Rattus Scribus

2012 Valentine Rat Poetry Slam: Round 1

2012-01-16T12:17:00.000-08:00

By Ruben Rivera
Rattus Scribus Blog©
14 Jan 2012
Drawings by Anita Rivera©
---------

Announcer: Welcome ladies and gentlemen, children young and old, to the first annual world championship Valentine Rat Poetry Slam: Apocalypse Edition. Creatures from every walk of life have traveled great distances to attend this historic event.

Some have been camping out for days, waiting, having tailgate parties.

But now, at long last, the day has arrived. Our first contestant is Rattus Scribus. Rattus describes himself as someone who loves quiet walks, cozying up with a good book by a warm fire, and a wide genre of music. He loves a dark smooth ale in a rustic pub in the company of good friends. He has written several poems including "Ode to a Wedge of Cheese". Let's give up up for Rattus.

Rattus: Thank you everyone. I'm honored to be here. This poem is titled "Valentine Mouse". It is dedicated to heartsick lovers everywhere.

Valentine Mouse

By Rattus Scribus

I see a wee mouse

and I feel such a louse

for unless and in time

you consent to be mine

I'm undone and find nothing of worth

I see a wee mouse

in a polka dot blouse

and I feel that this lad

will most surely go mad

for begone are the joy and the mirth

And so dear wee mouse

will you come to my house

oh please say you'll be mine

my sweet mouse Valentine

else they lay me dead under the earth

Announcer: That was "Valentine Mouse," ladies and gentleman. Let's give it up once more for Rattus.

Announcer: Out next poet is Tea Rat. Tea Rat says he hails from parts unknown. He has an advanced degree in Teaology and sells tea all over the world. His favorite time of day is, not surprisingly, tea time. He first poem was a love sonnet to a particularly wicked Early Grey with a double infusion of Bergamot. He calls himself the Merchant of Morphemes, the Vicar of Vocab, the Sultan of Syntax, Prince of Punctuation, Dictator of Diction, the Crown Head of Compound Verbs. Give it up ladies and gentlemen for the one, the only, that Rajah of Rhetoric, the Lord of Lilting Lyrics...T-E-A R-A-T!

Tea Rat: Yeah! Whoo...whoo...whoo!

Tea Rat: Thank you, thank you. Ok, now you're embarrassing me. Please, please, stop. I'll give you five minutes to stop that.

Announcer: OK, Tea Rat, what is the title of your poem?

Tea Rat: I've got a few more minutes of clapping left.

Announcer: Poem?

Tea Rat: Alright. The title of my poem is "With You". It is a combination of classic love poems rendered so as to create something new.

With you

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?

I haven't a clue.

But I'm so crazy about you my heart aches.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

No, that would take too many days.

Let me simply say:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

or to

...beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies

So say my eyes.

Of this we can agree:

If ever two were one, then surely we

and surely to this truth none opposes

They are not long, the days of wine and roses

Drink to me only with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine

Oh, say that you will

Grow old along with me. The best is yet to be.

For

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has make all the difference

With you.

Announcer: The crowd is going wild. It's Tea Rat mania.

Announcer: Well, it's up to the people now. Please send in your comments and vote for your favorite rat poem. Do you vote for Rattus, "Valentine Mouse," or for Tea Rat, "With You." Please cast your votes.

-----
Poems (italics) in descending order by:
Shakespeare, "Romeo & Juliet"
Elizabeth B. Browning, "Sonnets from the Portuguese"
Shakespeare, "Sonnet 18"
Lord Byron, "She Walks in Beauty"
Anne Bradstreet, "To my Dearest and Loving Husband"
Ernest Dowson, "Vitae Summa Brevis"
Ben Johnson, "To Celia"
Robert Browning, "Rabbi Ben Ezra"
Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken"

2012 Rat Poetry Slam: Valentine Apocalypse Edition

2012-01-12T12:10:00.000-08:00

By Ruben Rivera© Art by Anita Rivera©

Tea Rat: Rattus, did you hear there's going to be a Rat Poetry Slam for the best Valentine poem of 2012.

Rattus: Really? Well, I'm going to win that prize.

Tea Rat: You mean you're going to win second prize, because someone else is going to win the first.

Rattus: And who might that be?

Tea Rat: Why me of course, boyo.

Rattus: You? You couldn't rhyme two identical words.

Tea Rat: I tell you I'm going to win the Rat Poetry Slam to prove my love for Miss Moussie.

