Plug Five

kingremi — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:44:42 +0000

Here are some thoughts to toss around. I’ve gotten a few text messages from Bostonian friends, urging on the Phillies to crush the Yankees. (Forget, of course, that neither pennant has been won yet.) And, inshallah it be the case, I think the Phillies stand the best chance to do it.

The new Yankee Stadium is a launching pad. The Dodgers can play a quick small game, but the Phillies have the most fire power. In Yankee Stadium, everyone from Rollins to Werth is a homerun threat—as if it’s not enough of a gauntlet already.

Anyway, it’s great to still have baseball to watch, but it’s really affecting my productivity.

The Heart of Things

kingremi — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:40:56 +0000

This past weekend, visiting friends in Milwaukee, I was woken up each morning with a sports related text message. One brought an old friend, Mickey Morandini, back into my world for the fleeting seconds it took to read the message, the other soured my entire taste for the sport of football. Brian Dawkins has signed with Denver.
Why is it so easy to destroy, and so difficult to create? The pleasant memory of 1993 and Mickey and loving a city and a sport had nothing to hold on to compared to the free-fall of all my hopes and dreams knowing Dawkins was gone. We get over these things, of course, as I got over losing Reggie White the first time free-agency made me question the relationship of business and loyalty.
The mechanical and methodical functions of the Eagles’ businessmen is by now an old story. They are statistically sure of themselves (and, to their credit, have so far been proven correct) that loyalty contracts do not translate to on-field success. Their financial model has always been focused on the future, and not the past, and Bob Ford capably makes the case that this was the right decision. Despite my annoyances with the smug cap masters, I’m willing to trust their business acumen. Dawkins, however, presents a different case, and should be noted as the exception to the rule. Statistics are not infallible; they aren’t capable of measuring the human factors.

Les Bowen, whose columns I’ve cared less and less for over the years, puts it very simply:

There are two jerseys you see worn most at Lincoln Financial Field when the Birds are playing: No. 5 and No. 20. And No. 5 is not the guy who carries with him the passionate soul of the fan base.

Not since McNabb scrambled (circa 2002) could he be considered the heart of this team. After Dawkins was criticized for his week 2 performance against the Cowboys, admittedly weak, he responded against the Steelers by flying through the air, chopping his massive arms like a tomahawk, and stripping the ball in a marquee moment of defensive dominance. It took the team far too long to pull itself together, but that singular image kept fans afloat through the stormy middle of the season. No other player will deliver that.

Philadelphians need that player, and now they don’t have him. With all due respect to McNabb, who can become that player if he continues to stand up to management, Dawkins was the only person on that team who could do that. I feel like I’ve been suddenly banished to the Rich Kotite-Ray Rhodes era of Eagles, who lacked a standout character, and consequently produced awful to lukewarm to decent seasons of football.

Our fan base is justifiably insane because we identify with players and expect them to empathize with us. To outsiders, Philadelphia sports fans seemed disporportionately demanding. A failure to grasp this reciprical expectation will confound outsiders and doom our players who ignore it.

In John Berger’s essay “The Storyteller”, he talks about the story as the focal point of identification for a village. The analogy only becomes more clear when it is expanded in magnitude for the city:

The function of these stories… is to allow the whole village to define itself. The life of a village, as distinct from its physical and geographical attributes, is the sum of all the social and personal relationships existing within it… what distinguishes the life of a village is that is is also a living portrait of itself… constructed, not out of stone, but out of words, spoken and remembered.

Being an Eagles fan has a distinct meaning. The flying body of Brian Dawkins is one of the great images, the great stories, that we’ve told. If I had children who asked me, what is it to be a Philadelphian, I’d say simply to focus on your task and approach each day as Dawkins does each down. Show some clips on youtube, and figure out how you need to be spiritually read to throw yourself at the controlled chaos.

Now someone else will have to show how.

Religion: Not Bad

kingremi — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:24:21 +0000

While speaking with a parent on report card day, she mentioned something I had long gathered from overhearing student complaints: religion class pushes students away from religion.

I don’t teach religion. I know very little about how religion is taught at our school. But, from my own elementary experiences disliking Church and disliking CCD, to forsaking it completely, to now welcoming religion (even if in a somewhat unorthodox approach) in my life, I can sympathize with that mother’s concern. Religion classes did very little for me. It was not until I had sufficient context in other areas–notably poetry and philosophy–and life experience, that I felt comfortable considering myself religious.

