On a firm level obviously one solution here is to just pay higher wages and hire away someone else’s machinist. But there are still only so many machinists to go around. At some point the reasonable thing to do is to find a less-skilled worker who has less bargaining power and lower wages, hire him, and teach him to do the damn job.

I want to piggy-back off this point to make a broader one about the humanities and a university education. There has been a growing concern that universities aren’t preparing students for today’s marketplace. This rhetoric is coupled with the reality that the number of business majors are growing while those enrolled in the sciences or humanities are shrinking–and with tuition continuing to rise, you can understand why students flee for a “money major.” The implication usually is that students should be majoring in the hard sciences, and if they’re not, then business makes sense, because frankly, what good is a degree in the humanities?

In response to these trends, the humanities has been doing a lot of hand-wringing about how to make a public argument about their importance, and many want to emphasize the important workplace skills that are gained, ableit indirectly, by studying literature or philosophy: you learn to write, to communicate, to think critically, etc. I feel that these are all true, and when you acknowledge that with how many job changes people under go during their lifetime, there’s a strong case that a broad-based, liberal arts degree will serve you better down the road than a business degree (plus a business major has been shown to be the best possible way to get the least amount of learning possible from your expensive tuition dollars). But I’m hesitant to make this argument too forcefully because it carries with it the implication that universities should be training future workers, that they have duty to focus on these “essentials” for the sake of the students.

Don’t get me wrong–I think the humanities should do more to help their students connect with internships and other opportunities that will help land them a job after college. But when that becomes your primary reason for funding the humanities or for funding universities, you are undercutting all the other benefits that come from a liberal arts education (greater critical thinking, an awareness of different cultures and worldviews, a greater appreciation for beauty) while essentially providing corporations and employers with an enormous tax break at the expense of taxpayers and college students. As Elizabeth Warren put it, “You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate.” While that’s not entirely true (private universities exist and businesses pay taxes too), it should remind politicians and citizens that universities serve a good outside of employment prep and that employers–the ones who actually know what skills they want their students to have as compared to schools and the ones that actually benefit from trained workers–should be primarily responsible for job training.

Thoughts?

PS Here’s Yglesias’s response to someone’s response.

Not quite, but close enough

This continues a short series of posts on the Book of Mormon as tragedy. See here for the first post.

While tragedies are most famous for their endings, their beginnings are just as significant for defining their scope and pathos. Because tragedies bear on the struggle, and even the impossibility, of progress and victory, the beginning of a tragedy usually marks the heights from which a tragic figure will fall (think Othello) or it will circumscribe the future of its hero by prophesying his ultimate downfall (think Oedipus) or both (think Macbeth). Thus tragedies, in their conclusions, often take us back to the beginnings and expose the tragic irony of what might have been. Whereas other literary forms, especially traditional novels, mark the progress and development of a character, tragedies expose the hubris of progress by revolving upon itself. Tragedies are the chutes to the Bildungsroman’s ladder.

So to get a better handle on the tragic ending of the Book of Mormon, it’s important–much like I did in the last post–to take us back to the beginning. And I mean all the way back to the beginning, to 1 Nephi 1, where Lehi has his initial theophany. In it, he sees God being praised by angels, the descent of one whose glory exceeds the sun (presumably Christ), and 12 followers that are usually connected with the 12 apostles. Lehi is given a book by Christ, which he reads and which spurs him to prohesy of Jerusalem’s destruction (see 1 Nephi 1:8-15).

