This just in, Sarah Palin's rushed resignation became clearer today when a reporter for The State, South Carolina's major newspaper, reviewed her motes from a Mark Sanford interview. "Who knew? Argentina and Alaska both start and end in A and they both have long coast lines for cruise ships. It was an understandable mistake," said the unnamed, embarassed newswoman. Neither Governor Palin nor Governor Sanford could be reached for comment.
As I am sure everyone has heard, Mark Sanford, the Governor of SOUTH Carolina (not coincidentally home of the Gamecocks) recently admitted to an emotional and sexual relationship with an Argentinian woman after he disappeared for a few days from the Governor's mansion, his staff, and wife and four kids. During his ongoing mea culpa/apology tour, Sanford has said that this is a love story and not just another tawdry affair, that he has had relationships with other women that didn't cross the sex line, and that his mistress is his soul mate. The major thing I have learned from the Sanford affair is that he should just shut up. We don't need to be the forum for his public soul cleansing, and he has made a lot of us wonder more about his emotional balance than his moral judgment as a basis for whether he can continue to govern. But I digress.
The real purpose of this Carlitude posting is to explore this idea of a soul mate. In his novel Brida, when Brida, a seeker, asks Wicca, her teacher in the Tradition of the Moon, about soul mates, Paolo Coehlo writes:
And when people think of reincarnation, they always come up against a very difficult question: if, in the beginning, there were so few people on the face of the earth, and now there are so many, where did all these new souls come from? . . . The answer is simple. . . In certain reincarnations, we divide into two.Our souls divide as do crystals and stars, cells and plants. . . Our soul divides in two and those two new souls are in turn transformed into two and so, within a few generations, we are scattered over a large part of the Earth.
We form part of what the alchemists cal the Anima mundi, the Soul of the World . . . The truth is that if the Anima mundi were merely to keep dividing, it would keep growing, but it would also become gradually weaker. That is why, as well as dividing into two, we also find ourselves. And that process of finding ourselves is called Love.
(If you're interested in finding out more about Brida, click on the book cover under Carlitudinous Books in the right hand column.)
As we follow Brida's quest, we find that the essence of life is finding one's soul mate. Later, her current lover, Lorens, explains to Brida that this account of reincarnation is akin to current thinking in astrophysics by discussing the dispersion of matter and energy that occurred after the Big Bang. In his account, all that exists physically and metaphysically was scattered across the Universe at the Big Bang. And so it is likely that we encounter matter and energy, in the forms of other persons and sentient beings and love, creativity, and the virtues. If you have some familiarity with chaos theory and the new science, you probably recognize some of this theorizing.
What we have here are two understandings of soul mate. In Wicca's account, we each have soul mates in human form who are roaming reality and our job in life is to find one, fall in love, and live out our lives in a magical, romantic, happy place. Such is the stuff of novels, Hollywood epics, and the Mark Sanfords of the world.
From Lorens's account however, I take a different understanding. From the Big Bang onward, elements of soul have been scattered throughout the cosmos. Occasionally, we come upon a soul fragment that is resonant with the fragments we currently have in place. Sometimes, the resonance is overwhelming, and that's where true love comes in--again with the novels, the movies, and Mark Sanford. More often, it's subtle, as when we make as friend, create something that is both useful and beautiful, do a good deed, or feel our hearts lift. In any case, the resonance of souls gives us the energy and encouragement we need to overcome the overwhelming entropy--the slide toward nothingness--that characterizes the soulless life.
I don't think finding soul fragments that resonate with one's own is all that hard. In fact, I suspect it happens every day. Sure, there are times when we come upon some particularly powerful collections that are especially meaningful, but mostly we pick up little fragmentoids along the way to building a whole, fulfilled soul for ourselves throughout life. It happens when we pursue friends and lovers, pick up the saxophone, read a great book, mow the lawn, ride a bike, hug a child, teach a lesson, hear a song. Whenever we feel ourselves to be part of something else, we take in some energy, some connection that moves us in a soulful direction. What we make of that depends on whether we are looking to make something of it at all.
All of life contains elements of soul that have been scattered about through eternity. Our job is to put them together. What makes it hard is that they don't necessarily happen along in any sort of order or structure that we can make sense of easily. Also, not everything that is attractive is soulful. And sometimes, what we come upon is just a shiny, fantasy-filled bauble that looks and feels exciting and is presented as something we think we have to have.
