Friday, April 30, 2010

Vincent news


Earlier this week Meemaw Nancy (Stephanie’s mother) and Grandma Mary stopped the Graceland Bob Evans where Vincent now works (inside of a Bob Evans restaurant pictured above) for lunch. They often stop at Bob Evans, but this time went to a different one so they could see their grandson/great-grandson. Vincent came out and gave them hugs and they got to chat for a little while. Stephanie also talked with him later: The job is hard but he likes the people. He says he’s been taking the laptop his father got from another family member and – since the restaurant has WiFi – been working on his on-line classes on break or after work when he waits to be picked up. Thursday Vincent said he also went from working at Bob Evans before, during, and after lunch to working on a moving job with his father. Perhaps Stephanie’s father will stop by some time.

-- Perry

Monday, April 26, 2010

Pre-Derby week news

Mom got the OK to start back to work late last week – getting medical permission for working at home – and worked through the weekend. While she worked she started getting dinner take-out and eating in her apartment instead of in the dining room. Mom has been exercising at the retirement center gym every day since her therapy wrapped up more than a week ago.

Mom has been limiting her driving, but did get out to a Tallahassee American Association of University Women annual social event – to which she invited some other friends – last week (over the weekend – besides the funeral and wedding in Ohio – she missed the state AAUW – an event she twice ran for an organization for which she served as Historian during the past year).

Friday Mom’s realtor met with the contractors. Another damaged wood spot outside was found, this one on the bank of the house. Mom has spent about $5,000 on fixing up the house. The realtor sounds close to taking pictures of the house and putting it on the market. I hope it hasn’t closed by late May, when I’m planning to visit – I’d like to see the house one more time and like to check out what the contractors did.

Although we visited Ohio this weekend, we didn’t get to see Vincent. He started his new job as a dishwasher at a Bob Evans near Graceland shopping center in north Columbus. He worked a few hours Saturday and then more hours Sunday. He had to be there at 8 a.m. Sunday and seemed tired Sunday afternoon. The only bus that goes near his apartment goes across Morse Road to near his restaurant, but it sounds like he’s gotten rides from his father or grandfather (who’s been staying at their one-bedroom with Vincent’s grandmother and their dog) so far. We offered him a ride home Saturday but he didn’t go for that. Apparently he may have opportunities for advance, but we’ll see if he sticks with it. It’s ironic because until very recently he associated Bob Evans with breakfast food and complained when we tried to go there.

If Vincent sticks with a job he may not have a week every month or two to visit us – as he’s been doing since he no longer had a job as of early January. And given what happened late Monday night to the people he hung out with while he was here last – including hanging out with them all night exactly a week before this – http://www.fox41.com/Global/story.asp?S=12362720 – we may not want him here either. Not the comments also.

Vincent has apparently tried out some of his on-line classes he signed up for and says some of them are easy. We’ll see if he can work on school and work simultaneously.

It remains to be seen what if any classroom space Stephanie will have available to her once her school takes in 100 or so new students over the summer.

I’m excited to have Oaks Day (the day after the Pegasus Parade before Derby – the Oaks is the all-fillies race that Rachel Alexandra won last year) sort of off. We’ll see if I can get the problems with my work laptop power cord/adaptor fixed before then (which would allow me to work home some that day) and whether I’ll still have a job exactly two weeks (14 days from Oaks Day) later.

Penny is busy preparing for a series of dance performances this weekend in Virginia, where she will receive an award.

-- Perry

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Mid-week musings

Good news and bad news: Our church had been wavering on whether to go ahead with a Guatemala mission trip in July, with dwindling numbers on our end, and Tuesday we determined that we have 5-6 people going and we would go ahead and go. A surprise late addition was the Guatemalan American daughter of the man who was a guest pastor for us for six weeks several years ago (her first chance to go home in 3 ½ years). The bad news is that now I have to finish organizing the mission trip (which helps me avoid paying much).

