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| Friday July 03 |
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[11:17 am] Laurel at 5 years, etc.
Five years, man!! Five years ago yesterday, Laurel was airlifted out of Deidra's belly, and lemme tell you, we have never been the same since. Today for her birthday I took her to her first movie-theater experience, to see Up. It was quite good. Had a lot of spirit. Laurel, who was kind of tired today, sat very calmly in her chair the whole time, but from what I could get out of her afterwards, she seemed to like it. On the way home, she asked me, "Are my school friends coming to my birthday?" She seemed to have some trouble grasping the concept of a "birthday" without a party; her birthday party was last Saturday. Which went great, by the way. After that and our Boston trip the next day, we were all well worn out. See Flickr, as always, for pictures of the birthday party and the Boston excursion.I don't think I've mentioned it, but everyone at Laurel's school—teacher, principal, etc.—has told us that Laurel is quite advanced. And she can read, when she wants to. She's surprised us a few times reading things spontaneously. She read "Avent" on an old bottle she found in the cupboard, and on our way back from Boston last Sunday on the Mass Pike she read a two word phrase on a sign, I can't remember what, now. John says some two-word phrases now, after his own fashion, like "Daddy car!" "Mommy car!" When he's in his room, like when we change him, he likes to point out the window to the driveway where I park and say "Daddy car!" He calls Laurel "Sissis," and calls her room "Sissis room." He has some way of saying "pick me up" that sounds like "ee ah!" He calls the stairs "ah dow!" (up-down... and yes, there is an exclamation point after everything out of his mouth!) It doesn't seem he knows the meanings of up and down, respectively, but rather tends to put the two words together to indicate vertical movement of some variety or other. John likes to imitate us, especially exclamations. When we're reading a book to him, he picks up on stuff like "Aha!" and repeats it. On his own, he likes to say "Wow!" and "Oh my!" From somewhere—maybe us, maybe some PBS kids show—he's picked up the idea of letters and numbers. Whenever he sees a letter or number, he points and says "Yeye ee! Yeye ee!" (letter E) At which point, we can tell him what letter or number it is, whereby he can start learning them! As indistinct as his speaking is thus far, he shows plenty of signs of being very sharp. Sometimes he thinks of something completely randomly, out of the blue, asks about it, and tries to go find it. He has a great memory, as he often remembers exactly where he put something from a day or more ago. It'll be exciting to see him further developing. I've been trying to figure out what to do for the 4th, as apparently the town of Hampton has nothing going on officially, unlike Memorial Day, on which they had the parade and barbecue. The eastern-CT cities of Norwich ("Nah-itch") and New London have fireworks, but it sounded like a big snarl to get in and out of, and therefore not worth it. We've always avoided the Zilker Park fireworks in Austin for that same reason. But I just found out that Putnam, a lovely town a little ways north of us, has fireworks, which were going to be yesterday, but postponed due to rain to Sunday. Yes, the 2nd and the 5th. Looking at a lot of town's fireworks plans, it seems like a lot of them do it on days other than the 4th. No idea why. But anyway, it looks like we'll be going to their fireworks on Sunday. I'm swamped again... still working on this second-order logic paper (coming along, only it's being totally rewritten, pretty much), just starting on a bunch of freelance work (thankfully) to last me the rest of the summer, and the rest of the projects I've mentioned before that I've got to work on too. Time to hunker down to business... |
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| | Tuesday June 23 |
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[10:44 pm] June stuff
For something like the last six weeks solid we've had rain four days out of five, and we're lucky to see the sun once a week. It's kind of ridiculous. Fortunately, it looks like things will clear up a bit next week and we'll get some actual summer in. It'll be great to hit the beach, whenever we get around to that, 'cause the kids will love it: both of them love playing in water. They love taking baths. Recently, one of Laurel's pastimes is to strip down to her underwear, fill up the sink, and play in the water. John also likes to (when we haven't shut the bathroom door and aren't looking, at least) stand on the toilet, lean over the sink, and turn on the water, filling up the cup and dumping it out repeatedly. When we're holding him, he'll also sometimes reach over to try to do that over the kitchen sink. "Wawoh! Wawoh!" is his mantra... I can just see him at the beach, looking out over the ocean and exclaiming "Wawoh! Wawoh!" over and over again.Speaking of playing in water, Laurel had her first swim lesson today at the Mansfield Community Center. She's hardly gotten to swim at all since we lived at our apartment in Austin that had a swimming pool. And her school year finishes this week, so it's good to have gotten her into a twice-a-week activity. When we've talked to her about swim lessons, she had expressed some trepidation about it: "But I don't know how to swim!" We've had to reassure her that she's not going being dropped in at the deep end or anything like that! She had a good time, in the end, although Deidra tells me she was a bit of a "cling-on" to the swim teacher... which sounds about like how she was when I used to take her swimming at the apartment's pool! Laurel hasn't really changed all that much in general over the last year, come to think of it. Still bouncy as a jumping-bean, still clamors to be picked up (all 55 pounds of her)... she has started to sing more lately, though, I think, which is