Nearing the end of my third decade on this planet, I pause to wonder what the future holds. In many ways, the world seems a less stable and more fearful place than ever. Our leaders continually find new and creative ways to disappoint us, and problems we thought long ago solved have proved to have only been symptoms of far greater systemic failure.

And yet, it also seems to me that we as a human species have never before, at any point in our short collective history, had at our disposal such unbounded capacity for good. Will we succeed in using it? I do not know. I hope so.

In reflecting on our own nation's current trials through partisan bickering, suspicion, and anger, I take pause here to recall the words of President Abraham Lincoln, speaking almost 150 years ago to a similarly divided American people:

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

Happy New Year, everyone.

As I type this, the U.S. House of Representatives has passed healthcare reform bill HR3962 by a margin of 220-215. I wouldn't go as far as some to call this an "historic" occasion, as the bill is far from perfect, and likely far from actually achieving its proposed goals.

For my part, though, I wish opponents would clarify exactly what problems they have with the idea, you know, without calling people names and chanting slogans. Then again, I think we could all use a healthy dose of straight-talk from the left.

Are our taxes going to increase? Absolutely, and even more than you think. Millions of Americans are going to have a higher quality of life than before, many of them children, and you're going to help pay for it. Because we're all in this together.

And if you want to call it socialism, then you're right again, at least superficially. But consider the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Acts of the apostles. What's wrong? Don't want to hold the government to those standards? Think those concepts can't apply to running a modern nation? It's okay--as long as your local church operates according to their principles, I'm sure we'll all be fine. Oh, it doesn't either? Oops.

For the record, I'm anti-abortion, but I can't even get behind the new abortion amendment! Part of the whole GOP complaint from the beginning has been that no one wants the government standing between me and my doctor, for crying out loud!

How are more people not in favor of this reform? Seems like a no-brainer.

Well, I ran the half-marathon. Six months ago. Summer came and went. I'm teaching third grade now. I'm typing this on my new iMac. I built a ramp to our shed and a firewood rack beside it. We're replacing our roof. We went to Scotland. Saw Stonehenge, Caldwell Castle, and the Raglands. Read several books. Took up cruciverbalism as a serious hobby. Met Will Shortz. Pixar's "Up" made me cry. I'm on Facebook now. So yeah, I guess that about does it.

New cake post!

We're studying WWII at school, and I have become completely fascinated by the sheer scope and magnitude of the Japanese internment here in the U.S. It is simply appalling that a nation could act in such obvious contradiction to its foundational principles. Don't get me wrong, Jim Crow and Uncle Remus take plenty of luster off the "all men created equal" shtick; but locking up literally thousands of American-born citizens without trial and keeping them in makeshift prison camps? Some of them for the entire duration of the war?

Give me a break, ancestors.

As part of the same unit, we've also been discussing (and attended a performance of) Lois Lowry's The Giver. After the play, the kids from our school got to participate in a Q&A with the cast and crew, and one particular question arose that caught my attention. If you've read the book, you know that the ending is deliberately vague. If you haven't, then SPOILER ALERT.

Someone asked about it, and the whole cast lit up with smiles. One actor explained that in preparing for the production, they dug up the texts of some of the author's speaking engagements and workshops in the years since The Giver's original publication. The two possible interpretations I always envisioned were these: either 1) Jonas succeeds in finding a new community and is greeted by bright lights and music and warmth, or 2) Jonas fails, and as he lies dying, is comforted by visions, dreams, and long-lost memories of bright lights and music and warmth. However, based on several of Lowry's statements, this Nashville group posed a third option: 3) Jonas fails to find a new community, but, simply by leaving his home he has forced that home to change for the better, and, passing by chance through that same region, he arrives at exactly the place he left--albiet transformed.

Several of her other tales end in that way, and apparently when asked about one of them she is said to have responded enigmatically, "I don't write new stories. I just tell the same story over and over." "Well, what about The Giver?" a fan countered. "It doesn't fit the pattern."

Replied Lowry: "Next question, please."

Happy Birthdays all around: Abe Lincoln, Charles Darwin, and Karen Caldwell!

So, Google has a new offering: Latitude. You download it onto your mobile device, and it syncs with the Google Maps software to pinpoint your exact location. The big feature they're bragging about to market it? Friends and family can find you, too! Anytime! Woohoo! Finally, Google has found a way to tap into that ever-elusive stalker demographic.

And the satellite company they've contracted to make the service quick and convenient? Skyhook. I'm sorry to be the party-pooper here, Google, but that's a little too close to "Skynet" for my comfort.

Been reading a book called What If? The genre is "counterfactual history"--exploring the possible results of a few key pinpoint changes to world events (generaly focusing on small moments upon which great moments hinged). The two volumes consist of various essays written by prominent historians, who imagine for instance that Socrates dies during his military service two decades before he is to begin teaching philosophy, that Charlemagne's grandfather is unsuccessful at driving Islamic forces out of France, that Teddy Roosevelt wins his 1912 reelection bid and is president during the Great War instead of Woodrow Wilson, and much more.

I'm the first to admit my grasp of much of world history leaves something to be desired, so my favorite thing about these essays is that the first third or so is always devoted to explaining how things really happened.

In Josiah Ober's "The Triumph of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium," the author posits that without Octavian to usher in the age of the caesars, Antony would have returned most of the power to the Roman senate, and built not only political but cultural alliances with Cleopatra's Egyptian state. Into such a world would Jesus of Nazareth have been born--a world in which Ptolemaic bureaucrats might have welcomed his message instead of allowing his martyrdom. Ober fast-forwards to end his essay with the reign of a hypothetical Cleopatra IX: "[She] might have come to the throne at the time that Christianity was officially incorporated into the Egyptian state religion, a religion in which the queen must of course be a central figure. And so we may imagine that this woman with a remarkable ancestry, granddaughter of Julius Caesar, of Mark Antony, and (twice over) of Cleopatra VII, would become Founding High Priestess of the Universal Alexandrian Church of Jesus the Uncrucified."

A chilling thought, but positively mouth-watering to the amateur historian-at-heart.

Also recently finished Mario Puzo's The Family, which is a very graphic and unflattering epic about the life and times of Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI--widely regarded as the most corrupt and evil pope of all time. To his final breath (the book was published posthumously), Puzo held to the belief that the Popes were the first mafia Dons.

Only here...

"Sumner County Schools will be closed on Friday, January 16 due to the extremely cold weather."

I enjoy the break as much as anyone, but we were supposed to have a test today, and now this has turned into a four-day weekend (MLK on Monday), so we'll have to review another day at least to refresh everyone's memory, and then after the test, I can't really introduce brand new material at the end of a week, so wham bam thank you ma'am, I've just lost five days of class.

Because it's chilly.

On the bright side, I've been reading Lies My Teacher Told Me, and it turns out the plight of minorities in this country really is the white man's fault. Just in case the jury was still out on that one.