Tuesday I also got my first speeding ticket in 10 years, and in a school zone (I don’t know how I missed that blinking light), which means I can’t just mail in a check and must also go to three-hour traffic school and be even more careful in the future. A fellow church member who is a lawyer contacted me via Facebook and phone and is going to try to help me get the court fee waived (and maybe get out of making an appearance).

On his birthday, Vincent commented on my Facebook page for the first time ever. He was slated to go to see the movie Kick Ass with his father for his birthday. (We celebrated his birthday this past Friday and then went to Thunder Over Louisville Saturday with him.) Vincent said he was slated to start his Bob Evans job later this week. I didn’t ask him about starting his classes (clearly he’d been on the computer) and he continued his hermit line which may mask that he’s bored and depressed and has got no non-family friends in Ohio (and for that matter doesn’t see his relatives on Stephanie or my sides of the family – he seems dead set on boycotting Corey’s wedding this Saturday). Stephanie wasn’t really able to reach him on his birthday.

One of my first assignments at the Presbyterian Center was to write a report for a Presbyterian Panel survey that I had not authored – about attitudes towards reparations. Later on I had gotten assigned a second Panel report – for which I had drafted a small part of the survey – which I’d never finished. More than a year ago I got the transfer/promotion that made me administrator of the Presbyterian Panel (random samples of Presbyterian church elders, other members, and ministers whom we send questionnaires about various topics four times a year), and yet I had not finished that report or any for the three or four surveys that I have worked on since becoming an administrator – something my managers were not happy about and was not good given the impending layoff date (May 14). This week final hard-copy versions of two Panel reports (the long delayed one and one for the first Panel survey I wrote entirely – the May 2009 survey on the Environment) came out and I distributed them. If I can just finish two more Panel reports before May 14 . . .

--Perry

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Happy birthday, Vincent!

Today is Vincent’s 19th birthday, which we celebrated with him this past Friday night, when he was still in town. I wrote Thursday about Vincent’s school “progress.” Apparently Vincent’s father has lined up a job at a Bob Evans near Graceland shopping center in north Columbus. Vincent may start this week (even on his birthday?). By days of the week, a year ago today Vincent went to court and essentially escaped with a de facto year of probation, with nothing on his record, and his house arrest ended (and this week he completed the online high school he’s completed most recently). I have called the lawyer about getting his record expunged – after one year – and haven’t heard back.

Mother heard from her manager late last week that apparently there was some paperwork that needed to be completed for her to work at home, and he asked her to stop working because they needed to start with her doctor for that paperwork. Mom was just getting going on some work projects at home, and was sorry to have that cut short. She would also like to finish those by June (her putative retirement month) and is a little worried that she currently is eating up the rest of her vacation days (it’s not clear what to do with these stop-work days). Mom has kept busy, entertaining, going to programs at the retirement center, taking care of personal business, maintaining her medication regimen, getting used to her walker/rolator, meting more people at the center, and exercising at the gym (in the new, post-therapy era). She has also been in contact with the contractors working on her house, and the real estate agent we’re working with will do a walk-through of the house with them this Friday. She will take photos at that time that will appear on her company’s website. Apparently the house will go on the market soon. The real estate agent will stop by Mom later Friday to let her know how things are proceeding. I’m hoping Stephanie and I will be in Tallahassee later in May, and hopefully we can see the house – somewhat transformed – at that time, before it might be sold. Who knows?

This past Monday Stephanie wrapped up a three-week unit in her after-school Culture Club about Korea. I had stopped by the first week to talk about and show pictures and mementos of my 1995 visit with Penny and Serge there. Last week Stephanie had hoped Vincent would stop by to show the kids some Tae Kwon do moves (a Korean martial art), but that didn’t work out. Monday she brought radish kimchee and rice and bulkogi steak she had made, and they had a feast. She had done Korea a year ago in Culture Club, but they did not repeat any content this time, since she still has some kids from back then in Culture Club. Negotiation continues about where Stephanie’s school will put all of the teachers/students they will have next year. Eventually, they may need portable classrooms.

