Relativism

What is wrong with the following sentence (other than the obvious heartbreak): “The thing is, is John just doesn’t love me anymore” ?

It’s the fake relative pronoun. A relative pronoun, obviously, is a word that begins a relative clause. In the sentence just previous to this one, the word is “that;” essentially, this pronoun melds two sentences, “a relative pronoun is a word” and “the word connects two relative clauses,” into one. Other such pronouns in modern English usage are who, whom, whose and which, as you no doubt know from grammar class.

Correctly, the opening example should be “the thing is that John doesn’t love me,” or merely the invisible “the thing is, John doesn’t love me.” Over the years, however, I’ve noticed people inserting an extra “is” in sentences like this because their brain tells them (assumedly) that something is missing from the more natural, more colloquial relative clause “, John doesn’t love me.” In many languages, one needs a relative pronoun at all times; it is not optional (C’est que John me n’aime plus) like it sometimes is in English. This option appears to cause confusion. Should there be something more? What if we just repeat “is”?

In the end I can’t pretend to know the motivation of the human brain, but I do find this phenomenon interesting. I predict that in the future, we may begin to see “is” labeled as a dialectical relative pronoun, much like the “what” found, for example, in archaic rural outposts of the UK: “The boy what eats more meat gets more dessert!”

As a side note, from the quick search I did on the internet, I did not see any research on this subject. I’m totally calling it, then.

Terse editorial

Editors want writers to blow their socks off lyrically, yes. They also want them to be informative, relevant and concrete. These are two opposing sides to the same coin. The coin may land face-up or face-down, depending on the publication, but most often, the two sides should spin in a silver whir, scarcely distinguishable. In all your drive to educate, remember your own humanity; in all your wit, remember to be accessible. Dry jargon falls on deaf ears, as do obscure jokes.

Editors build relationships with their writers. If you are unknown to them (or, worse, they remember you badly), they may ignore you, particularly if you’ve taken it upon yourself to reinvent the wheel with your query format. Your job is to gain their trust. They’ve provided rules on how to do this the first time around: they’re called submission guidelines. They are a handy shortcut to the editor’s heart.

Editors will judge you quickly. It’s their job. They get hundreds of queries a day, month, year. Dealing with poets, CEOs and PR reps makes them suspicious of anything that looks too flighty, too stolid or at all self-promotional.

What to do with frozen lettuce

I’m back to my culinarily-creative self, which involves not wasting anything. Including a head of lettuce I pulled out of my crippled fridge last night intending to make salad, only to discover it was crunchy with ice.

I stared at it until I recalled once making soup out of lettuce. Now, generally something this weird would not occur even to me, but I had pulled the recipe out of… I couldn’t remember… either my fancy soups cookbook or my fancy French cookbook. I checked, and yes, there it was in the French cookbook: Petit pois aux laitues. I vaguely recalled that it was actually quite tasty, and soup sounds better than salad in November anyway.

So you cook one chopped onion at the bottom of a saucepan, in butter (or really fatty gravy… my adaptation, since it was sitting in the fridge too) until it’s soft, then add one can of peas, one diced/cooked potato (try the microwave if you haven’t got leftovers), MSG-free chicken broth, just enough so the ingredients are covered and aren’t crushed at the bottom of the pan, and the head of lettuce, also chopped up (The recipe also called for an apple, but I didn’t have one, so I added a dash of Superfood juice). Let this come to a boil, reduce heat, and then — this is important — reduce it to a finely grated state, using either a food processor or one of those soup whips the French love. So at this point you should have a lovely consistent green soup; a lighter, more textured take on split pea. Season this with salt, pepper, lemon zest, a dash of cayenne, thyme, etc., to taste. Add some chopped-up ham if you have it. Simmer, and then for the finishing touch, separate three eggs, and add some of the soup to the yolks. Add this mix to the soup, stir, and let simmer for ten minutes or so; don’t overcook the eggs.

(Note: the recipe also called for cream, which would be added with the eggs, but I didn’t have any of that either)

Eat with: croutons, grated Parmesan/Gouda. Save the egg whites for tomorrow.

