I was chopping up mushrooms and peppers and garlic for a lasagne this afternoon, and one thing a dear friend of mine taught me is that the key to lasagne (or any other tomato-pasta combination, for that matter) is a little squish of anchovy paste. (Mmmmmmm... anchovies.) I'm sure we had an unopened tube of anchovy paste somewhere, because I kept running into it in the pantry when I was looking for other things. Let's see... not behind the black beans, not behind the miso soup... aha! There it is.
I wonder how long it's been there? We went through a phase of using the stuff all the time, but then we kind of forgot about it and it's been a while. Does anchovy paste expire? How would one know?
The box had no expiration date, and when I took out the tube inside, it didn't either. Hmm. Well, it can't have been there all that long; let's see how it smells. So I took off the cap and punctured the little foil seal across the mouth of the tube...
...and oh-so-very-expired foul brown anchovy paste sprayed several feet across the room. Fortunately none of it landed in the lasagne. So much for no expiration dates.
On the other hand. There's a conference coming up this spring that I'm excited about, and it's being held in a rather more posh hotel than this organization usually books, so I'd definitely like to share a room. Previously I've either stayed by myself or the LWI has come along, so I don't have a regular conference roommate among this particular group.
There's one person I was thinking of asking, because I know her husband hates these things and doesn't tag along, so she might be scouting for a roomie. But she's a Big Name Academic and probably has plenty of her own friends and would be merely amused by my pathetic offer, right?
Just a few minutes ago, she emailed me asking if I'd be interested in sharing a room. I am positively giddy in a Sally Field they-really-like-me! sort of way. I know, it's just a conference hotel, we're not going to be Best Friends Forever or exchange little woven bracelets or anything. But I'm still pleased to be hanging out with the cool kids. Beats cleaning anchovy paste off the cabinets.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Fat-cat freakout
So the oddest thing happened last night. The LWI and I were downstairs, relaxing on the couch after dinner, when we heard some sort of noise from upstairs - afterwards we couldn't remember just what it was, but we knew we'd both registered hearing something, like a faint thump or other indeterminate noise. That was immediately followed by two top-volume blood-curdling yowls from TwoCat. We were startled, but assumed that he was just getting the worst end of a fight with OneCat - they play-fight often, and once in a while one of them yells that the other is taking the fight a little too seriously. But a half-second later we realized that OneCat was with us in the living room, looking just as startled as we were.
So I headed upstairs to see what TwoCat had gotten himself into, and found him at the top of the stairs, all puffed up and bug-eyed and spooked. TwoCat is the mildest of creatures, and even all puffed up he doesn't look very intimidating, more like a black furry basketball, but he was more worked up than I'd ever seen him. I took another step up the stairs to see what was the matter, and he flinched like he was ready to bolt, so for the next few minutes I eased my way up the stairs to soothe him and figure out what he'd done to himself. At this point I was thinking perhaps he'd jumped down off a chair or desk and landed funny, twisting a leg or a paw; he's ordinarily a stoic little guy, and doesn't make much of a fuss about anything, but that full-throated howl was still echoing in my ears. But after a while he calmed down and bounded downstairs to see if there was any dinner in his bowl, and showed no signs of physical damage at all. WTF? I canvassed the upstairs, and found no evidence of anything out of the ordinary - nothing tipped over, no giant rats to fight with, no bloodstains, nothing that looked at all like it was worth screaming about.
We remain perplexed.
So I headed upstairs to see what TwoCat had gotten himself into, and found him at the top of the stairs, all puffed up and bug-eyed and spooked. TwoCat is the mildest of creatures, and even all puffed up he doesn't look very intimidating, more like a black furry basketball, but he was more worked up than I'd ever seen him. I took another step up the stairs to see what was the matter, and he flinched like he was ready to bolt, so for the next few minutes I eased my way up the stairs to soothe him and figure out what he'd done to himself. At this point I was thinking perhaps he'd jumped down off a chair or desk and landed funny, twisting a leg or a paw; he's ordinarily a stoic little guy, and doesn't make much of a fuss about anything, but that full-throated howl was still echoing in my ears. But after a while he calmed down and bounded downstairs to see if there was any dinner in his bowl, and showed no signs of physical damage at all. WTF? I canvassed the upstairs, and found no evidence of anything out of the ordinary - nothing tipped over, no giant rats to fight with, no bloodstains, nothing that looked at all like it was worth screaming about.