Lehi’s vision and Nephi’s account of it here is mystifying. For one, no interpretation is ever offered; it doesn’t fit into the narrative of Lehi’s exodus (he will receive a different vision about that); and there is no comparable vision in all the BofM (the closest in scripture would be John the Revelator’s). Joe Spencer, in a great series of posts on the Book of Mormon, has helped put the vision in context of Nephi’s retrieval of the brass plates, interpreting the book Lehi receives as that set of scripture. Very plausible–but I want to suggest another meaning, that this vision prefigures the spiritual climax of the Book of Mormon: Christ’s visit to the Nephites. In 3 Nephi 11-28, we have all the same features of Lehi’s vision: the descent of Christ, 12 disciples that are called as special witnesses, angels that come praising God. Christ even brings additional scripture to the Nephites, like the Sermon on the Mount, and chapters from Malachi and Isaiah. Christ’s visit is also closely tied to the Jerusalem that Lehi prophesies about, as they both condemn Jerusalem for its wickedness. Lehi’s vision serves as a marker of the the heights that the people in the Book of Mormon aspire to: a visit from Christ, the establishment of his church, and the reception of his word. From the very first pages, we see the trajectory the narrative will take us, the hope for the type of reconciliation with God that Lehi experiences in his vision.

Of course, no part of the Book of Mormon emphasizes the contrast between the sublimity of visionary experience and the banal frustration of everyday relationships quite like 1 Nephi. Lehi’s (and later Nephi’s) vision is brought back to Earth by the tensions and conflicts between Lehi and his city and even his own sons. In 1 Nephi 2, Nephi creates a stark division between himself, who sought and received God’s presence, and his brothers, who didn’t even know where to begin. If 1 Nephi 1 marks what will be the climax of the Nephite civilization, the rest of 1 Nephi marks the tensions and rivalries that will ultimately lead to its downfall.

That the climax and tragic ending of the Book of Mormon is tied to its beginning in Lehi’s family helps explain some of 4 Nephi, which is perhaps the most perplexing and under-analyzed book in all the Book of Mormon. The Zion society created in the wake of Christ’s visit is glossed over in just a few verses; it is not long before we find the Nephites devolved back into the stock sins of materialism, greed, and inequality. One of the most striking moments in this descent into apostasy is the divisions along familial or racial lines, which we find in v. 37-38:

“Therefore the true believers in Christ, and the true worshipers of Christ, (among whom were the three disciples of Jesus who should tarry) were called Nephites, and Jacobites, and Josephites, and Zoramites. And it came to pass that they who rejected the gospel were called Lamanites, and Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites; and they did not dwindle in unbelief, but they did wilfully rebel against the gospel of Christ.”

The Nephites have not merely divided themselves into the traditional dualism of “Nephites vs. Lamanites,” but have specifically defined themselves according to individual figures from Lehi’s exodus: Nephi, Jacob, Joseph, Zoram, Laman, Lemuel, and Ishmael (poor Sam; always a bridesmaid, never the figurehead of tribal jingoism). Why differentiate themselves so thoroughly? What is the difference between a “Nephite” and a “Josephite,” a “Lamanite” and a “Lemuelite?” Putting aside the impossible question of what these divisions were actually based on, for readers the message is quite clear: the Nephite civilization has left the spiritual ecstasy of Lehi’s vision and have devolved into the same old conflicts that plagued their ancestors. Not only has the Nephites returned to their roots, but they have fallen from the spiritual potential promised in Lehi’s theophany into the violence Lehi’s family originally tried to escape. The tragic ending has come full circle to its origins and has plunged the Nephites even deeper into their own, familiar weaknesses.

The ending of the Book of Mormon, with the violent destruction of the Nephites, certainly strikes us as the most tragic moment of the Book of Mormon, but it’s important to remember that the reader foresees these events early on in the book, when Nephi receives a vision of this ending in 1 Ne. 12. Grant Hardy, in Understanding the Book of Mormon, astutely points out how troubling this vision is for Nephi, who emerges from his tent depressed, especially when he finds us brothers quarreling. His despair is two-fold: not only are his descendants headed for destruction, but his own actions take on a whole new meaning–or rather, they lose a whole new meaning. Nephi, who imagines his family’s flight from Jerusalem as akin to Moses’s exodus from Egypt (like Moses, he even killed a man for his people), has clung tightly to Lord’s assurance of a promised land. Now, this promised land appears inevitably bleak, its ruin a foregone conclusion.