-- Perry

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Vincent news

Vincent’s two classes had timed out. He can’t get his old work back. Vincent and I toyed with the idea of signing him up for the high school General Equivalency Diploma pre-tests. Vincent had been signed up for dual enrollment English and math classes, which cost us $100. The English class, which is required to graduate, he had almost finished. (Both of these classes he had taken before, at Brown.) Jefferson County High School did not kick him out of school. In fact, he signed up for FIVE classes: the dual-enrollment English class (again), a whole year of dual-enrollment computer class (for which he may need to buy Office for his father’s laptop computer), and two easier lifeskills and career development classes. Since he needs to take the second semester of the math class, I’m not sure he really needs all of these classes, but I decided not to argue with the school official. She still has to find his second-semester World Civilization, which she couldn’t find a record for. We’ll see if he does better at taking five classes than he did at taking two. It’s still not clear whether these time out in five months or one year. This cost us $150. It remains to be seen whether Vincent can make any more progress over the next five months than he did during the past five months (not any progress).

I told Vincent Stephanie would probably want us to take him out to dinner for his birthday on Friday evening or Sunday after church, which he seemed OK with him (probably Friday). He mentioned also the possibility of seeing a movie Friday, which I had wanted to do also. We’ll have to see how it will all fit in, since I must get ready for a worship service Saturday morning. He was threatening to go off with his friends today (on to Brown School vicinity after our JCHS visit) and during Thunder (I imagine he’ll start with us). He said he had a headache which he partly attributed to not smoking. He said he blew off a young woman with whom he had exchanged text messages during the past month.

-- Perry

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Mid-April news


It’s been a newsy week. My Mom got the walker she wanted and got trained in its use. If she drives to church Sunday, she will try putting the walker – or rollator (10 pounds) – in her car for the first time ever. Mom will finish up occupational therapy and physical therapy early this week and transition to exercising at the retirement center’s gym and in her apartment. Mom also entertained two guests today in her apartment, something that she feels more comfortable as she has straightened up and arranged her apartment even more. Mom also decided against visiting Ohio in a couple of weeks, because of the difficulties she expects traveling. Mom has taxed many of the remaining vacation days she had left. She is trying to work as close to 40 hours a week as she can and make it till June, when she may retire. She also has projects she wants to finish or tie up.

Stephanie found out from her principal and colleagues that she knows three of the four new teachers who will be working at her school next year, along with the influx of 100 students coming in from other schools. The list was made public earlier this week. No teacher will be leaving Fairmont (not even one teacher who wanted to leave). Stephanie’s school district closed four elementary schools and moved all 5th graders to middle school, you’ll recall, but basically laid off no teachers. The day after this decision was formalized, Indiana’s governor, whose budget was blamed for some of the need to close schools, criticized the school district for not laying off teachers instead. If the economy and budgets continue in the same vein next year, layoffs may be in order then.

Vincent originally talked about coming to visit this time for more than the usual week, but later this week we learned he’s back to a week. We’ll pick him up Sunday evening, partly so we can go to a concert with the Australian hard rock group AC/DC which we were supposed to see this fall and go to the annual Thunder Over Louisville air show and fireworks display at the Louisville waterfront. We’ll find out Monday whether we’ll get to go with our dog and meet a colleague and her son and use the Presbyterian Center as a home base. We’ve got other things we’d like to do with Vincent – he’s said yes to going to counseling and no to showing Stephanie’s Culture Club Korean martial arts – and we’ll hope to celebrate his birthday – which he’ll leave just two days before – but we’ll see what happens. This week Vincent’s father told us that the two online high school/college dual enrollment classes Vincent was taking – that cost just $100 total – including one he hadn’t just about finished – have timed out after a year, and so he’ll have to start all over again (if they don’t kick him out of the school). I’ll mention the GED route while he’s here. Vincent’s father also said the illness he’s been suffering from has been getting worse.