pretty cute. She makes up songs as she goes, and also likes to sing Ariel's refrain from The Little Mermaid. We're celebrating Laurel's 5th birthday (which is on July 2nd) this Saturday, with some of her friends from her Pre-K class. She's having a Dora party, and we got a Dora slip 'n' slide that we'll set up, too... hopefully the weather will be good for it! About 9 months ago, I happened to drive by a house that had a whole bunch of kids' bikes free for the taking by the side of the road, and I got one about Laurel's size that's been in the trunk of my car ever since. I'll get training wheels for it this week, and give it to her for her birthday as one of her presents—we actually skipped the whole "tricycle" stage, so we'll see how she does! Our street is way too steep for her to ride on, but maybe the driveway and backyard will be enough. We can take it to the school playground and parking lot, too. John's the boy, still enthralled as ever by anything with wheels, and especially anything with wheels that he can push around. His dump truck he got for Christmas from my parents is still great for that, and Laurel's doll stroller has become another push-around toy of John's too! It's so funny to watch him just tool around with his wheels, as fast as his little legs will carry him. He has gotten so sweet, though, too. He actually likes to cuddle, and sidle up next to us on the sofa. He also likes to kiss, and hug, and pretend that stuffed animals are kissing each other, or kissing us. He's just wonderful, but it's still really hard to get him to eat, especially at dinner. (Actually, Laurel tends to be quite reluctant to eat dinner too.) He loves fruit, though, so that's kind of a backup if all else fails. And he and Laurel are both cracker fiends, too. John is also a mad fiend for chocolate, which we probably never should have given him in the first place... and it's so cute how he says it: "glyaglya." His "words" for things are pretty cute. He calls airplanes "boh!" For a while I couldn't figure out why, but I think maybe he's calling them "bird"—which would mean "flying thing," and that would make sense given wee tots' propensity to overextend a term when they first learn it, and then narrow it down. Also, "boh" is a lot easier to say than "airplane"! On Sunday we're going to Boston as a family to meet up with Allie, Matt, and Christie; Allie will be in Salem, MA for a history conference, Matt's coming with her, and Christie will meet them there too, and they'll be hitting Boston on Sunday. So that should be a fun little excursion. Hopefully we can cram in some good stuff in a half-day and not have it be too exhausting. Boston just rocks, I'll be glad to hang out there again, and visit a bit with Matt and Allie too; we're not going to California any more this year so we won't get to see them for a while after. I'm working on rewriting the second-order logic term paper left over from a Fall semester seminar, and it looks like I'll be starting up some more (much needed) freelance work soon, and also will have my paper/presentation for the August ISPC conference to prepare for, a paper to finally get around to heavily revising and submitting (almost two years later!), and hopefully also one or two paper submissions for Fall conferences to pull together. In short, I am not lacking of things to keep busy with this summer, and it is as needful as ever that I really use my time well, a discipline I'm still learning. |
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| | Thursday June 04 |
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[5:45 pm] on homosexual marriage
This seems to be the great “us vs. them” issue of our time, as well as the defining, dear, and pet issue of the True Blue Liberal. To an overwhelming number on either side, “everyone who’s anyone” (i.e., in their own circle) agrees with them. I have never heard anyone in the public sphere ever provide any actual reason for their position based on any premises accepted by the other side in the first place. The liberals use analogies that would be considered laughable in any other circumstance (race and gender?), and the conservatives, cringe-inducingly, mostly stick with “God said it, I believe it, that settles it,” almost as if they were specifically trying to appear as bigoted and small-minded as possible. So I’m going to enter this fray by proferring some actual reasoning for the “anti” side that is not based on any particular religious stance, and ask some non-rhetorical questions.
Here’s the main underlying dividing issue, as I see it: One is going to see marriage as either (1) a thing unto itself intrinsically involving a man and a woman, or (2) as a genus of which one species is one-man-one-woman, another species of which is two-people-of-the-same-sex (or are two-men marriages and two-women marriages each species in their own right?), possibly other species of marriage of which may include two, three, four, or whatever (or just one? Couldn’t I just marry myself?) people, animals, robots, whatever… but it’s not a mere “slippery slope” argument I’m getting at. The only way the pro-homosexual-marriage folks can legitimately complain about “discrimination” is if they can legitimately maintain some workable, well-motivated definition of “marriage” according to the “genus” model I raised above, according to which man-woman marriage is one species among many. But this raises the obvious question: just what is the nature of this “genus” from which is supposed to descend the different although equal species of marriage? One could leave open the possibility that an association of any number of entities of any animate kind may fall under the “marriage” rubric. If that’s what marriage is, then favoring one or some of the species over others really is “discrimination,” in the objectionable sense. But if marriage isn’t that, then the innovator owes the traditionalist an explanation as to what marriage is, instead, such that the heterosexual and homosexual species of it are equally legitimate instances.
