Wednesday of this week at 11:30 AM, the returning Graduate Assistants in SIU's English Department return for three days of pre-semester workshop. Many of my colleagues and friends have worked hard putting these events together and, in my judgment, deserve extensive credit for their efforts. Classes begin for the year on Monday next, August 20th, and after a summer of people basically doing their own thing, the routine of regular academic schedules will make its own reappearance. Freshmen will get lost in Faner Hall and 18 year olds will--bravado aside--feel anxious about starting a new part of their lives. New Graduate Assistants across our campus will walk into classrooms and begin teaching, in the process learning more than they realize as the semester develops. I went through that process three years ago and, while being older than perhaps many of my fellow GA's, I had to learn as well, occasionally by "un-learning" from assumptions I had about how students see themselves and what they expect from a Composition class. These next several days, in other words, will be busy and, frankly, I'm grateful.
Within a few weeks as well, SIU's football team will suit up for its first game. One of my former students plays on the team and from what I can tell, has done well throughout his career. The first few games are always in weather too hot for comfort, but I will be always grateful for warmth after going three years ago--with my friends Nathan and Chris--to what we came to call our own version of the "Ice Bowl" when SIU lost to Eastern Washington in Round One of the NCAA Division I-A playoffs. We froze and each got wet in the persistent drizzle; we all escaped pneumonia by probably the skimmest of margins, or so it seemed; and to make matters worse, SIU was ranked Number One in the country, only to lose the game at home. So warm or cold: who knows? I don't know how the Salukis will fare this year, but I imagine I'll take in a game or two after I see my beloved Memphis Tigers twice in early September. I only wish the SIU would sell Coke products rather than Pepsi. I guess the older I get, the more I feel drawn to my original preferences and tend to notice negative taste--personal choice, nothing "scientific" here--that I just can't seem to swallow for the length of a game. Memphis, being a Southern school, sells Coke soft drinks, I believe. Then again, the Dallas Cowboys sell Pepsi at their games and they are somewhat Southern even as my Texas friends will insist on being known as Texans prior to anything else. Maybe the Cowboys' choice of Pepsi is another reason I don't like them. Now if my Minnesota Vikings sell Pepsi, I'm not sure what I'll do.
I'm hoping, in any case, for a productive academic year and that we as students and those students we teach will enrich one another's learning experience.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Bonds and Bridges
Through last night's baseball action, mercifully, Henry Aaron continues to hold the Major League home run record. I grew up watching Mr. Aaron play for (mostly) bad Atlanta Braves teams, although they did come within--I believe--8 games or so of winning the division one year in the early 1970s. I attended a game in which he played, on September 25, 1972, when the Los Angeles Dodgers and Frank Robinson defeated the Braves 5-4 (a score I would some six years later find even more painful). Ron Reed started the game for Atlanta and I remember thinking when I saw him warming up before the game, "We're going to lose." Reed never pitched consistently well, although he did belong to the Phillies team that won the World Series in 1980. I was pleased for him, but also wish Phil Niekro--also a Brave on "my" day--could have done so as well.
All that aside, most of you remember I posted not too long ago about my--shall I say--intense disdain for Barry Lamar Bonds. Barring something horrific that I do not wish for him, Bonds will in reasonably short order pass Mr. Aaron and receive credit for hitting more home runs than anyone else in baseball history. I could care less as even if Bonds plays until he is 725 years old--his knees already seem about that age--Mr. Aaron will be, in Milo Hamilton's words on April 8, 1974, "the new home run champion in baseball." Alex Rodriguez will someday--without major injury--pass Mr. Aaron and You-Know-Who, for which I will applaud his well-earned and legitimate accomplishment. Maybe Albert Pujols will approach 755 as well. I'm venting, of course, and trying to not pay attention to the inevitable.