Nephi is trapped in a paradox of prophecy, fate, and agency that is often at the heart of tragic literature. Like Macbeth, for example, Nephi’s future is clouded with foreboding prophecy, but he cannot ignore the fact that he is–or at least feels he is–free to choose. Prophecy would appear to negate any chance of his altering future events, but he strives and preaches anyways. Yet unlike tragic drama, Nephi’s paradox is not revealed in a single dramatic moment–instead, the Book of Mormon plays more like a tragic novel, whose dour ending is often predictable but we–the characters and reader–march onward nonetheless of our own choosing. In tragic novels and the Book of Mormon, the tragic irony hovers over the narrative like storm clouds for long periods rather than striking and disappearing in an instant like lightening. Nephi is not allowed a moment of dramatic climax, but must bear the prophecy as his burden for many years, his preaching and exhorting always overshadowed by this moment.

Google Images has a severe shortage of good gate pictures, but this is nice

This paradox is not debilitating, however–in fact, I believe that it inspires Nephi’s doctrinal thinking and helps him expound on the key archetype of 1 Nephi and the Book of Mormon: the Tree of Life. Our account of Lehi’s vision in 1 Nephi 8 leaves much unexplained (as 1 Ne. 11-14 show us) but perhaps most importantly it does not explain, and even Nephi’s interpretation cannot answer, a few key questions. For instance, if the fruit is so delicious, so sweet above all else, why would anyone fall away after eating it? How can the mocking of others be that persuasive? This type of apostasy is certainly represented by the future Nephite people, as Nephi sees in 1 Ne. 12, but many Book of Mormon readers are often puzzled that a Zion society organized by Christ would ultimately fall away. The tree seemingly represents the end of a journey, the final destination for those searching in mists of darkness, but in 1 Ne. 12, Nephi sees that life never seems to reach a final resting point, even after tasting the sweetness of the gospel’s fruits.

In this light, 2 Ne. 31 is an important contribution by Nephi to clarify and supplement the Tree of Life symbolism by transposing onto the symbol of the tree that of the gate: “For the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water; and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost.” Nephi’s teaching here is delicately balanced. On the one hand, he wants to affirm that baptism by water and fire brings salvation, but he doesn’t want you to assume it’s the climatic moment of one’s life (as reaching the Tree of Life would suggest). Nephi retains much of the imagery of the Tree of Life vision in his writings here but offers the symbol of the gate and the teaching to “endure to the end” as a way to explain that baptism is a climax in the process of conversion, but it is also the beginning of the rest of your spiritual life. We must “press forward” like those searching for the tree of life, but now we are “feasting on the word of Christ”–in a sense, we are taking the fruit with us onto the new path of discipleship (see 2 Ne. 31:20; compare with 1 Ne. 8:24, 30). This dual-path helps Nephi reconcile the trajectory his people are headed on as well as his own paradoxical agency: life is not determined by climatic moments, but continues inexorably onward, with the same rewards and perils still possible during the journey.

By bringing together these two archetypes, the tree and the gate, Nephi suggests that the religious life is a series of journeys, that climatic moments are often leveled over time while on the strait and narrow, and that discipleship often requires steady dedication rather than bursts of zeal. We can sense that by the end of his record, Nephi is reflecting on the youthful fervor of his youth that led to a series bold actions (retrieving the brass plates, building a ship) which never managed to keep the family together. Instead, he has found that his discipleship has become defined by his willingness to endure, to remain faithful to God and his people even with the burden of foreknowledge. The promised land was never the Tree of Life he was expecting, but only another gate onto a long, brutal journey.