Here’s an illustration showing why we need to know the nature of what the “genus” model of marriage is supposed to be in order to tell why “discrimination” is supposed to be bad. Take a person, A, who believes heterosexual and homosexual marriage should be considered equally legitimate. Take another person, B, who believes in some further extension of the marriage concept beyond that—say, between three people, or humans and nonhumans, or whatnot. If B believes in the fully general “genus” concept of marriage, they’ll complain to A as to why they restrict marriage to two humans: to B, A’s mores are “discriminatory.” And in exactly the same sense, A complains to the traditionalist that they’re “discriminatory.” A can only resist B’s charge of “discrimination” by saying, “Look, marriage can only, by nature, be between two adult humans. That’s just what it is. “And in exactly the same sense, the traditionalist maintains, “Look, marriage is between a man and a woman. That’s just what it is.”
So, the dealie-o is this: if those who want to now, after millenia of recorded human history, redefine marriage, we poor blinkered traditionalists are owed an explanation as to what marriage is, instead. One option: unrestricted associations of whatever kind or number. Then the innovator will at least mean something substantial by the charge of “discrimination”; only, the vast majority of people won’t accept their starting point. The only other options, and here’s the kicker, require some putative definition according to the “genus” model that I really think is going to be equivalent to one in which the homosexual version of marriage is simply a derivative extension of the heterosexual version. And in that case, the charge of “discrimination” against the traditionalist just won’t stick: the traditionalist means by “marriage” that “by definition, it’s a union between a man and a woman. That’s just what it is.” And it can’t be “discrimination” in the bad sense to simply apply a term to where its meaning fits. In the same sense, we “discriminate” all the time by calling cats cats, dogs dogs, and trees trees.
What I mean is this: the innovator may say, “Well, marriage is a union between two consenting adults.” And yes, traditional heterosexual marriage fits under that rubric, and so does homosexual marriage. But in that case, it’s completely irrelevant to whether something is “marriage” whether the union is heterosexual or homosexual. And the traditionalist has a perfectly legitimate reason for objecting to that. For then, “marriage,” for the first time in human history, no longer means “the fundamental procreative unit of society.” Heterosexual couples who want to have children, or not, would have no particular reason to get married. “Marriage” then just becomes a word that is coopted by homosexuals for the express use of getting society to accept them. And one could say that homosexual couples already enjoy all the acceptance and rights they could want, except having that word applied to them. (Or maybe the idea is that once they get “marriage equality,” this will force people who look askance at them to “accept” them in whatever sense. And if they don’t, well, now you’re in the minority, mofo!) So what happens is, people on both sides get their ire up and have a nice hatefest against the other side, and get to feel real self-righteous about it all. And that’s where we are.
Someone could stick with the aforementioned “genus” model and try to maintain that, all along, “marriage is and has been a union between two consenting adults, period.” But really, that’s not even in the offing from the innovator’s perspective: it’s to be an actual redefinition, in which homosexuals get the term “marriage” extended to their case. And I would think it’s obvious, without going through all this ratiocination, that that’s what’s at issue. Just so, I would think it is obvious that homosexuality itself is an imitation and alteration of heterosexuality. And by purely Natural Law principles one can see, literally as plain as day, that heterosexuality is the perfectly natural species in itself from which an imitation can only be less natural. (Sometimes, alas, the perfectly obvious needs to be stated, political correctness be damned.) And so, the innovator owes the traditionalist an explanation: Why should the traditionalist give up the definition of marriage that defines it as the fundamental procreative unit of society just so homosexual couples can “get back at” people who don’t like them? Why isn’t is sufficient for homosexual couples to just live their lives as they’re already free to do?
(I must also note that the putative analogy with race that people bring up is quite absurd: racial minorities in this country were once prevented the same civic, legal, and economic opportunities that whites were (and indeed, we’re still trying to correct that). The movement to extend “marriage” to homosexuals, on the other hand, seems to be purely symbolic, and the resulting culture war I have already described in pungent terms two paragraphs previous.) |
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| | Thursday May 28 |
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[5:45 pm] what else, what else...
