After temperatures hovering around 60 earlier in the week, winter has refused to go quietly into that goodnight. Tuesday morning brought high winds, snow, and ice back to the city. The conditions were the worst I’ve ridden in so far — it rained the previous evening, then as the temperatures dropped, it began to snow. Thanks to winds in excess of 30mph, anything that was snow-covered or wet turned to verglas. Traffic was, expectedly, a complete mess. While Butler Street had been salted, there were still icy spots, and the thin strip between traffic and parked cars was a crapshoot of snow, slush, and ice. The usual 25 minute took almost 45 minutes, including a coffee/warm-up-my-hands stop at La Prima.

Today, the snow is gone, and the winds have calmed, but the air is still frigid. The streets, while dry, are covered with a confectioner’s sugar coating of pulverized road salt. It swirls up in clouds behind the cars and trucks, getting in your eyes and leaving the strong taste of salt in your mouth. The sun pokes out from the gray clouds now and again, but right now, snow is blowing sideways past my office window, and whitecaps ebb and flow on the river. When will winter leave?

Posted on 9 March 2005

Hat tip to Derek

Richard Mouw has a modest proposal: let’s really talk about “moral values” in the Public Square by using Jesus’ call to action — the Beatitudes. But what intrigued me most was Mouw’s source:

Actually the idea is not original with me. I got it from an unlikely source when it comes to spiritual matters: Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut, a gifted novelist not known specifically for his religious insights, made some good theological sense last year in a column he wrote. He noted that there is a lot of talk lately about making the Ten Commandments visible in public places, but no one ever seems to mention the Beatitudes as having any meaning for our public life. Why not? he asks. After all, the Ten Commandments are from Moses, but if you really believe in Jesus you should want his unique teachings to get some publicity. So, proposes Vonnegut, let?s put ?Blessed are the merciful? signs in our courtrooms. And let?s have a big ?Blessed are the peacemakers? billboard in the Pentagon.

Would the average Christian think they could learn something from Vonnegut?

Posted on 9 March 2005

This post by Dignan nicely illustrates the moral, umm, complexity of Christian conservatives (though I wouldn’t classify Dignan as one of those folks, because, while I don’t agree with his politics, I think they are fairly developed from a Christian perspective).

The subject of his discussion is the much-maligned corporate whipping boy, Wal-Mart. It’s much easier to catalog their ills than it is to defend their practices, and even Dignan admits he doesn’t like them, but he defends them, as free market capitalists are wont to do. He rightly concludes:

On the whole, I am very unimpressed by criticisms of Wal-Mart wages and impact upon local communities. It is entirely within the power of the people of this country to bring Wal-Mart to its knees. Yet, Wal-Mart continues to grow and prosper. What does that tell us about the choices that America is making?

But it’s here that I have to cry foul. Dignan is right — it is incumbent upon consumers within a free market economy to effect change by using their power as consumers. We very well could put Wal-Mart out of business, but that requires a group effort, something that many conservatives abhor. There are many churches that have tried to wield economic power this way, and they may have been at least slightly effective, but I think this sort of action still misses the point. Conservatives (especially Christians) refuse to judge economic behavior in the name of the Free Market. Sure, they will, as Dignan does, point out the perhaps Wal-Mart doesn’t treat its employees well, but, they’ll say, those people can work elsewhere. And, of course, they are right. But, I believe that is beside the point.

Conservatives (and conservative Christians, especially) are very willing to use the government to intervene when a particular behavior ruffles their moral sensibilities (see homosexuality and homosexual marriage). They believe that people cannot make the proper decisions about these matters, and therefore the government, in the interest of the greater good of society, should step in. All bets are off, however, when the subject is economics (except in the cases of monopolies and massive corporate corruption). The market will take care of itself, they say. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. If you don’t like your employer, work elsewhere.

I find it a bit hypocritical that conservative Christians are willing to turn the other way on economic matters, yet when the subject is homosexuality and gay marriage, the government has to intervene. Such faith in the invisible hand of the free market seems almost idolatrous. I am not necessarily promoting heavy government intervention in the marketplace (though I just might be), but I am promoting Christians being more vocal about issues of economic justice. I would like to hear Christians being critical of corporations rather than consumers (as Dignan does). Again, Dignan isn’t completely wrong — people do need to make better choices in their lives — but the blame needs to be distributed fairly. Fighting for economic justice is more than simply educating consumers.

Posted on 8 March 2005

Things have been quiet, and I’m still trying to put my finger on way. Perhaps it’s the weather — after three perfect spring days, I awoke this morning to sound of car tires on wet pavement and an even coating of snow of ground. I rode home yesterday in a t-shirt and pants, and now, the temperature is hovering in the 20s. But I won’t use the weather as an easy excuse.