Refuge

I read this book thinking I might use it in a class I was proposing on religion, literature, and the environment. But I didn’t love the book, and it stayed off the syllabus. I like the contrast Williams makes between the intractable wildness of the Great Salt Lake and her mother’s breast cancer, but the memoir played the same key over and over with little variation. You could start from page 50, 100, or 150, read a hundred pages, and your experience of the book would not be much different. Williams is a very poetic writer, which works fabulous in some places but comes across a bit too strong in others.

Housekeeping (Marilynne Robinson):

Another book auditioning for a spot on the syllabus, and this one made the cut. This is Robinson’s first novel, before she wrote Gilead and Home (Gilead‘s excellent), and it is a powerful meditation on a young girl’s connection to her family, her lost mother, and a home that she never quite belongs to. Robinson’s prose is breath-taking in places; I found myself pausing repeatedly to reflect before moving on, something I don’t do often when I read novels. Readers mostly interested in the plot won’t be satisfied much, but I highly recommend it.

A Friend of the Earth (T. C. Boyle):

I am working as a T.A. on a course on sustainability my advisor is teaching, and the students will be reading this novel in the course. A Friend of the Earth is a remarkable satire, poking fun at both consumer culture and environmentalism while not abandoning an earnest concern for how we treat the planet. Boyle folllows the life of Tyrone O’Shaughnessy Tierwater, an “eco-terrorist” who bombed construction equipment and sabotaged lumber companies during his early years. But now it’s 2025, and with the planet falling apart due to global warming, Ty is jaded and bitterly cynical about how meaningless his life of crime was. To call him an anti-hero would be putting it too nicely: he’s impulsive, rash, irresponsible, lustful, paranoid, and angry towards everyone else (“To be a friend of the earth, you have to be an enemy to humanity,” he claims). When the state takes away his daughter for negligent parenting, you nod in agreement. This novel is laugh-out loud funny (another thing I don’t do much when I read novels), and Boyle captures many of the ironies, paradoxes, contradictions, and compromises that come with trying to be a “friend of the earth” without bitterly hating the world at the same time.

Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins):

I’ll be honest: I wasn’t really impressed. Collins centers the first of her trilogy on an intriguing premise: a post-apocalyptic society where children are randomly selected to play the role of gladiators in a massive biodome, fighting each other to the death in order to secure food for the rest of their lives. Katniss, a terribly-poor 16 trying to care for her mother and younger sister, is forced to outlast and ultimately kill the other 23 competitors in order to secure a basic level of comfort for her family–or die herself. Something Jack London would write after reading Ender’s Game and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” But too many problems nagged me: the importance of winning over the audience, both before and during the Hunger Games, was never fully explained until later, and the “reality-TV” aspect of the game was more distracting than interesting. The teenage romance felt contrived from beginning to end (Katniss even admits as much, and it doesn’t help). And the ending of the game itself was anti-climatic: the last third of the book began to drag, and it felt like Collins didn’t know how to wrap things up and tried to improvise on the spot.

Which is too bad, because the beginning of the game was fantastic, with much anticipation about how Katniss would survive and which other characters would meet her in a final showdown. The book also makes some subtle comments on social stratification, the politics of food, and how we can amuse ourselves to death. Katniss herself was also an absorbing main character. But she was most absorbing when she was playing the part of heroine, not girlfriend. I want to see the movie, but I’m not sure if I’ll finish the trilogy.

Hint: Take them as a group, not as their solo acts

I don’t have a lot of money to spend on music, and I’m always hesitant to drop $15 into an album I’m not sure I’ll like, so I tend to visit our public library’s CD collection fairly often. They have a good range of classics along with a good selection of newer material, so I can try out albums or artists before I decide I want to pony up the full amount. Like any good library, the collection is properly ordered and cataloged alphabetically, and I was browsing earlier today, I wondered: what if I were headed to jail to serve a life sentence (don’t ask why), and I was allowed to take all the music available under just one letter[1]–and only that letter–with me to prison? And what if all the songs in that collection would be played at random, so I wouldn’t be able to control what came up (this way, you can’t just pick your favorite group and ignore the rest)? Which letter would I pick?[2]

