Early returns

It's only one day. Everything could change after the first day.
Without getting into specifics, the first day back at work today was, shall we say, interesting. I fell right into a trap of my own design - since I had been the most successful person in my department at a specific task last year, I was given a more challenging slate of charges this year.
I sort of feel like whoever was Mike Dukakis' campaign manager. Clearly, that person must have been very good at something political beforehand - after all, you don't pick just anyone to run a national campaign. (Unless you're Howard Dean). When the phone rang from Dukakis, that ward-heeler was in a pickle.
Do you complain that the candidate is incompetent? Do you say something about the eyebrows? If you decline the offer, you kiss your career goodbye. If you take it ... well, bubba, you're gonna deal with the fallout.
And that's where I'm at: Managing fallout. That will be my primary task this year. Try not to piss anyone off. Try not to get shot. Try to keep them off-balance. And at the end, hope that somehow, I'm still standing.

There is a rumble

My windows are vibrating. Our house is hermetically sealed like a tomb. And the rumble just keeps coming. We go to the grocery, and drive around a container truck full of ice. Our church was empty. The streets of downtown BG are a strange milieu - pretty college girls and clean-cut fraternity boys walking on one side of the sidewalk, and the dirtiest, biggest, and scrawniest extras from "Deliverance" walking on the other side.
It is, of course, the weekend of the National Tractor Pulling Championship, a mere three blocks from my bedroom window. I am pretty sure that the hole in the ozone layer has moved north from Antarctica to a stationary position over Northwest Ohio, not just from the tractors, which are powered by unmuffled aircraft engines (seriously), but from the ridiculously huge trucks the spectators constantly drive up and down my street.
The tractor pulling fan is a real specimen to behold. They walk up and down the street near us, and we've seen them around downtown and at Kroger, etc. Apparently, though they can afford the $260 tickets, they are so destitute that they cannot afford shirts. Big ones, little ones, medium-sized ones - none of these dudes wear torso-covering apparel.
It will all end tomorrow. And it can't come too soon.

From the mouths of babes...

My adorable, innocent 3 year old is a giving soul. As we were in the basement doing arts & crafts today, she told me she wanted to make a volcano for her brother. I thought this was kind of funny, and cute. I asked if we should have lava comign out of it,
"No," she said. "That's too hot."
"I want to make a volcano of blood!"
I foresee years of therapy.

The exception that proves the rule

Last night, in a tidy American Legion hall near the river, a DJ came close to shattering my beliefs about the viral transmission of wedding trends.
Not only did this guy play the "YMCA," he went right into the "Macarena" and the "Cha Cha Slide." After an interlude of perennial wedding favorites "Celebrate" and "The Chicken Dance," he went right back to the well for the "Electric Slide."
At first I blamed the heavens and my dumb luck for hearing this stale old chestnuts. But then I realized that it actually helps bolster my argument. If the anti-YMCA movement is really spread virally, there have to be patients that are immune. Last night's couple were robust and healthy - fully capable of fighting off any wedding trend.
I called a friend on the way home, who assured me the YMCA will live on forever in isolated, controlled environments. Sort of like anthrax. But also like anthrax, the YMCA can be weaponized and used by The Evil Doers.
Semper vigilans.

The Little Guy

Yesterday's NY Times op-ed page had a fantastic piece by Thomas Frank, the guy who wrote "What's the Matter with Kansas?"
At surface level, the column was about how voters in Kansas rejected some ultraconservative members of the state board of education - but the conservative movement is still alive.
But the most important part of the piece came about halfway in - a crystallization of the real motivation for so many people who think they are conservative. He writes:

"The culture war ... is larger than any of its leaders, larger than its legion of citizen-activists, larger even than the particular causes in which these forces are enlisted. Seen from the streets of Wichita, the rightist rebellion of Kansas seems to fulfill that most romantic of American political traditions: the uprising of the little guy."