News from our dog and our house. We’ve been thinking we’d get Frisco a haircut some time this winter as part of a scheme to get him doggie day care. But he foiled our last attempt in Ohio when he bit the would-be stylist. But it was hot here this week and he was wilting in the heat and so we went out of a way to get his hair cut Thursday – and he got some other medication too (Frisco as I arrived to pick him up pictured above). A visiting repairperson last month alerted us that our furnace was in dangerous shape. After a month or so the landlord and the repair people he works with persuaded themselves to go ahead and replace the furnace, and they did the majority of the work today. We went for a couple of chilly nights with no furnace but it never got cold enough (down to 65 degrees) to use the space heater.

-- Perry



Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Patrick in the Northeast this week


My friend Patrick Bond is over from South Africa giving several talks in the Northeast this week. Check them out if you're in Boston, NYC, or D.C. this week:


6 APRIL: CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK, GRADUATE CENTER

CLIMATE POLITICS OR CARBON TRADING?
The Story of Cap and Trade

Film screening and discussion with Patrick Bond

The Story of Cap and Trade (http://www.storyofcapandtrade.org, featuring Annie Leonard), launched on December 1, 2009 and was seen 400,000 times before the end of the (failed) Copenhagen Climate Summit. The nine-minute film helped open a global and US debate about the core modus operandi for top-down climate governance: commodification of the air. Patrick Bond, an advisor to the film, will address social, spatial and temporal features of climate politics in an era of fading financialization but durable neoliberalism.

PATRICK BOND is senior professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Development Studies in Durban, South Africa, where since 2004 he has directed the Centre for Civil Society: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs. He has written or edited numerous books including Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society(2009); and Looting Africa (2006). He was a founding member of the Durban Group for Climate Justice and is active in Climate Justice Now!’s South Africa branch.

Moderated by ASHLEY DAWSON, Faculty Fellow, the Center for Place, Culture and Politics

April 6, 2010
Room C198 at 6:30 pm

THE CENTER FOR PLACE, CULTURE AND POLITICS * CUNY GRADUATE CENTER * 365 Fifth Avenue @ 34th Street

***

8 APRIL, CLARK UNIVERSITY, WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS

Patrick Bond speaks on Development, Environment and Social Struggle at Clark University, 8 April

10.25-11.30am: Development Policy class, Geog104: “RDP, GEAR and South African Development Policy”

12.00 noon “Carbon Trading: A Critique” and “Dennis Brutus: A Tribute”

3pm Worcester State College Dennis Brutus Memorial

***

9 APRIL, ENCUENTRO 5, BOSTON

http://www.justicewithpeace.org/node/1243

Patrick Bond on South Africa, the World Bank, and Climate Justice

When: Friday, April 9, 2010, 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm

Where: Encuentro 5 • 33 Harrison Ave, 5th Floor • Chinatown T Stop • Boston

Start: 2010 Apr 9 - 12:00pm

End: 2010 Apr 9 - 2:00pm

South Africa now has its 4th post-Apartheid president... But the country is more unequal than ever! It is also under consideration for a World Bank loan to “modernize” it ailing electrical power generation and distribution infrastructure. Revamping its grid would normally be a decisive opportunity to set a new course, redress inequalities and deveop a green strategy. But activist-intellectual Patrick Bond warns that the opposite seems likely with the Bank loan. It will strengthen the private sector and sharpen the gap between rich and poor: urban residents prepay their electricity at 4 times the rate of large transnational corporations. Further, the proposed loan will finance the world's 4th largest coal-fired plant and raise rates on working people.

On April 8, 2010, the World Bank will make its decision. Patrick Bond will reflect on the outcome.

Also invited to the conversation is Tufts University professor, William Moomaw who consulted with the World Bank and who is in support of the loan.

This Bank critic meets Bank supporter discussion allows for a reasoned engagement of ideas.

