My Favorite Things: StayFocusd

During the school year, one of the best tools I use to stay on task is the Chrome extension StayFocusd. It tracks how much time you've spent on certain websites, and when you hit a daily time limit it blocks those sites.

There are three exceptionally awesome things about the extension. The first is how customizable it is. You set the websites that you know are your personal temptations. You tell it when to enforce the rules. You tell it how long to let you visit those sites before shutting you down. I, for example, have it set to allow me a total of 30 minutes on my "banned" websites list - which includes Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and Netflix - between 8am and 5pm. That way I only have the potential to spend 30 minutes goofing around in that prime grading time after my last class ends and before I go home.

The second awesome thing is how foolproof it is. Any change you make to the settings takes effect 24 hours after you submit the change. Adjusting your allowed minutes per day, changing enforced hours, and changing enforced days are all possible, but you have to wait a whole day before taking advantage of the new parameters. That knocks out a whole lot of temptation.

Then there's the third awesome part: it's called the "nuclear option." You can use it when you really need to knuckle down, because it blocks *all* websites (or a set list, or all except a set list) for a given period of time. The only drawback, which is really a feature, is that if you end up wanting to get to a blocked site, you can't. There is no way to cancel the nuclear option once you've set it.

Every Thursday is "Favorite Things" day, where I bring you a short recommendation of a product or service that I have found useful and/or helpful. Unless I say something, I'm not paid or compensated in any way for the plug. I just do it out of the goodness of my heart. 

On defending your economic views: an internal memo for the Christian capitalists {part 1}

A while back, President Obama gave a speech about the minimum wage. Then Pope Francis did his thing. Add a dash of social media, a community with (apparently) very wide-ranging economic views, and stir. Voila, you have me with opinions.

I honestly believe that truly free markets are better than any alternatives we've yet seen in this fallen world, but I have a hard time standing with many of the people who defend them. I also can't stand with people who oppose them, so I'm over here in a corner. The wind is howling, and as I tuck my scarf tighter around my ears I'm starting a series of posts to explain why I don't want to stand over in the defense camp.

Over the next couple of weeks, I'm hoping to tease out my two main difficulties with defenses of capitalism. The first is the Darwinian language used to describe the operation of capitalism and the way that market forces ensure the survival of the "best" businesses. The second is the use of "two-consenting-adults" language to defend agreements, especially between laborers and employers. A third area of difficulty, not directly related to the language used in defending capitalism, is a common assumption that man is an entirely rational creature - an assumption which frequently ignores the power of advertising to sway consumer in ways that are contrary to their good. Finally, I'll make a couple suggestions. It's not fair to criticize without offering something of your own now, is it?

Buried Treasure and Missed Opportunities

When cleaning up my blog today, I found this draft post:

Aristotle and Givenchy

I realized tonight the perfect analogy for Aristotle's discussion of the perciever and the percieved in On The Soul (ok, it's not perfect, but it makes an interesting connection).

That was it. Nothing more. For some reason, I keep having this feeling that I used to be brilliant, even though I apparently forgot the 'i' before 'e' except after 'c' rule.

Pensees

Environmental activism is the religion of the areligious, the opiate of the atheists. Complete with scientist-priests, the Darwinian origins myth, an eschatology in pessimistic and optimistic flavors, and even quasi-levitical codes (thou shalt decrease thy carbon footprint), it offers a way for modern rationalists to attempt to assuage their guilt.

****

Women are pictures. The church is a woman, and so women portray the church. Similarly: If Man's relation to Nature is one of loving dominion, like the relationship between husband and wife, then it is important for wives to portray the true relationship of Nature to Man as they relate to their husbands. i.e. not adversarial, and congenial to knowledge.

*****

The problem with classical philosophy is that it isn't true preparation for death. If death is a permanent sundering of soul and body, it makes perfect sense to detach oneself from bodily existence. But 'credo in carnis resurrectionem.' . . . . The reason Christian martyrdom is so powerful is that we, like the widow with her two mites, lay down what we value highly -- the life of the body.