I thought about this for a good 20 minutes as I walked around, and here are some observations I made:

• The middle pack of letters–from about G or H through N or O–is in serious trouble. Each letter will have at least one good artist (L has Led Zeppelin, e.g.), but its slim pickings up and down.
• M is sneaky bad: you might first think, “Oh, M is a popular letter, I’m sure it would be great,” but then you look closer and begin to recoil in horror: Madonna, Metallica, Dave Matthews Band[3], John Mayer, Matchbox 20. Friends don’t let friends pick M.
• N is the most 90s letter of them all: you got Nirvana, No Doubt, N’Sync, Nine Inch Nails, Ninety-Eight Degrees (numbers get spelled out), NOFX, New Found Glory, and all those “NOW” Best Pop of the Year compilations. I could never pick this letter for many reasons, the most important being I would be stuck with Nickelback and would live in constant anxiety that their songs would come up and ruin my day–like a kid playing eternally with a broken jack-in-the-box.
• F wins the alliteration award: Foo Fighters, Franz Ferdinand, Fleet Foxes, and–wait for it–Five for Fighting. Seriously, no other letter came close. And I already feel like I’m missing a couple.

• You would assume T would perform pretty well–it’s a big name letter–but there are very few T artists out there.
• Because you want to be efficient and not be stuck with too many bad choices clogging up your playlist, W makes a very tantalizing pick. W is small but has a solid starting lineup: Tom Waits, White Stripes, The Who, Weezer, and Wilco. Plus you throw in some Warped Tour compilations and a Woodstock anthology or two, and you have a strong though small collection. If you could somehow talk your way into another small letter, V isn’t half bad either, relative to its size. Van Halen, Vampire Weekend, Velvet Underground, and any Eddie Vedder solo albums.
• S is pretty well stocked–Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, the Strokes. But for every Social Distortion or The Smiths you have, you also have an Ashlee Simpson, a Britney Spears, and a Jessica Simpson. And a Sixpence None the Richer. And a Smashmouth. You know what, I’ve already talked myself out of S.
• A has a few great bands–AC/DC, Arcade Fire, Avett Brothers–but it’s remarkably small. Sorry A, just not enough there.
• My top choice: B. You already get the #1 draft pick (The Beatles) along with another Top Ten group (The Beach Boys) followed by other key role players: Bon Jovi, David Bowie, Beastie Boys. There are a lot of artists that you would never choose as your Top 10 but that can show up as a fantastic nostalgia throw-back (“Wow, this list has Boyz to Men and Backstreet Boys and Ben Folds Five?!”). Plus, there are a few emerging indie bands that project to age well: Band of Horses, Beruit, Broken Social Scene. B, in my mind, wins by a strong margin.[3]

"Wait...haven't I seen this one before?"

It looks like Mitt Romney’s a lock for the GOP nomination. Something disastrous had to happen at Iowa tonight, but Romney has hung in there and could take a state he probably should’ve lost. InTrade has him at over 75% for winning the nomination. Even though Iowa is a dead-heat with Santorum, it’s a long-distance car race and Santorum and Paul are running on a quarter tank. Even if the first leg is interesting, the rest is almost inevitable.

All of which makes me think: isn’t the 2012 GOP nomination process basically one long romantic comedy, a chick-flick a la politics? Think about it: the GOP sees the Big Dance on the horizon and needs a date: but who to take? Like any good rom-com, there’s the old friend, the trusty pal who’s always been hanging around, looking for a chance to be more than just friends–good ol’ Willard himself. And, let’s be honest, he’s decent, not bad looking, clean-cut, good job: any girl would be lucky to have him. But it almost makes too much sense–and the GOP wants some excitement! Some suspense!

