Gung hay fa toy

Today marks Chinese New Year, the year of the ox. The ox is my zodiac symbol, so I am particularly partial to it. Thanks to seeing many decorative paper placemats in Chinese restaurants growing up, I have the following horoscope burned into my memory:

Bright, patient, and inspiring to others. You can be happy by yourself, yet make an outstanding parenthood. Marry a snake or a cock. The sheep will bring trouble.

Pretty good for a beast of burden. I will try to write about inauguration soon. It was awesome and I have a lot to get down, but have been busy lately. For now, happy new year!

Somewhat less than warm

This is another photo of Alaska's Harding Icefield, taken from a different angle (farther down the mountain) than the one that I shared earlier. It's bordered by Exit Glacier, which adventurers use as a way to descend from the vast expanse of snow back down to civilization. I am posting about Harding Icefield again today because it was 10 degrees when I left for work this morning... in downtown DC.

Eight years of stubborn nonsense

This Tuesday, when Barack Obama is sworn in as our 44th president, I'll be excited for a number of reasons. His election is historic and inspiring, and watching it all take place on the National Mall is going to be very, very cool. Perhaps more important, however, is who he is going to replace in office.

George W. Bush gets criticized a lot (often rightfully so) for a plethora of reasons - alienating our international allies, lying to advance a secretive agenda, appalling acts of torture, the reduction of domestic civil liberties, his perceived stupidity... I could keep typing for hours. One of his most aggravating traits, to me, is his stubborn refusal to consider opposing viewpoints. Conversely, what I think is, at least partially, so powerful about Obama is his diplomatic nature. He makes an effort to understand various perspectives on controversial issues, even if his ultimate stance remains unchanged. This attitude is important both because of its inherent pragmatism and because, projected onto the US as a whole, it makes us look good.

Anyway, reading Bob Woodward's piece in the Post made it even more clear to me just how ineffective and frighteningly closed-minded the Bush administration has been. It details how he didn't respect contradictory advice from even his closest advisors (including Colin Powell, whom I like a lot). We will probably never know the extent of the reprehensible things Bush did while in office, and that's most likely for the best. Even reading these ten "lessons to take away from the past eight years" makes me extremely uncomfortable. I find numbers 1, 2, 5, and 8 to be particularly offensive.

I don't have any guarantee that Barack Obama will be an effective president. But based on his attitude alone, I'm positive he'll be a major improvement over Bush.

The grass is always greener in Seattle

Sometimes, when I’m having a bad day or feeling particularly stagnant, I like to fantasize about living in Seattle. There’s something about that city that I love, though I have little actual reason to feel that way. After the Orioles, I’ve always rooted casually for the Mariners, dating back to the days of Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez, and Randy Johnson. But it wasn’t until I visited Seattle, at the tail end of a two-week family vacation to Yellowstone and other national parks of the northwest, that I decided that I would like to live there.

While we were there, we went to a Mariners game. The team had a new star by then - Ichiro Suzuki – and was in the midst of a ridiculously successful, 100-some win season. They won the game my family attended, and I bought a Mariner’s t-shirt and a decorative flag. The next day, we had dinner at an Italian restaurant (where Kayla got scolded by our waitress for mixing food into her water, leading me to very maturely retaliate by blowing out all of the candles at the unoccupied tables as we were leaving). In the bathroom, a man commented on my Mariners shirt, saying something like, “they sure are having a great year, huh?”

But my love of Seattle isn’t really about sports. Rather, eager support of a successful home team is just part of what appeals to me so much about the spirit of the city. Everyone (except that waitress) was so friendly there. In some cities, tourists stick out. You can spot them in DC, ogling the Metro map, taking pictures with the monuments. And, for some reason, DC natives are not that nice to them. Granted, I try to help people who look lost, but who hasn’t had the urge to run over a segway tour in disgust? I’m sure that people could tell that we were tourists in Seattle, but no one treated us that way.

While there, we walked through the bustling Pike Place Market, visited the Rock ‘n Roll History Museum, posed for pictures with statues of pigs (think decorated Testudo’s for Maryland’s 150th), rode the monorail (unnecessarily), and watched an annual parade. We hiked some trails on nearby Mt. Rainier and enjoyed views of the Puget Sound and Lake Washington. Coming from oppressive DC humidity, we all appreciated the region’s mild summertime weather. Everyone liked Seattle. I, however, was the only one who wanted to pay $11 to go to the top of the Space Needle to take scenic photos. Unrelated: I was also the only one who a homeless woman told, “you’re a beautiful man, yes you are.”

