randomness

While I love Idaho in many ways, I have found that I’m not so fond of snow as I remembered.

While I don’t love snow as much as I thought I did, I’m getting used to it.  And I still prefer it to heat.

As long as I’m on the weather–in many ways, I miss the great rain-storms in Texas.

I am more than curious to see how events will unfold after President Hinckley’s funeral (which I’m currently watching).  Who will serve as counselors to President Monson?  When will the announce the re-constitution of the Quorum of the First Presidency?  What will President Monson’s administration be like?  How will his General Conference talks change?

I’m frequently disturbed by the mis-representation of the quote that starts, “Anyone who imagines bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around and shouting that he has been robbed.”  While I love this quote, I’m frustrated that people don’t recognize that President Hinckley did not say this.  Rather,  he quoted it from an article in the Deseret News from 1973.  If you’d like to read the quote in full, take a look at the following article (just one of many in which President Hinckley used it): “A Conversation with Single Adults.”

I love teaching at BYU-Idaho.   I can expect so much more from my students than I could at a state university.  Plus, I don’t have to avert my eyes when talking to my students (because they all dress modestly); I can talk about the Gospel openly (which is nice, since it’s a strong vein in my thinking); and I actually feel like I’m a real member of the faculty (which I never really did at UNT).

I would be willing to teach full-time at BYU-Idaho, at least for a few years.  Especially if I could teach some linguistics-related classes, like History of the English Language.

If Sen. John McCain wins the nomination as the presidential candidate for President, disaster will soon follow in the Republican Party.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it caused a major party-shift.

If McCain wins the nomination, I refuse to vote for him.  I will write in Mitt Romney as my choice for President.

I’m on tenter-hooks, waiting to see how things come out in the many primaries and caucuses on “Super Tuesday” (Feb. 5).

I’m wonderfully grateful for the in-depth coverage that has been given to this presidential race.

Although I love my new PC laptop, I still wish I’d gotten a Mac.  *sigh*

While I appreciate the great love that members of the Church–and especially the youth–have had for President Hinckley, I don’t quite “get” the deep sadness at his passing.  I have no doubt that he is much happier now than he has been for some time.  Meanwhile, the Church will move on here on the earth, and can only progress.  What is there to be sad about?  (I don’t mean to trivialize the grief of so many, I am merely expressing my own feelings on this occasion.)

I didn’t realize until just recently that there was some lag-time between the passing of the President of the Church and the re-constitution of the Quorum of the First Presidency, even after Brigham Young had cleared up the succession problem.

One of the most destructive weapons against the productive use of our time is the invention of decent computer games.  I am currently obsessed with Jojo’s Fashion Show, and a few weeks ago was obsessed with Chocolatier.  Now I can hardly stand not being able to play Chocolatier 2.  And I am addicted to the 60-minute trial scheme.

I have been trying to work up the courage to leave the country for a few years as soon as I finish my doctoral degree.  I’d love to teach English abroad, perhaps in Mongolia or Jordan, perhaps through the Peace Corps or the BYU Kennedy Center for International Studies.  And I frequently think that I’d like to learn a “less-commonly-taught” language like Arabic, Hebrew, or Bengalese and then work as a contract linguist for the FBI and/or NVTC (National Virtual Translation Center).

The BYU-I English Department Secretary recently emailed all the faculty, asking for some help with a special project.  They are collecting favorite one-liner quotes from our favorite authors.  *chuckle*  I think I can do that.  My pick of my favorite favorite quotes ended up at about 2-1/2 pages.

I recently bought the actual album of Muse’s Black Holes and Revelations.  Not just the downloaded version, but the real-life CD, which I can now keep in my car and listen to whenever I want.  Oh, joy!

A few weeks ago, Mom and I watched the movie Dan in Real Life.  I loved it!  From the previews, I thought it was going to be a screwball comedy.  It wasn’t.  And it was so much better than I had expected.  Even if you’re not a Steve Carrell fan, I highly recommend it.  And if you are a Steve Carrell fan,  I still recommend it, as it’s an unusual example of his dramatic acting skills.

