Today is the day that the curse is lifted.

Dear God, I can breathe again for the first time in eight years!
We have demonstrated to the world now that we are not, in fact, eat up with stupid.

I think this nation is going to come back to life now. As of tonight, immoral and ignorant are no longer cool. Decent and bright and informed are the new cool, no longer objects of ridicule and derision, but back in their rightful place as worthy values.

As a result, for the first time in years [because we will finally be bringing decency and informed clear thinking to bear on them], we will have traction when we face our problems. Now we can move forward.

Yes we can. Yes we have. The world is changed.

2008-12-19 update: Of course, even a curse lifted doesn’t imply we’ll immediately escape a tribulation of our own making. I take from Judeo-Christian scripture that, no matter to what degree God intervenes in human affairs, God almost never relieves anyone — individuals or peoples — from deeply experiencing the consequences of their actions. Thus, for starters, seems to me, the deep recession is upon us.

And now I am nearly speechless, in awe at the sheer melancholy beauty all around me as I proceed through each of their recordings.

As an example, check this lovely video of Glósóli, which ends in a way some of my dreams begin.

For other examples, there’s a generous selection of free MP3 tracks at the band’s website.

I’m surprised I took so long to get here, but I’m oh so glad to have arrived.

2007-12-01 update:
Ah! The Heima movie trailer (3:53, from “a film by Sigur Rós”) displays breathtaking Icelandic beauty — her landscape and her people. Jumps off the screen as National Geographic-caliber photography. Check it in the highest resolution you can.

^*Not in existential totality, of course, but enough to really appreciate what they’re doing

Spanish does seem easier by comparison now, just as I’d hoped. A bigger factor is probably that I really have softened my hard head so it’s better at learning language. (“Go soak your head?” Done.) Indeed, the best of what I’ve learned over these past months is metalearning about how to learn language.

So I’m focused and on a roll, harnessing the momentum. Just finished Pimsleur Spanish I Comprehensive (Amz). Now alternating lessons between Pimsleur Spanish II (Amz) and Learning Spanish Like Crazy (LSLC) Level 1. Plan is to continue through Pimsleur Spanish III (Amz) and LSLC Level 2, working them somewhat in parallel, then move on to Platiquemos after that. With happy side excursions, of course, into vocabulary building via flashcards and LinkWord Spanish Levels 1-4, and into grammar texts including Señora Madrigal’s engaging Magic Key to Spanish.

Just saw this Listening-Reading System idea, which is fascinating. So I’ve queued it up to try using one of my favorite works, Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince. Big thanks to Alba for making the necessary Spanish audio of TLP available, along with printed English and Spanish translations.

You know, the thing I’m loving most about studying Spanish here in the U.S. is it’s such a big ol’ FU to Dobbsian anti-immigration bigotry.

While this is perhaps not a particularly laudable motivation, it is seriously working.

2007-11-17 update: As a result of reading this How to Learn any Language forum thread, fortified by another thread on learning styles, capped by an enthusiastic recommendation from linguist John McWhorter, I’ve added Assimil to my language-learning curriculum mix.

From the learning-styles thread I see I fit the learning style described as reflective-intuitive-verbal-global, as compared to the other end of the learning-style scales, active-sensing-visual-sequential. Assimil is mentioned (especially on thread’s page 4) as a program that appeals to intuitive-global learners.

This past summer I listened to McWhorter’s Teaching Company course, Story of Human Language. What an outstanding accompaniment to my first big second-language self-study project! (I listened in parallel to studying beginner German.) Very motivating by revealing backstory and characteristics of languages through time. Based on that course, the man has my respect, so I’m inclined to pay attention to his recommendations. He’s big on Assimil.

So I’ve bought Assimil Spanish with Ease from LanguageQuest. I see it’s also available at a just-lowered (I think) price at Amazon.

I’m very interested to discover what Assimil adds to the mix.

2007-11-20 update: Spanish-learning resources on the Web abound, including many delightful podcasts. These podcasts appeal to me because they often provide a slice-o’-life view into others’ lives, thinking, and culture. Of the language podcasts I’ve sampled so far, I’m most enchanted by Mark and Kara’s Coffee Break Spanish and Ben and Marina’s Notes in Spanish.

I could listen to Mark and Kara’s Scottish accent (when they’re speaking English, that is) for weeks on end. Ben and Marina, in addition to what they’re teaching, remind me to laugh more. I love hearing, and seeing, their joyful approach to life. Isn’t it amazing how people you’ve never met can feel like friends? Gracias, mis amigos.