Maybe I just claim to want to move to Seattle because I had such a good time there and it’s so far away – when I’m feeling stuck in life, moving across the country with a melodramatic flourish is kind of appealing. I don’t really know much about everyday life in the Emerald City, and the weather was uncharacteristically sunny during our vacation. But I’d like to believe that it’s more than just wishful thinking – that I was drawn by something legitimate while I was there.

Usually I can acknowledge that this whole fascination with Seattle is pretty frivolous. I love living in DC, and I’m not sure I could tear myself away from all of my local friends and family. But there are times when I think the only things holding me here are the practical, financial consequences of moving – finding a new job, a new place to live, and a way to lug my stuff 2,764 miles. And judging by the moods I’m sometimes in, if figuring out those details were easier, I’d probably be living on the west coast by now.

Tastes great with rice

This is a recipe for curry chicken, a dish my mom makes frequently and that goes really well over a lot of white rice. It was originally my grandfather's recipe, and probably his adoptive parents' before that. "Farmer's food." The portions are kind of flexible.

1. Brown a large family package of chicken thighs (I prefer boneless/skinless) in a pot with peanut oil and salt. Remove from pot and set aside, draining most of the grease.
2. Chop 1 onion, 1 green pepper, 2 stalks celery, and garlic and cook until just soft in the chicken grease remaining in the pot.
3. Add ~2 tbsp curry powder and a generous swish of soy sauce. Stir and cook briefly.
4. Mix in 4 large potatoes, peeled and chopped, the cooked chicken pieces, 2 c. water, and 2 cubes chicken bouillon.
5. Bring to a boil, then cover, reduce heat, and simmer for about 20 mins, until potatoes are tender.
6. On the side, make a paste by mixing a couple tablespoons corn starch and a few spoonfuls of the broth. It should be the consistency of half and half.
7. Pour corn starch mixture into the pot to thicken the sauce. Stir well and allow dish to return to a boil.
8. Serve hot, with rice.

A temporary cop-out

Israel and the rest of the Middle East have been fighting intermittently for decades. To be completely honest, I've never bothered to learn much about the conflict. For as long as I can remember, it's been a part of the news, either on the front page or lurking just beyond it. Over the past couple weeks, as tensions have again escalated into outright violence, I feel obligated to have an opinion, but am having trouble taking an educated stance.

My gut reaction is to blame Israel, because they seem kind of like the bully in this situation, invading with ground troops and slaughtering civilians. No matter the underlying factors, 600-some dead Palestinians stands in ridiculously unbalanced contrast to fewer than 10 dead Israeli soldiers. The humanitarian consequences of living in a war zone without utilities, ample food supplies, and access to medical facilities also concern me. But I also know that the more radical, militaristic members of Hamas deny Israel the right to exist, and strafe their cities with rocket fire. If Canada or Mexico frequently peppered the U.S. border with missiles, I would probably favor an immediate invasion as well.

I realize that the history of this conflict is much, much deeper than this, but the point is, I don't know what to think. Andrew Sullivan has done a good job covering various aspects of the debate. One posting that particularly caught my eye was this, in which a reader argues that it's tough to evaluate the actions of either side using the guidelines of just war because it's impossible to pass moral judgment until all consequences are known. In other words, only the hindsight of history will reveal what actions are justified by their success. It is the burden of policymakers to take their best shot.

Granted, this stance is, somewhat, a cop-out. But until I feel more informed about the situation, I'm happy to be able to claim humble uncertainty.

Across the Danube

At the top of Castle Hill in historic Budapest is, among many other things, a monument dedicated to the founding of the city. It features a gigantic statue of the bird that, according to legend, dropped its sword into the ground. I don't remember how the rest of the story goes, but it probably involved "battling against the Turks." Looking out across the Danube River, you can see the ornate building that houses the Hungarian Parliament.

On confusion and inclusion

I grew up in a spiritual bubble, of sorts. My parents disagree rather drastically about religion, and decided to raise their children in a neutral way. In other words, the topic was never mentioned. I had no learned answer when my six year old friends would ask, “Do you believe in God?” Puzzled, I would come home and ask my parents for clarification, with no success. Though my mom would’ve loved to talk to me about God, her response was typically to be evasive, and turn the question around on me. “What do YOU believe?” My dad’s attempt to balance atheism and neutrality was characteristically cryptic and went something like this: “Life is so complicated, the world is so complex, that I do think some higher power could very well be at play. But then I think, if there’s a God, why are there terrible things, like war?”

This philosophical musing could be, to me today, an interesting source of adult conversation. But to a second-grader, it was simply confusing. I appreciate that my parents wanted me to have the ability to make my own decisions about religion, but I often wish that spirituality had been taught to me in a more black and white way. It’s difficult to craft an educated opinion, let alone an entire belief system, without even a basic starting framework.