The trip to Mystic a couple weeks ago was fun. The aquarium was neat... John was especially impressed by the large quantities of water. Every time we looked at an exhibit, John pointed and excitedly said "Wawoh! Wawoh!" I think he actually wanted to climb right out of his backpack and go for a swim! He seemed even more interested in the water than in the animals in it. Mystic Pizza was very yummy indeed... we'll certainly be going back there again. Topped it all off with some Mystic Drawbridge Ice Cream, with some great views of the seaport river flowing next to it. All just an hour away from us.On Monday we enjoyed some of our in-town Hampton Memorial Day festivities, including a parade down Main Street (just down the house from us), and a little later on, a barbecue at the fields in front of Town Hall, just down the street. Good times, especially for the kids. Pictures. Laurel loves special days like birthdays and holidays, so she really got into it. (With Mother's Day and Deidra's birthday earlier this month too, she's had a grand old time!) On our walk home on the stroller, she was waving a flag someone gave her and saying "Happy Memorial Day!" to everyone she saw. That evening we went out to dinner at Ruby Tuesday in Windham; we'd actually never been to one before. Good, juicy burgers. Then we went and got ice cream at the We-Li-Kit dairy bar just 10 minutes or so up Route 97 from our house. That was the second time we'd been to that place, having just discovered it recently (it's only open April–October). The coffee ice cream gets Deidra's stamp of approval–it's actually a good substitute for Amy's Ice Cream in Austin! We-Li-Kit (say "we like it") is right on a farm and apparently they get their milk from their own cows right there. It's kind of "in the middle of nowhere," but it's been very busy both times we've been so far. I think the first time we got ice cream at We-Li-Kit was around D's birthday, which was a week ago. For her birthday we also went out to eat at an Italian restaurant over in Mansfield closer to UConn, which we hadn't been to yet, and D got a mani-pedi at her Salon in Providence, so she felt good and treated. :-) Also for her birthday, we've saved up for D to get an iPhone next month when the new model comes out—she's really been wanting one, so that'll be fun. You know, I really love where we are. It's lovely; there are actual trees, and forests. We get all four seasons, f'reals. It's rustic and quiet, but not isolated. Our spacious, lovely house with its huge backyard is a stone's throw from a great little General Store where you can get grinders and pizza and lots else besides, and the town Library, and is just down the street from the elementary school. Within ten minutes there's a winery, a great auto shop, and two beautiful parks with walking trails. We're an hour from the coast (we'll be hitting the beach sometime this summer!) and two major cities, and an hour and a half away from what is possibly my favorite city in America. And I get to work on a career in philosophy doing what I love (as hard as that is, it's certainly worthwhile). Laurel's starting to read! She's getting some confidence to sound out words, even if they're sounded out wrong. Recently we drove past a Staples, and she saw the sign and sounded it out phonetically, saying something like "Stap-less". The confidence is key: she's had the fundamentals, like letter sounds, down for some time, I think, but hasn't had the willingness to really try to read words until now. John is saying stuff, in his own adorable two-year-old-boy way. He really likes chocolate, and we love the way he says chocolate: "glyaglya." Apparently doubling the same syllable is the easiest way for wee tots to say two-syllable words (e.g., "night-night," "nana," "mama"... he does say "Daddee, though...), and so that's his rendering; gets the "l" sound in there. Laurel at this age was just breaking out into sentences, so there's that boy/girl language lag. Vive la difference! I've found out that next semester my TA assignment will be four sections, of Philosophy and Social Ethics, the other introductory philosophy "mega" course—these last two semesters I've had two sections of the Problems of Philosophy "mega" course, a more general survey. I wouldn't have been comfortable TA-ing the ethics "mega" course over this last year, as I have pretty meager background in ethics, but I think I've osmosed enough since then to be comfortable with it. The sections are limited to 22 students instead of 30 this time, so I don't have twice as many students, and I've been told that the workload will be adjusted so the TAs are not grading an enormous amount of material—so, more multiple-choice-type stuff and fewer essays. Still, the way the sections are scheduled, it looks like I'll have three in a row Thursday afternoons, bam-bam-bam. Sounds kind of exhausting. TAs having to take on more undergrad students can only mean the program is slimming down somewhat, although we've admitted 6 incoming grad students for this Fall, same as my entering class last year. Do the math. (I know I've got a TA assignment, so I know at least I'm not being cut!) Out of the seminars for next semester, I'm down for Moral Philosophy (same professor as is lecturer in the undergrad course I'm TA-ing for), Metaphysics: Identity and Aspects, and Essentialism: Ancient and Modern. I'm planning to do little or no freelance work during that time so I can get some coursework under my belt. That'll certainly be the last semester in which I take three seminars, though. This Sunday at the 8:15 AM mass at St. Thomas, I will be received into the Catholic Church. Finally at home in Mother Church, and partaking of the Real Thing. I'm excited. I'll be taking the "Confirmation name" (a custom I only recently found out about) of St. Francis de Sales, about whom I happened to read an article in The Word Among Us. The "Gentleman Saint" was a hugely successful Catholic apologist just post-Reformation, and is also the patron of educators and writers. He seems the perfect choice as my own patron, not least as I need to become more "gentlemanly" in my own polemics, so I'm glad to put myself under his tutelage. I've just gotten three of his books: Finding God's Will for You, Introduction to the Devout Life, and The Catholic Controversy. I've got several more posts on Catholicism that I want to do whenever I have time. These include: - Against "Zap Theology"
- Jesus' Mom
- "Papal Infallibility," or, Is the Pope Catholic?