So she plays the field. First up, the swagger from the South, Rick Perry. In a movie, Perry would be the studly football player with great hair and broad shoulders. He’s got all the fame and glory of an All-American athlete–Texas governor, never lost an election. And then….he opens his mouth (or, when trying to name the three departments he’d cut, he infamously doesn’t open his mouth). Yeah, this isn’t going to work.

So Romney shows up the door with a dandelion, a box of tissues, and a a DVD of Say Anything over which to commiserate the loss of Perry. But the GOP’s not home–it’s already riding shotgun in Herman Cain’s vintage Mustang. All rom-coms need a “new guy,” a fresh face in a town where everyone else looks tiredly familiar. Plus, he’s rich (successful business owner), big smile, and laughs easily. But, as these things tend to go in Hollywood, the new guy’s got a history that follows him around from port to port. Suddenly, Cain’s smile becomes much creepier, and after a screaming match in the rain alongside a state highway, the GOP is walking back to town with the Mustang tearing off for the horizon.

By now, time’s running out. All the GOP’s friends have already gotten their dresses, are picking out their flowers, and have begun ordering limos. Romney calls to check up, say he owns his own tux and could get dinner reservations for that Italian place in no time. The GOP considers it, is about to say yes, but there’s a knock at the door. And it’s no other than the old boyfriend: Newt Gingrich. It was a fiery on-again, off-again relationship–passionate, always volatile, but always exciting. He’s older now, and he also looks a bit maturer. Could the same excitement exist as before, but now with a cooler head and a steadier hand? Yet it doesn’t take long for past problems and confrontations to flair back up–there’s simply too much baggage between the GOP and him, and the GOP starts to wonder how it ended up with this guy in the first place. Plus, the GOP starts to hear about how he’s spent his time since you broke up, and she squirms (“You got how much money for acting as an ‘historical advisor’ to Fannie Mae?”)

And now it’s the day before the dance–the GOP’s all broken up, convinced that there’s no one out there that would take her now, that she’s burned too many bridges. She’s about to give up, pull out the ice cream, and scroll to Elliott Smith on the iPod, when…there he is. In his tux. With the dinner reservation, as promised. The reliable friend, the platonic companion. And–how many times have we seen this scene?–the GOP realizes that it’s dream date was right there all along, waiting for her to come around, waiting for her to realize that there’s no love like being in love with your best friend. It’s so sweet, so sappy so…

Formulaic. Election year, like almost all rom-coms, can’t end soon enough.

What I really want to cover in this post, though, is my new Kindle Touch, which I found neatly wrapped and fresh from the North Pole (well, actually from Amazon’s warehouses, but they are a pretty close analogue to Santa’s workshop, don’t you think?). Here’s my take on the Kindle, in case you’re interested in buying your own.

Body: The Kindle is close to the perfect size, but not quite. On the one hand, the screen is great for reading–roughly the page size of a small paperback. It’s also incredibly thin, not much thicker than a dinner plate, and slightly heavier than a 2-disk DVD case. The backside also has a tremendous grip surface that makes it easy to hang on to–it won’t slip out of your hand. However, the small size is also a tad frustrating, because the sides of the device are very thin, and it can be difficult to rest your thumb on it, the way you might between the pages of a book. So I find myself juggling between a lot of hand holds; because it’s a touch, I also have to be careful about resting my thumb on the screen. Still, if it was wider, it would lose some of its convenience.

Screen: The screen is great–no backlight (obviously), and so it reads just like a book. Plus, you can adjust font and size. Not only that, but pictures come up in decent, B/W quality if you’re viewing a webpage or PDF (more on that in a bit). The touch-response is a tad slow, not as smooth as Apple products. Turning pages and other view-features (like zooming in, highlighting, etc.) feels a bit clunky and kind of makes you wish Steve Jobs had a chance to re-imagine the device. Still, I’m sure a bit of that lag and awkwardness comes from an e-ink screen rather than a traditional monitor, so you can’t complain too much. Also, the touch keyboard works pretty well–as good as any Blackberry or iPhone.