Rattus: I think your cheese has slid off its cracker, son. I tell you that I'm going to win that contest to prove my love to Bebe the mouse.

Tea Rat: OK let's put it to a vote. Let's ask our readers whose poem is the best.

Rattus: You mean I'll write some Valentines poetry and you'll write some and our friends will vote for the winner?

Tea Rat: Exactly.

Rattus: I don't know. It sounds so crude and and unromantic.

Tea Rat: Brrrauck...bauck...bauck...bauck...bauck. Brrauck...bauck...bauck.

Rattus: Are you implying that I'm chicken?

Tea Rat: Brrauck.

Rattus: Very well then, you're on. And may the best rat win.

Tea Rat: Thank you. I will.

Rattus: Laugh it up. We'll see who laughs last.

Tea Rat: Tee...hee...hee...

Rattus: Ha...ha...ha

Tea Rat: Tee...hee...hee...

Rattus: Ha...ha...ha

Tea Rat: Tee...hee...hee...

Rattus: Ha...ha...ha

------

From now until Valentines Day, readers will have the chance to vote for their favorite Valentine poem from these two crazy rats. Two poems will be posted at a time. Just say in your comment which poem you like best, Rattus' or Tea Rat's. The first two poems will be posted in a few days.

"POW!" Therefore I Am

2012-01-07T19:40:00.000-08:00

By Ruben Rivera. Art by Anita Rivera.
All copyright laws apply.

Tea Rat: Rattus, I have a question I've been meaning to ask for a long time.

Rattus: That sounds serious.

Tea Rat: It is and if I can't get an answer I'm afraid of what comes next.

Rattus: You're scaring me, son. What is it?

Tea Rat: How can I know if I exist?

Rattus: The philosopher Decartes answered that question with the famous dictum cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am. So the fact that you're asking the question proves you exist to ask it.

Tea Rat: I don't know. That sounds like a bunch of hocus pocus to me. Just because you think something doesn't mean it exists.

Rattus: No, no, you misunderstand. He didn't say that anything you can think of must exist. Just that thinking is evidence of the existence of a thinker.

Tea Rat: Sure, sure, but there's just one part I still don't understand.

Rattus: What part is that?

Tea Rat: The whole part.

Tea Rat: OW ! My arm!

Rattus: Tell me, if you don't exist, who's pain is that?
.

Tea Party Candidate

2011-12-31T10:06:00.000-08:00

By Ruben Rivera, Art by Anita Rivera
Rattus Scribus blog©
31 December 2011

Rattus Scribus, Moderator: Candidate Big Pig, in the spirit of New Years can you tell us what resolutions you will make to the people?

Big Pig: That's an excellent question, Rattus. You know, I was born in a humble fifteen bedroom manor in the Hamptons without so much as an indoor swimming pool, so believe you me, I grew up knowing the value of a dollar.

Rattus: But you didn't answer the question.

Big Pig: Well let me put it as straight as I can, so that I'm not misquoted by my opponents later. You, me, everyone here, and everyone within the sound of my voice. I mean we're talking everyone. That's about as plain as I can say it.

Rattus: What in the name of Tartarus are you talking about? OK, forget about New Year's resolutions. Can you give us just one good reason why we should vote for you?

Big Pig: Look, everything that's wrong today is because of that other party, which must not be named. I mean, where is the rain when you need it? And who was responsible for leaving out the cream in my coffee? I didn't flip-flop all over the place on that one. I think the people know what's really going on.

Rattus: Sweet Saint Rodentia!

Big Pig: I know! Right?

Rattus: Tea Rat, can you PLEASE tell us why you are running for office?

Tea Rat: Me? Oh, I'm not running for office. I heard something about a "Tea Party". I'm here for the Tea Party. But so far I don't see any tea.

Happy New Year

From Rattus & Tea

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

2011-12-20T04:40:00.001-08:00

By Ruben Rivera. Art by Anita Rivera

Tea Rat: Rattus?

Rattus: Yes?

Tea Rat: Do you think we'll have snow for Christmas? Christmas is not Christmas without snow.

Rattus: You know there are many places in the world where it doesn't snow, and the people in those places still celebrate Christmas. So in fact, Christmas can be Christmas without snow.

Tea Rat: Rattus?

Rattus: Yes?

Tea Rat: Does it snow here?

Rattus: Of course.