We remain perplexed.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Life in a suitcase
1B*'s post today about the difficulties of packing lots of trips into her semester made me pause once more to consider the situation I've gotten myself in for this summer. Mind you, I'm very excited about this summer, because it holds lots of great opportunities: I'm teaching a study-abroad course in two European cities, doing some research, presenting at a conference, and going on at least one fun getaway.
But let's consider this in terms of clothes. All of these adventures are connected to the same two-month trans-Atlantic trip, so I have to prepare for them all in the same set of suitcases (ideally no more than two). Here's the deal: I will be teaching and being touristy in two different cities, one of which has an average summer high of 76 degrees and the other of which has an average summer high of 89. I will be attending a professional conference, and going on a four-day hike, in a third region that has an average summer high of 65 degrees. Last but not least: under normal circumstances, I really prefer to travel light and pack as little as possible.
How the fireplace am I supposed to make this work? I think I need to start packing now.
(ETA: now I have the old Police song "Man in a Suitcase" stuck in my head. This is not helping.)
(ETA2: it is important to remember that at least half of the overall trip will be spent in a very tiny apartment shared with four other people. Thus an additional limit on the stuff I can bring, because there's just not anywhere to put it.)
But let's consider this in terms of clothes. All of these adventures are connected to the same two-month trans-Atlantic trip, so I have to prepare for them all in the same set of suitcases (ideally no more than two). Here's the deal: I will be teaching and being touristy in two different cities, one of which has an average summer high of 76 degrees and the other of which has an average summer high of 89. I will be attending a professional conference, and going on a four-day hike, in a third region that has an average summer high of 65 degrees. Last but not least: under normal circumstances, I really prefer to travel light and pack as little as possible.
How the fireplace am I supposed to make this work? I think I need to start packing now.
(ETA: now I have the old Police song "Man in a Suitcase" stuck in my head. This is not helping.)
(ETA2: it is important to remember that at least half of the overall trip will be spent in a very tiny apartment shared with four other people. Thus an additional limit on the stuff I can bring, because there's just not anywhere to put it.)
Sunday, December 31, 2006
New Year's Eve
I don't think I made any specific New Year's resolutions last year. I used to love having an end-of-year period of deep introspection and figuring out what lessons I needed to learn and what paths I needed to explore, but for the past two or three years I've had the sense that I'm going generally in the right direction and just need to keep chugging along. That's very satisfying in some ways, at least the feeling that there's nothing in my life right now that needs to be fixed, but I'm beginning to feel the need for some kind of spiritual challenge.
While I figure that out, though, it's a good time to look back for a moment. I have a surprisingly crappy memory, so I'm sure I'm forgetting some of the big things that have happened, but the highlights of this year include the following:
While I figure that out, though, it's a good time to look back for a moment. I have a surprisingly crappy memory, so I'm sure I'm forgetting some of the big things that have happened, but the highlights of this year include the following:
- this was my first year of tenure, which was generally uneventful, but has given me an overall sense of accomplishment, satisfaction, and relief
- my book came out! That's a biggie. :)
- I've made pretty good progress on the second book project. At the beginning of last year it was a very nebulous idea, and I was terrified of mentioning it to anyone. Over the course of the year I tracked down some good evidence in the archives, and had some wonderful and encouraging conversations with colleagues, and now I'm very excited about the whole thing.
- I agreed (God help me) to host the yearly meeting of my principal academic organization in 2008. This isn't really an accomplishment yet, but several people talked to me about doing this, which means they must think I'm reasonably competent (or at least sufficiently gullible), and I'm kind of excited about that.