Multi-use: I’ve spent the last 3-4 nights up past midnight fiddling around with the Kindle and trying to see how to use it best: can it become my RSS reader? Can I use it to hold notes or lesson plans? Can I read PDFs on it and what’s the fastest way to upload them? I like the Kindle because it is what it is: an e-reader, not a phone or a mini-computer or a music player. Still, it would be nice to have some of the accessibility of, say, an iPod Touch. Amazon is moving in that direction: in their “Experimental” menu, you can listen to MP3s or browse the web through your Kindle–or have the Kindle read text to you in a passive, feminine voice like you’re getting GPS directions. What I’ve found is that the Kindle does quite well at handling many different types of documents: PDFs, for example, can be uploaded as they are or converted into text (though make sure it’s a quality PDF). Zooming is a hassle, but it can be done. You can e-mail yourself any attached text document and have it show up on your Kindle almost instantly, which can be quite handy. For instance, I had to shut the computer down today to make some repairs, but Janelle needed a recipe from the Internet. Rather than write it all down, I copied it to a text file, e-mailed it the Kindle, and she had it a minute lbter. It takes a few more steps than feels necessary (you can’t simply write text into the e-mail and have that show up) but it’s still pretty good.

Also, because it’s not a computer, it doesn’t have the same sync capabilities of other mobile devices. So while I figured out how it can send me all the posts in my Google Reader, it doesn’t mark those posts as “Read” when I scroll through it. I have found an easy web app that lets me send any article/webpage I find on my computer to my Kindle to read later, which is fantastic. I don’t like reading on a computer a lot, so this let’s me do my online reading with more ease and comfort. Big plus, right there. Also, if there are links in Google Reader or in other pages, you can click on them and the Kindle will go to that page (again, in B/W, e-ink). You wouldn’t want to do much web-browsing there, but it’s relatively quick and easy to move to and from that page.

Books and Reading: Ultimately, though, the big question is: can you read on it? Is it worth it? Why not just stick with physical books? I don’t think these things will make books obsolete–all things being equal, I’m more likely to grab a hard-copy of a novel than the Kindle version to enjoy. But things aren’t equal, and the Kindle has some huge advantages: thousands of books can be carried in a single device, you can get non-copyright material for free (this means any literary works from before 1920s are up for grabs), it’s lighter than most books. But I also find I read more with it: not only online material, like I mentioned, but other books that are pretty quick to come by. During one of my late-night test drives, I found a great deal on Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale and bought it right away. Seconds later, I was reading the first chapter. In a normal situation, say at a library, I never would have felt I had the time to pick up and read the book, or I would’ve thought, “I’ll never get around to it, so why check it out?” Kindle leaps over these sorts of limitations. Call it instant gratification, but ultimately, it gets you reading faster and more easily–and that’s nice.

So, yes, Kindle’s great. If you like to read a lot, especially older works, it’s very handy. I can’t vouch for the standard model, with a built-in keyboard (though it doesn’t have the same audio capabilities) or any of the upper-range versions, but the Touch is simple and yet useful. Just make sure you don’t have fat thumbs.

Joseph's wondering, "How am I going to pay for this kid's college?"

This might be old news to everyone already, but I just noticed it today:

The Nativity accounts in Matthew and Luke are completely different. Well, not completely. A baby is still born to a virgin. But setting that aside, the tone, structure, and sequence of events are so distinctive it’s bizarre. I would think they were talking about two different babies if they didn’t call both “Christ.” In fact, one not familiar with Christianity might reasonably assume that they were written to be intentionally inverted accounts of Christ’s birth. Consider:

Matthew’s account is very male-oriented. Joseph, the wise men, and Herod are the main actors; Mary barely gets a mention, and there’s no account of her angelic visitations. The account is very political, focused on kingship and Herod’s anxieties about ruling.