Ultimately, due to the personal and subjective nature of my journey, I have shied away from proselytizing in class, or even really mentioning the peculiar religious mutt I’ve adopted. (For reference, take a Jesuit, give him the Heart Sutra, and then engage him in a discussion about the Bhagavad-Gita with Emerson… that’s kind of close.) Still, I think there are universal precepts of religion that get overlooked in class. As much as the focus is personal, I would hope that any students I have will always have an open mind towards everything presented in life, and that includes religion (as well as swaths of food they seem to unfairly scorn).

Here is the rough draft of a few series I’m working on, followed by some reflections I found.

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Religion is not a bad thing. It has been blamed for pretty much every evil in history, a distinction it shares with water, women, candy, money, land, and just about anything else anyone can think of fighting over. The soul, the spirit, the very core of our being—whatever that is—is the domain of religion. It is a study of belief and faith, defining them and arguing for them. It our reason, but it goes beyond it. Meister Eckhart, a medieval German theologian, illustrates this contradiction[1]:

Eckhart: The more God is in all things, the more He is outside them. The more He is within, the more without.

Studying religion asks us to examine the very core of our being. From where did our life come? What is that guarded spark inside of us that tells us who we are and why we are here? What force causes the grass to grow and the rain to fall? There are very clear scientific answers to some of these questions. A combination of rain, sunlight, and soil nutrients causes grass to grow.

But consider the causes. We can trace life backwards with science as far as the Big Bang, but then what? Aristotle didn’t believe in God as many of his contemporaries did, a godlike Zeus who made thunder; instead, Aristotle considered ‘God’ to be the First Mover, or Primary Cause. Predating Isaac Newton, he considered that at some point, everything was at rest, and someone or something, some force, got everything started. As the Taoists have said: “It is the author of causes and effects, but is not the causes and effects.” 2000 years have passed since Aristotle and Plato, and we are no closer to understanding or apprehending who or what ‘God’ is.

William Law: Though GOD is everywhere present, yet He is only present to thee in the deepest and most central part of thy soul. The natural senses cannot possess God or unite thee to Him; nay, they inward faculties of understanding, will and memory can only reach after God, but cannot be the place of his habitation in thee. But there is a root or depth of thee from whence all these faculties come forth, as lines from a centre, or as branches from the body of the tree. This depth is called the centre, the fund or bottom of the soul. This depth is the unity, the eternity—I had almost said infinity—of thy soul; for it is so infinite that nothing can satisfy it or give it rest but the infinity of God.

Both Eckhart and Law could only apprehend the notion of ‘God’ as a presence both within and without. It is present in both spaces, while also being absent from them. We must also discuss what I’ve called the ‘notion of “God”’. ‘God’ as a term is a placeholder. Like all words, it is symbolic of something else, but here more than anywhere else, that reference is a mystery. In some senses, we could say that it exactly stands for ‘mystery’, for what we will never fully understand. Though I use the term ‘God’, it is a cultural convenience.

Eckhart: The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God, as if He stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge.

It is a placeholder for that unknown Ground from which all life grows. That it is unknown implies that this is territory for discovery. And though millions of people throughout history have had their say about religion, writing scripture, lecturing congregations, amassing followers, directing policies, it must ultimately be a personal journey. Shankara, writing his treatise, Viveka-Chudamani (“The Crest-Jewel of Wisdom”) elucidated this independent path:

Shankara: The nature of the one Reality must be known by one’s own clear spiritual perception. It cannot be known through a learned man. Similarly, the form of the moon can only be seen through one’s own eyes. How can it be seen through others?

When a man or woman follows the ways of the world, or the ways of the flesh, or the ways of tradition (i.e. when he or she believes in religious rites and the scriptures as though they were intrinsically sacred), knowledge of Reality cannot arise in him or her.

This is to say that the true religious individual is not simply a studier of texts or a practice of rhetoric; the true religious individual has focused his or her mind on this divine Ground and in all his or her actions, an understanding of it, a peace with it, a being of it, are the desired ends. Religion is not about studying a test or attending church, it is about how one lives one’s life, and what one lives life for. Texts and ceremonies should not be shunned, but they must be appreciated as means to an end, not an end in themselves.

