Mountains Made Low

So commented at least one person present when the Democratic National Committee’s decision on the Florida and Michigan delegates was announced today—I assume that person was a supporter of Hillary Clinton—and “party unity” was called for in that decision’s wake.

So someone said, and so I agree.

The compromise decision reached today seats all of each state’s delegation, but gives each delegate only one half of one vote. The net effect was that Clinton cut into Barack Obama’s delegate lead by 24, today, leaving Obama with a 178 delegate lead.

This was a victory for the Obama campaign; his lead could have been cut to 154. But even that might have been seen as a victory. Obama has already been helped by the fact that these primaries were not counted when they happened in January. Had they been counted then, Clinton would have gained momentum from them, headed into the Super Tuesday contests on February 5.

It can also be seen, though, as a minor victory for the Clinton campaign. Seating all of the delegates, even with only ½ vote each allows Clinton to court superdelegates on the strength of her performance in the popular vote—with the Florida and Michigan votes counted, despite the delegate count, Clinton can claim to be the choice of the people. Given a strong performance in the few remaining primaries, gaining a majority of the remaining pledged delegates, and a majority of the popular votes in these contests, she can, perhaps, woo enough superdelegates—particularly those who have committed to support the people’s choice.

But here’s my question. If Obama were trailing in the delegate count, and had won these states, and stood to, potentially, gain the nomination based upon today’s decision, would the DNC have hesitated to seat these delegates at full strength? I think not. The only reason this “compromise” decision was accepted is because the majority of those voting seems to believe that it will allow the coronation to proceed apace, and the Clinton camp took what they could get.

After all, there’s not need for such silly things as the electoral process and the will of the people when The Audacity of Hope—or perhaps just sheer audacity—can bring the next presidency about not by election but by acclamation.

I think the biggest thing we’ve learned today is that perhaps in Puerto Rico, where Clinton is expected to win tomorrow, Obama should opt to remove his name from the ballot, in the hope of halving whatever small gains Clinton can make there.

And I think that if I were a Florida Democrat, after having been disenfranchised by the US Supreme Court in 2000 and by my own national party in 2008, I would be asking myself, at this point, whether voting at all was worth the bother.

Since my last post touched, ever so briefly, on the interconnectedness of our day-to-day world, I thought I would post a link here that provides some food for thought on what might be termed the Information Revolution, akin to the Industrial Revolution.

Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everyone, “Gin, Television, and Social Surplus”

Maybe, in blogging, I’m looking for the mouse, too.

In our 21st century world, marked by near instantaneous worldwide communication—email, mobile phones, and, yes, blogs—it is nearly impossible to believe that there are groups or tribes of people living isolated existences, leading the sorts of “traditional” or “primitive” lives that they have led for centuries, perhaps millennia. It is difficult to believe that in an age that boasts areas commonly historically though of as “Third World” with cellular communications technology among the best on the planet, that by some estimates, there are 100 such groups—described as “uncontacted tribes”—remaining in the world today.

Yet according to a BBC report published today, that is precisely the case. And one of these groups has been recently photographed, in an aerial fly-over, by the Brazilian government. The government claims that it conducted this operation to document: 1) the group’s existence; 2) the group’s location, and 3) the group’s way of life.

I just have one problem with this. Actually, it’s a group of related problems, but it can be summed up in one sentence:

These “uncontacted” people saw the airplane.

And when it made a second pass over their settlement, they tried to shoot it down.

Problematic? I think so. But not uncomplicatedly so.

We all probably know the story, in some version or another, of a more technologically advanced group “discovering” another group—who were, of course, thoroughly unaware of their need for discovery. The contrasts between the groups involved have been more and less pronounced throughout history: 1st century BCE Romans and British Celts; 16th century Spaniards and Mesoamerican Aztecs; 17th century Europeans and North American Indians; 18th century English and Australian Aborigines. This list could, of course, be much longer.