Theory of divorce

God hates divorce. I think the question should be asked, though, as to why. If God is not just some arbitrary sprite creating a disorganized maze for us to scramble through to reach the peanut-butter middle of eternal life, then there should be a compelling reason or two. Malachi hints that it has something to do with violence and breaking faith.

This makes sense, because divorces are typically nasty. Rarely do you get such open displays of hostility between two people who have loved (or claim to still love) each other — slander, blackmail, pushing the other near bankruptcy, using your own children as pawns, backbiting, malice, envy and so on. If you have the aforementioned children, the toll on them is usually negative. If you have a common social group, the result on them is typically negative as well; they, like the children, may feel forced to pick sides and cast blame, and thus grow distant from one or both parties. But at least they are not intrinsically tied to the parties; worst case in this mobile society, one or both parties could just move somewhere else to alleviate the awkwardness. Children are in it for the long haul.

But assume you manage an amicable divorce and there are no children. Does God still hate divorce? For Christians this should be a serious question. The Bible doesn’t give very broad permission to end marriage: the New Testament seems pretty clear that the only reason to legitimately end a Judeo-Christian marriage is adultery. Also, if you’re married to an unbeliever and the unbeliever leaves you, then you have not [necessarily] sinned.

This leaves out a lot of things: fraud, abuse, negligence, committing a serious felony and so on. In a quick search I did online, one pastor noted that if your spouse is doing something this evil, he/she isn’t really a Christian, so the married-to-an-unbeliever clause applies.

First of all, this isn’t true. People can be totally terrible, see their need for redemption, backslide 10 or 12 times a day, and still call themselves Christians. Given the command to forgive “70 times 7,” backsliding isn’t a legitimate reason to say people aren’t serious about their faith. They may not be, but then again, who are you to say? You’re supposed to forgive them. Second, even if your spouse is clearly the most evil [asexual] person to have walked the planet this side of the Rockies, if you’re not the one deserted, you’re supposed to stay. Biblically speaking. Yes, even if the spouse is beating you routinely, eating animals alive and raising your children to sacrifice to the river gods. Because by your example you may yet change this behavior!

Frankly, this doesn’t make a lot of sense. If you’re supposed to be raising children and reflecting to them, yourselves and the outside world a picture of Christ and the church with your marriage, what good does the blasphemy of terrible marriage/parenthood do to anyone, least of all the people in it? Maybe here something like the very general command “Have nothing to do with them” would apply. Avoid such people before they contribute to your progeny or further destruction.

At this point a few people are probably going to be vaguely thinking one of a few things: A) if you married someone that bad, you deserve the fruits of your stupidity, genius. B) I don’t care what examples you come up with; the Bible is still inerrant. The most direct route must be applied, too, so no jumping around with this “avoid such people” nonsense. That may sound harsh, but God’s ways are not our ways. No matter what, I’m going to side with the Bible. C) It’s all about sex. The Bible is just trying to protect the one-man/one-woman model. I’m sure abused women/men can separate from their husbands/wives, they just should never have sex with anyone again. D) Ok, fine. Get divorced if you feel like your life is in the balance or something. But you’d better prove to me that you had a good reason. Like maybe a printed-out police report.

Possibly just seeing such vague thoughts outlined renders them too uncomfortable to espouse, but if not, see the following responses:

A) bad marriages are not the result of stupidity/gullibility per se. And even if they are, stupidity/gullibility isn’t a sin. Thus, nobody should be doomed to be forever stuck its consequences on the grounds of moral outrage. This is grace, not hell. Or, at least, it should be.

B) Does this mean no matter what, you’re going to side with the Bible on everything, or just this point? The Bible is also OK with slavery — or at least doesn’t condemn it — and to deal with rape, the rapist is supposed to marry the [unpromised] girl he rapes. If you’re willing to be consistent to the point that you’ll suggest this biblical approach when you / your daughter / your sister is raped and/or enslaved, then I’d applaud your consistency, but not necessarily your sanity. I suspect that these laws on rape and marriage were in place to shelter women who otherwise had no protection… women had no standing to get a divorce in Biblical times; their husbands, on the other hand, could quite easily divorce them.