Beyond all, this divine Ground, and scripture or ceremonies we follow to help us comprehend it, should bring us a realization of our common humanity, what we share with all others, and what we share with all animals, all plants, all life, and even inanimate rocks and dirt. William Law calls it love. He says that “love is infallible; it has no errors, for all errors are the want of love.” As religion helps us understand ourselves, it helps us understand love free from possession. This is the love grass perceives when water drops from the sky, yet it is the same love that allows a young boy to be murdered in a city street—not from a lack of love, but from a want of it.

For all their uses, science and philosophy will not take us to this Ground, to God. The former attempts to explain the cause of what we already know, the latter asks how we know what we know, but only religion is adequate for exploring why we are at all.

Aldous Huxley: When the hope is to know God inclusively—to realize the divine Ground in the world as well as in the soul, temptations must not be avoided, but submitted to and used as opportunities for advance; there must be no suppression of outward-turning activities, but a transformation of them so that they become sacramental.

Pope John Paul II: Giving of yourself

It is more blessed to give than to receive. (Acts 20:35)

“What we have here is not simply a moral exhortation[2], or a command that comes to us from without. The inclination to give is rooted in the depths of the human heart. Every person is conscious of a desire to interact with others and everyone finds fulfillment in a free gift of self to others.

“When believers respond to the inner impulse to give themselves to others without expecting anything in return, they experience a profound interior satisfaction.

“The efforts of Christians to promote justice, their commitment in defense of the powerless, their humanitarian work in providing bread for the hungry, and their care for the sick by responding to every emergency and need draw their strength from that sole and inexhaustible treasure of love which is the complete gift of Jesus to the Father.”

· Consider these questions…

o Pope John Paul II makes an assumption that the feeling that makes us give is an intrinsic part of our nature. Do you agree?

o Is it possible to give and not expect anything in return?

o What does this have to do with Jesus?

[1] This whole paper has been assembled by using Aldous Huxley’s The Perennial Philosophy.

[2] need; directive

Short Honeymoons

kingremi — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:35:24 +0000

To say I’m disappointed in Obama so far is an understatement. I list my complaints, in no particular order, as follows: inability to adequately fill cabinet; silence on the black and white morality of the Blagojevich scandals; and, of course, a completely uninspiring non-response to the economic crisis. Force the banks to acknowledge their holdings are worthless. Geithner’s pathetic “we have a plan to come up with a plan” speech was anathema to a solution.

So I turn to e.e. cummings and wry political satire that is timelessly tuned into the human psyche. I have a feeling that trying to recreate this type on WordPress is going to fail, but here goes anyway.

opening of the chambers close

quotes the microscopic pithecoid President

in a new frock

coat(scrambling all

up over the tribune dances crazily

&&)&

chatters about Peacepeacepeace(to

droppingly

descend amid thunderous anthropoid applause)pronounced

by the way Pay the

extremely artistic nevertobeextinguished fla

-me of the(very pretty indeed)arra-

nged souvenir of the in spite of himself fa

-mous soldier minus his na-

me(so as not to hurt the perspective of the(hei

-nous thought)otherwise immaculately tabulated vicinity)invei-

gles a few mildly curious rai

-ned on people(both male and female

created He

then, And every beast of the field

It doesn’t add up…

kingremi — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:57:33 +0000

Suicides are up in Philly… but we won the World Series!

Good Marketing/Bad Marketing

kingremi — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:29:13 +0000

Bad Marketing: Kellogg says it won’t renew its agreement with Phelps because of his unfortunate tendency to be photographed when ripping a bong. This is a dumb idea.

Good Marketing: “Hi, I’m Olympic athlete Michael Phelps. When I’m blazed out of my mind, whether it be a bowl, blunt, or bong, the first thing I do is reach for a box of Frosted Flakes. They’ve got the taste to satisfy Olympic-sized munchies. Mmm mmm!”

An Effing Idiot-Rod

kingremi — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 19:09:18 +0000

The Blagojevich impeachment winds down, but the precedent that’s set by it is probably not the end-of-politics Rod has prophesized. This trial has presented an interesting challenge to news outlets because the juicy evidence, and those wiretaps are oh so juicy, is ripe with the forbidden fruit of print and broadcast: the word ‘fuck’.