Tea Rat: Rattus?

Rattus: What is it?

Tea Rat: Do you think we'll have snow for Christmas? Christmas is not Christmas without snow.

He Was A Good Rat.

2011-11-27T11:03:00.000-08:00

Ruben Rivera's Rattus Scribus Blog©

Rattus: Tea Rat, what are you doing?

Tea Rat: I'm writing my obituary. I was reading the newspaper obituaries and they're not very exciting. No plot. No foreshadowing. No hero's quest. No rising action, climax, or falling action, no conflict or resolution. When I die, I want to make sure the newspapers get my obituary right.

Rattus: You just mentioned parts of fictional literature. An obituary is a simple public notice of someone's death with a few factual highlights of their life.

Tea Rat: It doesn't have to be boring does it? It's not enough that I'll be dead, the summation of my life has to be dead too? We want meaning, drama, characters that a reader cares about, irony, literary panache. The reader should be in tears when they're done, emotionally spent, unable to take any more.

Reepicheep, Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawntreader

Rattus: Alright. Let's hear the obituary you have created for yourself.

Tea Rat: "He was a good rat."

Rattus: That's it?

Tea Rat: What do you think? Why, Rattus, you're crying.

Rattus: I'm emotionally spent.

Tea Rat: Well, whaddaya know. It worked.

"Blessed are the cheese-makers."

Rattus: Please stop. I can't take any more.
.
.

Happy Goosegiving

2011-11-19T09:18:00.000-08:00

Ruben Rivera©

Rattus: Hoy, Tea Rat. What's that you're hiding behind you?

Tea Rat: Hiding? Me? I'm not hiding anyth...

Rattus: Is that a turkey? Why are you hiding a turkey behind your back?

Tea Rat: It's not a turkey. He's uh, Mr. G-Gobble. Y-Yeah, that's it. Mr. Gobble from way out in Left Field, come to visit us here in Nowhere for Thanksgiving. He's a second cousin twice removed on my father's side.

Rattus: You're a rat. He's a turkey. That's not quite right...

Tea Rat: Well, you know my old da. Quite the ladies rat.

Rattus: It's not a question of your da's tastes. How can I put this? "Turkey and rat cannot begat." What's really going on here?

Tea Rat: Oh, alright. I met ol' Goose here...

Rattus: A turkey named Goose?

Tea Rat: Yeah. You see, I met ol' Goose here in a store window. He looked so friendly that I went in to say hello. Then that's when he told me.

Rattus: Told you what?

Tea Rat: That he was going to be someone's dinner. That he was going to the feather factory, the last round up, toe-tag-town...

Rattus: Toe-tag-town?

Tea Rat: You know, that his goose was cooked.

Rattus: Ah, hence the name Goose.

Tea Rat: No. that just happens to be his real name.

Rattus: Go on. Did you ask the store owner to set him free?

Tea Rat: Not really, no.

Rattus: Then you paid for him and brought him home?

Tea Rat: Not exactly.

Rattus: Oh, sweet Saint Rodentia. Don't tell me...

Tea Rat: I couldn't just stand by and watch Goose get gobbled. So naturally I grabbed him and ran. Rattus, uh, one more thing...

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

Rattus: Let me guess?

NPD: This is the Nowhere Police Department. We're going around the area looking for a fugitive turkey and his rat accomplice. Is there a turkey in there?

Rattus: No, sir. We only have a goose.

Knock, Knock

2011-11-06T05:27:00.000-08:00

Knock, Knock!

Tea Rat: Who's there?

Rattus: It's me, Rattus.

Tea Rat: Rattus who?

Rattus: You know, Rattus. Live here. You're oldest and dearest friend. Rattus.

Tea Rat: If it's Rattus, why are you knocking to get into your own house?

Rattus: Because some boob -- who for the moment shall remain nameless -- locked me out while I was taking a morning walk.

Tea Rat: Prove that you're really Rattus.

Rattus: Let's try this again.

KNOCK, KNOCK!

Tea Rat: Who's there?

Rattus: ♪ ♫ It's me-ee. ♪ ♫ Rattus ♪ ♫

Tea Rat: Rattus who?

Rattus: Rattus - I'm-going-to #^@* kick-you-so-hard-you'll-be-wearing-your-arse-for-a-hat-if-you-don't #^@* let-me-in-this-minute - that's #^@* who.

Click!