Epic

Some background: the assignment was to write a creative sketch in the style of Homer, with prize going to the best epic simile.

Further background: We're singing "Glory to God in the Highest" from Handel's Messiah in choir, and the basses (no doubt out of habit formed by singing along with the CD) keep jumping in where they shouldn't. Dr. Erb is our choir director.

Sing, goddess! Sing for Erb with all your might,

for in his sight, yea even you are merely a soprano,

brought down with countless souls unto the depths of

degradation when you flat a soaring E. Sing the day

when Handel's music last proclaimed

it's mighty voice in the great Andrean ranks.

As the puff of windy breath, when sweat rolls down

a migrant worker's back on a scorching August day

while he walks behind his mower, refreshes him

and turns his thoughts from beer and la-z-boy

recliners, then, sudden, tosses back his trucker hat

and trees it in the whipping branches

while the sky to graphite turns and birds return

to gather in the eaves, away from threatened rain

and thunder, it blasts a sudden chill into

his marrow and flashes from the firmament

appear to smite him in his supposed innocent pleasure,

So Erb appeared unto the basses when they

unlicensed sang.

An old declamation

I was sorting through some files, and came across this old declamation. I don't remember what the assignment was, but it seems like something fun to post. For those of you who don't know, Helen is my cousin.

When the world was young, O best beloved, everyone whas short. The giraffe had not yet had his neck stretched, and the elephant had not got his trunk. And there was a child named Helen, who delighted in everything fiercely gleaming and glistening, and everything loudly squealing and wailing, and everything brightly green or plaid. And she wandered through the wide rolling earth until she cameto the lovely land of Scotland where the twirling swirling mists float over the hills, and there she made her home on the rugged shores of the rocky-rolling-roiling firth of Forth.

And then, O best beloved, when the world was a little older and Helen was quite settled in her home on the rugged shores, the Creator sent out a notice to all the inhabitants of the wide rolling earth telling them that on Wednesay fortnight he would give them all more height. But as everyone knows, the Scottish mails are notoriously late when it comes to delivering delicate missives or official notices, and Helen did not hear about the great gathering of the inhabitants of the wide rolling earth until it was Monday evening. So, being a person of infinite-resource-and-sagacity, she packed her gleaming throwing stars and her wailing bagpipes and threw her bright plaid shawl across her shoulders and left her home on the shores of the rocky-rolling-roiling firth of Forth and hurried to catch the last ship across the English Channel.

But when she arrived at the ship, she got the last ticket, and the boatman told her (o best beloved, you will weep to hear it) that there was no room for any luggage. For, you see, there were so many people who had just gotten the notice (owing, of course, to the notorious lateness of the Scottish mail) that the ship was very nearly in danger of sinking already from the great weight of the passengers. It was the last boat before Wednesday, and none of them wanted to be late when the creator gave out the height (indeed, some of them were very greedy and asked for double portions, but we won’t name any names here). But Helen looked at her glistening knives and her squealing pipes and her warm bright shawl and turned to the boatman and said that she would rather not leave her beautiful things behind, thank you very much (for she was a polite girl) and turned around and went back to her home on the rugged shores of the rocky-rolling-roiling firth of Forth. There she lived quite delightfully, content to sharpen her weapons and play her pipes in the twirling swirling mists.

And that, O best beloved, is why Helen is short to this day

Summarizing Boethius late at night . . .

{Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, summarized in a very non-academic fashion while working on a paper.}

In the beginning, B is sitting in jail, wearing eyeliner and crying and sad and writing weepy poetry.

This chick shows up and kicks out all the muses, but B doesn't realize who she is. Then he figures out that she's Lady Philosophy, and she asks him what's wrong.

And B is all "My life used to be awesome. Now I'm in jail. Why did I even try being good? It's not worth it. I'm gonna go eat some worms. "

And P is all "Sheesh, you need help. Ok, basics: who are you?"

And B is all "I'm a rational mortal animal. Basically I can think and die."

