Why the burst of activity lately? Well, the long quiet has primarily been due to the long haul that I’m in with regards to my dissertation. Well that, and the fact that most anything I want to report can just as easily go on Facebook though. Recently though I’ve been missing the format of the blog. In particular the way that a blog allows you to capture a moment, and return to it in reflection. Facebook and other social networking lives in the now (if not an idealized future where if you provide your name, number, those of your friends, family, dog, cat, and so on your social networking experience will be enhanced beyond your wildest imagination). What this lacks though is the ability to go back and recollect. (I don’t deny you can scroll back in time, but I personally find it to be a bit of a bother and generally filled with…well, filler). Add to that I’ve been missing a bit of the long form that the blog allows. Not that I’ve been very good at indulging in that long format. We can hope change, right?

Thus a new start that goes back to the core of why I started this particular blog. I’ll try to capture the peculiar zietgeist of my day – be it in link or long form – and try to capture a bit of the detritus off of the scholarly process that is writing a dissertation.

Here’s to high goals.

A beautiful set of pictures of the North Brother Island at The Kingston Lounge and a compelling look at the history of the island while you’re at it. Worth a look.

Oregon appears to be having something of a gold rush thanks to a moratorium on suction dredges in California. The cyclical nature of mining rushes for gold as well as the repercussions of this sort of mining certainly deserve greater scrutiny. It also poses an interesting problem for public land use as different interpretations of “the fat of the land” begins to contradict each other.” The “American Dream” is alive and well in the retirement dreams of people going out and mining for gold as well as the sense, as is mentioned in the article’s closing lines, that it takes more than opportunity to strike it rich. The popularity of this sort of mining is intricately tied to the price of gold, which is itself tied to the economy. The x factors here would seem to be the perennial hope of striking out on one’s own to get rich and the desperation involved when there’s not other hope to pay the bills.

News from the New York Times that publishers are looking into ebook editions for classics that don’t have their electronic copyrights nailed down. Despite being a Kindle owner, I’m a little concerned about the direction this will likely go. There’s already enough problems with copyright and electronic distribution. The most obvious being the “planned obsolescence” or at least inherent obsolescence that’s inherent in technology being applied to books (not a new move if you’ve know anything about book binding. You’re latest paperback? Yeah, it’s a piece of crap.) Still, another front in a war to nail down every right for every property. Then again, maybe I’m just being grumpy today and not seeing the bright side of all this.

A tragic end to rescue operations.  News stories and internet coverage for 4/10.

New York Times main story.

AP via Huffington Post.

BBC News.

Brief bios of some of the blasts victims from the New York Times.

I wanted to take a moment to highlight a side note from the coverage of the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion.  From the New York Times we learn that the Westboro Baptist Church, the Kansas church best known for its ongoing protest of homosexuality by protesting the funerals of dead soldiers.  The logic being that God hates gays and therefore is punishing the United States’ tolerance of homosexuality by killing its soldiers.  (Because obviously being in a war has nothing to do with the deaths of soldiers.)  The inconsistencies in that argument aside, the church and its leader Fred Phelps have sought out the media spotlight by being as shocking as possible and then pressing their first amendment rights.

In this light they’ve turned their sights to West Virginia.  From this New York Times story we get the addled thought process that’s led them to step into the tragedy at Upper Big Branch.  This time though, it’s not tolerance of gays that led to tragedy.  No, it’s much more focused on the Westboro Baptist Church.  The miners at Upper Big Branch died because the church had received threats from West Virginia about an upcoming trip to that state.  The take away quote from the church’s statement:

“So God reached down and smacked one of those mines, killing 25 (and likely four more are dead),” it said. “Now you moan and wallow in self-pity, and pour over the details of the dead rebels’ lives, pretending they’re heroes.”

This is not new though.  The church did the same thing after the Sago mine disaster in 2006.

While I’m certainly giving them the exposure they are so desperate for, you have to admit that their methods are effective.  Honestly, it’s difficult to ignore such bottom feeders when they rise up to the surface and assert themselves so blatantly.  To interrupt funerals, a matter of collective mourning and closure that is at the same time infinitely private, is the very portrait of hubris.  Perhaps the only thing that can break the taboo is hatred and an unyielding belief that those in mourning and those dead are not worthy of the observance of the most basic protocols, not mourning or condolences, but simple silence.

As I thought over the church’s statement today I realized what was so shocking to me was not the blindly projected hatred, which is its standard, but the hubris as it broke into absurdity.  In this instance, the reason for this disaster is that someone somewhere in West Virginia “threatened” the Westboro Baptist Church.  God is, apparently, at their beck and call, yet incapable of a targeted strike.  Those mourning are not victims, but criminals in the eyes of God apparently for not policing their neighbors to keep them from insulting the Westboro Baptist Church.  And the miners themselves are rebels against the church’s “holy” cause: self-aggrandizement.

If they are rebels for this, let mine be a life of rebellion.

It is an absurdity that certainly cuts deep, but maybe it’s one that can bind too.  So odious a group is also capable of breaking boundaries including the political spectrum of right and left and create simpler definitions.  Basic humanity versus self-deluded fools.  Proof?  I found myself on the same side as Bill O’Reilly who recently offered to pay the court fees of Albert Snyder, the father of a slain soldier whose funeral was the site of a protest by the church.  Politically, I don’t have much in common with Bill O’Reilly, but I applaud this motion.

According to the Charleston Gazette the communal motion the Westboro Baptist Church inadvertently breeds is alive and well.  Counter protests are being planned (and likely have already taken place) in light of Phelps’ church’s continued rallies in the state.  As the article notes:

Those sponsors include groups that don’t often work together, Weinstein said — “the state Chamber of Commerce, the University of Charleston, the religious community, various nonprofit organizations, veterans’ groups.

“So out of something ugly, something very beautiful is happening. The fabric of our community is being woven more tightly together.”

Amen