"The best way to get the sons of bitches is to make people laugh at them." - Molly Ivins


I was really saddened tonight to learn that Molly Ivins had passed away. She's been my favorite columnist since the San Angelo Standard Times made the pretty brave move (in West Texas) of picking up her column when I was in high school.

I've always admired the way she could just write circles around every other newspaper columnist I've ever read (largely because she was so unpretentious). But more importantly, I've always admired her boldness and integrity. Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, as great as they are, have never held a candle to Molly Ivins when it came to speaking the truth to power and to using humor to set straight the incompetents who hold it. She was a true journalist.

It's been a sad year for Texas. Within the last year, we've lost Ann Richards and Molly Ivins. Thank God we've still got Jim Hightower left.

If you've never had a taste of Ivins's writing, here's her last column.

Here's a nice article I found from Newsweek on Pan's Labyrinth, that largely sums up what I liked about the film. It's by Rabbi Marc Gellman: 'Pan's Labyrinth' Is a Spiritually Important Film.

Pan's Labyrinth

Pan's Labyrinth, in my opinion, is the most remarkable movie of the year, at least among those I've seen so far (and I've seen a couple of pretty good ones). I can't stop thinking about it's beautiful and disturbing images, and I'm trying to build up the courage to go and see it again. I recommend it highly.

But with strong reservations. I'll likely buy it once it appears on DVD, but once I own it, I'll likely not be able to watch it. Certainly, not very often. My recommendation comes with a warning. It's really difficult viewing. Really, really tough. And I'm usually not all that squeemish at movies.

It's not that there's a whole lot of violence. There's only four or five such scenes in the movie, but they are intense and graphic, the sort that'll stick with you for a long time. I went for a walk by myself in the park around twilight tonight, and I found myself walking home really quickly. I've taken that same walk several times a week for the last year and have never even thought about it. If you don't have a strong stomach, I'd not advise going to see this.

But it's a heck of a show. It's sort of a difficult plot to describe. The setting, as far as I could tell, was occupied Spain during WWII at a small army outpost in the mountains. The post is led by a sadistic, fascist captain who is trying to quell the last of the resistance. The protagonist is an imaginative little girl, Ofelia, whose pregnant mother has married the captain. Some members of the resistance are followed as well. The story is in the mode of magical realism, and so parts of it draw heavily on Norse mythology and (to a little lesser degree) on Christian theology. Ofelia ends up being visited by Pan, who informs her that she is a princess and gives her some tasks to accomplish so that she can save her magical realm and escape into it. So the movie then begins to follow parallel storylines, that of the resistance versus the captain and that of Ofelia's performing her quest. Of course, there's plenty of interplay between the stories, as they comment on one another, and in a pretty astonishing manner, converge.

That's a ridiculously simplified presentation of the plot, but hopefully enough to interest you. The story is grim, but rewarding. It explores, among other themes, the nature of fascism (and its disturbingly close proximity) and what it means and what it takes to resist. It gives you much to think about.

But don't say you weren't warned.

Reminder #28

Today, I needed to do some homework. So, I naturally was seeking anything I could do that would distract me from the thing I needed to do. I decided to clean my refrigerator. After all, it hadn't been cleaned in a year.

So I cleaned it. At first, I couldn't tell what all was in there. I have this habit of just putting all of my grocery bags in the refrigerator, rather than taking stuff out of the bags, and then putting it in there. So, the bags were blocking the view of everything. I cleaned them out.

It was pretty bad. I found a tomato with green sprouts of some sort growing out of it. It was oddly pretty, the colors of Christmas. I also found some smaller tomatoes that had dried out and bounced like ping-pong balls. I found some milk-based soup in a little tupperware dish that I would have liked to have kept. That soup wasn't moving, though, so it all got thrown away. I found three half-jars of pickle slices from when my sister lived with me for four months. She likes pickles. I found all of my missing catsup bottles. I don't have to beg for extra packets at Sonic anymore (I was sick of buying more and more catsup). I found some coffee creamer that had an expiration date from 2005. I don't have any clue how that in here, seeing as it was already a month into 2006 by the time I moved here.

And last, but not least (in fact most), I found five three-fourths empty milk cartons. I don't know how that many managed to fit in there.

It took three full trash bags (large ones) to get it all to the dumpster.

So reminder-to-self #28:

Clean out the refrigerator more often than once a year.

On the second day of class, I had my students introduce themselves. It was to be a little more substantial introduction than normal. They had to write about two pages and present it to the class.

Before they started, I thought I would inform them that I'm not going to make them stand in front of the class very much over the semester. I didn't want to scare them about the rest of the semester.

What I said, I'm afraid, didn't work that well though. I surprise myself sometimes.

What I said:

"I know that some of you are not overly comfortable getting up in front of people and talking, but we're not going to do this all the time this semester. Plus, I assure you that I understand your discomfort. I can almost guarantee you that I'm the shyest person in this room right now, and so, if I can do this every day, I'm sure you can do this this one day....And if there is someone in the room who actually is more shy than me, than you are a freak who should go live in a cave in a desert somewhere. I don't care where."

I'm going to ruin them, I suspect.

I love using dry humor in front of my students, especially since many of them are not going to come close to thinking it's funny (which is because it's not really all that funny, I guess).