It explains a phenomenon I've marveled at for years: How has the conservative movement convinced so many people, like small business owners, farmers, and blue-collar workers to vote for candidates and issues that will actually hurt that specific voter?
Frank's one paragraph hits it on the head: Americans have always had a soft spot for the little guy. And for little guys like small businesspersons, farmers, and factory workers, the past 20 years have been positively brutal: First, it was the Japanese car companies. Then it was the Wal-Mart revolution that bankrupted small businesses across the nation. Then it was the factory farm movement of the past 15 years. While social liberals have picked at small, marginally relevant pieces of the puzzle ("Unionize Wal-Mart!" "Buy Union!" "Eat Vegetarian!"), conservatives have scrapped the entire frame of reference and focused on things completely unrelated that make the little guy feel like he is part of something bigger than himself. When's the last time you heard a conservative say anything about Wal-Mart? When's the last time a conservative congressperson passed legislation that addressed the specific needs of family farmers that didn't have the effect of making factory farms even stronger?
You don't. Instead, you get stem-cell research. School prayer. Charter schools. A flag-burning amendment. Gay marriage amendments. Attacks on the 'liberal media.' Weakening environmental regulations.
As Frank points out, in almost every issue conservatives argue against the combined forces of logic, research, and experts - the ultimate triumph of the "little guy." You'll almost never hear a conservative argument that cites "the bulk of scientific research is on our side" or "the law is clear on this matter," because their specific appeal is to the "wisdom of the common man."
It's all ingenius, and the strategy's as old as the hills. This "conservative" ideology is really the direct descendent of the hare-brained populism of William Jennings Bryan, Huey Long, and George Wallace. You can even find shades of Machiavelli - creating an enemy in "expertise" in order to consolidate your power among those who could eat you for lunch, and thereby make yourself (or your movement) the final arbiter of all societal decisions.
What I wonder is this: Where does one go to find actual conservative ideas today? For those of us who believe in a free market of consumer & industrial goods, balanced budgets, rational security choices, and a government whose authority stops at our doorsteps, where shall we send our loyalties?

I WANT TO GO HOME

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- I have been here for a week. A WEEK. It's beautiful. I've made friends. There was a time, not so long ago, when I loved to travel - days, weeks, sometimes the better part of months at a time. And I still love to travel. But I think the halcyon days of travel have passed.
For the past two days, I have longed for home like never before. It's not that I'm having a bad time - far from it, I have made some great friends, eaten GREAT food, and learned more than one would think possible in a one-week course. But I JUST. WANT. TO. BE. HOME.
- Wednesday night after class we loaded up on school buses and headed south to the Rhode Island shore at Narragansett. I ate lobstah, mussels, corn on the cob, and all kinds of great stuff. I went swimming in the ocean at night under the moonlight. I was virtually by myself, no lifeguards, only about three other people even within my field of vision. Probably horribly dangerous. But a wonderful, wonderful experience that reminded me of one day in 2002 when I got to jump off the side of a ship for swim call. It was so amazing.
- Thursday night was laundry night. This will sound insane, but it was the best night of the week. I hopped a bus to Brown U., did laundry in a student neighborhood, came home to the hotel, ate some I-talian, and went home to do my homework. It was alone time. It sounds ridiculous, but I felt much less lonely being by myself. I think I need to go to the anti-social behavior class next year.
- Tonight was the first night since we have been here that the heat index was below 100 degrees. I celebrated by walking to the RI state capitol and walking around the grounds. I then had dinner at Dave and Busters with a new friend who teaches in Newark. We played a trivia game for a looooong time. Note to the wise: Never challenge teachers to a trivia game. I won 1,780 tickets and got all the souvenirs my kids will ever need.
And tonight ... tonight I just want to be in my bed, even though I know my kids are up and being crazy and that my wife is a SAINT for dealing with it. I miss you all terribly, even though I have made some great new friends.