For Patrick Bond's biography, see: http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?10,24,8,55

For William Moomaw's biography, see: http://fletcher.tufts.edu/faculty/Moomaw/

See http://www.encuentro5.org for more directions. Also check website

***

10 APRIL, BUSBOYS&POETS, 5TH & K Sts, WASHINGTON

Social Movements; the World Bank and Energy Financing

Africa Action

With: Friends of the Earth- US, GroundWork, Institute for Policy Studies: Sustainable Energy and Economy Network, Institute for Policy Studies: Foreign Policy In Focus, Jubilee USA and Haymarket Books

This week, Thursday, April 8th, the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors will decided whether or not to lend a US$3.75 billion loan, the vast majority of which would be for the 4800 MW Medupi coal fired plant in South Africa.

Africa Action and coalition partners will be hosting a public education event Saturday, April 10th at Bus Boys and Poets (5th/K Streets, DC) at 6:00pm to learn more about the loan to Eskom and its affect on communities and the environment.

Who: Patrick Bond

Patrick Bond has longstanding research interests and applied work in global governance and national policy debates, in urban communities and with global justice movements in several countries. He is professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Development Studies where since 2004 he has directed the Centre for Civil Society. His research focuses on political economy, environment (energy, water and climate change), social policy and geopolitics, with publications covering South Africa, Zimbabwe, the African continent and global-scale processes.

Dave Zirin

Named of the UTNE Reader's "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Our World", Dave Zirin writes about the politics of sports for the Nation Magazine. He is their first sports writer in 150 years of existence. Zirin is also the host of Sirius XM Radio's popular weekly show, Edge of Sports Radio. He has been called "the best sportswriter in the United States," by Robert Lipsyte. Dave Zirin is, in addition, a columnist for SLAM Magazine, the Progressive, and a regular op-ed writer for the Los Angeles Times. He was Press Action's 2005 and 2006 Sportswriter of the year. He recently traveled to South Africa and he will share his experiences interacting with social movements and civil society.

And….

This discussion will include other coalition partners involved in the No Coal Loan Campaign

Where: Bus Boys and Poets, 5th and K Streets (1025 5th Street NW, DC)

When: Saturday, April 10th at 6:00pm

For more information on the loan, please visit

http://www.africaaction.org/no-coal-loan.html

Be sure to read our new resources, including a response to World Bank-Eskom Panel Report and Fact Sheet, the coalition statement, and Letter to World Bank Executive Director

RSVP to outreach@africaaction.org for updates before coming to the event.


Also check out this video clip from the Colbert show with Patrick's friend Annie Leonard (scroll down): http://www.storyofstuff.org/

- Perry

Monday, April 5, 2010

Big week

Today (Monday) we heard from Vincent, whom we haven’t been able to reach several days, that he may come here for 10-14 days for a concert (with us) and for Thunder Over Louisville (with us). It’s possible he could take care of some legal issues while he is here. Tuesday Stephanie will find out from her principal, who is staying, who will be teaching at the school next year. Receiving 100 new students and losing 4th and 5th graders, Fairmont may lose some 5th grade teachers and gain teachers from some of the four elementary schools that are closing. This will help determine whether Stephanie will get any kind of classroom. On Wednesday Mom will go to a neurologist for the first time. Mom took the bull by the horns and pushed for a different neurologist than our doctor in Tallahassee initially referred her to. Mom also took the bull by the horns and asked a friend of hers (from AAUW) to go with her. Mom had done something similar last week when she pushed back when the physical therapists who worked with her tried to get a walker that Mom thought was too flimsy and low-end. Late last week Mom got the walker she wanted, but the therapists asked her not to use it until they show her how. Also this week, Sunday was the deadline for submitting to deposits for our church’s summer Guatemala mission trip. Only a few people signed up, and so Monday the pastor and I agonized about whether to plow ahead. The suspense continues.