I’ve been flirting with idea of the going to graduate school. Right of out school, I decided to avoid more school (and debt), so I packed up my philosophy and writing degrees and ran a climbing gym. In the following ten years or so, academia never really felt like an option. Once I started programming, I had completely forgotten about it — there I was, working professionally in a field where I was nothing more than an autodidact — why did I need graduate school? Now, after working for several tiny companies that have gone the way of the dodo bird, and stints of independent contracting, I’m working for the Big, Bad Corporation (mostly not by my own doing, since the company that hired me was promptly consumed by the Big, Bad Corporation). It’s not the most challenging or interesting work (we joke that we just move buckets of data from here to there), but it is not stressful, and it pays well.

So, I watch Jen, now in an MFA program at Chatham, and I get a little jealous. The gang I run with online also makes me pine for drinking coffee, reading theology and philosophy, and writing. So, I started to consider my options. An MFA program would be “easiest” — both Chatham and Carlow have programs geared toward professionals, so I could continue working. The Pittsburgh Theological Seminary has a Master of Arts in theology that can be done strictly in the evenings. CMU has a Master of Arts in philosophy with an emphasis on computational logic and design, again geared toward professionals. All are very attractive in their own ways.

I have been playing out the various situations in my head, trying to divine where I should be. But I haven’t found the path quite yet. Going back to school while working would be an enormous burden — the programs at CMU and PTS would require two classes a semester, meaning two evenings where I was away from home. Part of me thinks I’m not quite ready to do that. And despite the monotony of the current job, I’m not quite ready to give up on programming either. So bear with me as thoughts jump from writing fiction, studying theology, and reading Dooyeweerd — my focus is clearly lacking. One day I think, hmmm, theology, and the next it’s, hmmm, philosophy. And underlying each of those thoughts is,ahh yes, writing. And in the end, flitting back and forth means nothing really gets done.

Posted on 8 March 2005

Hat Tip: Eli

Congress is considering a tax break for employers and monthly compensation for bicycle commuters. I’ll be watching this closely. I’m also curious what sort of stipulations will be attached should the bill pass (do you have to ride five days a week?).

Posted on 5 March 2005

This post was originally intended for the Dialogical Coffee House, as a long update to my original post there about the arguments before the Supreme Court yesterday regarding the legality of the display of the Ten Commandments in public spaces.

Slate‘s Dahlia Lithwick has weighed in on this afternoon’s arguments about the public display of the Ten Commandments. Interestingly, it seems that Justice Scalia was the only person in the room to have spoken honestly about what these cases are really about:

Throughout the morning it becomes increasingly clear that Scalia is the only member of the court who is being truly honest. His position: Sure, the display is religious and not secular. Let’s put up some crosses, too, and have a revival meeting. In this sense, Scalia represents the vast majority of the protesters outside. They are not venerating the historical secular influence of the commandments, whatever the lawyers inside the courthouse may say. They just really like God.

While legal hucksters on the side of people like Roy Moore have tried to legitimize the display of religious symbols in public spaces via their historical value, Scalia tells like it is. And Scalia had no time for these arguments: “But it’s not a secular message! If you’re watering it down to a secular message I can’t agree with you.” Even Lithwick gets it:

I wish there could be two Frays tonight: one for the law professors and scholars who truly believe in the commandments as a purely secular foundational document, and one full of the brave Scalia-like souls willing to admit that this case is about whether or not to welcome religion to the public square, pure and simple. I’d rather party with the second group.

I had to fight the urge to raise a pint for Scalia. Here he is, saying what he believes and (apparently) fighting for religion in the Public Square. But then, I think about what the cases are really about — symbols of the Old Testament covenant between God and His people (even Justice Ginsburg knows this and points it out). We really shouldn’t be staking our space in the Public Square with a hunk of granite. Our presence in the Public Square needs to be much more substantive.

Posted on 3 March 2005

Brian Weatherson, Crooked Timber contributor, has a interesting post about a bit of a tiff between Richard Rorty and Scott Soames that started as book critiques and morphed into ad hominen attacks and academic swipes. One of the concepts in dispute is the growing study of vagueness (non-philosophers, click the link at your own peril). While I read this stuff with some interest, I found words taken out of my mouth when I read this comment:

Didn?t Wittgenstein cure people of the desire to discuss this stuff?

Wouldn?t you rather read Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, or Strauss instead?

While I’m sure the comment was done with at least part of the tongue in cheek, there’s still a point to be had there. Rorty, to some extent, proves this point here:

Crispin Wright takes up the topic of vagueness not because he cares deeply about how many grains it takes to make a heap but because doing so helps him formulate a view about the extent to which mastering a language can be treated as a matter of obedience to semantical rules ? rules about how to line words up with things. It is an underlying concern with the question of whether and how language gets in touch with the world that has made vagueness a hot topic. Perceived relevance to such larger questions enables philosophers who specialise in heaps to shrug off the suggestion that they are trivialising a discipline that once had considerable cultural importance (and, in some countries, still does).