- Several people in my department have made noises about how I'd be a good candidate for department chair.
- I worked on my first Habitat for Humanity build! (and will do another this spring.)
- Started taking yoga classes just about a year ago; that's been a great and satisfying success.
- We made some nice improvements to the house this year, at least inside (outside is going to hell in a weedy overgrown handbasket) - new carpet and tile in the master bedroom & bath, a couple of new pieces of furniture, and lots of plans for next year...
Those are the big things; I guess the main theme is that this has been a really good year for my professional life. I haven't accomplished anything big (good or bad) personally or socially or spiritually; that's what I'd like to work on more for the coming year, though I'm not sure quite how to proceed. Mostly my goal is to make new friends: I like the people I work with, but I've felt a little starved for interesting conversation recently, and I realize that I've fallen into a lot of social ruts. (I even made the bar a far more interesting place in 2005 than I did in 2006; maybe I can liven that up a little too.) Time to stretch myself a little and shake things up.
What about you?
Have a lovely New Year's Eve, everyone; be safe, and I wish you all the best in friends, family, and good fortune for the new year!
Friday, December 22, 2006
Liberation
Yesterday on “Charlie Rose” we saw the greatest interview with Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Alfonso Cuarón, three innovative Mexican filmmakers who are also clearly good friends. Charlie was almost irrelevant to the discussion, as the three enthusiastically talked about themes and styles and stories in their work. What was interesting to note, in spite of the well-deserved fame each has achieved, was that they talked very little about their own work; each seemed more interested in describing and discussing the work of his friends. This made for an even richer discussion, I think, and of course it depended on the intimate knowledge each man had of his friends and their ideas, as well as a refreshing lack of ego.
At one point, towards the end, Charlie asked if they ever felt competitive, given their prominence and the fact that their films tend to be nominated for similar awards. This struck me as a rather unnecessary question, since the nature of the previous hour’s discussion had made it perfectly clear that the three were far more mutually supportive than anything, but then I decided that that itself was probably what Charlie was trying to highlight. They seemed a bit surprised by the question, but then responded that of course they weren’t competitive, and in fact they each at some point had withdrawn from various competitions in the interest of highlighting another’s work. What impressed me the most was Cuarón’s simple, honest comment: “When you can transform envy into admiration, that’s incredibly liberating.”
The LWI, who is Spanish, immediately remarked that that sort of attitude was far more common among Hispanics than among Anglo-Saxons. I suspect he’s right, and isn’t that sad? Certainly we collectively celebrate hard work and individual accomplishment, and that’s important, but it also lends itself to a zero-sum attitude, where my win is your loss – and that in turn cultivates one-upmanship and envy. I’ve noticed this working in other ways, in that Americans generally center conversations around their jobs and their accomplishments, while Spaniards will almost never discuss their work, because it doesn’t have that much to do with their identity. I’m making huge generalizations here, and I know there are any number of exceptions. But I was so taken with the way these three men talked to each other, and more importantly how genuinely they listened to each other, and I wish we could liberate ourselves to celebrate each other that way a little more often.
At one point, towards the end, Charlie asked if they ever felt competitive, given their prominence and the fact that their films tend to be nominated for similar awards. This struck me as a rather unnecessary question, since the nature of the previous hour’s discussion had made it perfectly clear that the three were far more mutually supportive than anything, but then I decided that that itself was probably what Charlie was trying to highlight. They seemed a bit surprised by the question, but then responded that of course they weren’t competitive, and in fact they each at some point had withdrawn from various competitions in the interest of highlighting another’s work. What impressed me the most was Cuarón’s simple, honest comment: “When you can transform envy into admiration, that’s incredibly liberating.”