-- Perry

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Saint Marks Wildlife Refuge

Whenever Perry and I get to return to Tallahassee we try to enjoy some of the nature in the surrounding areas. We try to get to Saint George Island, or the Wakulla River for canoeing, or Saint Marks. This time Perry didn't get to go to any of these places but I was able on the last full day I was there to get away for awhile and go to Saint Marks.
I first went to my friend, Rachel's, house. I had wanted to see her little girl, but she was at her dad's house. Rachel and I reminisced about going to Saint Marks the week of my graduation from FSU. She was my neighbor at Hidden Villas then. My Mom and Dad had both come down to see my graduation. Martha, Rachel, my Mom, and I had all gone to Saint Marks. My Dad was flying in later so Perry picked him up from the airport and brought him out to meet us at Saint Marks. Once we were all there we ate dinner at Ootz's Too. As Rachel and I drove by Ootz's we laughed about the drive back on the dirt road that led to Natural Bridge.


Perry, Vincent, and I when we lived in Tallahassee would always go down to the lighthouse and then go to the right to walk out to a rock jetty. Because of several hurricanes the grassy walkway is still there separating the fresh water from the gulf but the rock jetty that we could climb out on during low tide has been swept away. Since the jetty wasn't there Rachel and I headed out to the left of the lighthouse, breaking from tradition but allowing me to see several beaches that I don't think I ever realized were there.



Spring was defiantly in the air. Flowers were blooming and grass was growing everywhere. Looking back from the gulf towards the wildlife refuge I kept thinking that if I didn't know better the grassy areas could be mistaken for the Savannah grasslands of Africa. I even joked that I could imagine seeing a long neck of a giraffe in the clumps of pine trees growing here and there.



Flowers in Tallahassee and especially along the beach don't seem to be as showy but they are still pretty. I found these tiny little pink buds growing in the sand. If you look closely at the picture you can see the holes from crabs peeping out from the sand. The purple flowers below were also along the beach but a little further from the water. They were growing on a low lying shrub. They seemed to be everywhere.



Rachel and I walked along several different paths until the water bottles we had drank during the drive down caught up with us. Hearing the water from the tide coming in didn't seem to help matters.



Here is a better picture of Rachel. It was warm and windy, but after this past February it was a welcomed change.



I tried to catch the sea foam that was along the edge of the water. You can also see some of the grass growing along the beach.





Here I was trying to be Samson! The palm trees were so close together I couldn't help myself. You can tell I was having fun, enjoying the break, and catching up with Rachel.


Tallahassee had a lot of rain before Perry and I got down there. It even rained pretty heavy one night while I was there. When Rachel and I were leaving Saint Marks and driving back towards the visitors center we noticed lots of high water along the road.



There were signs along the way saying they were preparing for prescribed burns but I'm sure all the water was keeping them from doing it when they had planned.



While Rachel went into the visitors center I walked a little of the trail around the pond outside the visitors center. The shade felt good but also seeing all the plants and nature was very calming. The whole time Rachel and I were there the only time we really saw people was down at the lighthouse and a few horse back riders along the road.



Riding a horse or bike along some of the trails at Saint Marks would be fun but it could get pretty buggy. This was probably early enough in the year that it wasn't too bad for some people. We did notice that the horseback riders were actually walking the horses (probably because of the heat) on our way out of the park.



Sometimes getting to see all of the nature around Tallahassee reminds me that I don't get out and see the nature in Louisville as much as I should, just as when I lived in Tallahassee I didn't get out to see nature as much. I guess sometimes you have to pretend to be a tourist in your own city to actually appreciate some of the things that are there. Or, better yet...I could invite lots of friends and family to come visit us in Louisville so I can show them around...and get to be the tour guide for them!
---Stephanie

Miccosukee Greenway


The last day Perry was in Tallahassee we drove by the entrance to a new park, or at least a park that Perry and I had not visited or heard of before. We discovered the entrance and then due to time constraints had to leave, but I secretly plotted a way to return. Two days later I was able to get away for an hour long walk at the new found Miccosukee Greenway.


The entrance off of Miccosukee road (one of the roads leading to Westminster Oaks) was mostly an open green area, but once I got past the greenway and walked partly around a pond (I couldn't get all the way around because of a fence) there were lots of live oaks covered with Spanish moss (a Tallahassee tradition).