None of these encounters went particularly well. Even in cases where intentions on all sides were good (rare enough), other unthought-of factors weighed in, disease foremost among them.

And that’s something that the Brazilian government has thought of. The group they’ve recently documented has, to the government’s knowledge, never had any contact with the outside world. As such, they likely have no immunity to some diseases that are annoyances to most of the world but could be fatal to these groups—things like chicken pox (yes, not small pox, chicken pox). Thus, even though this group has been located, they have not been contacted, for fear of precipitating an epidemic, like that of small pox that decimated Tenochtitlan in 1521.

Which is well and good. But I keep coming back to: they saw the airplane. And they tried to shoot it down.

We can’t know how much this group knows of life in the outside world. Maybe they know more about the 21st century than it ever knew about them until now. Or maybe the plane they saw was a new, noisy, and large species of bird to them. We can’t say. But we know they felt threatened by it.

So while their existence and location has been documented, photographically, in an effort to preserve their place in the world and protect their way of life (to protect that little corner of Brazil from deforestation, for instance), I must ask at what cost to that way of life?

After all, Hernán Cortés, arriving in Mexico by sail-powered wooden ship in 1519 was hailed as a god. What must this group—a group who, based on the photographs, are not the engineers the Aztecs were—have made of an airplane?

To be sure, there are planes everywhere, and the members of this group may well have seen them before. This exposure may well not be their first exposure. But it is clear that, in this effort to preserve and protect, this group was made to feel threatened and exposed.

But before I am seen as attacking the Brazilian government too harshly, the other side of my question here is this: What else is the government to do? Their motives, after all, seem to be pure. And they have done their level best, it seems, to fulfill those motives without interfering with the group’s lives.

It’s an interesting question, to say the very least. But when stuck between the goal of protection and preservation and the problem of interference and exposure, given the lessons learned from such situations throughout human history, in this age where “uncontacted” groups are difficult to imagine, what are we to do?

To which the scripted response is, “I’m really bored at work.” (exchange between Barney and Ted from How I Met Your Mother, “The Bracket”)

Seriously, though, I’m liking the amount of traffic the blog’s getting, and how many “repeat offenders” I’m noticing in the stats package.

Thanks for reading, one and all, and I’ll try to keep living up to your expectations.

That’s all for now.

Just killing me.

And for once, this week, I’m bitching about something other than my allergies (which for the record, aren’t bothering me much at all today).

It’s this essay/article I’m trying to write. It’s meant to be short. No more than 10 mss pages, and it’s about a classroom activity that I’ve been doing at the beginning of my first-year writing courses for three years now. Which means, if I’ve got the math right, I’ve done this activity with 11 different classes full of students. I know the theory that underlies it. I know why I do it. And I could do it pretty much in my sleep (in fact, the last time I did it, last fall, I think I did do at least the preparation in my sleep).

I used a modified version of this activity as my teaching demonstration for the job I have right now. Colleagues have expressed an interest in using this activity in their classes. And someone (not me) has even used my activity as an illustration in a conference presentation (with full, even grateful, permission from me, of course).

But I can’t get this article into shape. I’ve started it three times. Once (about one paragraph) on Monday—just wrong. Once (about three pages) yesterday—too theoretical for the publication I’m targeting. Once (again, about three pages) today—letting it sit because I’m just not sure I have it yet.

It’s getting closer—I feel that. But I don’t think I’ve quite got it situated right, yet. Maybe the fourth time will be the charm, when I get back around to it (maybe later today, more likely tomorrow). It’s getting there, but I decided to start my work on my summer writing projects here because I thought this one would be the easiest.

If that’s true, it’s gonna be a long summer.

On Sunday, I posted a review of Lisa Unger’s Beautiful Lies. Granted it wasn’t a great review, for which I choose to blame the Benedryl. But I’ve been thinking through some of the ideas that Unger—along with her narrator/protagonist, Ridley Jones—deals with in the novel. Particularly, the life philosophy Ridley espouses in terms of second guessing her decisions; big decisions or small ones, for good or ill—every decision we have made brings us to where we are, and there’s no way of knowing what might have happened if we had made another choice at any point along the way.