The LWI, who is Spanish, immediately remarked that that sort of attitude was far more common among Hispanics than among Anglo-Saxons. I suspect he’s right, and isn’t that sad? Certainly we collectively celebrate hard work and individual accomplishment, and that’s important, but it also lends itself to a zero-sum attitude, where my win is your loss – and that in turn cultivates one-upmanship and envy. I’ve noticed this working in other ways, in that Americans generally center conversations around their jobs and their accomplishments, while Spaniards will almost never discuss their work, because it doesn’t have that much to do with their identity. I’m making huge generalizations here, and I know there are any number of exceptions. But I was so taken with the way these three men talked to each other, and more importantly how genuinely they listened to each other, and I wish we could liberate ourselves to celebrate each other that way a little more often.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
are we there yet?
You know it's almost the end of the semester when...
...your Western Civ class is having an animated discussion of the Great Schism (when for a few decades in the late fourteenth century there were two popes claiming the papacy), and when you ask for possible solutions for this crisis, one student gleefully pipes up "They could joust for it!"
... and instead of chuckling politely and getting the discussion back on course to a discussion of the role of church councils, you give in to evil temptation and respond that a good game spinoff of that would be "Rock'em Sock'em Pontiffs..."
... and the whole class falls into helpless ridiculousness for the rest of the hour.
...your Western Civ class is having an animated discussion of the Great Schism (when for a few decades in the late fourteenth century there were two popes claiming the papacy), and when you ask for possible solutions for this crisis, one student gleefully pipes up "They could joust for it!"
... and instead of chuckling politely and getting the discussion back on course to a discussion of the role of church councils, you give in to evil temptation and respond that a good game spinoff of that would be "Rock'em Sock'em Pontiffs..."
... and the whole class falls into helpless ridiculousness for the rest of the hour.
Friday, November 17, 2006
The love shirt
Bardiac had a nice description today of a shirt that eases her way through a bad day, partly because it's thick and soft and partly because it fits better than it used to. This is not a small thing in my opinion, and it reminded me of a similar shirt I used to own - or more precisely, of which I was in temporary custody.
Many years ago, my old friend RocketBoy gave me several of his old shirts. There's nothing better than big old shirts from guys you love - worn soft, full of good memories, and big enough to wrap yourself in on cold or scary days. One of them, he told me, was special. Not because of its shape or design - it was just a nicely cut, white cotton long-sleeved shirt - but because it had a long history. I don't even remember the origins of the story, but the shirt came to be in the possession of his girlfriend's father, who gave it to his daughter when she went off to college because she had always loved to steal it from his closet. She wore it to comfort her during the difficult days of adjusting to the new world of college, but when she felt strong and confident, she passed it on to RocketBoy. RocketBoy wore it during some difficult times of his own, but when he figured out a new direction for his life, he gave the shirt to me. And with it he gave me these instructions: Wear it for a while, and then give it to someone you love.
By this time it was a bit frayed at the cuffs, but still soft and strong and a lovely reminder of my friend's support. I confess that I kept hold of it for several years, wearing it as I ended an ugly relationship and worked my way through the complicated years of grad school. After I married and landed my first job, I decided it was time, and I gave the shirt to Musical Friend in Louisiana. I haven't been in touch with him for a while, so I'm not sure how his life is going. But the nice thing about the shirt is that you win either way. If life is rough, you have the comfort of its warmth around your shoulders and the love of all the people that have passed it on to you... or if you're back on top of things, you can give that strength and love to someone else in turn, and smile when you think of them wearing it.
Many years ago, my old friend RocketBoy gave me several of his old shirts. There's nothing better than big old shirts from guys you love - worn soft, full of good memories, and big enough to wrap yourself in on cold or scary days. One of them, he told me, was special. Not because of its shape or design - it was just a nicely cut, white cotton long-sleeved shirt - but because it had a long history. I don't even remember the origins of the story, but the shirt came to be in the possession of his girlfriend's father, who gave it to his daughter when she went off to college because she had always loved to steal it from his closet. She wore it to comfort her during the difficult days of adjusting to the new world of college, but when she felt strong and confident, she passed it on to RocketBoy. RocketBoy wore it during some difficult times of his own, but when he figured out a new direction for his life, he gave the shirt to me. And with it he gave me these instructions: Wear it for a while, and then give it to someone you love.