Also, if men saw that women they had sex with were then their responsibility, they may have engaged in less “no strings attached” sex at a period in history when a woman had no way of raising a child alone… but in times when women can support themselves, this is not such an imperative. In fact, most women now would probably prefer not to be supported by a guy who’s taken advantage of them, either in marriage or out of it.

And do you really disagree with this cultural model as strongly as you think you do? If you’re a strict Biblicist in the sense that you think culture should have no bearing whatsoever on the intent of the command, then please reconcile the fact that, in the event that a precious female is taken from you and sold to the highest bidder in Amsterdam or Nevada, you should be encourage her now, in the interest of instilling biblical virtues in her, to obey her pimp, particularly if he’s giving her food and shelter, rather than encouraging her to slit his throat/run. Both are highly unbiblical responses to subjugation, even by the heathen.

C) One man/one woman? The only place (that I am aware of) where this is held up as something to shoot for in all of scripture is if the man is a pastor/teacher. Polygamy was the norm in nearly all the instances of marriage mentioned in the Bible. The big thing here was raising up heirs, not making sure everyone in the world had one and only one sexual partner. A widow was passed to her husband’s next-of-kin; she could publicly humiliate him if he refused her. Solomon, the wisest guy on earth, had more concubines than the average NFL player. Granted, this was seen as leading to his downfall, but only rather incidentally.

D) Two words: slander/gossip. If someone isn’t willing to trash-talk their ex-spouse, that should be a good thing. As God is the judge, not you, don’t try to force out the dirty details, even to absolve someone in your mind. Maybe the divorce wasn’t for a good reason. On the other hand, maybe it was. And maybe it just isn’t your business.

In closing, let it be noted that this was something that even the disciples had trouble comprehending… and Jesus didn’t seem to push it.

Matthew 19:8-11
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”
11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given…”

Also, the point behind all Biblical commands is showing love, even, it appears, the command to submit to authority (be it to a master, lord or Caesar). This is not at all to say that all things done in the name of love are right (any more than all things done in the name of God are right), but it certainly should call for an attitude check.

Romans 13: 1-10
1 Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established….3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. …
8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Affirmative responses: not always so clear cut

English, though not exactly on the same context level as Chinese, can still present problematic nuances to second-language learners, even advanced ones. Consider the following possible affirmative responses (said in a fairly neutral voice) to the rather nerve-wracking request “Would you like to go out with me on Friday? To see that show? I hear it’s good”:

response using “Ok”
1. Ok!
2. Oh, Ok.
3. Oh, that’s Ok.

response using “right” and “yeah”
1. Yeah, right on.
2. Right. Yeah.
3. Yeah, right.

response using “sure”
1. Sure!
2. Ok… sure.
3: I’m sure.

Obviously, 1 means yes, 2 means a far less enthusiastic yes, and 3 means no. Any other questions?

Glossy posse

There’s a stack of fashion magazines at my sister’s house, Glamour and Vogue. And, man, the headlines are all the same, blurring together from issue to issue: 3 flat belly secrets, 100 sexy looks you can afford, 50 things your man wishes you knew, 25 ways to wear this season’s clothes.

The best jeans for your body. The best bathing suit for your body — though, strangely, the wetsuit, which alone has that all-over smoothing effect, is missing from these pages.

Ironically, “shape” (fat?) and “age” (wrinkles and saggy flesh?) are “celebrated” on these same covers in the persons of Beyonce and Christy Turlington. The message being, I suppose, that even if you weigh more than 110 pounds and/or have passed the age of 25, you’ve still got a shot at killing yourself over some ridiculous ideal.

Meanwhile, what’s written inside is something along the lines of: “hey, you beautiful, bold woman! Listen to this! No matter how little you look like the people in this magazine, I’m sure there’s some guy out there who’s going to think you’re The One, if you can just convince yourself, by dint of effort, self-empowerment, and the right wardrobe, that you’re worth something. Because the hottest thing ever is confidence!”

And I sit there thinking: are you serious? Are women really this insecure and deluded?

