What the H - E - Double-Hockey-Sticks Do I Know?

 Originally posted to Facebook Friday, June 8, 2021 This morning our faculty had a meeting and some students were invited to share about what has gone well and what needs improvement after the last semester of distance learning. There was so much they shared that was so helpful. Here's one highlight that really stood out to me: One student commented that the overall situation with COVID "hasn't gotten any better." I realized that often I will be frustrated with students, thinking "Come on, it's been so many months of distance learning and you still haven't got it together!?!?" This comment helped me to recognize that, just as much for the students as it has been for me, everything that was hard at the beginning is still hard, and only harder because it's been going on for so long. The extra effort it takes to engage forced all of us to dip into any reserves we had, and those reserves are long since depleted, and we are all working on a deficit e...

 Originally posted to Facebook January 8th, 2021. I think that political opposition is a vital and necessary part of a healthy democracy. Even when the party one favors is in power, a robust opposition is an important component of curbing excesses and giving voters a chance to express a loss of faith or desire for different priorities. And so I will voice my disagreement with policies and principles with which I disagree, and at my best give rational explanations as to why I believe those policies and principles to be either immoral, anti-productive, or impractical, but I will do my best to refrain from calling someone holding different political views immoral or un-American. Having said all of that, here are some values, practices, and principles that I think everyone of every political stripe should be reasonably held to, and I believe that there are people of every political stripe who are doing well and also many who are doing very poorly, and we all need to especially hold t...

 Originally published to Facebook October 22, 2020 On racism, reverse-racism, and anti-racism: In California we're voting on a proposition to allow race to be an explicit factor in college admissions for the first time since it was banned over 20 years ago. In San Francisco there is great debate over changes to merit-based admissions to a prestigious public high school. In both cases, proposals have been labeled "racist" by opponents, because of the perception that certain people would be given an advantage over others due to their races, arguably a textbook definition of racism. As I have been studying, listening, learning, and reflecting on both our nation's history and our present of racial inequity and injustice, I've found that definition to be too simplistic. The problem is that definition focuses solely on the intention behind thoughts, attitudes, and actions, and does not take into account the outcomes. Here's a definition I've been trying to work...

 Originally published to Facebook October 21, 2020 A CNN article released today on the fines and closure of Purdue Pharma, makers of Oxycontin mainly talked about the consequences for the non-biological corporation. At the very end, it talked about actual consequences for biological humans, you know like the humans sitting in jail for low-level, non-violent drug offenses: "The Justice Department also reached a separate $225 million civil settlement with the former owners of Purdue Pharma, the Sackler family. Still, the Sackler family -- as well as other current and former employees and owners of the the company -- face the possibility that federal criminal charges will be filed against them." I think that a just society would either see employees from the top down to "distributors" serving multiple life sentences in prison with sentences proportional to the number and severity of addiction cases and the profit generated by exploiting the addictive nature of their p...

 Originally published to Facebook October 12, 2020 "God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’" - Genesis 1:28 There is a lot to unpack in this scripture. I'm going to try and be focused. For example, this post is not about misinterpreting the word "subdue" or the idea of to "have dominion" to mean "exploit" or "squander" or treat with cruelty, though that's an important conversation. As I write this, the world population is on the cusp of 8 Billion people. When I was born in the early 70s it was poised to hit 4 Billion, meaning it has more than doubled in the last 50 years. It is about 20 times what it was at the end of the 15th century. The Biblical commandment to "be fruitful and multiply" has certainly become a defining characteris...

 Originally published to Facebook October 1, 2020 As far as I can tell, the fear and rejection of "critical race theory" seems to hinge on a few related critical beliefs: 1) The belief that the foundations of the United States - particularly our founding documents and narrative of resistance to tyranny - are pure declarations and instruments of universal rights and liberty, equally applicable to all people of all demographic categories, including gender, race, religion, etc. 2) That any expression of injustice or inequity along any demographic lines (race, gender, etc.) are due to distortions or perversions of the original intent of the founders, and that a restoration of perfect equity can be achieved by strict adherence to those original documents and the institutions and body of law founded upon them. 3) The rejection of the idea that past inequity of access to equal protection under the law, opportunities for advancement, access to wealth accumulated by one's own labo...

Originally published to Facebook August 11, 2020 The sale of indulgences was chief amongst Martin Luther's complaints which inspired the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. To oversimplify a bit, the practice had progressed to a place where the wealthy could donate prodigious sums to the church in exchange for pardon of particular sins, or for the reduction or commutation of the amount of penance or time in purgatory merited by those sins. As practiced, it also created pressure on the poor who already had so little to transfer more wealth to the church for the sake of loved ones who they were told were suffering in purgatory but could be delivered... if the price was right. In practice it created a religious culture where the wealthy could leverage their resources to act immorally according to religious tradition but still be fully accepted into the life of the church and even held up as models of faithfulness, while the poor had to conform to a much higher standard to app...