Tea Rat: ♪ ♫ Come in. ♪ ♫
.
..........
Art by Anita Rivera© Text by Ruben Rivera© 6 Oct 2011

Such a Deal!

2011-10-27T11:33:00.000-07:00

Text by Ruben Rivera. Art by Anita Rivera.

Tea Rat: Someone tried to cheat me at the market today, but I showed them.

Rattus: What do you mean?

Tea Rat: Well, I wanted to buy a box of tea, so I asked: How much is this tea? The grocer responded: Two boxes for 5 bucks.

Rattus: Yeah, and then what?

Tea Rat: Then I held a box in each hand and showed him the left one and asked: How much for this one? He answered: 3 bucks. So I said: I'll take other one.

Rattus: Such a deal!

True Riches.

2011-10-08T06:33:00.000-07:00

Rattus & Tea Rat's Witsend Cottage

by Anita Rivera©

Rattus: What did you do this week?

Tea Rat: Well after I worked selling some of my tea to make a living, I read, wrote poetry, did some gardening, did volunteer work, got together with friends, and went on walks.

Rattus: Sounds nice.

Tea Rat: I also met this rich person. He told me that I was wasting my time and that I should take my little tea business and turn it into a global enterprise.

Rattus: Why?

Tea Rat: Because then I could expand and open up tea shops everywhere.

Rattus: Why?

Tea Rat: Then I could beat my competitors by cutting out the tea growers and have my own tea farms, and manufacturing plants, and distribution centers, and franchise stores and go straight to tea consumers myself.

Rattus: Why?

Tea Rat: Because then I could offer an IPO and the stock proceeds will make me rich beyond my wildest dreams.

Ratttus: Why?

Tea Rat: Because then I can retire.

Rattus: Why?

Tea Rat: Because then I can read, write poetry, do some gardening, do volunteer work, get together with friends, and go on walks.

--

Truth in Advertising, Pt 2: A Pictorial

2011-09-19T11:35:00.000-07:00

"Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life. That we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals. That we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption." (Victor Lebow)

Tar and nicotine smoke is

good for anything that ails you.

Above: Rice Krispies, Activia yogurt, Mini Wheats, and POM:

The FTC exposed these companies for making unproven claims that their products help prevent cancer, lower blood-pressure, improve your attention span, strengthen your immune system, and add years to your life.

They should call these cookies, "Mrs. Cheaply's"

Doesn't the above transformation require the reorganization of matter

at the sub-atomic level?

A little Dermitage creme and the laying on of hands

in the name of the Lord goes a long way.

Oops, we mean May 21, 2012

"My what big pockets you have."

Reality TV? Plato is turning over in his grave.

Keep believing.

Truth in Advertising

2011-09-03T11:57:00.000-07:00

By Ruben Rivera©

OK, I know that advertisers are known for stretching the truth. But surely we can agree that the above skincare ad goes way beyond that to criminally lying?

I've heard of cremes that promise to "smooth and reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles". But are we really expected to believe that woman on the right side of the picture was once the Melting Maniac on the left.

Look at her. She looks like the Wicked Witch of the West AFTER Dorothy threw water on her. Doesn't this kind of transformation require, like, the reorganization of matter at the sub-atomic level?

And give me a break. Are they really claiming that their creme can heal blindness too. Look at the side-by-side picture of her eyes! Wouldn't that require, you know, God?

Hey, I just thought of something. We should rub some of this creme on the creators of this ad. Maybe they'll be cured of blindness too.

Oy, 'da pain.

2011-08-18T05:30:00.000-07:00

Tea Rat: Hey Rattus, I just picked up a couple of books on Jewish jokes. Want to hear one.

Rattus: A book?

Tea Rat: Har, har, har. No, a joke.

Rattus: Sure.

Tea Rat: A man goes to his rabbi.
Very distraught he says, "Rabbi, my wife is trying to poison me."
The rabbi says, "I know your wife."
"And?" asks the man.
"Take the poison."

Shake(speare), rattle and roll

2011-07-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

From the ancient mists of time

where dwelt the sages way,

the bard of all bards plied his rhymes

that took our breath away.

His words the brush on paper canvas

painted tales in august hues:

of Eden's sweet green innocence, alas

with blood-red guilt we came to lose.

But heaven intervened and sure

with message from above,

that deep within us lies the cure,

in faith and hope and love.

.....

Rattus! Oh, Rattus! Humm, he left his desk.