There were several paths to choose but all the paths seemed to be tree-lined and shady. Since it was relatively early in the spring season I didn't encounter too many bugs. While on the path I only came across a few other people walking the paths. One man and his boxer dog warned me that walking alone as a woman probably wasn't a good idea. I did keep going on the path but didn't return on later days partly with his warning in mind.



Lots of little flowers were starting to poke out from all the underbrush. It was very different from the flowers and weather we left in Louisville (except for the few days before when the temperature in Louisville was only 3 degrees cooler than Tallahassee).



Some of the paths with the live oak trees and flowers were amazing. I ended up walking for a half-hour before turning around. I wasn't able to make it to the end of the trail since I had to use the bathroom and the only public bathroom was all the way back to where the car was parked. While my walk ended up being about an hour long, I definitely walked faster on the way back to the car.



On the way back to the car I did stop and take a few pictures of the ferns growing on some of the extremely low hanging branches of the live oaks. The way the low branches and ferns were growing reminded me of some of the scenes in the movie Avatar when Scully was first walking in the jungle on the alien planet. It seems sometimes the littlest things can look so different when viewed up close.



Ironically when I got back to Louisville some of the trees in our own front and back yards were flowering much like this tree below.



I had seen these same flowers and berries when I walked the trail at the San Luis Mission right after Martha's knee replacement surgery. I still don't know what type of plant these berries are but they are beautiful with the bright red and green.



By the time I got back to the greenway open area I was relieved. I really had to use the bathroom (maybe from all the previous Tropical Smooth Cafe visits). In the corner you can see the pond where several herons were walking along the edges earlier. This time I bypassed the lake and went straight to the restroom.



In the cluster of trees were several picnic tables. Hanging from poles were gourd birdhouses. By the time I got back to this area were several families and dogs walking around and even playing frisbee. Frisco would have loved running around.



Here are more low hanging branches and picnic tables. I got a little lonely and thought it would have been fun to have Vincent and Frisco and Perry there to enjoy this with. Maybe even a picnic would have been good.




Can't you just picture a big blue human-cat creature walking along these limbs trying to avoid being eaten?



These ferns growing on the limbs I could imagine changing colors at night.



Miccosukee Greenway was a great walk and worth repeating. I'm looking forward to doing this walk again but maybe making it all the way to the Fleischmann's road entrance/exit/parking lot.
---Stephanie

On the way back home

Click here on the arrow in the white box far below to see a video of Frisco running across the parking lot of the hotel where we walked minutes after I'd returned to Louisville from Tallahassee and had picked him up from boarding. The hotel is the one whose pool and exercise room we use periodically throughout the year.

-- Perry

Back and forth

Click on the arrow in the small white box immediately above to see a video clip with Mom and her physical therapist trying an exercise activity that probably improves Mom's balance and agility.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Weber on rationalization


How has the world been changing?

Many historically minded social researchers who have tried to answer this question have had in the back of their minds some kind of theory of social evolution. They believe that all societies are progressing, from point A to point B.

This is not so much the case for the German sociologist Max Weber. For some reason, we’ve never Anglicized Weber’s last name, and so it’s still VAY-burr, not Webber.

Weber’s ambivalence about evolutionary theory is apparent in his multiple, varied uses of the concept rationalization. I’m going to do three things here: I’m going to give a little bit of information about Weber. I’m going to talk about five forms of rationalization in Weber’s work. And I’m going to give a contemporary application of Weber’s rationalization analysis. Weber is a dead white man, but his ideas are certainly not dead.

Weber was most active in between the turn of the century – that’s from the 1800s to the 1900s – to right after the end of World War One. Weber’s most famous book was "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism." But his magnum opus was really the two-volume, 2,000-page "Economy and Society."

In Economy and Society Weber argues that there are four kinds of rationality:
- Affective rationality: emotions: how we feel
- Value rationality: ultimate principles: what is right
- Traditional rationality: the way we’ve always done things
- Instrumental rationality: the most effective, or efficient, means towards a given end

Let’s keep in mind this information about Weber as we look at the forms of rationalization in his work.

