The Odyssey - Part 2

Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious teacher who travelled far and wide after he had rocked the famous town of Lake Charles. Many cities did he visit, and many were the cultures with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by road while trying to save his own life and bring his car safely home...

Part 2: Tantalus Lives in Tennessee

Tantalus, son of Zeus, but somehow also the son of Tmolus, King of Lydia. Perhaps Mrs. Tmolus had some explaining to do, and, when in doubt, blame Zeus, since he had a bit of a problem keeping his divine "wisdom" in his tunic. The take home message: if given the option, don't get yourself condemned to Hades, especially if it means your thirst will never be quenched, nor your hunger satiated. Both the water and the fruit would draw away from his lips as he neared them.

This is a lot like Tennessee, which never really ends. In fact, although I believe I am currently in Pittsburgh, having seen family and friends, favorite places and restaurants, part of me is still convinced that I'm actually still driving, trapped forever between Memphis and Nashville, in some evil-bastard version of Groundhog Day. I believe that Tennessee is gradually expanding, incrementally, as if Jeff Fisher needed more lebensraum.

Following the evangelical gators, the odyssey turned North, traveling through Mississippi, which is just as exciting as it sounds. The only really interesting thing about Mississippi is that it only involves four letters, which is probably three more than the average Mississippian can name (Please send all hate mail to "Attn: FOX News").

Anyway, I hit Memphis at daybreak, turning east, believing that it was a hop, skip, and a jump to Kentucky. Memphis was unprepared for the weather, and did not salt their roads, so there were accidents aplenty. This made for an interesting drive, if only for the uncertainty as to whether the concrete patches ahead were masking thin layers of ice. Call it Highway Roulette.

So I drove, and drove, and ******* drove. I saw signs saying "Nashville: 120 miles", and then three hours later "Nashville: 118 miles". I decided to keep a journal of my experience...

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Entering Memphis

Have met Native American traveling companion and guide. He notes that the journey should go quickly. Must remember not to steal land following trip.

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Travelling east, sun is rising ahead, a promising sign pulling me forward. Signs promising Nashville starting to appear.

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Native American companion killed by Titans fans. Still travelling east. Nashville beckons.

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Week three. Have met and impregnated local. Signs promise Nashville only 75 miles away.

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Stopped with family for gas. Expecting second child soon. Nashville only 63 miles away.

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Cholera outbreak. Two cattle have died. Nashville only 61 miles away.

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Restocked at gas station. Family upbeat. Titan fan attacks took first child, second through fourth children safe. Nashville only 63 miles away.

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Passed self on the turnpike. Beginning to suspect Bill Murray may be involved. Nashville only 64 miles away.

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Have begun researching relativistic time dilation. Suspect local large gravitational mass. Nashville only 75 miles away. So close I can taste it.

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Have decided to attempt new approach to Nashville.

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Rafting attempt aborted. No river.

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First grandchild born. Nashville only 30 miles away.

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Ran out of provisions. Had to shoot two deer for food.

Obtained food. Can complete rest of trip. Remainder of children taken by Titan fans. Nashville only 43 miles away.

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Reached outskirts of Nashville. Game froze. Had to reset and restart from last save point. Have children again.

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Two PM. Five words I never thought I would say: Thank God I'm in Kentucky.

Seriously, Tennessee NEVER. *******. ENDS.

Our Odyssey is not over. Kentucky and Ohio await...

Alles Gute.

The Odyssey: Part 1

Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious teacher who travelled far and wide after he had rocked the famous town of Lake Charles. Many cities did he visit, and many were the cultures with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by road while trying to save his own life and bring his car safely home...

Part 1: Evangelical Gators

The drive from Lake Charles to Pittsburgh is 1280 miles. Under normal circumstances, it would take a little under 20 hours to get back home. Unfortunately, Typhon decided to take a dump on the Midwestern states (read: "fly-over states"), which with its combination of freezing snow and my apparent invisibility to truckers, increased the travel time to a little over 24 hours. So I arrived in Pittsburgh sleep deprived (final tally: 37 hours with no sleep, 24 of them in the car with a handful of breaks to gain fuel and lose body mass). But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, the Muse commands I speak of the evangelical gators.

I use an iPod when I drive - an FM transmitter donated by my friend Rich during the Odyssey's prequel (to be adapted by Peter Jackson) keeps me in music during dull periods, like all of Kentucky. The FM transmitter works like a very low-power radio transmitter, meaning it finds a channel normally broadcasting static, and sends the music from your iPod to the car, whereupon the wizard in the dashboard sacrifices a cat and the yowls sound like Depeche Mode.

Anyway, the FM station my transmitter found wasn't really unoccupied - at higher elevations it was shared by a powerful religious broadcasting network in Baton Rouge. So, depending on whether I was on an elevated roadway or not, I was either being entertained by my iPod or Jesus. I have a variety of music on my playlists, and I was especially entertained by a period when Jesus was competing with Beck (2nd generation Scientologist), the Beastie Boys (good Jewish boys from New York), and Jane's Addiction (fronted by Perry Farrell, who will pretty much sleep with anything having a heart-beat). To paraphrase:

"Current society is very anti-Christian, and it's important to ensure that we have a variety of viewpoints expressed in current debates. We have a representative from Alabama on the phone who will be telling us about recent legislation concerning the automotive bail-out, as well as a resolution submitted to the United Nations concerning abortion advocacy and national laws favoring abortion."