2007-12-31 update: While this matters to hardly anyone but me, I want to record where I am with learning Spanish as 2007 draws to a close:

• completed Pimsleur Spanish II
• completed 2/3 of LSLC Level 1 (ready for Lesson 20)
• completed passive phase of Assimil Spanish with Ease (thru Lesson 49)

I’m queued up to segue immediately into Pimsleur Spanish III, wrap up LSLC Level 1 and proceed to LSLC Level 2, continue into Assimil’s active phase, and then, at some point, start Platiquemos.

I’ve been saying I’m going to be at least bilingual before I die. I didn’t realize that the journey could be (1) this much fun, and (2) call forth this much self-discipline, which is spilling over into other areas of my life, like rain in a desert.

Thus, at least in this context, it really is all good.

The Religious Right’s embrace of its current worldview and consequent behaviors is starting to [measurably] bear its bitter fruit, as identified by The Barna Group in a new study, A New Generation Expresses its Skepticism and Frustration with Christianity:

As the nation’s culture changes in diverse ways, one of the most significant shifts is the declining reputation of Christianity, especially among young Americans. A new study by The Barna Group conducted among 16- to 29-year-olds shows that a new generation is more skeptical of and resistant to Christianity than were people of the same age just a decade ago.

The specific stats identified are very interesting even though (IMO) all the more grievous because the wounds are self-inflicted by people who name themselves Christian. If you’re short of time, I’d summarize the mass of data presented with this quote:

When young people were asked to identify their impressions of Christianity, one of the common themes was “Christianity is changed from what it used to be” and “Christianity in today’s society no longer looks like Jesus.”

As a former “insider” (Barna’s term), I hope one day to be part of a [hope-filled, life-affirming] solution [that is, toward a Christianity that does look like Jesus]. But for now, and likely for a long time to come, I remain part of the diaspora.

[via Sara’s excellent post]

2007-10-28 update: Traces of hope — maybe more than traces — in today’s thorough (and thoroughly blogged) New York Times Magazine story by David Kirkpatrick, The Evangelical Crackup.

By traces of hope, of course I mean that (according to Kirkpatrick) signs of life are starting to appear in the cracks in the bleak and barren landscape of conservative Christianity: renewed commitments to love, to peace, to spiritual formation, to social justice, to stewardship, to community. I see these Jesus-like directions nurturing the kingdom of God, not poisoning it, as much recent conservative theology has done (whatever the motives of its adherents — see Barna results above).

But do the monetary costs of this war, largely being deferred to the next generation, demonstrate fiscal responsibility?

Is committing these funds to an enterprise that is destroying 100,000s of lives — directly via violence done and indirectly via caring-for-others left undone — an example of good stewardship?

What Would Jesus Do?™

Oh, good, an easy one: not what we’re doing.

Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.

—Book of Common Prayer, Morning Prayer

Kung Fu Monkey writes about this today:

Our representatives — and to a great degree we as a culture — are completely buffaloed by shamelessness. You reveal a man’s corrupt, or lying, or incompetent, and what does he do? He resigns. He attempts to escape attention, often to aid in his escape of legal pursuit. Public shame has up to now been the silver bullet of American political life. But people who are willing to just do the wrong thing and wait you out, to be publicly guilty … dammmnnnn.

Naturally I think of exploit in the context of operating systems, browsers, and other software. And I think that’s an apt analogy: these guys are malicious hackers who’ve found a hole in the system and are stealing every credit card number and password they can find, as swiftly and voraciously as possible.

This topic shame is of related anthropological/theological interest (though IANAA) insofar as it was presented to me in seminary classes as a primary hermeneutic for understanding Hebrew scripture: honor-shame culture permeates, shapes, even defines human behavior throughout the Old Testament. And beyond, of course, but it’s especially evident in most ancient cultures, where it was explicit instead of implicit as now.

[via Firedoglake]

Further, Glenn Greenwald, as usual, pierces to the heart of the matter, and brings to mind Madison’s assertion that our system was designed “to be run by devils” in not relying on good motivations to function. Oops:

It is no surprise that we have political leaders who are corrupt and abuse their power. Our whole political system is premised on the expectation that this will happen. But that expectation was accompanied by the attempt by the Founders to create as many safeguards and checks on those abuses as possible. Over the last six years, all of those safeguards have failed completely.