How does the news relate this without involving the FCC? The fallback of [expletive] hardly does the word justice, and, well, there are so many expletives to sort through that it hurts the context as well. Apparently, we’ve found a solution:

“It’s an effing valuable thing. You just don’t give it away for nothing,’” Ellis said, quoting from federal court filings. “The governor wanted to make a trade.”

‘Effing’ is now a print-acceptable substitute for ‘fuck’. I think Blagojevich’s own words were ‘effing’, but it still surprised me that it wasn’t censored. Will it work as well on the news? It’s hard for me to imagine a respectable news anchor, picture Brian Williams for the time being, reading this quote on the Nightly News. Doesn’t it carry the same connotation? Doesn’t everyone know what we’re talking about here? At what point is this actually any different from the word itself?

Times a-Come

kingremi — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:25:51 +0000

I think I have quite a knack for anthologizing. While I’ll always be an ‘album-first’ music listener, I am a huge fan of the mix tape (or, as I should probably start calling it, the mix CD). In fact, I love them so much, I think that’s going to be the subject of a new page. I’ll do that later, when I’m not doing the lesson plan I’m not doing right now.

Lately, Neil Young has dominated my listening. In class, I’m beginning to teach all these indispensable methods of literary analysis in the tenth grade, notably plot, theme, and conflict. Being confessional, Neil Young creates a very vivid character in his songs, and it wasn’t long until a story formed. It isn’t meant to depict him, of course, but the themes he sings about.

I present my latest mix:

Act I:

1. The Loner

2. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

3. Are You Ready for the Country

4. When You Dance You Can Really Love

5. Sugar Mountain

6. Southern Man

7. For the Turnstiles

8. Don’t Let It Bring You Down

9. Heart of Gold

10. Down by the River

11. Old Man

Act II:

12. Vampire Blues

13. The Needle and the Damage Done

14. Cinnamon Girl

15. Tonight’s the Night

16. On the Beach

17. Walk On

18. Comes a Time

19. On The Way Home

For those who are as nerdy as I am and want to see the plot construction, it is like so:

Exposition, 1-2: character and setting
Rising action A, 3-4: beginning of journey; love/destiny
Complication, 5-6: initial setback; attempt at destiny
Complications, 7-8: self-doubt; loss of faith
Rising action B, 9-11: journey of self-discovery; renewed commitment
Rising action C, 12-13: second setback; challenge to faith
Climax, 14-16
Resolution/Denouement, 17-19: last man standing; home regained

Some Kind of Salvation

kingremi — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:57:24 +0000

Laptop! Alive! Kind of… very slow. Very sluggish. We are entertaining a period of hospice right now. So happy to have it back. I’m just the least bit embarrassed at what a wash the three weeks without it have been. It’s alarming that in just 6 short months, my life became dependent on this little box. Thing was, just the difference in weight in my backpack was disabling. The lightness was distracting.

Can’t complain about it now. Back to the grind.

Back to the Beginning.

kingremi — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:35:11 +0000

From: ***** *****
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2009 2:11 PM
To: Michael Kauffmann
Subject:

Mr. Kauffmann, you better be watching tha game!!!

From: Michael Kauffmann
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2009 11:33 AM
To: ***** *****
Subject:

*****,

As much as I wanted to turn it off after the first half, I did not. I endured, and tasted fleeting victory blowing through the desert air, only to have my worst fears, and habitual Philadelphia luck, once again dictate the outcome. Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl? What is this world coming to? I spent the remainder of my Sunday warming myself with hot chocolate and images of my World Champion Phillies parading down Broad Street.

The very worst thing about this is that nothing will change. Midseason, the whole city wanted Reid fired and McNabb dumped. Personally, I’m a huge McNabb fan, but I agreed that Andy Reid’s coaching was tired and predictable and a change was needed for this team to play up to the level of its talent. Then the defense–which Jim Johnson is responsible for, not Reid–became a brick wall and the offense played well enough to win and we made it to our 5th NFC title game, only to find ourselves exactly where we would’ve been if our season ended in December. The only difference now is that this improbable success will be considered sufficient evidence to keep everything just the way it is.

Great.

When does spring training start?

Sinerely,

~Mr. Kauffmann