This was very much the point of Wittgenstein’s study — how do we use language correctly in philosophical discourse (and Wittgenstein would claim that once we sorted out language, many philosophical problems would simply fall away since we could talk about them correctly). But, Wittgenstein chose not to focus solely on the problem of the heap, and actually tried to make sense of things. The study of vagueness, as Rorty suggests, is re-examining the ground covered by Wittgenstein by examining a different linguistic problem.

All of the above should, however, be taken with a rather large grain of salt, since I’ve not read much beyond some primer material on vagueness.

Posted on 1 March 2005

Here we are, in the home stretch to spring, when Old Man Winter rears his head again. It seems we’ve been spared the massive snowstorm much of the East has suffered, but we still have lots of wet snow, chilly temperatures, and high winds. The weather forced us home from Philadelphia a day early (I was actually writing a post about my little foray into Center City to get a new wheel for the Steamroller, but that just isn’t happening), and I spent the day yesterday relaxing and hanging out with the boy. I did manage a quick spin up to Kraynick’s shop, however, to find some cheap bars and grips for the winter fixie. Gerry has actually cleaned up the shop a bit, as I could move around with my bag on (usually it’s a bull-in-the-china-shop situation which precariously piled boxes of parts everywhere). I did find a nice set of low-rise mountain bike bars for a mere $10, though I was very tempted to get the old school moustache bars he had (I didn’t fit the fit work well on the bike though, since it’s considerably shorter than the Steamroller).

Anyway…

I was really expecting the worst this morning when I woke up — inches of snow on the roads, high winds, blowing snow — but I soon heard the sound of tires on wet pavement and knew that it couldn’t really be that bad. And it wasn’t. The wind was blowing hard into my face once I got into the Strip District, and once or twice threatened to pull the front wheel away from me, but it was gusty, not constant. Very bearable, all things considered.

During the ride was thinking about why I do this. Since I hurt my back a few months ago (maybe more?), I think I’ve missed exactly one day of riding, and I didn’t even make it to work that day (loads of snow before I had the beater). I don’t really consider my obsessed, since I can spend a few days off the bike and not feel antsy or depressed. So what is it? Part of it, ironically, a bit of laziness. My only other option for getting to work would be the bus, and taking the bus means living according the bus schedule. I had trouble doing this before Seb was born, so with his variable thrown into the mix, making it the bus stop on time on any given morning is unlikely. So, the bike allows me to leave when I want to leave. The ride also allows me to exercise as I go to work — the perfect two for one. And, I can justify a huge dinner and beer every night.

But laziness doesn’t seem like a bulletproof reason to ride your bike everyday, rain or shine. What about stinginess? The cost to build up my Steamroller was less than a bus pass for a full year, and probably hundreds of dollars less than expensive than the costs of driving (gasoline, parking, etc). And since we don’t own a second car, we save on insurance and maintenance costs.

Still, laziness and stinginess aren’t the best reasons to subject yourself to the elements everyday. There are few days when I truly dread getting on the bike (typically due to rain or high winds). I truly enjoy being on my bike. I’ve been doing more errands on the weekends on the bike (usually when Seb is asleep), and I’m sure once Spring comes, I’ll be heading to the gym on my bike regularly as well, if I actually go to the gym). Part of this is no doubt feeling like a contrarian, riding along congested roads in terrible weather, looking at the poor folks stuck in their warm cozy cars. There’s also the satisfaction that comes from not being a slave to the weather, and just getting out there and doing it, regardless of conditions.

And now, looking out the office window, barely being able to see the opposite river bank thanks to snow, I realize I’ll be putting all this into practice very soon…

Posted on 1 March 2005

Slate‘s Dahlia Lithwick has covered the opening arguments in Kelo v New London. The case, in a nutshell: the city of New London wishes to seize, via eminent domain, private property to sell to private developers to create a new upscale community. Problem is, the current properties are not blighted (the usual criteria for ED), and the city’s argument centers around the increased tax revenue a new community could generate.

If you live in Pittsburgh, especially the city proper, pay attention to this. Mayor Tom Murphy is. Should the Supremes rule in favor of New London, expect Murphy to use his new-found power to hand over large chunks of the Fifth-Forbes corridor to private developers. This could be a dream-come-true for our lame-duck leader.

Also, new pics of the boy.

Posted on 23 February 2005

It has been quiet here, eh? I’ve been busy posted and commenting at the Dialogical Coffee House, and I’ve been reading some material that doesn’t lend itself to rapid posting. I’ve also been trying to find a rhythm for writing other material (ie fiction and/or creative nonfiction) that may find its way here.

In other news….Dave and Casey got a puppy.

Posted on 22 February 2005