We have a radical and lawless government that has run rampant over the last six years precisely because the institutions designed to stop that abuse have not only stood idly by, but have actively defended and participated in it.

Another Bush legal official, even now at the commanding heights of power, admits that the administration’s policies are largely discredited. In its defense, he says without a hint of irony or sarcasm, “Not everything we’ve done has been illegal.” …

I guess that’s the upside. Downside for administration officials is only takes one thing, not everything, as basis for criminal conviction. Downside for us is that many of the things they’ve done that are illegal, however short of “everything,” have consequences as big as earthquakes far into the future.

On June 11, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, the most conservative in the country, issued a decision striking at the heart of Bush’s conception of the presidency. In al-Marri v. Wright, the court ruled that Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a resident of Qatar, arrested as a student at Bradley University in the United States, accused of aiding al-Qaida, could not be held in indefinite detention as an “enemy combatant” and must be remanded to the civilian criminal court system. …

“The President,” the court said, “claims power that far exceeds that granted him by the Constitution.” This extraordinary decision, citing the Framers, declared Bush’s actions — and his imperial presidency — null and void. …

Few, if any, presidents have ever been the subject of such a devastating legal decision. While presidential actions have been ruled illegal or unconstitutional in the past, they were individual acts. But in the case of Bush, the al-Marri decision not only discredits Bush’s position but denies his idea of his presidential legitimacy in the American tradition. The decision also declares that Bush’s idea is a mortal threat to the Constitution. And this ruling was issued by the most conservative court in the land.

To this cautious good-news assessment I can only add that sane thinking by conservative minds, as this decision reveals, reminds me (as I often need reminding) that the conservative worldview is not itself the festering malignant sore on the face of our democracy. The festering malignant sore is the beliefs and actions of current practitioners who claim the conservative mantle but exhibit none of its virtues.

“Evangelicals — especially the new generation of pastors and young people — are deserting the religious right in droves,” wrote Jim Wallis, author of God’s Politics, in a February commentary in Time. “The evangelical social agenda is now much broader and deeper, engaging issues like poverty and economic justice, global warming, HIV/AIDS, sex trafficking, genocide in Darfur and the ethics of the war in Iraq.”

As I’ve said many times, I see the Religious Right as having little connection to biblical Christianity other than serving as an example of what Jesus said not to be and do.

OTOH caring about poverty, economic justice, healing, stewardship of creation, and eliminating killing and war, as Jim says is now part of the evangelical social agenda — now these things are at the heart of biblical Christianity!

So there’s hope. And hope for change remains vital for the hearts of certain white folk (as of November 2006):

Though exit polls showed only a slight improvement for Democrats among white evangelicals, who remained loyal to the GOP, Democrats received a rise in support from Catholics and secular voters.

Any Christian (of any variety) who still identifies with the GOP is not paying attention to one or the other. I think the two radically different worldviews — Christian and Republican — cannot be reconciled:

You will fully recognize them by their fruits. Do people pick grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?

Even so, every healthy (sound) tree bears good fruit [worthy of admiration], but the sickly (decaying, worthless) tree bears bad (worthless) fruit.

A good (healthy) tree cannot bear bad (worthless) fruit, nor can a bad (diseased) tree bear excellent fruit [worthy of admiration].

I think in history there’s seldom been a more diseased tree than today’s U.S. Republican Party. Thank God most of us see that now. (Endless unjustified war is an unmistakeably bad fruit no one can ignore forever; it stinks to high heaven.)

I infer article author Thomas Schaller may not be as convinced as Wallis that the transformation of evangelical Christianity is well under way, given his focus on how the harm evangelicals do by voting Republican is being minimized, rather than on the good they can do by voting more consistent with their faith’s core values, which are (by today’s definitions) liberal/progressive.

Even that is progress worthy of praise, though: First do no harm.

So I’m learning different ways to speak for when I do have something to say again.

I’m self-studying German. Can a mid-life dude learn another language? The answer is “of course,” but sure is easy to think otherwise; it’s such an easy excuse not to.

I choose German because (1) I’ve made several forays into Spanish since high school and now want to try something (almost) completely different, (2) I read technical content constantly and much of it on the ‘net is in German, and (3) I have family members to practice with! Finally, bonus benefit: when I cycle back around to Spanish months from now — a language more obviously practical to a resident of the southern U.S. — I think it’ll seem easy by comparison.

On a global scale, learning another language is commonplace enough it hardly merits mention. Where I live, though, I think it’s still really unusual.