 

what i love about President Bush

I was just watching Andrew Card, the White House Chief of Staff, answering questions on MSNBC. The reporter started out with several questions about John Roberts, and then moved on to the ubiquitous Karl Rove-Valerie Plame “scandal”. He asked Card whether there was an internal investigation going on and didn’t get the answer he wanted. So he asked the question another way. And then another. Finally, Card said, “Look, you can ask the question any way you want, the answer is still going to be the same.”

This is the kind of thing that I love about President Bush and the people he asks to work with him. They are not about appearances and looking good all the time, they’re about doing what they believe is right. And they’re not afraid of being looked at unfavorably for doing that. They don’t allow the media, other politicians, or opinion polls to dictate the terms on which they will operate. As Jay Nordlinger frequently says, there will never be another quite like him.

 

today’s scripture study

This morning I was reading in Alma, about Alma and Amulek teaching the people of Ammonihah. I was especially struck by Chapter 10, where Amulek begins to speak. The people are particularly annoyed that one of their own is speaking out against them and their actions, and so the lawyers and judges decide to try and trap him. But he, with the help of the Lord, figures out what their up to, and he again condemns their actions. This makes the people even more angry, and they claim that he is reviling their laws. Amulek explains that he did not speak against their law — rather, he spoke in favor of their law, and that law condemns them. The people’s response? “The hypocrite! First he speaks against our law, and now he claims that he didn’t speak against our law. He’s a liar and a child of the devil.” (To read the real version of what happened, as opposed to my personal summary of it, click here.)

Anyway, what struck me with this account was that it sure sounds a lot like what’s been going on in our country lately. I think it’s particularly relevant to the fiasco surrounding Terri Schiavo these days, but it’s been going on for years. It really brought home to me Mosiah’s prophecy that “if the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction” (Mosiah 29:27). For several years, that’s been one of my favorite scriptures in the Book of Mormon. Now, it almost scares me.

And now, to lighten the mood of this rather somber post, I leave you with this light-hearted quote.

“Surely you can’t be serious?”
“I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.”
(5 points)

 

Williams does it again

I just had to share this article by Walter E. Williams. Not his most recent, but I just found it today. He makes a good case for the “original intent” school of Constitutional interpretation. The only person I’ve ever heard make better arguments for that school is Justice Antonin Scalia.

Anyway, here’s the article: The law, or good ideas?

I’m sitting in the library right now, working on my assignments, and boy is it hot! I’m sitting next to the window, and it’s unusually sunny outside. On top of that, i’m also wearing a black long-sleeved shirt and dark jeans, which doesn’t help the situation.

Laugh it up, fuzzball. (5 points)

 

judicial nominees, filibusters, and the "nuclear" option

I was just re-reading this wonderful article by Thomas Sowell, and I wanted to pass it along, just in case anyone else is interested. I’m very interested to see what will happen with all of this — and I’m personally outraged at the whole situation in the Senate with the judicial nominees. But I’ll spare you an elaboration of my personal opinions on this matter. Anyway, Sowell does a great job outlining the issues at stake in this struggle, and anyone wanting to think more about it would do well to read the article.

Here you go.

He who hesitates is sometimes saved. (30 points)

 

politeness conference

Yesterday I spent the whole day in Nottingham for a Politeness Conference at Nottingham University. Before you ask, let me clear up a few misconceptions. No, politeness (as an academic study) is in no way related to sensitivity. No, we did not sit around and learn how to be polite to other people. No, there was nothing there about Robin Hood or Maid Marian. And no, we didn’t analyze each other’s politeness strategies. And yes, politeness really is an academic study — it has been quite influential, especially in the linguistic study of pragmatics.

Politeness deals with how people display polite (and impolite) behavior. In linguistics, it is concerned with the language people use to be polite or impolite. It tries to make sense of statements like the following:

Can you pass the salt?

See, usually the person who says something like that knows that the person they’re addressing literally is capable of passing the salt. So, why do they question it? Why do we put it in that way? Well, it’s one way of being polite (namely, in this case, by being indirect) – it softens the blow of what the speaker is really trying to say. If we didn’t make the utterance polite, we would end up saying something like, “Give me the salt.” In some cases, that might be fine; but in other cases, that kind of statement might offend someone. So, this is what politeness is all about.