When we don’t like the outcome of decisions that we’ve made, we tend, I think, to romanticize the road not taken. I know I do, anyway. I’ve done that quite a bit as the past year here in North Carolina has unfolded. When the job didn’t turn out to be the great opportunity I’d expected it to be. When “rural” became “isolated.” When it became clear that I wanted to leave but that I now own a house here.

I got to thinking about how, if I’d stayed in Columbus, at Capital, I’d most likely have been tenured and promoted this year. About how I likely wouldn’t be tethered to a mortgage payment. About how I would be living in that sense of “home” about Columbus, and Ohio more generally, that I didn’t even really know I had.

And that’s kind of the point, I think. Not only do I not know now how those things would have gone had I stayed (though I’m almost certain of at least the job part, given how things were going when I was there), but I didn’t know some of the things I’ve learned now. It’s almost like I needed to come here—to make some of these mistakes (as I see them now)—in order to know what I want.

I have a quote from an episode of How I Met Your Mother on my Facebook page. I put it there because I think it’s, generally, pretty good advice. “For the most part, if you’re really honest with yourself about what you want out of life, life gives it to you.” That same idea was put to me in a comment on this blog about a week ago: “Ask the universe for what you want. Be truthful. What do you really want? And maybe, just maybe, you will get it.”

Being honest or truthful about what we want features prominently in both of these formulations. And, in fact, I’m pretty clear, in my own mind, about what I want. I want to move back to Ohio. I want a job in which my standard 110% commitment of time and energy is good enough. I want to be able to help my parents out as they continue to get older. I want to be in a city, or at least a town. I want the kind of general stability that allows for true spontaneity. I want to be a good friend.

And I’m willing to work at and for these things…. Really I am.

There are other things I want, too. But asking for more than these right now seems greedy. And even this list provokes fears in me, and makes me scared. Scared that I won’t get the job I’m interviewing for next week; scared that I will. Scared that I’m somehow pushing my friends away. Scared that I’m making more mistakes.

But that last fear, I’m working very hard to put aside. Because I’m being honest about what I want. And I’m going after those things. And I’m working hard at not second-guessing the decisions I’ve made that have brought me here, either. After all, those decisions—those mistakes—have made me who I am and have taught me what I want.

They can’t, then, be all bad, can they?

Please. Please please please.

There is rain in the forecast here for the next several days—today, tomorrow, and Thursday. So far today, not so much. It rained a little bit today, but not so much.

Usually, I’m not one to pray for rain. While I really really enjoy thunderstorms, even if the power goes out, I can sit and watch the lightning dance and listen to the torrents pounding, the wind blowing, and the thunder rolling. I love thunderstorms.

But I don’t spend my time hoping for them, most of the time. But right now, I really want one.

Because I’m hoping that rain—a lot of rain—will knock the pollen out of the air.

I’m not usually one to spend a lot of time bitching about my allergies, either. But here I am, the first spring in a new place, with new pollen. And while it’s been getting better over the past few days, I’m really, really sick of it. Tired. Ready to be done.

Saturday evening and Sunday were the worst. I slept the day away on Sunday. Yesterday was better. I was able to stay vertical all day long. I didn’t get much done (well, the dishes and the beginning of the laundry, along with a good whack of playing Lego Star Wars). But I wasn’t able to get any of the work done that I wanted to—it’s hard to concentrate on writing an essay when you can’t rightly breathe.

Today was better still. I have been breathing better. In fact, I daresay it’s almost gone, rain or no rain, and I got three pages written on my essay. I may well have it finished by the end of the week.

But I don’t want to get too excited about it. The pollen count is supposed to stay high for the rest of the week…. But I think it’s on the run.

But I’m still, a little bit, hoping for rain. Rain sounds good to me right now.