2007-07-17 language learning update:

I’m using numerous learning tools; here’s the cream of the crop of what’s working for me so far:

• How To Learn Any Language, Barry Farber

Barry is entertaining, motivating, and provides several language learning ideas in this book that made me slap my forehead and say, I would never have thought of that! Like, using flashcards in odd moments to learn vocabulary. Now I’m never without a short stack of Vis-Ed German Vocabulary flashcards, punched and on an O-ring for quick flipping.

• How-to-learn-any-language.com site and forum

Remarkably knowledgeable discussion goes on here in the forum; I’ve gleaned many empowering tips on tools and techniques.

• Pimsleur German I Comprehensive (L1—30) (info: Amazon, publisher)
• Pimsleur German II Comprehensive (L31—60) (info: Amazon, publisher)
• Pimsleur German III Comprehensive (L61—90) (info: Amazon, publisher)

I’ve been through Rocket German and made some progress (despite being put off initially by its hypey marketing). RG is good, and reasonably priced.

Ich spreche. But Pimsleur rocks my world by powerfully addressing my longstanding (though hardly unique) problem: actually speaking forth. Pimsleur woos me forward, gently pulling me to piece together phrases and clauses and sentences, keeping me challenged and motivated but not overwhelmed. The overwhelm, when it happens, I call the “shit” boundary condition: when swiftly moving instruction throws such a big mass of words at you that you temporarily, inadvertently just say “shit” and mentally abort the process, even if only for a moment.

In contrast, I’m done with Pimsleur German I and almost done with Pimsleur German II now — 50+ lessons completed out of the full-monty 90 — and I’ve hit the “shit” boundary condition exactly once.

Pimsleur definitely works with the way my mind is wired, better than any other approach I’ve tried over the years. It’s expensive relative to other tools — though not compared to classroom instruction — but IMO worth it.

Pimsleur sources. Since I’m trying to pack as few further atoms into my packrat life as possible, I’m not into buying physical Pimsleur CDs, even though several places offer cost-effective buy-back programs (example). Best downloadable (aka atom-free) source for buying Pimsleur programs I’ve found is PimsleurAudio.com.

A downside: Like all other legitimate downloadable providers I’ve seen, PimsleurAudio.com’s downloadable Pimsleur product is DRM‘d WMA format that (1) requires Windows, (2) requires Internet Explorer, (3) is a pain in the ass to decrypt and manipulate, and (4) won’t directly play on iPods.

(Aside: What genius at Simon & Schuster decided that was a good idea? I’m probably almost your core market demographic, guys, and I deliberately don’t ever use Windows, IE, or DRM except under duress. Which of these is not like the others — Windows, IE, DRM, unfettered learning?)

Nevertheless, product effectiveness is so high I make an exception to my usual policy of No DRM No How.)

Tschüss.

2007-11-17 update: Another genius move by Simon & Schuster (S&S) against the administrator of a How to Learn Any Language forum:

I have received a request (more like a threatening email in fact) from Simon and Schuster to take down the thread with the Pimsleur transcripts. Thanks for not posting more in the future, they consider it copyright infringement.

Seriously. Not. Cool. If you are not going to provide transcripts with your product, S&S, you damn sure need to encourage your most enthusiastic customers who are providing them, not make threats against them.

Peabody died today. RIP my steadfast friend. I love you.

(This entry brings forward Peabody the Magnificent in my photolog from January 2003. As I reflect on Peabody’s life, I think munificent describes him even better.)

Let today be the day that the curse is lifted.

Same prayer today. What’s changed? Today more of us recognize the curse as curse and are ready to have it lifted.

Remember Not One Damn Dime Day? Great name, I thought.

I want today to carry more heft. Because of promises broken, diety blasphemed, accountability scorned, budgets busted, and blood shed, let today be

Not One Damn Republican Day

For everyone’s benefit.

Amen.

Of course, for people already knowledgeable about version control and full-service webhosting, this is no big deal. But I notice there are lots of people for whom version control of everyday documents is a new idea, and who’d have no idea how to begin even if they wanted to. This opens the door immediately.

I encountered Unfuddle for the first time today; for collaborative project management, it’s hugely compelling AFAICT. I just observe their generous provision of a Subversion repository to anyone who asks is beneficial all by itself.

Backstory: The handful of Windows users to whom I’ve shown the benefits of version control — especially Windows-integrated version control via the excellent (and also free) graphical client TortoiseSVN — have said, Dude, this is one of the most powerful tools you’ve ever turned me on to.

