Two weeks ago, on the day I left for a two week long trip, Nero died. Jamie had to bury him by himself. Now that I am home, I miss Nero in all the places he used to be. I dreamed last night that he wasn't dead and Jamie buried him by mistake. He was all covered in dirt and we were taking him to the vet.

Jamie and I had a service for him today. I made effigies of a chipmunk and a lizard, his two favorite things to catch. We buried them with his favorite toy. I made a tiny clay bowl, filled it with salt and placed it on top of his grave. Then we spread white hydrangea blossoms from the bush in our yard.

Jamie and Nero were real buddies...

Obituary

Nero the Cat, boss of the pink monkeys Heather and Jamie, 3 (25) of Ames, Iowa died on June 5.

Nero was an expert killer showing no mercy when it came to little cute things. He terrorized all things little and squeaky in his last neighborhood of Stanton Avenue and first neighborhood of Clisby Street. Among his conquests were numerous lizards, a rat, a few birds, several chipmunks and a mole. His crowning achievement was catching and maiming an adolescent bunny although he did not have the pleasure of trying to eat it since he was caught before he could. He presided over the Laundry Squad and was a reigning member of the house Itty Bitty Kitty Committee. His nick-names included Mr. N, Mr. N-ards (innards), Neewoes and Widdols.

He was survived by his brother, Xerxes the Cat, the sometimes co-boss of the afore mentioned pink monkeys, and his parents, the pink monkeys he used to boss around. “He was a special cat. He had a busy, happy life. We‘ll miss him,” said the one who always used to pick him up and squeeze him (Jamie). The one who used to give him food and rub his belly (Heather) said, “Out of every cat I’ve known, he was the most generous with affection and was non-stop enthusiastic about life. He will be missed.”

Jamie SPEEEAAKS!

I just thought I'd check in with the ole bloggerooski since I'm taking a break from working tonight.

I'm starting to find myself a bit more within the field I'm in. I'm writing a paper about that actually. I want to connect the dots between science studies, postmodern feminist critique, and Marxism. And from THERE I want to criticize all the dumbass things people use "scientific" rhetoric to achieve. "Men are hunters so blahblahblah" etc. Yuk.

Seriously. People are indeed limited by the material resources they have, including biology, but don't make political opinions based the implications of half understood social science research. And don't pretend like politics are not intrensic to science. (Intrinsic politics are inevitable and subject to critique. Extrinsic politics are a blasphemy against everything principled people should stand for. See the Bush administration on Global Warming. See the "creation science" movement. This stuff is bullshit. Everything does not have two sides. Science is what it is and it is not what it is not. I'm for gay marriage not because "science proves that homosexuality is blahblahblah," but because gay marriage is a social reality that deserves legal protection. Having it would be better for society and it would be more fair. I live in Iowa, where we DO have it, and I've yet to feel like my own marriage has changed at all. I'm not saying that science should not enter political debate but that we should not talk about social arrangements in a "scientifically" deterministic way. I am a straight married white guy because of the web of interactions between history, popular culture, education, family, and yes, biology where I live. Some of these things are choices, some aren't.

Rorty says we should talk about affiliations, not essentialist connections. Hitchens (wrong as he is about some things) says we need to understand morality as being rooted in "human solidarity." Some of this is evolution ans some of this is socio-political work. Not of it should be discussed as being biological. Ever.

Rantrantrantrantrantrant. Drinking beer while writing makes me think like this. (Hey, if you click the spell checker over "Rantrantrantrantrant," it offers "transubstantiation" as an alternative. There's a joke in there somewhere. I'm not sure at whose expense it is.)

Ayn Rand sucks by the way. Take that Greenspan.

In other news, I want to see Michelle Bachmann on T.V. as much as possible, if only because it makes me feel better about the South. It's not just us, apparently.



We've got the Joss Wheadon musical at home on DVD. I'm gonna take a break and hang out with lil' Davis and watch that in a little while. I've kinda managed not to get sucked into the Wheadon fan club until recently, but I've gotten sucked waaay in lately. Spagetti, whiskey, and Wheadon make for a good evening. I'm really looking forward to it.

If you took my view of the world and combined it with my particular cultural sensibilities and made a T.V. show starring hot girls, it would be "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." I've long been aware of it, but me and Davis just recently caught up to it. Parts of season 5 is as good as "the Wire" or "Deadwood." One episode in particular ("The Body") ranks with the best T.V./film/drama I've ever seen. Any of my homies reading this who haven't caught up with Buffy need to get with the program.

That's more than enough.

Since Spring Break

Later on the same day that I published my last post, Jamie and I received some terrible news - that Jamie's cousin was killed. It is the first time some one so close to me unexpectedly died. It feels weird talking about such a personal thing in such a public way, but I think it's important for people who know us to know about. When we were visiting Georgia, it was really hard to talk about it and I'm sorry that I wasn't able to share more with everyone who we saw during the trip. Being terribly upset every day of your vacation sucks, so I tried to think and talk about it as little as I could. But I know some of you want to know details, so here are some links for you to follow to get the story:

First of all, here is a good way to get to know Kate - her blog where she kept up with family and friends while working as a Peace Corp volunteer in Benin, a French speaking country on the coast of Africa: http://beinginbenin.blogspot.com/ She was a wonderful writer. You should scroll down to the entry titled "Noises" first.

Here is the news story that Fox Atlanta did. It is a very sweet story. You can see the video also. Emilie took the footage of Kate teaching when she visited her last year. (for any non-techies, just click on the purple "Here" at the beginning of the paragraph).

Here is a wonderful blog story about Kate with excerpts from her blog and lots of lovely comments, some from her friends and family and other people who knew her. Plus it has a beautiful photo of her.

Here is a shorter blog that has lots of comments from people who knew Kate.

Here is the blog post on the official Peace Corp blog.

These posts don't cover the details of the event. We know that Kate died quietly in her sleep. She was sleeping on the porch of her house. There is an individual in custody.

I think I am ready to talk about it now. If anyone wants to know anything else or talk about it more, please call me. Thanks for letting me be silent about it for so long.

(By the way, the time is wrong for this post. It is 5 pm. I am not blogging at work. I am enjoying a cup of coffee at Cafe Deim and their web connection has been extremely wonky the whole time.)

I'm sitting at jiffy lube prepping the car for the 17 hour drive down to Georgia. Spring break is next week. We'll be leaving Ames on Friday. We can't stop to see the Davises in Kentucky for this trip - we want to be back in Ames on Thursday so that Jamie can prepare for school the next week. (We'll plan a special trip to see you guys when summer vacation starts). Summer is going to he hellish. The shop is moving, I have two workshops that I will hopefully be able to attend on the east coast, plus Jamie is going to want to visit Macon a couple of times, probably. I'll be teaching a couple of classes. It will be busy, but busy is much better than slow.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone! Hello, Steve and Ashli's basement! Hopefully we'll get up to see Gordon and Helen. I have Chirstmas presents for everyone.

We had spring for about three days - it was up in the 60's, I think! Sunshiny, pleasent. Now it is 20 degrees (it was 15 when I left for work this morning).

And my car is ready, so Yay!! See you guys soon!
-Heather

Catching Up with Jamie

School is a lot more fun this semester than last semester. Last semester I was teaching a comp class that was a little bereft of interest for me. It was a straightforward process-oriented comp class, which I don't particularly dig (I prefer a more reading oriented, politicized approach), and I didn't like the course materials. This semester is waaay cooler, and I feel like I'm back in the saddle again. I like my students a lot.

As a student, I'm doing more theory stuff, which is why I'm here in the first place. I'm trying to figure out what my niche in the department will be. I want to do something related to rhetoric of science (which can end up being philosophy of science or sociology of science sometimes which is part of why its appealing..."rhetoric" should be a big box if you ask me), but I want to make what I do real cultural studiesy. Rhetoric of science people talk about how science is in fact, rhetorical activity...argument, judgment, consensus, deliberation, NOT "proof." We're not saying science does not have some kind of real relationship to the world, but we ARE saying that it is a cultural production that differs from other cultural productions in degree, not in kind. I pretty much buy into some of the more extreme social constructivist arguments, but with a liberal dose of pragmatism.

I'm kinda interested in figuring out how to do research about how scientific tropes bleed out into the real world and develop their own life. Think about the sort of "magical thinking" way that we discuss genetics or psychology or nutrition. If I had MY druthers, I'd be doing "weirdo studies" and talking about stuff like Evangelical Christian sex websites. (I wrote a paper about that last semester that I plan to try to revise and publish at some point. I barely have time for meals right now though.) I'm interested in faux science stuff like intelligent design, but that's been done to death, so I'm not devoting as little thought to that as possible. It's probably better for my health anyway. We've got a job candidate who is writing a dissertation (I think) about creation science museums. I hope we hire her so she can tell me about it.

Speaking of fundamentalism, I wanna see this movie:

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/70562-right-america-feeling-wronged-some-voices-from-the-campaign-trail/

People should read more selectively.



Let's see, what else...

Politics...I'm amused by the Republican whining about "pork" in the stimulus package. IT'S ALL PORK. That's the PURPOSE of a Kensyan economic stimulus. TO PUT MONEY INTO THE ECONOMY. There's plenty of things one could object to about the stimulus package, but make an argument that at least demonstrates a passing understanding of the purpose of the damn thing. I mean really. And no, nothing in there is going to permanently fix the economy. But THAT'S ALSO THE POINT. It's a temporary boost to stop the downward spiral. If it WERE filled with permanent economic changes it would be the socialist plan that Republicans say it is.

They've drifted waaay off into la la land lately. It's actually fun and amusing to watch, instead of just scary. At least they aren't out torturing child solders anymore. (I'm looking at you Rumsfeild.) Yes we can.

It's odd that our conservative party is so disgusting and incompetent that even someone who has a lot of respect for several different branches of conservatism (I read Andrew Sullivan religiously) hasn't agreed with anything they've done during his whole life. Of course, I'm deeply invested in Marxism too, so whatever. Libertarian Marxists of the world, UNITE! I need more coffee.

Seriously though, the more I read Marx, the more staggering he is. He was waaay ahead of the curve. Don't confuse him for his silly followers. I mean, you shouldn't blame Jesus for Pat Robertson. I got to re-read a little Nietzsche recently also, and he's also still awesome. Those two guys are among my favs, and I haven't had a chance to read them in a while.

While I'm typing, I'm listening to Satyricon's new record. Trv Norwegian Black Metal forever! Actually, Satyricon's not particularly trv, but they are awesome. God I love Scandinavians and their foolishness.(You see, them silly Scandinavian kids insist on spelling "true" as "trv" because it looks archaic and more "pure." If an act is really underground and uncompromising, they get to be described as "cvlt." You think I'm making this up don't you? Can anybody make up stuff about black metal to make it sound sillier than it is? But damn it's fun to listen to.) I'm listening to this basically because Metalocalypse got me craving metal. I'm not saying Americans aren't as good at metal as Europeans....well, yes. Yes I am saying that.

That's enough. There's where my brains are at today.

Yay.

Sorry it's been soooooo long catching up. I'll give you the low down:
- we're really into grapefruit right now. Texas is where they come from up here.
- I'm getting an application to Penland together. Maybe I'll be able to attend as a studio assistant!!
- The ClayFiber show was a huge success. We had 300 people at the opening. It was like being back in Macon for one of our shows; running to the back to grab more chips and hummus, opening wine bottles, taking out the trash after.
- I start teaching a kids wheel-throwing class next week - yay!
- I also start teaching an adult tea pot class - yay!
- Jamie is having fun in school.
- we found a weird new show to watch in the same brand as Brak, ATHF and Frisky Dingo. It's called Metalocalypse and it is really really violent and nihilistic plus silly and stoopid. (Mother and Daddy, if you're reading this, don't watch this show. It's not for you.) It's about a death metal band and has a lot of real death metal in the show. Steve, check it out.

I avoided talking about the snow for once! (spring is almost here; the birds are chirping, the squirrels have de-hibernated!)

I'm outie-5000