Luke, on the other hand, tells us about more women than perhaps any two chapters in the whole bible. We hear about Gabriel’s visit to Mary, Mary’s “Mangificat” hymn, her visit with Elizabeth, Elizabeth’s spiritual inspiration–we even get a prophet, Anna, serving in the temple who gets to see the Savior before she dies.

Matthew’s account is also very dark and foreboding. Mary’s pregnancy is an embarrassment, a social faux pas that needs to be covered up. The wise men and Herod play out a dangerous chess game of promises and feigned intentions. Angels help Joseph navigate one dangerous situation after another. After being duped, Herod retaliates by slaughtering probably thousands of baby boys. Here, women are not rejoicing in the Lord, but “A voice was heard in Ramah, / wailing and loud lamentation, / Rachel weeping for her children; / she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

Luke’s account is full of hymns, joyous singing, inspired salutations–being born in a manger seems quaint and non-threatening. In fact, angels herald “peace on Earth, goodwill towards men!” (though modern translations read more like “on earth peace among those whom he favors!”). Shepherds and temple workers welcome the newborn child; he does not escape in secret flights for safety. Of course, Simeon’s warning to Mary is troubling, but Luke withholds any hint of what pain Mary will have to face.

There are many other minor differences: Matthew is very interested in prophecy-fulfillment, while Luke seems more interested in miracles and prophetic heralding. But it never occurred to me until now that I had been blending two very different accounts into one “whole” story about Christ’s birth. Does this mean that one is more right than the other? Not necessarily, though possibly; I don’t know really anything about biblical scholarship on the Nativity. But it does make you wonder what purpose the Nativity story serves in each author’s gospel–what is Matthew trying to suggest about Jesus’s life and mission through his account that’s different from Luke’s?

Don't even thinking about shaking that present

I’m a complete sucker for Christmas time, and that makes early December one of my favorite times of the year. Thanksgiving’s past, so I can focus completely on the 25th, and all the Christmas songs and decorating and hooplah haven’t dragged on so long that I’m ready to stuff my head in a stocking and wait for the whole thing to be over. Plus, nothing reminds me so strongly of my childhood as decorating the Christmas tree: I put on Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride,” I unwrap my old tree ornaments, and suddenly I’m 7-years old again, hanging my little soldier-mouse again right front and center of the tree (to guard the presents below, of course). Did I ever tell you that I can still recite, from memory, the entire “Garfield’s Christmas TV Special?” Ah, nostalgia.

And cry blasphemy, but I love the commercialism, cheap sentimentalism, and kitschiness of it all, if for not other reason than I can both enjoy the holiday season and feel ironically superior to everyone else about it: joy to the world! So in honor of Christmas cheer and Christmas greed, my wish list.

For Christmas, I want:

–A Kindle (this one’s for real. Kindle Touch–Amazon, I’m selling you my soul, don’t let me down).

–A smooth drive to Minnesota to see family.

–Blissful ignorance of how cold Minnesota is going to be.

–An NBA season (check and double-check! It’s go time!)

–Blazers winning the NBA championship (well, at least a non-Lakers, non-Celtics, non-Heat championship. I’m a hater’s hater)

–A Sunday Christmas program not arranged by Janice Kapp Perry. How about a Sunday Christmas program with traditional, classic Christmas songs? Does anybody really think they can out-do “O Come all Ye Faithful?” Why do we botch this every year?

–For South Bend theaters to get some better movies. No, I do not want to see Puss in Boots. I will not watch it happily, I will not watch it in 3-D. Not in a mall. Not in a hall. I will not watch it, no, not at all.

–Peace on Earth, goodwill towards men. (If you’re sappy with at least one thing on your list, Santa brings you everything else)

"And then Dad plugs in the lights, and everyone goes 'Ooooooh,' and Garfield says, 'Nice touch.' And then..wait, you don't want me to finish?"