My opening this morning, for the first class of the semester:

"I was really hoping nobody would show up this morning." (I was referring to the possibility of another snow day.)

They looked horrified.

I think it may be a fun semester.

Back when I was in Menard, my sister hit a deer with her car. It was sad. The funny thing was, I had a bad premonition as she and BJ were driving off. I waved it off, though. Of course, my premonition didn't mean anything... She hit a deer.

The next day, I was talking to Mom and Dad at lunch. I mentioned my premonition to them. Dad said something like this:

"You know, I had one, too, when she drove off. But, of course, I always have those premonitions all the time, especially when people are driving away, so I was worried, but I didn't think much of it. I've found that it's when I don't have bad premonitions that I should really worry. That's when stuff happens."

So I summed up: "So when you're worried, you're not really worried, but when you're not worried, you're really worried."

Him: "Yeap."

So I sum up now: This is what it's like to be a Pierce.

My Apologies to Abilene

Tonight was, perhaps, the most frustrating night of my life.

I had waited for months for the new season of 24. I had watched all five of the previous seasons on DVD in the last few months (at considerable expence), even postponing my trip home in part because I wanted to finish watching the last DVD of the fifth season (which wasn't available for rental in Menard) so that I'd be totally caught up once the new season started. I made plans to watch the show with my sister (who I, after much effort, had finally managed to also get hooked on the show). I talked to everyone I saw about it. I'd even had nightmares that I would forget about the premiere and be behind on the series for the rest of the year. To keep from forgetting it, I'd even marked it on my calendar. This is the only thing on my calendar for 2007. And I'd set an extra alarm this morning to remind me a few minutes before it started. And I'd gotten out of my house in the icy cold so that I could by some videotapes so that I could record the whole season. After the Cowboys' tragic loss, this was the thing in my life that was keeping me going.

So, tonight was the big two hour premiere of the show. Tomorrow night was two more hours of the show. This was heaven.

It started and was as exciting as expected. Jack had been rescued from a Chinese prison, but it was so that he could be handed over to a terrorist who was demanding his life in return for information that would stop a series of attacks against the U.S. (the guy was an old enemy of Jack's). Jack agrees to the trade and was about to be handed over. The terrorist had demanded that Jack be handcuffed to a grate. Jack made some noble comments about dying for something. I didn't know how he would ever get out of it. And it cut off. The channel went out. Nothing. It was the only channel that went out. We called, and it was out all over town. I looked around online to see if I could download it somewhere (since I'd tried to watch it legally), and if I knew how to manage bit torrent, I could. But I don't know how to.

So anyway, it was just one of those Pierce curse things. It was inevitable. Me and my sister agreed on this. So, my apologies to Abilene. I'm sorry I had to bring this on you all, too.

The other night, Mom, Dad, and I went over for supper in Eden, where my aunt was down visiting and taking care of Grandma (who's been ill). We ate, and everyone was talking.

Now, my Dad has a habit of asking questions that people don't normally ask. He has no qualms about asking people really personal questions, such as how much money they make or how much they spent on something or about relationship or health details. This is handy for us Pierces sometimes because we can pretty much just set him after some bit of gossip, and he'll find it out. Often though, it's slightly embarassing.

Anyway, we're all sitting there visiting, and he asks my aunt, "So what medicines are you currently taking?"

I cringed, and I looked at Mom, expecting her to cringe as well.

My aunt just answered though, listing off several things and why she was taking them. Then, my Mom (who never normally asks those questions) asked my aunt, "So what medicines is your husband on?"

That's when I realized that noone else thought that those were odd questions. I'm obviously the only sane one left.

This Makes Sense, Believe It or Not.

The phrase “in the dark,” as I’m sure you know, can refer not only to one’s shadowy surroundings, but also to the shadowy secrets of which one might be unaware. Every day, the sun goes down over all these secrets, and so everyone is in the dark in one way or another. If you are sunbathing in a park, for instance, but you do not know that a locked cabinet is buried fifty feet beneath your blanket, then you are in the dark even though you are not actually in the dark, whereas if you are on a midnight hike, knowing full well that several ballerinas are following close behind you, then you are not in the dark even if you are in fact in the dark. Of course, it is quite possible to be in the dark in the dark, as well as to be not in the dark not in the dark, but there are so many secrets in the world that it is likely that you are always in the dark about one thing or another, whether you are in the dark in the dark or in the dark not in the dark, although the sun can go down so quickly that you may be in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, only to look around and find yourself no longer in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, but in the dark in the dark nonetheless, not only because of the dark but because of the ballerinas in the dark, who are not in the dark about the dark, but also not in the dark about the locked cabinet, and you may be in the dark about the ballerinas digging up the locked cabinet in the dark, even though you are no longer in the dark about being in the dark, and so you are in fact in the dark about being in the dark, even though you are not in the dark about being in the dark, and so you may fall into the hole that the ballerinas have dug, which is dark, in the dark, and in the park.

from Lemony Snicket's The End

The articles dealing with Christianity over at Salon.com are usually ridiculously ignorant (just look at the responses they get in the "Letters"). But this one, an interview with Chris Hedges (a journalist I respect), as inflammatory as it at first sounds, I think really hits the mark on some things. The article itself seems a little incomplete, though, so I think I'm going to have to read the book.

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."

--John Donne, Meditation XVII from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, 1624