And so, soul construction gets complicated--as in the very public case of Governor Sanford. The key to soul-making then becomes an inquiry into how the fragment/bauble provides spiritual nourishment. Sometimes, we have to make choices, because the constructions we have already have a value that shouldn't be tampered with--once again, take heed Governor Sanford. The decisions then are the soulful resonances that take us toward wholeness.
In Brida, Coelho's characters have to make tough decisions about pursuing soul mates, decisions that are cast in mystical terms but aren't very different from the decisions all of us make in our lives. How Mark Sanford constructs his soul out of his life experiences--a wife and four kids, a successful career, the Governorship, and his Argentine bauble--is his to struggle with. Most of us work through those decisions in quiet desperation or with close-by family and friends. I wish Mark Sanford would do the same.
Welcome to our fourth day in DC and the third day of the NECC 2009 Conference. So far, we have attended two keynotes and a day and a half of sessions. About 18,000 people are registered for the conference, and over five acres of exhibition floor is devoted to technology hardware, software, and other gadgetry vendors. NECC has figured out the keynote session pretty well, relying on multimedia and live performances to speed up the usually tedious menu of speeches, presentations, and awards. The only exception so far has been a very laborious speech by the ISTE president.
The opening keynote on Sunday featured Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Outliers. Gladwell spoke for about 45 minutes aboiut learning, using Fleetwood Mac as a metaphor. His specific was very entertaining, informative, and thought-provoking. Arguing from Outliers, he suggested that accomplishments come from work that requires effort, is arduous, and includes failures from which one learns. The more significant the effort, arduousness, and afilure, the more significant the accomplishment; and Gladwell's research indicates that about 10,000 hours of work at a given project is necessary before results begin to be satisfactory. That's about four hours a day for ten years. Anyone who has tried to stick to something for four hours at a stretch knows how much effort it takes, how arduous it can be, and how many opportunities for failure arise. So, Gladwell left us going away with something to think about.
Sessions started on Monday, but NECC is different from many conferences in its organization. There are open sessions, ticketed sessions, Bring-Your-Own Laptop sessions, sponsored sessions, and even model classroom sessions. But while all of those are occurring there are also hallways and alcoves with poster presentations and student showcases occurring as well as gathering/work areas for people with special interests. For examples, there are a Bloggers cafe, a Second Life region, places that explore mutiple uses of video, a podcast lounge, areas for gamers, and many more. It wpuld be [ossible to have a very full learning experience and never attend a session here. NECC intentionally provides multiple venues for people to meet and interact around whatever technologies they are currently interested in, taking their lead I am sure from what we see at a typical conference where participants find their own places to congregate, often in the bar. (BTW, I am sure that goes on here too.)
The major news event of NECC 2009 is the roll-out Tuesday afternoon of the "refreshed" National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators (NETS-A). From the comments we have heard so far, NETS-A shifts the emphasis from administrators who know how to use technology and encourage technological adoption by schools and personnel to administrative leaders who are able to transform their schools using technology as a catalyst for substative educational change. There is even speculation here that the days of the bricks and mortar school are numbered--that technology will free students and educators up from the structures and mindset of the industrial age school.
More on NETS-A, sessions, and other tidbits of technological trivia later. Stay tuned. It is rumored that the spirit of Carlitude has caused some tremors in the area.
The major complaint around NECC 2009 these days is the intermittent disappearance of Wi-Fi in the Walter Washington Convention Center. I understand that 18,000 people making demands on a system is extreme, but conference planners and facilities personnel ought to know about this way up front. Or perhaps is there a more insidious threat at work? Are the mischievous forces behind NCLB conspiring with paper manufacturers to sabotage the electron inconveniencers? Since they cannot seem to stem the tide elsewise, perhaps the nefarious nabobs of traditionalism will drive us crazy by service interruption. . . .
Ridden the shuttle twice and both times got held up because the drivers had to have lunch. Saturday not important. Sunday--caused us to arrive late for big welcoming activity. Transportation needs to get this fixed.
NECC 2009, Day 1 was a day for getting oriented. We are staying at the Capitol Hilton on the corner of 16th and K in Washington, DC. When we got here, it was apparent that something more high-powered than educators interested in technology was happening at the hotel. Lots of suits milling around carrying expensive looking portfolios and talking on their cell phones. Turns out the Democratic National Committee is meeting in our hotel, too as you can see by the sign. If we catch any of them unaware, we have a few things to say to them about staking out a real American agenda, creating a substantive educational agenda, re-working NCLB, strengthening IDEA, investing in infrastructure and technology, keeping the Obama promises about gay rights, greening, health care, and so forth as well as keeping their collective noses out of everybody else's business, their fingers out of the till, their naughty parts carefully zipped, shuttered, and/or dormant, and their gossipy parts shut. But I digress. If I lay eyes on Tim Kaine, I'll let you know.
