Spines and Pages and Words and Phrases, pt. 2

I went home for Christmas and set myself to organizing my old books. I brought home two boxes of older political science texts from Denver, so I managed to at least make a small dent at my apartment. Looking through my room back home, though, made me want to reconsider the entire endeavor. There was, quite literally, nowhere to walk.

My bed was clear, but only because I had to have somewhere to sleep! I spent the better part of two days going through my many boxes and bookshelves, placing things into three categories:

1. Give to local library - I don't need it or I don't want it. Seriously, how many 1950s criticisms of Hegel does one really need?
2. Give to Mom and Dad or other people in my life - These books can be moved immediately to new ownership.
3. Keep - I either need them or really can't bring myself to give them up. My rare/old books will stay, as will many of what I might refer to as seminal texts in my personal/professional development.

So once that was all done, I packed up the Taurus and headed into the Franklin Grove Public Library. My mom used to be the librarian there, but that was years ago, and the place has since expanded and moved into a brand new building in the center of town. I started dumping the books in the storage room, and I think after the 20th box, the librarian might have had second thoughts! After I had finished that (first!) load, I stopped into my storage unit, still full of stuff from my old apartment in the Chicago suburbs. I ended up with another dozen or so boxes in the back of the Taurus and headed back to the library. I unloaded all of them - 35 boxes in total. My best estimate of the total number of books is somewhere between 900-1400. That's a lot. I was thanked for my donation and I drove my broken back on home.

Even by the low numbers, the amount of books that I dropped off at the library is extreme - it's more than many people will even see in a lifetime. And as much as I wanted to send them to some developing country where students truly hunger for new texts, such things are cost and time prohibitive. I was on a time crunch and I already work for a nonprofit that does its best overseas. Those aren't excuses, merely my frustration. Ideally, I would have taken off another week of work and transported the books to some organization in Chicago that could have helped.

Still, it felt really, really good to get all those old books out and into the hands of people for whom such texts might hopefully be an inspiration and educational resource.

books, library, feelings, writings

Spines and Pages and Words and Phrases, pt. 1

It's been a long time coming, I can say that much. After years of wanton book collection, my "library" has swelled to such a size that I am forced to keep it in three separate locations. My apartment in Denver holds around 400 or so books - these are good ones that I have to hang on to. There's my old room back at the farm in northern Illinois - I can't rightly say how many hundreds are there. And of course the storage unit a few miles away in town holds many more boxes.

The time has come for me to cull my collection, to bring together all my texts and make some (tough, maybe) decisions about which ones will stay and which ones will go. It will be a process, I am sure, but one that will undoubtedly free me of much that I don't need.

Someone else can use these books.

books, library

The Weather and Us

I'm home for the holidays, which means that I've traveled from a land of rapidly-shifting weather (Denver) to a place where the weather rapidly shifts to terrible (Northern Illinois). Last night, my family and I were going to have a nice dinner at a local Thai restaurant some 8 miles away. A great fog had come upon the land, so we cancelled the excursion.

This morning, I set out from the farm to head into Chicago for a visit with an old roommate and some other friends. The radio barked on and on about visibility being 1/4 mile. I put it at about 200 feet! It was horrifying. The creek that runs through our property was nearly overflowing the bridge. The hour-long trip to the suburban trains was unusually long - I couldn't go much over 50 mph. It was like everything, air and land both, had turned into water.

It got me to thinking about how important "talking about the weather" really is to us. It's a cliche, really, when you think about it. Asking about the weather, making fun of it, praising it, etc., are all vital parts of how we have made, make, and will continue to make conversation.

We make fun of how we "talk about the weather," but are such disparaging remarks simply a cover for not having anything else to talk about, or is it something that we have to do? I'm betting on the latter.

My guess is that if you look back far enough, to the Epic of Gilgamesh or something similarly cuneiform, you'll find somebody gabbing about the weather. It's always available for dialogue. And since it is an unmovable, non-responding thing, it is frightfully easy for us to deride it or compliment it as we see fit; it can't talk back and we can't change it. So we'll continue, on and on, until we either find a way to "fix" the weather or we get our heads on straight and talk about the important things. The weather is an easy target - we need to set our sights higher.

weather, feelings, language

Rick Warren, Interfaith Dialogue, and Obama

Barack Obama has selected Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church to deliver the invocation at his inauguration ceremony in January. Not everyone is happy. The furor from LGBT activists (many of whom supported Barack Obama) is especially understandable. Only a few hours after the announcement, the Human Rights Campaign's Joe Solmonese had released a letter expressing HRC's frustration. Warren is a very important figure in the religious life of America, and indeed the world. I've talked about him at the University of Denver's Interfaith Student Alliance blog. The post I refer to mentions Warren as being a powerful mobilizer for Christian youth worldwide. He spoke of "armies of compassion" that could perform services for others. He is also very vocal about AIDS and poverty relief.

The guy is exceedingly influential. Obama's choice of Rick Warren to invoke in January is thus a nod to the President-Elect's acknowledgment of the importance of religion in the lives of Americans. But not all Americans subscribe to the Christian faith, and not all American Christians are in step with Warren's admittedly conservative views. What does this all mean?

Some say that Obama and Warren see eye-to-eye on social justice issues, which is true, and that they both recognize the important role that faith plays in America. But Warren's selection is seen by many as an exclusionary choice, one that Obama, for all his talk of "bringing everybody together" has apparently missed. As an interfaith activist, I am perturbed by the choice, to be sure, and I hope that Obama will prove to be a fierce advocate for building bridges among our nation's diverse religious communities. On January 20th, the world will be watching.

christianity, human rights, rick warren, barack obama, inauguration, interfaith

Social Magnetism: Gravity, Guys, and Gals

I spend a lot of time working on hypotheticals, constructing "what if" questions about the future. This is part of the curse of being a political science guy - it's up to us to figure out what's going to happen in the future (I say this to anger my historian friends - Drew, that's for you). So in my latest WHAT IF, I thought about what might happen if someone quite famous, say Al Pacino or @Kofi Annan were to hop on Twitter tonight.

I refer to @THE_REAL_SHAQ to further my what if. The guy tweeted for the first time back on November 18th, largely to tell the world that he was, in fact, the real Shaq. That's less than a month ago. As of right now, he's being followed by 21,356 people. That's insane. Once we get enough case study data, I'm sure we'll be able to chart exactly how quickly big names expand their follower count. So let's say that Pacino hops on Twitter tonight and starts tweeting about whatever strikes his fancy. Within a few days he will have thousands of followers. We know that this happens, but it can't be just as simply as celebrity worship. I follow @Ban Ki-moon, but I'm more interested in what the Secretary General of the UN is up to than merely curious about a big name's daily plans.

In much the same fashion, once someone creates an especially engaging blog post/article (more than likely a list!), it circulates wildly throughout the social web. If we're not keeping up with ourselves, it is almost impossible to figure out where our content ends up. People will cut it up, give credit where credit is due, and repost, retweet, and reshare it ad infinitum. It's like casting a satellite out into space. Even if you point it in one specific direction, it's still going to be affected by the gravitational pulls of other objects, i.e. stars, asteroids, planets. Its course will be determined by the larger (and smaller) bodies that inhabit space. In the social web, the role of gravity and social magnetism cannot be ignored. If we don't pay attention, we may end up floating out into the social web alone.

social media, technology

Philadelphia

I finished off my whirl of a week in DC with a trip to Philadelphia to visit my aunt. She works for the Atwater Kent Museum, close to Independence Hall, the little brick building where such fine documents as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed. It was a real treat to walk around the city and see these things again.

I last visited Philadelphia in 1995 when I was a little kid, when seeing the chair where Washington sat only excited me as a history piece. Now, as a student of political science, I see these places (Philadelphia prides itself on American "firsts") as so much more.

It was inspiring to be walking around the places where some really, really important decisions in our history have been made. Despite all of the history and monuments, though, the place had a feel much like Denver - it's a big town with a small town feel.

philadelphia, indepence hall, history, political science

Washington, DC

Every time I go to DC, I spend my time there wishing that I was a resident. I feel the pulse of the whole entire world all around me, like being in the nexus of whatever happens to be happening. Even when I visit during the summer, when the fierce humidity reminds me of life in Illinois, I still think that I could bike to work, shower, and then put on my suit and tie. Going to meetings and conferences and lectures with some of the best minds. I dream of waiting in the Metro with its oddly graceful dim tunnels, and of walking past buildings where the Founding Humans did their best work. Note: Don't tell Philadelphia that I said that.

And usually when I leave the District, those feelings leave me, and I admit to myself and others that I could never, ever live there. I nitpick and find all the parts of Washington that I hate: again, the humidity; the obscenely fast pace of everything; the transitory nature of the people that inhabit the city; etc.

But this last time was different. I had my finger on the pulse and for the first time, I left the city praying to get that feeling back. Moving out there is, I think, the perfect opportunity for me to do some good. Of course, I would have to give up my bike trails and these mountains and Watercourse, but I think I could do it. We'll just have to wait and see if any of my applications get returned with a smiley face.

washington dc, denver