The past 24 hours have been occupied with the much more serious news from Minneapolis and the collapse of the bridge over the Mississippi River. Some of my friends have posted about it and wrote in their usual eloquent fashion. It's easy to blame, even when--as it seems--the lack of funding from Washington in the Bush era has helped to create the circumstances in which our national infrastructure has been neglected. Given that they were in near total power from 2003 through last January, the Republicans and their aversion to "gub-mint" must assume most of the responsbility for the context in which these events can occur. It's in the hands of Norman Coleman, the Republican Senator from Minnesota, to make clear that they will "own up" to the neglect they helped to foster. It's also in the hands of the majority Democrats to push unrelentingly the sort of non-telegenic legislative drudgery that is infrastructure update and repair. Most people, I think, get "glazed eye syndrome" when "infrastructure" is mentioned, except when something like yesterday takes place. Then all too often, overheated, accusatory emotionalism assumes control more than reasoned debate and the necessary political compromises that rest at the heart of our political system. The Democratic Senator from Minnesota--whose name I can't remember how to spell--is in the position, along with her Congressional colleagues, to presently choose between blaming "Norm Coleman, George Bush and the Republicans" or doing the hard work of legislating that will insure increased funding for our very real and apparent national needs. Hubert Humphrey was as partisan a Minnesota Democrat as there ever was, but he worked with Everett Dierksen, Gerald Ford and other Republicans for the good of the whole country, not just the faithful who happened to belong to the same party. If, in any case, Norm Coleman, George Bush and other current Republicans try somehow to blame Democrats (or, in Pat and Jerry's words after 9/11, homosexuals and "liberals") for yesterday, then the Democrats ought to respond with some unrepeatable advice from Lyndon Johnson. Or, as Bill Clinton reportedly said, if they try to cut you with a knife, you cut their hand off with a meat cleaver. Human tragedy and suffering ought to be beyond even the most partisan political pale. But, as ever these days, we'll see.
All that aside, most of you remember I posted not too long ago about my--shall I say--intense disdain for Barry Lamar Bonds. Barring something horrific that I do not wish for him, Bonds will in reasonably short order pass Mr. Aaron and receive credit for hitting more home runs than anyone else in baseball history. I could care less as even if Bonds plays until he is 725 years old--his knees already seem about that age--Mr. Aaron will be, in Milo Hamilton's words on April 8, 1974, "the new home run champion in baseball." Alex Rodriguez will someday--without major injury--pass Mr. Aaron and You-Know-Who, for which I will applaud his well-earned and legitimate accomplishment. Maybe Albert Pujols will approach 755 as well. I'm venting, of course, and trying to not pay attention to the inevitable.
The past 24 hours have been occupied with the much more serious news from Minneapolis and the collapse of the bridge over the Mississippi River. Some of my friends have posted about it and wrote in their usual eloquent fashion. It's easy to blame, even when--as it seems--the lack of funding from Washington in the Bush era has helped to create the circumstances in which our national infrastructure has been neglected. Given that they were in near total power from 2003 through last January, the Republicans and their aversion to "gub-mint" must assume most of the responsbility for the context in which these events can occur. It's in the hands of Norman Coleman, the Republican Senator from Minnesota, to make clear that they will "own up" to the neglect they helped to foster. It's also in the hands of the majority Democrats to push unrelentingly the sort of non-telegenic legislative drudgery that is infrastructure update and repair. Most people, I think, get "glazed eye syndrome" when "infrastructure" is mentioned, except when something like yesterday takes place. Then all too often, overheated, accusatory emotionalism assumes control more than reasoned debate and the necessary political compromises that rest at the heart of our political system. The Democratic Senator from Minnesota--whose name I can't remember how to spell--is in the position, along with her Congressional colleagues, to presently choose between blaming "Norm Coleman, George Bush and the Republicans" or doing the hard work of legislating that will insure increased funding for our very real and apparent national needs. Hubert Humphrey was as partisan a Minnesota Democrat as there ever was, but he worked with Everett Dierksen, Gerald Ford and other Republicans for the good of the whole country, not just the faithful who happened to belong to the same party. If, in any case, Norm Coleman, George Bush and other current Republicans try somehow to blame Democrats (or, in Pat and Jerry's words after 9/11, homosexuals and "liberals") for yesterday, then the Democrats ought to respond with some unrepeatable advice from Lyndon Johnson. Or, as Bill Clinton reportedly said, if they try to cut you with a knife, you cut their hand off with a meat cleaver. Human tragedy and suffering ought to be beyond even the most partisan political pale. But, as ever these days, we'll see.
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