By this time it was a bit frayed at the cuffs, but still soft and strong and a lovely reminder of my friend's support. I confess that I kept hold of it for several years, wearing it as I ended an ugly relationship and worked my way through the complicated years of grad school. After I married and landed my first job, I decided it was time, and I gave the shirt to Musical Friend in Louisiana. I haven't been in touch with him for a while, so I'm not sure how his life is going. But the nice thing about the shirt is that you win either way. If life is rough, you have the comfort of its warmth around your shoulders and the love of all the people that have passed it on to you... or if you're back on top of things, you can give that strength and love to someone else in turn, and smile when you think of them wearing it.
Monday, November 13, 2006
...But where does it go?
Okay, I need help with some meditation-visualizations here. I've been taking an awesome yoga class for the past several months, and when we end in the final corpse pose, the instructor always talks about letting go of whatever stress we've pulled loose, letting it fall away, letting it sink down into the floor.
I love that idea, but I can't help imagining the space about six feet below the floor as a dark seething cesspool of accumulated stress dumped by class after class, week after week, of yoga practitioners. It's a little unsettling. So lately I've been trying to visualize the space beneath the floor as a river, carrying all that stress away and washing us clean. But then I can't help wondering where the river goes, and picturing a big karmic dead zone like where the Mississippi dumps all its nasty fertilizer and chemical load into the Gulf of Mexico, killing everything off.
I'm so attuned to environmental issues that I keep thinking of stress like toxic psychological waste: sure, I can get rid of it and that's nice for me, but where does it end up??
I love that idea, but I can't help imagining the space about six feet below the floor as a dark seething cesspool of accumulated stress dumped by class after class, week after week, of yoga practitioners. It's a little unsettling. So lately I've been trying to visualize the space beneath the floor as a river, carrying all that stress away and washing us clean. But then I can't help wondering where the river goes, and picturing a big karmic dead zone like where the Mississippi dumps all its nasty fertilizer and chemical load into the Gulf of Mexico, killing everything off.
I'm so attuned to environmental issues that I keep thinking of stress like toxic psychological waste: sure, I can get rid of it and that's nice for me, but where does it end up??
Friday, November 10, 2006
Life, the universe, and everything
Back to the comment box for questions: Amy asks who I was in a former life. That's a little disingenuous, because she knows perfectly well that I have some slightly weird ideas about this-life and beyond-this-life issues, and she's trying to expose me to the blogosphere as the loopy goofus that I am.
But you guys have seen plenty of goofiness here already, and you stuck around, so what the heck. Besides, I don't claim to have any particular sort of doctrine or truth, just my gut feeling, and I'm not going to impose my views on anyone else or imply that this has anything to do with anyone but me, or even suggest that this is much more than the product of an overactive imagination.
Many people seem to believe in reincarnation, that they have past lives they occasionally catch odd glimpses of. I can imagine that working, and I do get the sense about some people that they're "old souls," like they've been through this life business a few times and know their way around.
The only problem I have with this, oddly enough, is that it seems much too limited. If you imagine a soul or a life as a force that carries beyond the physical life-spans of its hosts, why limit yourself to a succession of human lives? Some people would go so far as to imagine that there's a sort of hierarchy of hosts, that you might have one life as a cockroach, and work your way up to a bunny rabbit, and with hard work and dedication end up as a presumably-superior homo sapiens (or fall back down again, if you screw up).
But even that falls short for me. Think of it this way: humans, as a species, perceive the world in a fairly limited way. Our eyes can only perceive part of the spectrum of light; our ears register a pathetically small range of sound; there are other forces of chemistry and magnetism that other species sense but that we don't, just because of the limitations of human perception. So, logically, we tend to think of our own existence within the limits of the possibilities given us by the human brain. If we go so far as to imagine a soul, and the possibility of reincarnation, we tend to think of simply reproducing the experiences we know, but in a slightly different time frame.
