already accruing interest while she was in school (she didn’t know). I would have told her that some of the things she thought were so important wouldn’t matter very much in ten years – of course I would have told her which ones! My 31-year old self was floundering – I would give her an informed refocus and pep talk. I wouldn’t tell her everything – just enough for her to avoid a few significant time-wasters.

Here are the rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying ‘interview me please’
2. I will respond by asking you five questions (not the same questions you see here)
3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions

Unconscious Mutterings Free Association Meme – Weekly

1. Risks::Toll
2. Abdominal::cramps
3. Radiant::heat
4. The usual::snafu
5. Mix and match::bikini
6. Wireless::remote
7. Remedial::action
8. Mile::longest
9. Long lost::friend
10. Only one::desire

Black Skin

I’ve learned something new today about early JW doctrine. They believed that God would turn everyone’s skin white in Paradise so that they would be perfect! Something really obvious – just as a sidenote to this – is that despite its worldwide pseudo-liberationist appeal, the “Governing Body” (the “annointed”) has always been composed of white males – with the recent addition of Samuel Herd as the first (and only) person of color.

Check out these quotes from jwfacts.com

Watch Tower July 15, 1902, p.216 “Noah declared, prophetically, that Ham’s characteristics which had led him to unseemly conduct disrespectful to his father, would be found cropping out later, inherited by his son, and prophetically he foretold that this degeneracy would mark the posterity of Canaan, degrading him, making him servile. We are not able to determine to a certainty that the sons of Ham and Canaan are the negroes; but we consider that general view as probable as any other.”

Watchtower 1904 February 15 pp.52-53 “Can the Ethiopian change his skin?” “What the Ethiopian cannot do for himself God could readily do for him. The difference between the races of men and the differences between their languages have long been arguments against the solidarity of the human family. The doctrine of restitution has also raised the question. How could all men be brought to perfection and which color of skin was the original? The answer is now provided. God can change the Ethiopian’s skin in his own due time. Prof. H. A. Edwards, Supt. of Schools in Slater, Mo., has written for the public press an elaborate description of how Julius Jackson, of New Frankfurt, Mo., a negro boy of nine years, began to grow white in September, 1901, and is now fully nine-tenths white. He assures us that this is no whitish skin disease; but that the new white skin is as healthy as that of any white boy, and that the changed boy has never been sick and never has taken medicines”

Watchtower July 15 1902 The Negro Not A Beast pp. 215-216. “While it is true that the white race exhibits some qualities of superiority over any other, we are to remember that there are wide differences in the same Caucasian (Semitic and Aryan) family; and also we should remember that some of the qualities which have given this branch of the human family its preeminence in the world are not such as can be pointed to as in all respects admirable….The secret of the greater intelligence and aptitude of the Caucasian undoubtedly in great measure is to be attributed to the commingling of blood amongst its various branches; and this was evidently forced in large measure by circumstances under divine control.”

The Bible versus Evolution p.30 “(God) has specially blessed and favored certain branches of the Aryan race in Europe and America. But the fact, that the white race has been more abundantly blessed with the light of the Gospel than others, is not to be understood to signify that when members of other races heard and appreciated the Gospel, they were repulsed or rejected by the Lord. … While the elect Church will probably be composed chiefly of the highly favored white race, nevertheless, it will probably have in it representatives out of “every kindred, people and tongue.”

Ancient history, of course, and not at all uncommon in Euro-American religious groups. Still…

I’m one of those people who really mourn. I suddenly remembered that Roddy McDowall is dead, and felt a pang. So many memories – Lassie Come Home, the Bookworm on Batman, the Planet of the Apes movies, Cleopatra, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Poseidon Adventure, Funny Lady, The Cat from Outer Space, Alice in Wonderland, Around the World in 80 Days – and even voiceovers (A Bug’s Life and Snowball on “Pinky & the Brain”). He did lot more, I know, but these are the things I remember. I don’t know why I suddenly think of certain movie and television stars who have died and miss them so terribly – it happens all the time.

Since we can buy or rent their images, it seems as though we have a Book of the Dead to open anytime that we want. The images somehow represent absence through their presence – more so for film (or dvd). Perhaps religious beliefs about avoiding images may have a certain truth embedded in it. Perhaps we are all idolators at heart.

On the other hand, Roddy McDowall himself worked very hard to support film preservation and edited books of his own photographs (including many other stars). He collected movies and a few days before he died of the cancer that had spread all over his body, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences named its photo archive after him. So, in that spirit I’ve made a little graphic of some of my favorite photos of him (and changed them enough that I hope I’m not treading on any copyright/permissions issues).