A little later …
I see that as of Sept. 26, 2006, another free starter Subversion hosting account is available from myVersionControl (announcement):

The outcome of all of this is that we are proud to be able to offer to everyone a fully featured subversion hosting account. All the features of the pay accounts are available, the only caveat being that you are restricted to a total file size of 4mb.

And of course, several other players also offer for-pay full-service Subversion hosting sans a free starter offering:

• Versionshelf (offers 30-day free trial)
• CVSDude [ah, I see provides 2MB storage for free]
• Wush.net

Disclaimer: I’ve always hosted my own version control tools (Subversion, SVK, Mercurial) so I can’t say I’m recommending any of these providers based on first-hand experience. I have however signed up for the free Unfuddle and myVersionControl plans to evaluate for future use and recommendation to others.

You are, so long as this law is on the books, now in a dictatorship.

No deep thought is required to recognize he’s right:

If one person, or a small group of persons, can accuse then torture anyone he or she chooses and/or put the accused person in prison indefinitely without provision for due process under the law, then the result is indistinguishable from a dictatorship.

Think about what’s happened apart from its serious ethical, moral, and Constitutional implications. Look at it practically:

As an engineer, if I build an electrical, mechanical, or process flow system with a glaring single point of failure — as, in this case, hinging everything on the discernment and judgment of one human being, every one of whom is subject to error — then I’ll be drummed out of the engineering profession. And appropriately so: when any system depends on one breakable link to function, that link will eventually break. And when it does, the power grid fails, the bridge falls, the plane is misrouted to Fargo — or falls out of the sky.

Put another way:
In any complex system on which lives depend, wherein failure means fatal, there must always be failsafe upon failsafe upon failsafe. This legislation strips away all the failsafes.

If our democracy is to survive, this legislation cannot stand.

Resources:

• Senate Approves Broad New Rules to Try Detainees
• Rushing Off a Cliff, editorial listing bill’s flaws
• Many Rights in U.S. Legal System Absent in New Bill
• U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes on S. 3930
• S. 3930, Military Commissions Act of 2006 (PDF), Senate bill “to authorize trial by military commission for violations of the law of war, and for other purposes”

2006-10-19 update:
Mr. Bush signed this act into law on Tuesday, October 17, 2006.

Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley reminds of James Madison’s alternative imagery about our system of government to mine about broken engineering design:

OLBERMANN: Does this mean that under this law, ultimately the only thing keeping you, I, or the viewer out of Gitmo is the sanity and honesty of the president of the United States?

TURLEY: It does. And it’s a huge sea change for our democracy. The framers created a system where we did not have to rely on the good graces or good mood of the president. In fact, Madison said that he created a system essentially to be run by devils, where they could not do harm, because we didn’t rely on their good motivations.

Now we must.

I remain surprised at the overlap between Calvin-influenced Protestant Christians for whom “the depravity of man [who is therefore dependent on God’s grace]” is a central doctrine — a doctrine I understand and am significantly influenced by — and those who support the party who supports this notion that the depraved human being — that is, any human being, present or future — occupying the office of President of the United States is immune from error.

Powerhouse commentary. Keith Olbermann delivers a tour de force comment on this loss of habeas corpus on the Wednesday, October 18, 2006 Countdown (alternate Quicktime version here).

I expect this video to achieve historical significance in future years in future classrooms. Well worth seeing now.

What happens next is the slow-motion annihilation of this ship of death, its fiery chunks falling to earth, the sun washing the sky of its brooding malevolence, and just in the nick of time.

On the one hand, after year upon grinding year, saying this out loud now sounds like unwarranted hope. OTOH what I experienced during this comment I experienced viscerally, and to me an unconscious whole-body response like this reveals more has happened than just words being spoken.

What is happening on Capitol Hill today is plainly evil. …
Anyone — anyone — who accommodates torture takes part in evil. That might not make us all equally responsible, but it does make us all guilty.

Yes: Torture is evil. This legislation is evil. Illegal, immoral, evil. There is no excuse for torture under any circumstance. There is no defense before God for accepting it.

For each of us, this is not a Republican/Democrat thing. It’s not a conservative/liberal thing. This is a human thing: are we, or aren’t we?

Unless we turn, all of us now, this spiritual cancer is going to kill us.

EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL.

God, help us turn from this evil. God, forgive us for being its host.