- On the "Reformation"
- On Calvinism
In addition, I plan to write and post my "Testimony." In evangelical Protestantdom, everyone is pretty much supposed to have a Testimony, structured around a "before" and "after". Back in the day, I never felt I had much of one, certainly not with a dramatic "before" and "after," only feeling like I'd gotten from maybe A to B in my spirituality. But now, I feel like I have one. A big part of that is understanding that it's not about "before" and "after" (or, "not-saved" and "saved"), but rather "then," "now," and "the future." |
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| | Thursday May 14 |
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[6:02 pm] end of the semester, on with the summertime
Wow, it has been almost three weeks since my last post... might be some kind of record for me, in the almost six years (!) I've been continually blogging. I do because I care.Well, where to begin? On Tuesday of this week I finished grading 60 finals and got all the final grades entered just before the deadline, so that was a big hurdle cleared. Then yesterday I went and saw Star Trek at the big fancy megaplex in Manchester; quite enjoyed it. D had been wanting to see it since it's a J.J. Abrams production, and she's a fan, thanks to his work on TV shows Felicity, Alias, and Lost. On Sunday as a Mother's Day treat, I took care of the kids while she went to see it at the theater 20 minutes northeast of here in Killingly, which turned out to be a shoddy establishment. She loved the movie, though. Last week my task was to write the second of two papers for my metaphysics seminar by Friday, and I got it in just under the wire, not having had time to start writing it until Wednesday due to stupid freelance work that wouldn't die. I've still got some schoolwork to do, my 7000-word consciousness & neuroscience term paper being due June 5th (good thing not 'til then!), and I also definitely need to heavily revise my term paper from last semester in second-order logic so I can get that "Incomplete" grade taken care of. But now that classes are all done, I'm quite a bit more relaxed and flexible. Today I'm at home and catching up on blogging and stuff while D and the kids are away at the gym, and I also sold the bike that I had stupidly bought last summer that it is much too hilly around here to ride; I decided to Craigslist it to cut my losses, and it took a few weeks to sell, but it did, so that's a load off. We've got some fun stuff planned this month now that the weather's warming up and my classes are done (L has school until June, actually)... this Saturday we're going to visit Mystic down on the coast, which we hadn't been to yet. We'll probably spend a good chunk of the time at the aquarium, at least, which looks pretty chock-full of good stuff, and we'll plan on eating at Mystic Pizza while we're there, too. We've also got the movie Mystic Pizza on its way from Netflix; I haven't seen it, but Deidra has several times. We'll watch it this weekend after our Mystic trip. Next week it's Deidra's birthday—and the seven-year anniversary of the night I proposed to her!—and as part of that, we'll be going to Six Flags over New England (which I only fairly recently discovered existed), near Springfield, MA; but not the weekend after D's birthday, because she's going to have a mani-pedi at her salon that day. After Memorial Day, Six Flags'll be open on weekdays, and we'll probably want to go on a weekday to minimize the crowds and line-waiting and such with kids in tow. Deidra loves rollercoasters, but I don't think we've ever been to an amusement park together! It looks like there's lots of kids' rides, too, that Laurel and maybe John will enjoy. This weekend there's actually another philosophy conference that our department is hosting, which we're calling the "Truthfest" (the conference last fall honoring the work of Ruth Millikan we called "Ruthfest"). I'm not at all well-read on these issues (unlike those grad students who this semester took Michael Lynch's seminar on recent work in truth), but I'm going to sit in on some of the sessions, tomorrow and quite possibly Sunday as well. Michael Lynch, the professor whose introductory philosophy class I'd been a TA for each of these last two semesters, is our own Mr. Truth, having written three books on the subject. I can't find myself getting really motivated to study the subject (too much else already in-progress, for one thing!), although I am quite interested in a closely-related topic, realism vs. varieties of anti-realism, which actually was the more or less central focus of the metaphysics seminar I took this last semester from Tim Elder. So in the next few weeks, I'll be trying not to procrastinate getting these seminar papers done, and then after that hopefully getting some work done on my own papers and some needed freelance work as well. I've had a fairly relaxing last couple of days, but I won't be lounging around for long! |
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| | Sunday April 26 |
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[10:55 pm] the fam
It is definitely Spring now... temperatures are into the 80s yesterday and today (unseasonably warm, actually!), bushes are blooming (especially certain yellow and pink ones), and the Harley choppers are rip-roarin' around town. This particular area seems to be a biker hub, actually... up Route 6 a ways, in Chaplin, there's this place called the Bach Dor Cafe which, in season, is apparently a big biker bar—I remember on certain days last August, the place had hundreds of Harleys parked outside of it. We hear them coming down the road at our house every now, and again, and John perks his ear up whenever he hears that!
We had a nice little birthday party yesterday for John, who turns two years old tomorrow! Christie and Josh drove in from NYC, and our downstairs neighbor Clara joined us also. Deidra made a rich chocolate cake and we had all manner of other yummies as well... John successfully blew out the candle, after a couple tries! I was going to just give him the cake to eat bare-handed in his high-chair, but he doesn't like getting his hands messy! So I gave him a fork, and he liked using that very well... he likes eating with a spoon or fork, and is reasonably good at it. John seemed pleased at all the attention, and at having company over.