NECC 2009 is being held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center (WWCC) about nine blocks away at 7th and L. We took the conference shuttle from the hotel to the WWCC to pick up registration materials and be among the first visitors to ISTE Central. We did the Lashley thing--bought five books so we can talk like we know what we are doing and the obligatory conference shirt so we could look like we belong here. We reconnoitered the Convention Center to get ready for the big day tomorrow. The shuttle driver had been evry good about showing us the route and the shortcuts back to the hotel, and so we decided to walk back and stop for lunch along the way. Good decision. We saw some interesting stuff.
This is a sculpture that celebrates Samuel Gompers, the American labor organizer and founder of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). As it happens, I remember reading a biography of Gompers in the fourth grade. The sculpture is located at 11th and Massachusetts, nearby (in an incongruous twist) to the headquarters of the Cato Institute which we did not see a sign for and wouldn't have taken a picture of anyway.
A little further up L, we came upon a statue of one of the forefathers of traditionalist conservativism, Edmund Burke. Burke is perhaps best known for being the person to whom the phrase "the wisdom of our ancestors" has been attributed. In another deja vu sort of experience, happening upon Burke reminded me of my political theory mentor at WVU, Jim Whisker, who was an avid conservative and under whose guidance I read Burke. That sent me off on a Google hunt for Dr. Whisker who has apparently retired. My favorite nugget though is one in which a colleague said of Jim Whisker, "Jim even voted with his right hand."
There were two other points of interest along the walk back to the hotel. One was something we don't see very much anymore--an elementary school more than one story high. This is Strong John Thomson Elementary School, which is at 1200 L Street.
The second point of interest was the office of the world's greatest newspaper, the Washington Post. Below is a picture of me taking a picture of the sign on the building.
And just in case you think the editors of the Post don't understand that news in Washington is about politics, check out the statuary in front of the building.
Well, that's about it for the travelogue for the first day. More about the technology in the next Carlitude post.
Dear Readers,
I am writing to apologize in advance for anything that you might read or misinterpret in the coming weeks that spews from the twisted mind/mouth of the evil, libidinous, self-indulgent, odious, and otherwise untoward malignancy, Carlitude, for whom I have unfortunately been named channeler in a fetid admixture of bad luck, poor timing, lack of grace, and cruel and unusual penance for sins that forthwith shall not be named. It appears that the half-wit haint has arisen from its respite in an undisclosed location and was able to slip a misdirected missive into the popular discourse without our knowledge on 15 June. Its newly hired assistant, Marlena Francesa Kilpatrick of the Goose Egg Kilpatricks, was the victim of her own inexperience and naivete in dealing with the rascal. And so, our peace is once again disrupted. As if things weren't bad enough already.
So, our advance apologies go out to President Obama and any member of his administration, including Arne Duncan in spite of his efforts to create a national curriculum; the hapless New York Yankees; Dick Cheney, whose forays into public from his undisclosed location have created their own stir; all former, current, and future members of the North Carolina Legislature; Governor Perdue and the cast of characters who will lead her down the primrose path of trying to make budgetary lemonade out of hog waste, Eastern NC barbecue, tax incentives for Apple Computer, and tobacco squeezin's; the Guilford County Board of Education and any and all other school folks who are just trying to get by in an educational era where nobody gets it; and the cast of The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, NCIS, Imus in the Morning, and Days of Our Lives. Also, apologies go out to all of those of you who muck up Facebook with annoying and meaningless quizzes. You deserve our contempt, but we shall send you kind thoughts instead for the moment (arrrgh, it slipped on in, and I dare not delete . . . .)
Channeling Carlitude is a burden I bear in fear and trepidation, but bear it I must to expiate my transgressions and make a buck. I shall try mightily to temper the vile discontent that characterizes its fulminations. I hope you will bear with me in this time of trial.
CL
Hmmmmmm . . .snark . . .snork . . . . .mmmmn . . .whassat?//>* . . . whozzere?<$^% . . .what's goin' on? %^&@!!@#$%^&*()_ . . . Umph, it's the damn iPhone. Hello! Who is this? Can't a feller get a nap once in a while? Who is this? Marleen, Marleen who? Marleen, my new assistant? You the one they hired to replace Matthelde the Visigoth from the Heart of Hell. Well, leave me alone and call me in June when it's time to start my writin' and epistlin' again. And not one minute sooner.
