2009 Year in Review

Well, it’s the last day of 2009, which means it is the last day I can conscientiously blog about the six different things I had planned to blog on over Christmas break. But as Christmas breaks always seems to go, I never get as much done as I had planned. Every Christmas break when we go to Indiana, I pack with me far more books and activities than I ever get around to—whether its because I enjoy the time off not feeling like I need to do anything, I am having fun with family and friends, or I get engrossed into my new Christmas presents, all the things I had planned seemed to fall by the wayside. I should feel good that at least this time I actually did read one of the books that I took with me!

Anyways, one of those activities I had planned, as I had already said, was to blog about at least six different things. So, since it’s about 10PM on New Year’s Eve, and I’m going strong on a martini and a half, a quick blurb about all six of them is in order!

EMERSON’S FIRST SNOWFALL

The Saturday before Christmas, Pittsburgh got five inches of glorious snow. It was Emerson’s first real snowfall, so we had to make the most of it. We pulled out Amber’s old sled from her childhood and pulled him around the neighborhood. He couldn’t quite figure out how to hold on yet, so if we started out pulling the sled to hard he just fell backwards and laid still on the ground (he looked a lot like Ralphie’s younger brother in the movie, “The Christmas Story”). But after a while, he was loving it. Later in the day, we took him outside and he watched me throw snowballs at a nearby electricity pole and he would burst out laughing every time I threw one and then turned around to look at him. Here are some pics!

EMERSON’S FIRST CHRISTMAS

Well, it was Emerson’s first Christmas and he pulled in the more gifts than he knows what to do with. Heck, we may even regift some of them and give them to him again at his first birthday! Seriously, he got so many gifts that he had to be put to bed before he even got to open them all. We told our family not to get him any clothes smaller than 18months outfits so he could grow into them and he’s already in 12 month outfits. Well, over the past two days, we’ve put him in some of his new clothes and they fit him like a glove. I never thought I’d have a nine-month old who wore 18-month clothing! Anyways, here are some pics!

SHOP CLASS AS SOULCRAFT

So, my father-in-law gave me perhaps the best (and most meaningful) gift this Christmas. It’s a book entitled Shop Class as Soulcraft written by a former philosophy PhD who is now a motorcycle mechanic (Greg Stoutenburg, this is definitely a book you would love!). One of the primary theses of the book (there are a number of really good points) is that the growth of “knowledge workers” at the expense of “labor workers” in our society has had a negative impact on our society: it has not only let to a shortage of mechanics, electricians, plumbers, etc in our nation, but has further increased our mind-body dualism, caused us to become detached from Nature, and has led us to believe that all physical labor requires little to no mental, ethical, or physical thought. Matthew Crawford not only addresses these issues, but makes many other memorable points. I mention only a couple: (1) Crawford points out that many times in our society we reduce our time to the amount of money we could make during that hour if we were at work. As a result, we reason: Changing my own oil of my car isn’t worth my while because in the amount of time it would take me I could have made $XX.XX. Crawford suggests that such thinking not only dehumanizes us (reducing us to consumers and money makers), but it detaches us from our world and our own things (we have no control over the possessions we own). Furthermore, there is an intrinsic value in learning how to change one’s own oil, learning some electrical, plumbing, or mechanical work that cannot be measured in dollar signs. (2) The caricatures we have made of blue-collar work – as if all such work is as mind-numbing as assembly line work or of the fat plumber with his butt crack hanging out – are poor misrepresentations. In reality, many blue collar workers make more than so-called white collar workers (like the plumber making $60-80/hr), and many white collar or “knowledge” work has now become just as mind-numbing and meaningless as the assembly line work so despised.

AVATAR

For our sixth anniversary (Dec. 27), Amber and I made good use of family members willing to babysit Emerson and went to a movie and dinner (dinner was a bit disappointing. We had planned to do Thai food, but apparently every Thai restaurant in Lafayette was closed for the break, so we had to settle on just going somewhere). So, we went and saw Avatar, which was the first movie we had seen in theaters since last Christmas break (we saw “Slumdog Millionaire” which is amazing) minus the drive in theater movies we’ve gone to this year with Emerson (We saw “UP!,” “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” and “Where the Wild Things Are” in the drive-in this year…all of which would have been worthwhile blog posts if I had found the time….).

Hm…So my review of Avatar is somewhat mixed. The special effects and colors are amazing, making one wish there were such a planet known as Pandora (seriously, they are amazing). On the other hand, the plot is entirely predictable, and if you’ve seen the previews you’ve gotten the entire gist of the movie: White man comes to invade the land of the “savages” and kill them (and the forests) in order to get their natural resources; A couple white people defect to the side of the “savages” and help them defeat the White man. In other words, Avatar is basically a sci-fi version of “Dances with Wolves” with a little bit of adult-level “Ferngully” mixed in. That’s the cold hard truth. And yet, amidst this extremely umambiguous plot line (i.e., not realistic), propagation of the “great White hope” viewpoint, and sad historical fact that the “savages” rarely (if ever) are on the winning side, I actually still liked this movie. Perhaps it was because these problematic issues were so glaringly obvious that I liked it, or simply because I empathize with a story that has been played out so many times throughout and continues to be played out and wish that the tide would somehow turn. For instance, the majority of the white people that side with the “savages” are those who have been assigned to appeal to them on a cultural level – learn their language, build them a school, etc – but these individuals’ roles exist solely to force the White man’s will on the minority. After reflecting on this scenario, it dawned on me that much of modern missions has had this kind of role: missionaries come in under the guise of bringing the minority group humanitarian goods but in reality (intentionally or unintentionally) serve to set the stage for the incoming of the Western power and cultural control. The history surrounding the Boxer Rebellion in China is a really good example of this, but many other examples abound (even down to the minute details, such as White missionaries who think Africans need to wear Western clothing before they get “saved.”).

“HOME”

This one will have to just settle as an intriguing thought: At what point, after you have moved away from the city you grew up in do you no longer call it home? In college, I called Lafayette home, which I’m sure is pretty typical. Even when I lived in Indianapolis owned my own home for over three years, I still called Lafayette home. But over the past couple weeks, between driving back and forth between Pittsburgh and Lafayette for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I have noticed myself calling both cities “home.” I think the switch is finally taking place.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

Over the course of this semester, Amber and I have been watching through the entire “Battlestar Galactica” TV series on DVD at the behest of a friend, and I have found it quite intriguing (we also watched the short sci-fi TV series “Firefly” which is also quite good). There is much to be said about this series. When they originally aired, they addressed numerous timely (and some, timeless) issues including racism, torture, terrorism, the misuse of technology, ethical issues related to the justice system, and numerous other political issues. What intrigues me most, however, is the explicit discussion of theological topics. Like the Chronicles of Narnia, it seems like when theology is cast in a completely different light—in a fictional setting—people really listen. Battlestar addresses belief in the supernatural, god (and gods), interpretation of scripture, predestination and destiny, and many other theological topics.

YEAR IN REVIEW/MEMORIES OF 2009

So, after counting, I realize this is now my seventh category. … Ah well. I had also hoped to do a “year in review” or at the very least, recount some of the many memories (mostly of Emerson) that occurred over this past year. There are the many other movies I had seen over the year (at home on DVD since I didn’t see them when they came out last year in theaters!) that were profound and worthy of reviews such as “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Doubt,” “Serenity,” “The Changeling,” and “The Lives of Others” (all of which I highly recommend). And then there were the ones that were not worth my time like the 4^th installment of “Indiana Jones” (ridiculous!) and “Twilight” (ugh).

Then, there are the many memories. Emerson’s birth, the day he fell off the bed, the day he first started crawling, the day he conscientiously said “Da-da,” and on and on. And there are the other events – getting rejected from nine PhD programs, and getting accepted into Duquesne (it only takes one!). Receiving my masters degree. My first official Father’s day. Winning an award at a philosophy conference. So many other things could be mentioned, and there’s not enough time to recount them.

So good-bye 2009. Good-bye the 2000s. Wow. I can’t believe its been a decade since Y2K (where were you? I was in Chicago at Navy Pier with a million others).