We got him an Elmo Lego-type block set, which he's probably not ready for yet... he loves Elmo, though. Christie and Josh, on my suggestion, got him a toy airplane, which I believe as of now he still has not parted with yet! It's wooden, though, and John can be a bit violent with his toys—he likes to throw them down, and he's already broken part of his airplane! Anyway, it's a big hit... he calls it "bo" or "ba", for some reason. Then yesterday evening while D was taking a well-deserved nap after all the party preparations, I pushed the kids in the stroller round to the fire station, where they were having a ham & bean supper benefit. So it was a nice little cap-off for the day for John to get to see some fire trucks up close, which of course he was very excited about.
It's pretty noticeable how much more articulate Laurel was at about this age than John is. Most of the "words" John says are pretty much the first syllable of it—he's much more into making noises, still, and that's the boy thing, of course! John does like to try to imitate what we say, though. He's pretty cute when he says "okay"—and he knows it!
John has definitely seemed to be pretty "two" for a while now. He's always wanting something out of his reach and grabbing for it, and being fussy and active and loud. He's just about gotten to be harder to put to bed at night than Laurel, at this point. He's also gotten very sweet and cuddly, though, too. And he particularly seems stuck on me, increasingly, so Deidra gets a bit jealous!
Laurel has learned how to "point" and "click" on the computer in the last month or so, so one of her favorite pastimes is to do "PBS Kids dot org on the computer." There are all kinds of activities on that website corresponding to all the kids shows L watches on PBS, and it's all very creative and educational. But now, that's three of us in competition for our laptop!
Laurel is still very much into coloring and drawing, and she's pretty creative with it, drawing fairly elaborate and detailed scenes that have some story that goes along with it. She also likes to sing, and makes up songs about "knowing" and "thinking." (Li'l budding epistemologist? :-) ) One recurring song she sings is "What's All the Things That We Could Do". She's enjoying school, and we're hoping to find some kind of class or other to put her in in the summer when she finishes in June. We're also looking to get out and explore New England a little more with some day-trips or other this summer.
I'm entering the last week of classes, and I'll have the second of two papers in the metaphysics seminar due at the end of next week, a final exam to administer and grade for the "101" class I TA, and then the final version of the consciousness paper is not due until June 5, so it'll be nice to have an extra block of time to work on that. Also, this Friday and Saturday I celebrate the end of the semester by going to see back-to-back Mogwai shows, in Boston at the Wilbur Theater and in Northampton, MA at the Pearl Street Club; both are about an hour and a half away from our house. For the second show, I got my ticket through a package deal with the record label that puts me on the label guest list... so maybe I'll get to insinuate myself backstage for autographs with the glorious Glaswegians? We'll see! |
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| | Saturday April 18 |
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[4:03 pm] two reductios for the Catholic Church
I present two arguments for the propriety of joining the Catholic Church (construed relatively broadly, that is, to include the Eastern Orthodox). They are both in the form of a reductio ad absurdum, in which rejection of the visible and apostolic Catholic Church leads to an untenable conclusion. Acceptance of (more exactly, being accepted into) the Church therefore follows.
The premises assume certain things: Most obviously, that "Christianity" in some form of another is true, but also, somewhat more in need of explication, that the Church, as an ecclesiastical unity and visible body, is (a) intrinsically important, and (b) as I've said before, not simply the abstract object that is the resultant of the sum of individuals who profess belief in Christianity. This bears emphasis, since it is a concept that, although explicitly Biblical and eminently historical in the faith, is quite foreign to the currently-popular "evangelical" mindset of much of American Christianity. This emphasis on the Church implies that the current fractured state of professing Christianity into a multiplicity of denominations is a most unfortunate thing, and that an eventual unity is hoped for that, in its unity of communion, will look like something more or less like the Catholic Church. In other words, the assumption is one of Christian ecumenism. Part and parcel of this is the notion that true theology is not simply read off the pages of the Bible by the individual, but is part of some kind of passed-on tradition or other. Again, this runs counter to the theory and practice of American Protestant evangelicalism today.
These assumptions are those that, for example, Rev. Cassidy of the Presbyterian church we used to attend in Austin, agrees with me completely about. The sticking point, then, for one in such as Rev. Cassidy's position is that although the Catholic Church embodies just the unity and historical continuity that one would want to see in Christ's Church, they are in fact in serious doctrinal error on some points and therefore should not be entered into communion with until and unless they correct those points of error. It is this point that I think is defeated by either and both of the two reductios I present below. (I also think that the thesis of Catholic error is defeated by the fact that they have the objective apostolic authority to promulgate teachings about doctrines on which there might otherwise be (and there in fact certainly is) disagreement among professing believers, together with the fact that those teachings are defensible on their own Biblical and logical grounds—see, for example, this book. Most of my other posts on Catholicism have been focused more or less on that line.)
So, here's the first, main one. It's in two parts: the conclusion of the first part is one of the premises of the second part.
(1) The Catholic Church is in serious error on some substantive doctrines and an ideally orthodox church should definitely be without them.
(2) These points of supposed error are historically based going back a long, long way, and it is utterly implausible that the Church would go back on them, ever.
(3) The Catholic Church is not going to go away any time soon, sliding down into any crevices or anything like that.
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Therefore: The Catholic Church will persist in the future but remain completely outside the eventual ecumenical unity of communion that is to be hoped for.