But why not think bigger than that? If you're going to imagine a soul or life-force that is independent from a physical body, why limit yourself to the patterns contained within a relatively recent species on one dinky planet in a nondescript solar system on the edge of a minor galaxy? Shouldn't the universe contain infinitely more interesting possibilities? I've always entertained the notion that my soul has had some sort of previous existence, but I don't think of that existence in the shape of a medieval French aristocrat, or a Roman courtesan. (People who talk about their previous lives generally portray them as much more exotic and interesting than the average peasant who would have made up the majority of the population... maybe it's just that those who don't think they have past lives had past lives that were too boring to be worth remembering.) I'd rather think of my soul as a universe-traveler, that has played at being a supernova, and the color blue, and an electron circling the nucleus of an atom, or any of an infinite number of things that are entirely beyond human experience and comprehension, and this time around it's chosen to see what humans are like.
But you guys have seen plenty of goofiness here already, and you stuck around, so what the heck. Besides, I don't claim to have any particular sort of doctrine or truth, just my gut feeling, and I'm not going to impose my views on anyone else or imply that this has anything to do with anyone but me, or even suggest that this is much more than the product of an overactive imagination.
Many people seem to believe in reincarnation, that they have past lives they occasionally catch odd glimpses of. I can imagine that working, and I do get the sense about some people that they're "old souls," like they've been through this life business a few times and know their way around.
The only problem I have with this, oddly enough, is that it seems much too limited. If you imagine a soul or a life as a force that carries beyond the physical life-spans of its hosts, why limit yourself to a succession of human lives? Some people would go so far as to imagine that there's a sort of hierarchy of hosts, that you might have one life as a cockroach, and work your way up to a bunny rabbit, and with hard work and dedication end up as a presumably-superior homo sapiens (or fall back down again, if you screw up).
But even that falls short for me. Think of it this way: humans, as a species, perceive the world in a fairly limited way. Our eyes can only perceive part of the spectrum of light; our ears register a pathetically small range of sound; there are other forces of chemistry and magnetism that other species sense but that we don't, just because of the limitations of human perception. So, logically, we tend to think of our own existence within the limits of the possibilities given us by the human brain. If we go so far as to imagine a soul, and the possibility of reincarnation, we tend to think of simply reproducing the experiences we know, but in a slightly different time frame.
But why not think bigger than that? If you're going to imagine a soul or life-force that is independent from a physical body, why limit yourself to the patterns contained within a relatively recent species on one dinky planet in a nondescript solar system on the edge of a minor galaxy? Shouldn't the universe contain infinitely more interesting possibilities? I've always entertained the notion that my soul has had some sort of previous existence, but I don't think of that existence in the shape of a medieval French aristocrat, or a Roman courtesan. (People who talk about their previous lives generally portray them as much more exotic and interesting than the average peasant who would have made up the majority of the population... maybe it's just that those who don't think they have past lives had past lives that were too boring to be worth remembering.) I'd rather think of my soul as a universe-traveler, that has played at being a supernova, and the color blue, and an electron circling the nucleus of an atom, or any of an infinite number of things that are entirely beyond human experience and comprehension, and this time around it's chosen to see what humans are like.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Now for the down side
Although I'm usually persistently and insistently cheerful, I also tend towards trying to keep a balanced perspective on everything - which means that when things start to look good, I allow myself a little criticism and negativity, just to stay honest.
So these days, on the one hand, I'm pumping my fist in the air and cheering: Dems in the House! Dems in the Senate! Rumsfeld out on his ass! YES.
But I also have to admit to some frustration with all the good people of America who voted against Republicans because of the war in Iraq. Don't get me wrong: I'm glad that people are beginning to understand how ugly things are over there, and how badly we've messed up, and that we need to find a different approach than Bush's "Us Good! Them Bad!" tactics. I'm glad that they're frustrated with the Bush administration's failure to accomplish basic social order in Iraq, much less peace and democracy.