What? It is June. What day? 15th, hunh? What time? 8:00. At night? Well. it's only a little before nine in the morning here. I don't care if they did hire you three days ago to get ready for my grand awakening. Sounds like they went to a lot of trouble. 'Course that despot publisher of mine would want to save every last cent he could. Wouldn't know literature if it hit him in the . . . ? Marleen, the first rule of Carlitude is to never interrupt when I am making a point about literary criticism and the finer points thereto. I didn't spend a whole semester my sophomore year reading Foucault, Derrida, Stanley Fish, and Al Capp for nothing, ya know.
Well, you did your job. I am now awake and vertical. Send me the news clippings from the Internets, and I'll try to spit out something properly literary, bourgeois, learned, and entertaining on the state of things in general and me in particular. Right now I'll check the TV to see what's been happening. Democratics are in control, so it can't be too bad. Got to generate some revenue for the Truth Conglomerate. Truth ain't cheap, ya know.
Why won't my TV work? Got the best antenna money can buy. I betcha the cable companies have figured out a way to get into everybody's house so they can get control over your cerebral cortex. I'll have to get Stan, Stan the TV Man over here to fix it, I reckon. Hope he can git-r-done before Greg Kerr and Ken Bates are on News 2 tonight. Lemme check the newspapers. The Greensboro News and Fishrap is down to almost no pages. No TV, less newspaper. Somebody must be trying to hide something.
About time Marleen got some stuff to me on the Internets. Holy rollin' excreditude, Marleen. What happened to my 401K? I left the Democratics in charge. Things were supposed to get better. Who'd they put in charge of the Treasury, one of the Baldwin brothers? I knew they were a big contributor, but come on! And what about all of these budgets? Likes look Arnold and that Carolina Governor lady finally have something to talk about. States are broke and gettin' broker. Shoot, somebody might actually have to pony up some taxes. I guess this stuff we have like roads, and schools, and sewer lines, and colleges actually do cost money after all. Plus subsidizing' sports teams and big bidness. And to heap the creamed corn on the sweet potatoes, the Democratics have bailed out banks and high rollers. Like a batrillion bucks worth. What a country! (Note to self: Check to see if they'll pay off the girl's student loans. And stop by the post office to pick up my share of that recovery money. I guess that's where they pass it out. I ain't greedy, but I ain't taking it in stamps either. Too much inflation.)
Let's check the Sports. There's always good news in Sports. OK, OK, the good guys are winnin' the shiny, more advertising the better but I do it for the love of going fast car races. Lakers won the Not Basketball Association Championship. Pittsburgh won Stanley's cup--wonder of it's related to the TV guy. Some guys did drugs, some guys jumped teams, Yankees got a new stadium but can't win, Tiger likes his kid. Pretty much the same old stuff. Here's a new one--they recruit in high schools now. Sure hope one of the grandkids can shoot the three.
Ah, well, that's about enough for now. At least I'm on the record for June 15. Better call Marleen and give her the good news. Carlitude has re-emerged. Better call that Lashley guy too and tell him to crank up the antenna. Look out for incoming. Gotta get me some of that Starbucks coffee.
On Monday, Apple announced the release of the new iPhone 3gs. The media response was predictably overwhelming as techies and pundits alike fell all over themselves reporting on the third coming of Apple's answer to sliced bread. Overshadowed in the media frenzy was the rumored re-emergence on June 15 of Carlitude, the enigmatic, often daring, occasionally hilarious, and moderately deranged musings of Carlitudinous Alpha . Although the June 15 return has not been confirmed, spokespersons for Carlitude hinted that a muse had been sighted in the vicinity of the headquarters of the reclusive blogger, magus, and copier repairman. Sources close to Carlitudinous Alpha have reported that classified arrangements are being made for a trip to the nation's capital later this month.
The buzz on the street says that Carlitude may return to June 15. The Carlitudinous One himself was unavailable for comment, but through a spokesperson he denied rumors that he has been been confined to a quiet place for the past six months. He also denied being the CEO of a large, now government-owned automaker; the person behind Dick Cheney's re-emergence into public life; the next basketball coach at Northern Guilford High School; a contestant on So You Think You Can Dance!; and the guy lately seen in public with Sophia Loren.