Second part, using the conclusion of the first part as a premise:
(4) The Catholic Church will persist in the future but remain completely outside the eventual ecumenical unity of communion that is to be hoped for.
(5) Jesus was correct in saying that the gates of hell will not prevail against his Church.
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Therefore: The real Church of Christ is entirely disjoint from the current Catholic Church, and it is therefore, because of its influence and godly appearance, in fact ultimately a force against the true Church of Christ. (And so it may as well all slide into a bottomless crevice, even though, as (3) states, it won't.)
The argument, I take it, is valid: The premises, if true, necessitate the conclusion(s). The question, then, is whether to accept the conclusion or to deny one of the premises.
The final conclusion is, I take it, unacceptable for those Christians with the ecumenical hope of eventual ecclesiastical unity. Those who do but who maintain that the Church is in error reject (2). For example, teachings on purgatory, the eucharist, and doctrines about Mary and the saints are those that the Catholic Church may, and moreover should, repeal.
But this would mean going back on the very apostolic authority from which those doctrines derived. Whence, then, would ecclesiastical authority derive? Some sort of consensus among the scattered and disagreeing sects? Why think that there would be any such thing? For me, then, the force of this reductio provides enough reason to deny (1).
The second reductio I have to offer is perhaps best expressed informally. Suppose that the Catholic Church is in serious error and people should not join it. (When, exactly, did it go into error? This question is pressing because of the unbroken apostolic authority it derives all the way back to the Apostles, but I won't even go into it here.) This means that at least from the time of Luther, Christians are best served by being in communion with some church other than the Catholic one. (Or, perhaps, no Church, with a capital "C", at all? But, again, the assumptions I'm working with deny that that's the right way to go.)
But, here's the kicker: which, then? "Protestantdom" itself splintered into disunity almost as soon as it came into being, so what's a person to do? Theology isn't read directly off the pages of the Bible, nor is it gotten by some other means by the individual on his own resources, nor just between him and God: such a model is entirely unbiblical. It would seem, then, that it is the most theologically erudite and perspicuous among us who are in the position to figure out what orthodoxy consists in (remember, we're assuming so far, for reductio, that the objective apostolic authority of the Catholic church is neither necessary nor sufficient for this purpose). So, how are the proverbial "unwashed masses," who are without such perspicuity and erudition, to figure out who such people really are who can lead them to the truth? It seems they're left, and have been these last 500 years, at the mercy of the nearest pied piper who tickles their ears.
This is to conclude, by reductio, that the so-called "Reformation," in being a massive schism, went too far and engendered not only destructive disunity, but also left people without an objective Church to look to for genuine communion with Christ and to be taught in doctrinal orthodoxy, wherever non-Catholic influences were louder than those of the Catholic Church. It's like a smaller scale of the Mormon notion that there was no true Church from some time very shortly after Christ all the way up until the 19th century(!). The Mormon claim, involving a time span of 1800 years of lostness, is massively absurd. To similarly claim that there's been no true visible objective Church for at least the last 500 years could be taken to be 28% as absurd, but the comparison is like that between eating 28 pounds, versus 100 pounds, of rat poison—neither is a good idea at all. And that's 28 pounds, and counting... |
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| | Sunday April 05 |
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[11:41 pm] Yale-UConn philosophy graduate conference
The conference this weekend was fun. My comments went well, I thought, and was well-received judging by some compliments I got afterward. However, my sense is that expectations were low—they evidently had trouble finding a commenter for that paper by whatever means they usually do and had to throw it open to whoever would take it—but I'm glad to have surpassed them, in any case.Yale faculty weren't around so much, except a few... famous logician Ruth Marcus (emeritus), showed up for yesterday afternoon's talks. She's a feisty little lady. I also got to chat a little with Michael Della Rocca (who, incidentally, had complimented me on my session comments) about anti-essentialism, based on an interesting paper of his I'd read. I wanted to get a chance to talk to keynote speaker Jonathan Schaffer since I've quite recently become aware of his work on properties, tropes, and monism, but didn't get a chance to—he was pretty in-demand conversation-wise between and after sessions. I'll just have to email him at some point, I guess. Philosophy conferences are just the bomb. It's what it's all about in this business, let me tell you. The canonical products that make the history in the subject are papers published in journals, and monographs; but where those come from, very largely—or at least, where they're honed to mastery—is in the interaction on material presented in conferences, judging from the acknowledgements in a lot of published works. And you get to listen to all manner of fascinating material thrown open for commentary, make connections with other philosophers and talk shop 'til you're blue in the face, have parties and good food and drink (ahem, paid-for, to boot), and often travel to fun and cool places to do so. It was really neat just getting to visit the Yale campus. Amazing place, so ivy-league, but a bit more cozy- and collegial-feeling than Harvard. Got some pictures. Yesterday it was Freshman Olympics day in the Old Campus quad; the building that the conference room was in is adjacent to it. Students representing each of the residential colleges, T-shirted and facepainted in their colleges' colors and waving huge flags with their coat of arms, were at different areas all around the quad competing in soccer, dodgeball, relays, duck-duck-goose(!), and I'm not sure what else. Music was blaring, barbecue was cooking, students were chanting their college cheers... it was a scene, let me tell you, unlike any I've ever found myself in the midst of. Yale was actually my first choice when I was applying for undergrad schools, but of course I didn't get in. I felt a twinge of regret at not having gone to such a place; my own stupid fault for not bothering to get consistently good grades in high school and being stuck with stupid Westmont instead... but you know, if I had gone to Yale and done well there according to my plan at the time, and gotten into med school unlike as in actual fact, I'd presumably be a doctor now. Or had had to figure out by some hard way that medicine was actually not for me anyway, and who knows where I would've gone from there? In any case, I may well never have, as by the circuitous route I in fact did, discovered my true calling in philosophy. Yet I still weep for my lost undergraduate years; can't deny that. Anyway, it was very cool to be there, better late than never, participating in a philosophy conference! |
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| | Monday March 30 |
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[1:01 pm] ISPC09
I just found out this morning that a paper I submitted for this year's Summer Symposium of the International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry was accepted, which is exciting! Participating in conferences looks good on one's CV, of course (but not quite as much as refereed-journal publications, I'm told), and it's also good for making personal connections in one's field, which I suppose may help come job-search time. The Symposium is in mid-August, in Philadelphia this year, at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. I actually met a couple of guys from there at a chemical education conference I went to two summers ago at the University of North Texas. Interesting how those connections come around. Anyway, that should be fun. And I should be able to take advantage of some department funding to help pay for the trip. Our family's making a trip to see family and friends in Texas in August, too, but I made sure to plan that trip to end before the ISPC conference, which will be August 13–15.This week, however, I've got to figure out and write up my comments for the paper I'm commenting on at the Yale-UConn grad conference. That should be a fun little weekend away. |
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| | Thursday March 19 |
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[10:52 pm] goings-on
Bonus John tidbit... when we're reading books and he decides we're done with the book, he says "ee a'" (the end) and closes the book.Quite a bit going on, still... I feel I'm just over one hump as of yesterday (appropriately enough; get it?), having finally finished and turned in my "Problem Statement," to be expanded into a whopping great term paper, for the Consciousness & Neuroscience seminar, and a 10-page paper for Metaphysics. Today, back to discussion sections, helping students unsnarl the positions on determinism & free will that they were deluged with this week. I've got more freelance work to do this weekend, and then the next thing to tackle will be to fully digest this paper that I've volunteered to be the commentator on at the upcoming Yale-UConn joint graduate philosophy conference, and prepare some thoughtful comments on it. Go ahead, look under "Schedule," it's got my name right there. I'm actually the only UConn student presenting or commenting at the conference, so I'd better represent! The paper I'm commenting on is on the intersection of philosophy of mind and neuroscience just like we're doing in the Consciousness & Neuroscience seminar. Should be fun to be part of the conference, go to the afterparties, hobnob with the stellar Yale philosophy faculty. Then the next week, I'm slated to do a presentation in the metaphysics seminar. So that's my short-term radar. Also, the philosophy department, after having graduated a total of two PhDs over the previous three years, now has a veritable slew of people finishing up this year (just in time for the job market to tighten up!). Just about every Friday from here on out for the semester, there's someone defending a dissertation. I'd like to sit in on some of those defenses; should be quite interesting. I've had some fun extracurricular stuff too, like last week I took Laurel to see the Chinese Acrobats at the UConn Performing Arts Center. She enjoyed that, but especially running up and down the aisles repeatedly during the intermission. (After the show started back up, she asked me, "Daddy, can I have some more fun?") And last Saturday I drove out to Cambridge, MA to see Throwing Muses and 50 Foot Wave—Kristin Hersh's off-again and on-again, respectively, bands—play at the Middle East Club. Way back in 2000 I flew out there from Austin to see Throwing Muses and Kristin Hersh for a special one-off show (the Muses had become defunct by that point), at the exact same place, so it was fun to see them again there. Walking down Mass. Ave. in Cambridge, I walked by a couple of the same bars I had hit back on Labor Day Weekend with Scott and Eric, so that was fun. Always glad to head up Boston way. Can't wait to hang out there again, in the daytime. We should take a family trip there sometime. Such a great town. I'm actually going up to Boston again on May 1st, right after the semester ends, to see Mogwai (yes!), at the Wilbur Theater. Should be awesome. And I'm seriously considering also seeing them the day after at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA. I thought when I came to UConn I'd have to be getting into college hoops, but I've been oblivious... until today at my 4 o'clock discussion, when the students told me a game was on right then. Some of them were keeping up with it on their laptops. Which is understandable. Huskies ended up blowing out Chattanooga; the first college score I've ever seen in the triple-digits. Didn't even know that they were first-seeded until I found out from my brother Jonathan! The big day of my official reception into the Catholic Church is set—May 31st! I'm excited to be in full communion. |
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