Confidence I can definitely appreciate. But it has to be the right kind of confidence. It has to be the kind of confidence that says: when I’m in my grubby clothes working outside, and when I’m scrubbing the floor, and when I’m trying, but failing, at beating you at the 100-meter dash, and when I’m trying, but failing, at mountain biking up this hill, and when I’m trying, but failing, at making you see my point, you’d still be crazy not to see through the grime and recognize the soul behind it. I do not need $2,000 worth of designer gear to give me courage. I do not need plastic surgery to give me courage. This is not even a thought in my mind, because I, among all the women of the world, can alone offer you myself, and the self you would become with me, too. And if you choose another self, I will not die. Perhaps that is even wise of you, and I will see it in time, also.

It is less the confidence of an easy conquest (for this, too, shall pass) and more the confidence that all can be right with the world.

Even if my hair is flat. And even if the man I want right this second doesn’t want me.

Free trade starvation

I am sitting at a coffeeshop, a free-trade coffeeshop, drinking pomegranate green tea and soy milk. My hair, which was nicely bodified by a day of being twisted up and which I have not washed since, testifies to the fact that I belong. So, ironically, does my Mac laptop, the Canon camera at my feet, the two CDs and a book that lie at my elbow. I am part of the post-industrial return to nature, and as such technology and information excess are as necessary as clean air. Maybe more so, because I’m breathing exhaust as I type.

The book at my elbow is one that I picked up free of the lunchroom table at work: the Omnivore’s Dilemma. In it, I have learned that since 1977, the American’s daily caloric intake has risen 10 percent or more. Not because we’ve gotten 10 percent more active, but because of the sheer abundance of our food — mostly corn from the Midwest, which is transformed into our processed food (organically speaking, a McDonalds milkshake is 78 percent corn; chicken nuggets are 56 percent corn) and the calories for our corn-based, overcrowded feedlots. In the 1970s, overproduction began to be encouraged to drive the price of food down, and has been subsidized ever since by government pay-outs to farmers who would otherwise not be able to cover their costs. This has resulted not just in cheaper food, but more of it — both to export and to clutter up the domestic table. It has also resulted in heavy reliance on chemical fertilizers, pesticides, antibiotics, and on and on. We don’t technically need this much food, so why are we producing it, when the expense (both to taxpayers and consumers) is so great?

Perhaps because it’s so easy to do so. The contrast in the book is a Christian environmentalist “grass farmer” who has, for example, created a near-natural habitat wherein he grazes cattle on grass (meanwhile, the cows spread seed and dump manure) and brings chickens in after them to clean up (meanwhile, the poultry eat fly larvae before they can turn into pests and dump nitrogen). The rotation has made once-barren land fertile and produces the tastiest food his customers have come across. Although the “real work is done by the animals,” orchestrating the movement of the herds (with portable electric pens), preparing for winter, and selling the produced food still requires long hours. Way longer than jumping in the John Deere and unloading hybrid seed row by row. But also way more interesting. I am almost tempted to pull a Candide and cultivate my garden for a living.

So that’s the book. The CDs I got by exchanging books I no longer wanted (and had no space to keep) for store credit. The Canon is digital, and thus does not involve printing chemicals and so on. A bit of a stretch, since it needs battery power, but I’m in the process of describing the consistency of this paradox here at the free trade coffeeshop. I need the camera, and the computer, to justify my alternate lifestyle and alternate hairstyle to the rest of the world. Because the world is obviously watching me.

I advise the world to do the following: start eating 10 percent less. This will cure obesity, extend your life, extend the lives of your grandchildren, help fix the national debt, and rescue your mortgage payments. While you’re at it, maybe you should conserve water by only showering every other day, too.

The New Socialism

Socialism to the literary skeptic means 1984 (where Ingsoc, shorthand for English Socialism, rules with an iron fist for the Party’s good pleasure), or Harrison Bergeron (where everyone is pulled down to the lowest common denominator so that finally everyone is equal). To the redneck, it means not being able to call any land his own*. To George Orwell, it meant “liberty and justice” — provided, of course, that it wasn’t perverted like every other political philosophy in the world. To Wired magazine, it means the internet — open-sourced and crowdsourced forums. “When masses of people who own the means of production work toward a common goal and share their products in common, when they contribute labor without wages and enjoy the fruits free of charge, it’s not unreasonable to call that socialism.” –Wired, “the New Socialism,” Kevin Kelly, June 2009.

You are reading this free of charge as I offered it free of charge. See? Socialism. You don’t even see any ads here.

Still, community-driven projects do not a commune make. Working towards a common goal and sharing the products results in church potlucks, Sorority sister clothes swaps, Amish barns, and strings of Constitutionalist pro se legal cases as well as hippie Co-ops. Community is not owned by the socialist. Community has always existed. One could even argue that Capitalism is a communal arrangement, since it is based on services within a community. It’s supposed to be “fair” in that if your service is worthless, or you’d rather lie in bed all day, you’re penalized by the community. Since it doesn’t quite work out that way, we have endless checks and balances, from tort law to Goodwill to unemployment.

The irony is that George Orwell blamed cheap luxuries for the indulgent state of the 20 million underfed Englishmen at the time — the cheap sweets, cheap clothes, cheap entertainment, and the penny on the lottery kept the coal miners and those on the dole sufficiently happy that they wouldn’t complain about the fact that their two-room houses were freezing and full of bugs, that they had little sanitation, that their nutrition was atrocious, and that they were wiling their lives away doing next to nothing.

Cheap luxuries are the opiates of the masses, not religion. And what cheaper luxury is there than the internet? Even if you can’t afford a second-hand laptop and some pilfered wifi, there’s always the public library. iPhones aren’t all that pricey, either — the Wall Street Journal recently had an article about a homeless man who kept up with everything via his vital daily social networking feeds.

You didn’t need a home or anything. You just need Facebook. This “new socialism” may prevent the old socialism in more ways than one (Or you could just call it bread and circuses, with the clever programmer replacing the clever chariot-racer. If Al Gore invented the internet, it was a smart political move).

*Currently, he calls even land mortgaged over its actual value his own. This is the great benefit of Equal Opportunity Capitalism, which is not the same thing as Socialism.

Between the Walls

We saw the Class yesterday, though at first I had sort of hesitated, asking myself if I really wanted to relive teaching unmotivated French adolescents from the lower classes. Class, itself, has its own subtleties. It always does.
I had my jaw agape the whole way through thinking that this had to be some sort of semi-documentary, because there was no way an acted scenario could be that accurate. From the click the peeved African student would make to the utter chaos of students talking over each other to the teachers’ dialogues, it was all there. Although I have to say, a couple of things confused me:
1. The teacher only appeared to have this one class. I’ve never even heard of that. Granted, the movie was more appealing focused on 25 students rather than 250.
2. The students were frankly a bit more curious about language than I ever remember. Granted, I was teaching 90 percent boys in a vocational school, which is merely the threat lurking over the heads of the jr. high kids in the movie.
A couple of things also became clearer. First of all, nobody ever told me that if a student referred to me as tu rather than vous, it was grounds for severe punishment. The reaction of the other students in the class at the time hinted at it, and I didn’t like it, but still. Second, the whole ethnicity thing is really interesting.
Nearly all the ethnic kids in the movie, and in my classes, were culturally Muslim and of sub-Saharan or north African descent. This didn’t mean they got along. However, it did contribute to a potential group hostility that was missing from any other class I’ve taught anywhere. It wasn’t just race, or religion, or situation; it was sort of this toxic combination of cultural norms. It was worst in the boys. Take the vague cultural assumption, probably never expressed but latent in most home life, that women should be covered head to toe to qualify as modest and that men are naturally more right and holy than women, and add emerging testosterone. With students from sub-Sahara this was counterbalanced by traditional matriarchal roles; interestingly, in the parent-teacher conferences in the movie, the African student’s mother is the one who attends, while the Arab student has his father present.
But add to this mix government-subsidized housing rife with dozens if not hundreds of similar boys. Add to this mix ennui. Add to it the Western adolescent fantasy that though we’re too important to do our degrading homework, we deserve whatever we want. Add to it no job skills (a logical result of the above). Add to it no money (a logical result of the above). Add to it that in France, to do anything or be anybody, you’ve kind of got to have money.
This is what you get. This is not all of what you get, either bad or good, and the movie does a good job expressing the humanity behind and surrounding this. Still, I doubt anyone leaving the theater will be suddenly inspired to teach in France’s low-income housing or in the vocational schools.