But I'm a little irritated that it took them so long. It angers me that people begin to notice that the streets of Baghdad are strewn with decapitated bodies, that American troops are facing increasing casualties, that Iraq is becoming a haven for potential terrorists, that the rest of the world (including our allies) is viewing us with increasing fear and concern, and they say "Oh, this isn't going so well, it isn't fun anymore, maybe we should quit." That's true, but it seems to pass over the fact that it was their own flag-waving enthusiasm that got us into this war in the first place. Sure, I'm angry at the government that trumped up excuses to get us into the war, but I'm also angry at the people who so naively believed them. I'm glad that these people are beginning to get a more realistic view of things, but it's far too late. Tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost, much trust in the US has been destroyed, every country in the so-called "Axis of Evil" has every reason to pursue the development of nuclear weapons as fast as they possibly can, and God only knows where this will all end up. But some of the people who voted for Bush are sorry now, so it's all OK.
I’m an historian, and I begin every survey class with a discussion of the importance of history and why it's a required subject at nearly every level of our educational system. Students always say that it's important because we need to learn from the past, or at least to avoid making mistakes that we've made before. I would like to think that's true, but it only works if we either have some familiarity with history, or if we listen to historians.
Nearly every professional historian I know strenuously opposed the war in the Iraq from the beginning, and several major professional history organizations issued formal statements to this effect. Historians (even those whose specialties are not remotely linked to the Middle East) thought it was dangerously naive to think the Iraqis would welcome us with flowers and parades, they argued that there was no link whatsoever between Saddam Hussein and 9/11, and they warned of the factional tensions that were likely to explode if we removed Saddam. But did anyone pay a damn bit of attention?
Maybe I'll have to begin my survey courses with a slightly more emphatic message: Ignore the historians, and people die.
So these days, on the one hand, I'm pumping my fist in the air and cheering: Dems in the House! Dems in the Senate! Rumsfeld out on his ass! YES.
But I also have to admit to some frustration with all the good people of America who voted against Republicans because of the war in Iraq. Don't get me wrong: I'm glad that people are beginning to understand how ugly things are over there, and how badly we've messed up, and that we need to find a different approach than Bush's "Us Good! Them Bad!" tactics. I'm glad that they're frustrated with the Bush administration's failure to accomplish basic social order in Iraq, much less peace and democracy.
But I'm a little irritated that it took them so long. It angers me that people begin to notice that the streets of Baghdad are strewn with decapitated bodies, that American troops are facing increasing casualties, that Iraq is becoming a haven for potential terrorists, that the rest of the world (including our allies) is viewing us with increasing fear and concern, and they say "Oh, this isn't going so well, it isn't fun anymore, maybe we should quit." That's true, but it seems to pass over the fact that it was their own flag-waving enthusiasm that got us into this war in the first place. Sure, I'm angry at the government that trumped up excuses to get us into the war, but I'm also angry at the people who so naively believed them. I'm glad that these people are beginning to get a more realistic view of things, but it's far too late. Tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost, much trust in the US has been destroyed, every country in the so-called "Axis of Evil" has every reason to pursue the development of nuclear weapons as fast as they possibly can, and God only knows where this will all end up. But some of the people who voted for Bush are sorry now, so it's all OK.
I’m an historian, and I begin every survey class with a discussion of the importance of history and why it's a required subject at nearly every level of our educational system. Students always say that it's important because we need to learn from the past, or at least to avoid making mistakes that we've made before. I would like to think that's true, but it only works if we either have some familiarity with history, or if we listen to historians.
Nearly every professional historian I know strenuously opposed the war in the Iraq from the beginning, and several major professional history organizations issued formal statements to this effect. Historians (even those whose specialties are not remotely linked to the Middle East) thought it was dangerously naive to think the Iraqis would welcome us with flowers and parades, they argued that there was no link whatsoever between Saddam Hussein and 9/11, and they warned of the factional tensions that were likely to explode if we removed Saddam. But did anyone pay a damn bit of attention?
Maybe I'll have to begin my survey courses with a slightly more emphatic message: Ignore the historians, and people die.
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