"We are, of course, informed by one of Jesus' more famous parables, in which he tell us that-

*road dips; static*

"See me kickin the door with my boots
Broke down out in a ditch of old rubbish
Snakes and bones in the back of your room
Handing out a confection of venom
Heaven's drunk from the poison you use
Charm the wolves with the eyes of a gambler
Now I see it's a comfort to you
Hammer my bones on the anvil of daylight

Na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na"

*road raises; static*

"Now I think Jesus makes some very good points here that are frequently lost in what we will call the 'Mainstream Media'. It's wisdom like this that is timeless, and is key to living a good life."

"Do we have Representative [X] on the phone? Good."

"Representative, it's good to have you with us. Are you in Washington or in Alabama?"

"It's good to be here. I am in Washington, but I will be returning to Alabama soon."

"Representative, do you think the Big 3 are going to fold? I know that the White House is considering taking some of that banking bailout money and maybe putting it towards Detroit. What is Congress doing?"

"Well, I actually voted against the auto bailout, because, ah, parts of the bill, are, you know, they didn't make much sense to me. For instance, I was talking with my fellow Representatives, and I told them-"

*road dips; static"

"From the family tree of old school hip hop
Kick off your shoes and relax your socks
The rhymes will spread just like a pox
Cause the music is live like an electric shock
I am known to do the Wop
Also known for the Flintstone Flop
Tammy D getting biz on the crop
Beastie Boys known to let the beat drop
When I wrote graffiti my name was Slop
If my rap's soup my beats is stock
Step from the tables as I start to chop
I'm a lumber jack DJ Adrock
If you try to knock me you'll get mocked
I'll stir fry you in my wok
Your knees'll start shaking and your fingers pop
Like a pinch on the neck of Mr. Spock"

*road rises; static*

"So naturally I couldn't vote for it."

"I think that makes sense, and when we are faced with the current economic crisis, it's important to pay attention to sound arguments like yours, Representative. I understand that Democratic control of Congress will affect both the current economic crisis as well as international relations."

"Yes, the Democrats have controlled Congress for the past few years, but we had control before that. It makes it hard to get some legislation enacted, like a resolution I wanted to be sent to the United Nations. It made it, but it was a difficult fight. It was designed to comment on laws in several different foreign nations that are friendly to abortion, and it simply stated that all children have a right to life, both born and unborn. Now it's been referred to a committee and will be explored further, but this process has been known to be kind of a graveyard for legislation. But I sent a letter to some of the member nations who were considering it, and I told them it was important to pass legislation recognizing the right to life of children, both born and unborn. I said-"

*road dips; static*

"I was comin down the mountain
met a child she had pin eyes
we had the same opinion
had the same opinion
she was holding it back
it hurts so bad
jumping out of her flesh
and i said cash in!
cash in now honey
cash in now
cash in now baby
cash in now honey
cash in miss smith
cash in now baby!"

*road rises; static*

"A very compelling position, Representative, and I'm glad we have voices like yours in Congress."

...

It was surreal. Now, all of that was an aside for what I really wanted to talk about: alligators. Sections of I-10 in Louisiana are elevated, because you are literally driving over swamp - in fact, most of that area is marshy swamp. And it's just as elegant as it sounds. There are three animals living in this swamp - gators, fish, and more gators. Jesus FM is spending *a lot* of money on powerful transmitters to broadcast salvation and redemption into the swamp. And then I realized why. They are trying to save the gators.

Gambling is legal in Lousiana, and, in fact, Lake Charles receives gambling revenue. New Orleans and the debauchery of Bourbon Street are also attractive to enterprising gators in need of release. Gambling and debauchery are huge dangers for one's immortal soul - these sins tempt one further, since it is but a short step from playing poker while drinking to selling one's body for crack. There is philosophical proof for this - something about "possible worlds". Ask Hanno.

Regardless, these gators are tempted to sin. Sloth and gluttony have already consumed their lives, as "basking" is the only marketable skill they possess. In times of economic crisis, the desire to forget your cares is pretty profound, and many turn to such vices as escapism.

With Jesus FM pumping into the swamp, I expect us to see a surge of spiritualism and religious fervor in our gator population. We have Mormon gators living in my apartment complex, but they are imported from Utah, and are only here so long as they are on their missionary rotation. There were Jewish gators, but I'm pretty sure they relocated to Florida following Hurricane Ike.

We need evangelical gators. I am hopeful you will work with me to spread the word of the First Evangelical Church of Jesus Christ, Reptile. It is hard work, my friends, but rewarding. And yes, I do take PayPal.

Part Two of the Odyssey (Tantalus Lives in Tennessee) will follow.

Alles Gute.

Amended Plans

Ohio is out.

Tentative plans now involve leaving Lake Charles Monday at midnight and driving straight through, arriving in Pittsburgh sometime Tuesday evening. We'll see what happens.