P: And . . .

B: . . .

P: . . .

B: nothing.

P: "Dang, you're worse off than I thought. Let's talk.

First off, whaddidya expect from Fortune?

Second: virtue is it's own reward, all right?

Third: really, it sucks to be evil. Doesn't look like it at first glance, but if you think about it, it seriously sucks.

Fourth: yes, really, it's possible to be virtuous. Yep, God is sovereign, but free will is totally possible.

Finally: so get out and pray, already. Be virtuous. Quit your silly staring at the ground and be a man. Go, fight, win!"

The End.

Dragon-spawn

A few bits from a paper I just wrote on Euripides' Bacchae. Maybe you'll be interested.

~~~~~

Commentators have remarked on Pentheus’s early interest in Dionysian ritual, even as he voices opposition to Dionysus and imprisons the Maenads. This conflict makes sense if we understand Pentheus’s relationship to the history of the city. Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, killed a dragon and scattered its teeth into the earth. Echion, Pentheus's father, was born from the teeth, so Pentheus is, in a manner of speaking, part dragon. But Pentheus's mother, Agave, is the daughter of Cadmus Dragon-killer. Half-dragon, half-dragonslayer -- Pentheus is a divided man. In reality, Pentheus has always been part-Dionysian, which is why he succumbs to Dionysus. Peter Leithart notes that the temptation “only works . . . because Pentheus is already inclined to follow Dionysus’ instructions.” And Pentheus’s tendencies are forshadowed in the epithet “dragon-born.”

One passage that seems unfair is the curse pronounced on Cadmus at the end of the play. Dionysus praises Cadmus at the beginning of the play for making a shrine to Semele; Cadmus has been telling the city that Dionysus is indeed the son of Zeus, and Cadmus is one of the few men in the city to acknowledge him as a god. By normal standards, Cadmus has been faithful to his grandson the god. But he must be punished for two reasons. First, he is still the dragon-killer. Fundamentally, he is still opposed to the gods, and he is responsible in a way for his grandson: the messenger who relates Pentheus’s death arrives mourning, “This house founded by Cadmus, the stranger from Sidon who sowed the dragon seed in the land of the snake.”
In addition, Cadmus’s transformation into a snake represents the fate of the city itself. As founder of Thebes, Cadmus can be seen as a type of the whole city, and at the end of the story Dionysus reigns in the city. Thebes has become a Dionysian, and Cadmus has become the god’s symbol. But Cadmus is now more than a symbol – in a manner reminiscent of Oddyseus’ penance as an “evangelist” of Poseidon, Cadmus is sent out into the world to continue Dionysus’ work. He will lead barbarians, easterners like Dionysus himself, into Greece – and he will bring them in war (Ares’ domain, now usurped by Dionysus).

200 down, 79,800 to go.

Our declamation assignments for the past two weeks were to write the first and last 100 words of the novel we will eventually write. See if you can guess what happens in the middle of mine:

He was wet. They had heard the thunder the night before, watched the
lightning come closer and closer, and cursed their flimsy ponchos. The
deluge began before dawn. Now, staring up at the sky, he watched the clouds turning an eerie shade of mint green. It was time to get inside. He looked around. It was a grubby neighborhood, the kind that collects in big cities like dust-bunnies under the bed. The carpet of bottle-tops on the lawn proclaimed the residents' overwhelming preference for Bud Light, with a few votes for Corona. He walked up to 904 and knocked.
"Hello?"

*****

Eventually, Julia heard voices. They were distant, muffled by the rubble. Then shouting: "More . . . . here. . ." They had found Granny. What if HE was with them? The fallen rafters sagged. She twisted further under the trunk, using it as shelter from the debris. The rafters moved again, and light filtered down into the mess. That was when she saw Bill, crumpled at the base of the tree, obviously dead.

So he hadn't made it back to the house. He wasn't waiting. As the relief finally took hold of her mind, the world flickered. Before she fainted, she saw a boot and someone asked "Are you all right?"

"Yes," she said, "I am."