Growing up, I continued to have a strange relationship with religion. I did not know what it meant when my friends couldn’t come over to play on Wednesday afternoons because of CCD and began to imagine God as a Zeus-like figure, living in the clouds. Later, in high school, I became somewhat dismissive of organized religion. My derisive attitude was born, at least partially, of an utter lack of understanding. It was much easier to treat religion as something that was not worth my time than to view it as an area where my knowledge was lacking.

College transformed this attitude, as it tends to do with so many different aspects of our self concept and our understanding of the world. Meeting people from diverse backgrounds forces you to grow, and by random chance, a lot of my earliest and most enduring friends at Maryland were Catholic. Just being around them taught me a little about religion – the meaning of communion, what one does (or rather, does not do) during Lent, that Ash Wednesday is more than just a funny sounding date on my calendar. As I learned passively from my experiences, I no longer felt dismissive of religion. Instead, I became increasingly aware of just how limited my knowledge was. This has been an unending source of discomfort ever since.

One of my friends used to invite me to a free weekly dinner, hosted by the university’s Catholic Student Center. Feeling uneasy in a way that is impossible to articulate, I always declined, but she doggedly mistook my discomfort for timidity. “Father Bill encourages non-Catholics to attend.”

Another friend and I once met someone at a housewarming party who, for some reason, brought up that he was “Christian in name, but didn’t really believe in any of that stuff.” My friend turned and said, “Oh, that’s the same as Jason.” I shook my head, tried weakly to succinctly express the complexity of my beliefs, and ultimately settled for “it’s more complicated than that.” He gave me a blank look, and bluntly asked, “Ok yeah, but do you celebrate Easter, like for the real reasons?” Unable to claim any childhood memories of Easter that did not involve dyed eggs or rabbits, the unspoken conclusion of the exchange was, “So you’re not really a Christian.”

I have many uncomfortable memories like this, from being slapped with the flat response of “it’s Friday” when talking about ordering wings at happy hour during the month of March to exploring cathedrals abroad, including the Vatican itself. All are born not just out of a lack of knowledge on my part, but out of the paranoia, justified or not, that others somehow judge me harshly for my ignorance.

An episode of public radio’s This American Life is what inspired me to write about this topic in the first place. The story focuses on Reverend Carlton Pearson, formerly a rising star in the Pentecostal church. He alienated the evangelical world and drove away most of his 5,000 member congregation when he decided he no longer believed in Hell – that it made more sense to preach about God’s love than fear of His wrath. One of the most striking segments, to me, is an interview with Theresa Reid, a member of Pearson’s congregation who stuck with him through the controversy. She describes a time when she was confronted while on a walk by some neighbors who told her they thought that her beliefs were dangerous.

They felt no inhibition about letting us know that we were going down the wrong path. I’ve had that experience in the grocery store. It makes it seem even more ridiculous to me, the whole mindset that I grew up with, when I look at it and I experience it from the other side, as the target of the proselytizing. It makes it that much more clear to me that what we have done… to people of other faiths has been really pretty insensitive, and pretty mean, even though we did it in the name of God and even though we meant well.

When someone comes up to me and tries to tells me that I should change or I’m going to Hell, I kind of have compassion on that person because they don’t really know how that sounds. They don’t realize how mean-spirited that sounds.

I’ve never really been accosted by glassy-eyed proselytizers, and I certainly don’t think that my friends are trying to be rude to me. Still, Reid’s message resonates with me. It speaks, I think, to the subtle, macro-level challenge that I face. Why should not growing up with religion preclude me from having a relationship with God? I pray every night before I get in bed and once, while asleep, had what I believe was a deeply spiritual conversation with my cousin Melanie, weeks after she passed away. But without a background in organized religion, there is a part of me that may always feel inadequate.

Maybe I’m just being naïve, but I don’t believe that religion should be an uncomfortable experience. Because of my upbringing, I can’t just jump into a chosen faith – like my father, there’s too much that I disagree with, too much that I question. But I’m not willing to accept that this makes me ineligible for salvation. There’s something comforting about going to church, something about having another source of grounding and support that greatly appeals to me.

This is, to date, the conclusion I’ve reached. That I value God, but don’t quite agree with or understand everything about organized religion. I realize that this is in no way unique. Most people, I’m sure, go through periods of self-examination when they question assumptions they’ve been raised to hold as truths. And maybe that’s what bothers me the most – that everyone must ultimately find their own way, but that without an existing framework, I’ve had an awfully hard time getting started.