Grades are in, semester is over, abstracts submitted to Open Court. See you all shortly.

Reactions to arguments made in papers and exams

This may be updated as new examples pop up.

1. Commas are punctuation, not neurological states.
2. PVS patients do not communicate via gestures and grunting. You are confusing them with primates and/or Neanderthals.
3. "Veggie/vegetable" is not a diagnosis.
4. HIV and AIDS are not two different viruses.
5. It is nice that you can spell "protease inhibitor"; please make sure you do the same for your first name.
6. Papers in an applied ethics course asking you to identify and discuss ethical issues must actually contain ethical analysis. Or at least the word "ethics".
7. Please do not misspell words when I have spelled them correctly in the question you are answering.
8. Only one of these spellings of "fallopian tube" did not occur on the final exam: "filopian tube", "falopian tube", "flaopian tube", "Filipino tube". Take a guess.
9. You are in college, taking a final exam in medical ethics. Now is not the time to dot your "i's" with little hearts. Especially not the terms "abortion", "infanticide", "euthanasia", "underinsured", "palliative care", "higher brain death", or "terminal illness".

A partial list of things I enjoy more than grading final exams/papers

1. Carrot Top
2. Oral surgery
3. Plucking nose hairs, one by one
4. Do-it-yourself appendectomy
5. Reading about technical writing
6. Defenestration, via self or other
7. Colonoscopy
8. Competitive paint-drying on ESPN 8
9. English cooking
10. MRSA/VRE
11. Food poisoning
12. Subcutaneous weasels
13. Laxative testing
14. Black bean mousse
15. Chewing aluminum foil
16. The sound of brushing teeth
17. Smacking my feet with a hammer
18. Making lists on the internet
19. Reality Television
20. P Diddy

This list is non-comprehensive, and may be modified as the grading continues.

Entering Finals Season

Three more days at the University - my students take their finals Monday through Wednesday, at which point I go into hermit mode to complete the grading by noon on the 12th. Yee-hah. I'm currently grading their papers, but having hosted Poker Night last night, it's probably best that I not try to assign grades at the moment.

We had our last Filmosophy of the semester last night - Hanno showed Starship Troopers and discussed Plato's Republic thereafter. For those of you never subjected to the film, it's about space bugs and a facistic society that actually offers strong parallels to Plato's dialogue. Hanno did an excellent job, we had a great turnout, and this is promising for future presentations.

We also got great news regarding the Philosophy minor and major - our Dean is eager to get the programs up and running, and we will probably be attaching formal education in philosophy onto an existent degree run through the History department (a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies). We will be meeting with the Dean and a few History faculty to discuss the logistics early next semester, and should be able to get the program into the catalogue for the 2010-2011 academic year. While this is not a full BA in Philosophy, it is a huge step towards it, and is a lot faster than we had anticipated.

Once the grading is done, I'll take a few days to decompress and begin the trek up to Pittsburgh. Google Maps tells me its about 19 hours to complete, but that's negotiable depending upon traffic patterns. We have higher speed limits down here. :-) I'll probably find a cheap room in Tennessee for an evening and stop again in Ohio. The specifics are still be worked out, but I'll keep everyone up to date.

The work continues to keep me busy - I'm still working on the biodiversity project, and it is clear that it will be an interesting task to compress all of this material into a cogent and brief presentation. And I mean objectively brief, not brief by my standards. Additionally, I'm working my way through articles for a book on empirical ethics - i.e., how we can take clinical and social science evidence and use it in ethical reasoning. There has historically been conflict between the social sciences and philosophy, principally revolving around the "Is-Ought" question: can we take a descriptive statement about the world and turn it into a prescriptive statement? As an example, there is a world of difference between the descriptive statement "I have blue eyes" and the prescriptive statement "I should have blue eyes" - in this case, "should" adds additional value information beyond simple description. In the context of ethics questions, there is a difference between "This is how people behave" and "This is how people should behave". I'm not planning a definitive answer to this question for two reasons:

1. The fact-value (is-ought) distinction has been remarkably resistant to efforts to get around it. It's not impossible, but it would require the book to be a lot larger and less accessible to its target audience.
2. Philosophy is contractually obligated not to give definitive answers, since we would then be out of jobs.

What I have in mind is more a "how-to" approach to translate recurring clinical ethical questions into research study questions, drawing upon my clinical background and research experience. Last, there's that whole revising the dissertation beast into something more digestible for the general public. These will probably keep me busy during the next academic year, but legwork needs to happen on them early.

I'm planning to use the downtime during the break to contact hospitals in Lake Charles, as there are two more research studies at UPMC in which I am involved. The research lead and I have also been discussing an ethics article regarding a framework for potentially viable organ transplantation, but the ball is currently in his court. We'll see what happens.

So, in non-professional terms, the social circle is expanding. As I mentioned above, I hosted Poker Night last night, and came out +$30, which will go towards gas for the drive. Had a good time, no neighbors complained (despite us going until about 3:30 AM), and it made for a fun way to end the teaching semester. Busy day, long day, but slept the sleep of the just.

Off to make soup and continue recovery from last night.

Alles Gute.