When you hear the word rationalization, you probably first think of a logical sounding excuse for something that is truly inexcusable. This is not so much how Weber used the concept rationalization. Rationalization, for Weber, was any one of a number of different types of process of social and historical change.

One form of rationalization in Weber’s work is the separation of the spheres. Weber held that the spheres of life that had appeared in the modern world, in earlier times in some cultures had been all fused together with the religious sphere as predominant. Over time what separated out and developed were the aesthetic or cultural sphere, the sphere of knowledge or science, the economic sphere or the market, the political sphere or the government, and finally even the erotic sphere or the sphere of personal relations.

A second form of rationalization in Weber’s work overlaps with the first. This was the internal logical development of really any area, and the elimination of logical inconsistency. For example, Weber argued that the development of the Calvinist-Presbyterian doctrine of predestination was among other things a kind of logical working out of certain problems in theology.

A third form of rationalization in Weber’s work was the ascendancy of instrumental rationality, linked with the development of science and technology. Weber gave the same examples of this several times. Let’s say the Chinese regard a certain mountain as sacred. When an engineer and an economic development specialist tell them: You must build a railroad right through or right around the mountain. It is the perfect place – the Chinese would balk. Among other things, they fear something bad might happen if they build the railroad.

Another country, in an analogous situation, might not have the same scruples. They might go ahead and build the railroad, and let’s say nothing bad does happen. (Weber clearly hadn’t seen the movie "Avatar.") This other country might develop economically in a way China does not – hence, the ascendancy of instrumental rationality, over what Weber might call magical thinking.

A fourth form of rationalization in Weber’s work was what I call thematization and publicization. Weber believed that important issues of the day ought to be discussed and debated, and debated publicly. Weber was not so much a champion of democracy, as a German nationalist. We believed that the secrecy and lack of debate in the years leading up to Germany’s entry into World War One, which they lost, disserved his country. He felt like public debate could help produce better policy decisions and help rationalize the policy-making process.

A fifth form of rationalization in Weber’s work was increasingly disciplined lifestyles. For example, Weber argued that the impulse to make profits had existed since the beginning of time, in all cultures. We might call this Jack Sparrow capitalism. But the systematic, methodical, disciplined pursuit of profit-making and property accumulation – sought for a time with religious fervor – was something that was truly unique to what Weber called rational bourgeois capitalism.

You can see how a number of these different processes of rationalization overlap. For that reason, it may come as no surprise to you to learn that a number of students of Weber have argued that these processes fit neatly together in one, overarching evolutionary scheme. But I think this really misreads Weber. These processes can also clash. A given country, in a given historical situation, probably faces choices, faces different possible development paths, instead of one straight-line path, on which it must travel.

I promised to give you a contemporary application of Weber’s rationalization analysis. This comes from the debate over stem cell research. On the one hand, you have advocates of stem cell research, like the President, who sometimes argue that this is a scientific issue, that scientists should settle by applying scientific principles. On the other hand, you have critics of stem cell research, some of whom are religious leaders, who argue that religious and ethical issues are involved.

You can see a clash here between the religious sphere and the sphere of knowledge or science. These spheres are separating, but still are overlapping, engaged, and, sometimes, in tension. It’s also possible to interpret the criticism of stem cell research as a kind of challenge to the ascendancy of instrumental rationality, linked with the development of science and technology.

I have reviewed forms of rationalization that appear in Weber’s work. I’ve talked about: separation of the spheres, internal logical development, the ascendancy of instrumental rationality, thematization and publicization, and increasingly disciplined lifestyles. I have argued that Weber’s various forms of rationalization do NOT fit together into one, overarching, evolutionary scheme. And I have tried to show that Weber’s analysis of rationalization is still relevant in the contemporary period.

Now, I have to admit: I love Weber. I love reading Weber. I love writing about Weber, and I love talking about Weber. I hope you will not see in my claim of Weber’s contemporary relevance just an excuse for me to talk with you about him. I hope you will not see this claim as just another . . . rationalization.

-- Perry

Click here to see the separation of the spheres diagram up close: