10.30.2010

Howdy

I haven't gotten anything quite to the point where I'd be happy to post the stuff I'm thinking about - which is somewhat surprising, given the amount of time I'm in the car - but I wanted to say hi in any case.
Hi!

9.10.2010

Q. Should we allow Muslims to build a mosque near Ground Zero?


I'm back in the classroom this semester, after taking this past year off (which is its own long story, not relevant today). So, as part of the introduction to the course, I asked the students to write their names, their hometowns, and their majors on an index card, along with any question they might want me to answer. One of the students posed the question in the title, but I didn't get around to answering it during class.

A. Yes. I think there are two main reasons for this. The first is that religious freedom is basic to this country. While only two of the original colonies had religious tolerance as part of their founding principles, even those colonies with an established religion set that aside with the founding of the republic. I'm most familiar with Virginia's history here, but I think it's particularly relevant: Patrick Henry, an Episcopalian, wanted to have Christianity as the established religion in the state of Virginia; the people who opposed the establishment of a non-denominational "Christianity" were not atheists or members of some non-Christian religion, but Baptists and Presbyterians (and members of other, smaller denominations). They were committed Christians, but they worried that the dominant denomination - the Episcopalians - would control the narrative of what it means to be truly "Christian." Thus, they thought it best to leave it as a private matter, rather than a public one.

My second reason is related to the first: who gets to control the narrative of Islam? That is, just as the Baptists and Presbyterians had different ideas about what it means to be Christian than the Episcopalians (and each other), so there is diversity within the Muslim world.

Following 9/11, people criticized the leaders of the Muslim community in the US for not condemning the attacks. The sad thing about that is that those leaders did condemn the attacks, but no one was listening. The vast majority of Muslims in the US and around the world condemn terrorism, but the radical anti-Western minority seems to control the narrative of what Islam is in this country. I believe having a community center, on par with a YMCA, near Ground Zero, would help correct that.

8.21.2010

Ignorance of History


Earlier this week, Julie and I were eating dinner at a family restaurant in Central Square, and overheard a conversation from the guys in the booth behind us regarding the Founders of the United States. They remembered that the Declaration of Independence states that we have been "endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights." They also assumed that the Constitution says something about God (it doesn't), and the the Founders were all Christian - "One Nation, Under God." (And just to be absolutely explicit about that last reference, the Pledge of Allegiance was written at the end of the 19th century -without "under God," which was added in the 1950s).

The particularly irritating thing for me is people's appropriation (or misappropriation) of Thomas Jefferson; he gets edited out of textbooks in Texas, but "patriots" wear t-shirts with his quote, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." (You know, "patriots" such as the fellow who committed the worst terrorist attack on US soil prior to 9/11.) Many other quotes are also falsely attributed to him. But to cite him as an instance of a Christian is particularly grating.

Among his many other pursuits, Thomas Jefferson edited the Gospels into what has come to be known as the "Jefferson Bible." He's not the first to try to harmonize the competing and sometimes conflicting stories told in the Gospels; but he may be the first to edit out all the miracles. I won't go into all of the particular edits (and we could have a fruitful conversation regarding whether the various miracles attributed to Jesus are necessary to believe in order to be a Christian, but not today); but one stands out, and is significant.

"There laid they Jesus,
And rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher, and departed."

Why is that so significant? Because it's the last line of the Jefferson Bible. Suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, dead and buried; the end. It almost makes me want to carry the Jefferson Bible around with me, just to take out when I overhear conversations where Jefferson is mentioned as a Good Christian Founding Father.

7.27.2010

Pre-rant musings


I've relocated several hundred miles north, and I'm not really settled.

However, I've been thinking about my ethics classes and how I approach certain subjects. [Caveat: this is a blog post, not an ethics class, so the presentation here has been modified.]

Are you conservative or liberal? Two issues: crime and welfare.

For the purposes of this post, we have to make some background assumptions. With regard to crime, we assume that some people are innocent and some people are guilty (i.e., you can neither start with the premise that all people are guilty, nor with the premise that one's circumstances exonerate one's responsibility). With regard to welfare, we assume that some people are deserving and some people aren't (i.e., some people are poor for reasons beyond their control and therefore deserve some help from the state, where private charity is insufficient; and being lazy is not a "reason beyond their control"). Further, for both, we have to assume that the system (for prosecution and for distribution, respectively) is always flawed; the best system will still find some innocent people guilty, some guilty people innocent, some deserving poor will be excluded, and some undeserving people will receive assistance. If you don't think these are acceptable premises, then we cannot move forward here.

With regard to crime: is it more important to maximize the number of guilty people punished (knowing that some innocent people will be unjustly punished) or to minimize the number of unjustly punished innocents (knowing that some guilty people will escape their due punishment)? That is, given a flawed system in which perfect justice is elusive, do you emphasize the guilty or the innocent? (When I was growing up, there was a popular phrase, "kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out" which seems to embody the conservative ethos here.)

The situation with welfare is a mirror image: is it more important to maximize the number of deserving poor receiving welfare (knowing that some undeserving people will exploit the system), or to minimize the number of people fraudulently receiving assistance from the state (knowing that some deserving poor - i.e., children in poverty - will get left out)? Again, given a necessarily flawed system, do you emphasize the deserving poor or the welfare cheats?

There are other issues that don't really fit into this schema, and there are additional complexities that this papers over, but I like this as a quick-and-dirty classification, and captures two very distinct ways of looking at the world.

7.13.2010

Final in the Alphabet series: Fin.

I've still been thinking about hard-line economic positions, but I've also been drawing cartoons about them. Which is to say, there will not be a rant about libertarians to accompany this picture, but there may be an illustrated rant at some point in the future.

Just to keep you up to date, I've primarily been thinking about moving - from Roanoke, up to New York. For those of you who haven't been following along, that's Central New York, not The City. Very different. I still don't have a firm date for departure, but it will within the next two weeks. Unfortunately, my next job doesn't start until September 7th.

I now plan on returning to my usual mix of cartoons and paintings. Since my plans often don't work out as expected, who knows what's next. Perhaps sculpture!

6.28.2010

Y indeed: the penultimate post (in this series)


When I'm painting houses I think a lot. That's not really a hazard of the profession, but it is a hazard for the philosopher stuck painting houses. Lately I've been thinking about the problem with hard-line economic positions.

Let me start with Marxism. I sometimes identify as a Marxist - sometimes to irritate others, but I really do find Marx's critique of capitalism right on target. He peers into the machinery which makes it all tick, and finds it wanting. He could not have been expected to imagine, for instance, the reduction of the university to yet another capitalist machine in which underpaid, overspecialized and imminently replaceable drones (the adjuncts who teach the majority - yes, majority - of introductory level classes in the US) who asked to work harder for less money (e.g., online teaching), and churn out a sub-par product that people keep consuming anyway (because we've been raised to think that a college diploma is the ticket to a better job and therefore lifestyle than our parents, even if that's not true anymore - the actually goal of education lost amid short-sighted economic interest). And yet, look how well his analysis works for the current state of higher education. It's not just for textile mills anymore!

But Marx was naïve about human nature. The workers may grumble about their state of affairs, but are happy enough with a 40 hour work week, some sort of a pension plan, maybe health insurance... hm, we may be due for another revolution. In any case, the workers have not risen up to overthrow Rich Uncle Pennybags, establishing a state which eventually whithers away. The so-called communist states have merely re-established the same sort of societal structures that they were suppose to replace: (I really hate to quote the Who here, but), "meet the new boss, same as the old boss." But that's not because Marx failed to properly critique capitalism, it's because he had an overly optimistic view of human nature. (Kant demonstrates that you can have a view of human nature as containing the seeds of "radical evil" without resorting to theology, i.e., original sin, but that's a topic for another post.)

So, let me be clear in conclusion: I reject a hard-line Marxism which says that a workers paradise is just around the world-historical corner. But I do think he has something important to say about the failures of our current economic system, and, let's face it, the benefits of thinking collectively at least some of the time, as opposed to being relentlessly individualistic.

6.24.2010

Twenty fourth in a series, soon to be complete

It has occurred to me that, not only have I slowed down on this series, but I'm thinking more about a larger project lately. And I'm also thinking about moving. So, I need to wrap this up.

I feel as though I ought to add some edifying thought, but I'm not really thinking of anything right at the moment. Perhaps later.

6.05.2010

Twenty third in a series


John Lennon sang, "the Walrus was Paul," but that may only have been because when he wrote, "I am the Walrus," he was thinking of Lewis Carroll's poem, "The Walrus and the Carpenter." Except he hadn't read the poem in a while, and forgot that the Walrus is a pretty bad fellow.

I remember reading somewhere that the poem is an allegory about Kantian and Utilitarian ethics - perhaps here - but it seems unlikely that was what John was thinking about.

Twenty second in a series


Reminded of a Simpsons quote:
"Marge, I've got to get out of this rut and back into the groove!"

Twenty first in a series

Sorry for the delay - it's been a busy month, with a surprising amount of travel.

I keep wanting these to be cartoons, and I try to resist the urge; in this one, for instance, I was thinking I might add the Tyrannosaurus Wrench in the background, yelling, "THAT'S LATIN FOR 'BEAR'!"
But I didn't.

5.09.2010

Unscheduled interuption



In addition to the various other things I've been trying out lately - when I find the time between work and applying for jobs in Central New York - I've also been working on collages.

These aren't part of a larger series, at least not yet, although both of them suggest a story that I haven't been told.

Yet.

5.07.2010

Twentieth



Hm, this started out as an exercise to get me to draw/paint every day... and that seems to be failing.

The reasons for it failing are good, though: I'm back to painting (houses) more or less full time, is more lucrative than my art (for the time being, at least) - and I've gotten a firm job offer up in Rochester (which is not Syracuse, but is a lot closer than Roanoke). Which is to say, I've been busy doing things that are productive, although not as restorative as doodling.

4.24.2010

Hey Nineteen

I've had the idea for this addition to the series since March 24th (yes, it was dated) and just haven't gotten around to drawing it.

What's new with you?


3.18.2010

10010 or, Inappropriate reading materials?


Car repair: I took Hauerwas' A Cross-Shattered Church. Intended to be hopeful, the final bill was several hundred dollars.
DMV: Kafka's The Castle. Supposed to be ironic, but they sent me away because my papers weren't in order.


Bah.

3.16.2010

XVII


Update: B'Yo! pointed out that "Q" could also be for Quaker, or for quacker (quack quack quack).

Or I could have had Q stand for "Quelle," and left the picture blank (or perhaps just muddy). I'm still self-amused by my singing "tryin' hard to recreate what had yet to be created" in class in response to this book.

Who knew that "Q" would be such a popular letter? Well, not in Denmark: according to Wikipedia, they "abolished the letter in 1872, although it's still part of the alphabet." If it's still part of the alphabet, then it sounds as if they didn't really abolish it - unless you're talking about some sort of Hegelian Aufhebung, which would surprise me since it happened after Kierkegaard.

What were we talking about again?

3.06.2010

Sorry for the delay: 15



My owl looks a little worse for wear, but part of executing this series has been deliberately working quickly - if I fussed over every picture, I'd never get going.

3.01.2010

Twelfth in a series


Part of the idea with the series is just to make sure I do something every day, but sometimes I just go too fast and things get wonky.

2.24.2010

Eighth in a series

Series to resume shortly



But I thought you might like a good old fashion cartoon, plus the last installment of the ever-popular "Duck" series.

2.05.2010

Fish & Owl

I haven't yet figured out a decent picture of my paintings which incorporates silver (or gold) paint - it's a great effect in person that doesn't come through.



I've been focusing on getting my Etsy shop working the way I'd like; there are still a few bugs I need to work out. More dogs coming soon, and I'm also working on a friendlier owl.

(This one puts the "owl" in "scowl"!)

1.30.2010

Hey Look! I have a shop!




Okay, I didn't use Matt's idea: the shop is just called Miro Roi cards & art. I only have a couple things up at the moment, but I'm working on getting more together.


My biggest problem - for the blog and now for the store - seems to be getting decent pictures of my work.


Here's a couple new paintings: Tommy pauses before entering his apartment building, and a diagram of my understanding of how petitionary prayer works.

1.28.2010

Shop Name Contest!

Well, not really a contest, but I'd like some feedback.

The email I use for this blog is "MiroRoi(at)gmail.com" (long story, not important), and I was thinking of using it for my shop name. It's unique, and it links back to my primary cartoon character. I keep hesitating, though; any thoughts about the name, or suggestions for an alternative?


In any case, before I start selling paintings, I'm going to put some cards out there to get a sense of selling things online. These are some of the designs I've got so far: hand painted, blank inside, various sizes. (I'm working on an owl too. Julie likes owls.) Feedback on the cards would also be helpful.


It also occurred to me that I could sell the panels I've been painting on: 24"x24" 1/4 luaun, backed with a cradle made of 1"x2" select pine to prevent warping, all primed. The only things like that on Etsy are pretty small, and I've really enjoyed having a larger surface to work on.

I still have to put The Hand away when I go to bed, though.

1.26.2010

If Mechthild is my Monday name...




...then this must be Susana.



This is the same painting in progression - monochromatic underpainting, again about halfway through, and then the final version. Mostly acrylic, but I just can't keep my hands off whatever is near, so it has this and that in it as well.


In other news, I've attempted to put some panels for painting for sale on craigslist. The ones I've finished are 24" square, with a 2" cradle on the back to keep them from warping; primed front and back, with the edges finished. The ad hasn't shown up yet, so I may have done something wrong.

At some point, I'm going to put some of my paintings for sale on Etsy.com - some of the work there is pretty good. I'll keep you posted, but in the meantime if you see anything on here you like, let me know - it could be yours!



As far as the other kind of painting is going, the only news is that my boss has been cited for Nonpoint Source Water Pollution, a class three misdemeanor, and his accountant burned down last week.


No actual work, though.

1.15.2010

A Second Cup


I started reading Gordon Kaufman's An Essay on Theological Method again yesterday; an interesting contrast with Rudolph Bultmann's Jesus and the Word.
Also an interesting contrast with David Jensen's In the Company of Others, which my local book group has been reading on my recommendation.
Well, I recommended that we read it; I'm not sure who has actually done the reading. Are all book groups like this? Not that they haven't been reading: several of the people wanted to talk about another book which they had read (but I had not), Pema Chödrön's Taking the Leap.
I have since read the first chapter, and I'm not terribly impressed. I'd much rather re-read Joko Beck's Everyday Zen.
None of which has to do with the picture here, except that coffee was consumed during the reading of all these various books.

1.12.2010

Two paintings




Um, not a whole lot to say today.
Both of these are mixed media pictures based on photos: the cormorant picture from a photo taken by Greg Rogers, a friend living in Florida; the old men sitting on a stone wall... from a book I found in the college library, written in French, with many black and white photos.

1.04.2010

Hand


Since I'm not painting (houses), I'm painting (my hand).
As with the Cup, as well as the picture below ("Ohne Titel"), this was painted on a 2' x 2' birch panel, the hand in acrylic and the background in acrylic and semi-gloss latex.
I'll take a better picture later, but this gives you a sense of what I've been working on.

1.02.2010

Painting for a New Year...


...even though I finished it at the end of last year. I continue to be amused that the most difficult part seems to be getting a halfway decent picture of what I've painted. I've tried to resist any digital "fixing" beyond adjusting the color, and for this one I haven't even done that. I like the overexposed/supersaturated look that direct sunlight seems to give with my camera, but while you a get a good sense of the color (maybe too good--the blue in the upper left hand corner tends to blend pretty well into the black background), you lose some of the details (the brushwork on the dove, for instance).
Jennifer still likes the cup better, so I've also added a new picture of that.