The conference was interesting. They were also launching the start of a new journal on politeness, so they gave us all free copies of the first issue. That made me glad, since there are some articles in there that I’ve been looking forward to using. However, for the most part, I was just annoyed by the sense of academic self-superiority that pervaded all the proceedings. I don’t think that people in academia try to be superior — but they really get accustomed to thinking that way. Never before in my life have been so distinctly aware of the Ivory Tower.

Don’t get me wrong — I did enjoy myself, and there were some really interesting things discussed. But I just kept wondering what the point of it all was. Who really cares whether or not ‘face’ is a real concept, or whether it’s the same across cultures. Of course there are practical implications for it all — such as teaching people how to be polite in other cultures, countries, and languages — but in the long run, is it really going to matter whether or not our theory of politeness accurately reflects the way things are? It’s like the classic question about the chicken and the egg — you know, which one came first? Why does it matter? It might be interesting to theorize how things happened, but in the long run, it really doesn’t make any difference which was first, because they’re both here now. If we actually knew for certain that it was the chicken that came first, how would that change the way we do anything?

The older I get, the more of a pragmatist I become. And modern academia is really no place for a pragmatist.

Anyway, on a bit of a happier note, I’d like to recommend Walter E. Williams’s online ‘course’ (a series of 10 articles) entitled “Economics for the Citizen.” Dr. Williams had last fall semester off from teaching at George Mason University, so he wrote up this series of 10 articles to try and teach some basic economics for the average citizen. Very interesting stuff. Between Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell, I sometimes wonder if I shouldn’t have gone into economics. (Don’t worry – I’m just kidding.)

Oh yeah, and I found out the other day that Jonathan Culpeper will be supervising my dissertation. I’m excited about that, since I’m using his framework on characterization for my dissertation. That, and I just generally like Jonathan. My dissertation, by the way (or, incidentally), is about the characterization of James and Lily Potter in the Harry Potter series.

I ask a simple question, and I get a parade. (30 points)

 

the latest update

I just got thinking about my blog today and realized how long it’s been since I posted anything (a whole week! how could I?), so I thought I’d post a little something.

I’m currently listening to today’s Rush Limbaugh Show, with Walter E. Williams guest hosting. He’s “interviewing” Thomas Sowell over the phone, and it’s been fascinating. These are two of my favorite columnists ever. Very clear thinkers, and very clear writers. It makes me wonder sometimes if I shouldn’t have gone into Economics instead. To view their columns, use these links: Walter E. Williams ~*~ Thomas Sowell.

Also, while at the British Museum recently, I was struck once more by the nature of Egyptian hieroglyphs. So I have taken it upon myself to learn some Ancient Egyptian. This is proving a bit difficult at the moment. I’ve got little flash cards for the ‘alphabet’ glyphs (the ones that stand for just one letter – this is how they ’spell’ your name in Egyptian at places like this). But the other characters have been difficult to work with – on one site, the glyphs are too small to be able to really reproduce them (which is the only way I manage to learn things), and another site doesn’t have the transcription for them (so that I know roughly how to pronounce them). Plus, all of the sites I’ve found use a completely different set of glyphs once they get past the ‘alphabet’, so there’s no way to compare them and find missing information from one site on the next. I’m thinking I may have to wait until I get home and buy a real textbook for it before I really make much headway. I also want to learn Akkadian cuneiform sometime soon. I have mused many times that if I were not in stylistics, I would want to be in historical linguistics, reconstructing ancient languages.

Lately, I’ve been watching more Strong Bad Emails. I’d really quite forgotten about Strong Bad and Homestar Runner, until Katie visited. After watching a few with her, I remembered how hilarious they are. And then I played Peasant’s Quest on the games page — too fun! I strongly recommend that you check it out. Play Peasant’s Quest ~*~ Peasant’s Quest Walkthrough

Run the straight race through God’s good grace. (20 points, plus another 20 for a movie it’s in)