Now what has he been up to? Hmmm.

♪ ♫ From the ancient mists of time

where dwelt the sages way ♪ ♫

♪ ♫ the bard of all bards plied his rhymes

that took our breath away ♪ ♫....

--------

Text by Ruben Rivera©

Art by Anita Rivera©

Nearer My God To Thee

2011-07-09T13:21:00.000-07:00

Rattus: Ugh! My knee is acting up again. I can hardly climb the steps to our cottage. My back's a misery too. On top of that, I think I need stronger spectacles. I'm getting old, dear friend.

Tea Rat: My old da, Teadore Rat, used to say, "You know you're getting old when you used to dream about being able to fly, and now you dream about being able to walk." You know what else he used to say?

Rattus: I can't wait.

Tea Rat: You know you're getting old when your bark is worse than your bite because you have no teeth.

Rattus: Very funny.

Tea Rat: I'm joking. You're not getting old. You're getting ripe.

Rattus: That's disgusting.

Tea Rat: What I mean is, you're maturing...like a venerable old wine.

Rattus: Stop talking.

Tea Rat: I thought you were a religious fellow. Remember the hymn, "Redeemed, redeemed, His child and forever I am."

Rattus: Right now the only hymn that comes to mind is "Nearer My God to Thee." No doubt about it, my friend, I'm headed for the long goodnight, the big sleep, the light in the tunnel, the fertilizer factory, toe-tag town, I've got one foot in the grave, I bought the farm, I'm circling the drain, pushing up daisies, checking out...

Tea Rat: ...Alright, alright. I'll take out the garbage.

I Hate the Beach

2011-07-01T10:11:00.000-07:00

Tea Rat: Oh boy! There's going to be a beach party! I better brush up on my 1960s surfer lingo. Twitchin, dude.

Rattus: Why are you twitching dear fellow? Are you ill?

Tea Rat: Twitchin! You know, as in great, superb, cool, boss, wicked. Now come on, let's book for the beach.

Rattus: Beaches are public. Why do we need a reservation?

Tea Rat: No, not book as in reservation. Book as in to depart post haste. It's gonna be far out.

Rattus: Oh dear, I trust not too far.

Tea Rat: No dude, that's bogus. I mean far out, as in cool, twitchin. Now come on, and can you bring that cherry umbrella of mine?

Rattus: "Cherry?"

Tea Rat: Yeah, you know, pristine, perfect.

Rattus: It is a nice umbrella, but it's mine.

Tea Rat: Woah, dude. Don't try to boggart my stuff.

Rattus: "Boggart your stuff? What in the world are you babbling about?

Tea Rat: I'm babbling? Dude, you don't even know what boggart means. What a burn. What a chop.

Rattus: I think I'm going to lie down.

Tea Rat: Don't get groady on me. Don't shine me on. Aren't we goin' to shag it to the beach?

Rattus: Going to the beach just sounds like too much work.

Tea Rat: But I was so stoked to dig up some scratch for some scarfs and split to shore. We were going to have a primo, righteous time.

Rattus: I hate the beach.

Oh Ye Of Little Faith!

2011-06-24T06:08:00.000-07:00

(Continued from Nowhere. Click here.)

Tea Rat:

Goody, goody, goody. Penny's birthday's almost here.

Cakes and pies and puddings to celebrate good cheer.

Rattus:
You know I'm on a diet, and that I'm most sincere,
to drop an inch or two or three, here and here and here.

Tea Rat:
Oh don't be such a party poop. Don't give me that sneer.
Eat to your heart's content. This comes but once a year.

Rattus:
You cruel tempting rat. Have you no feeling dear?
To eat my heart's content is precisely what I fear.

Tea Rat:
Oh Ye of Little Faith! Oh faithless without peer.
I said I have a secret. Have you no ears to hear?

Rattus:
You'll never understand, you'll never shed a tear.
Just standing near such calories will go straight to my rear.

Tea Rat:
Stand back thou faithless wretch, for soon it shall be clear.

I say thee calories out. Go on away from here!

Happy Birthday, Penny!

-------
Drawings by Anita Rivera© 2011.
Text by Ruben Rivera© 2011.

Rattus's Word of the Week: Twitter

2011-06-18T08:28:00.000-07:00

Twitter (noun):
1. a succession of chirping or other tremulous sounds, as that made by birds
2. similar tremulous sounds in human communication, as in chattering, giggling or other expletives
3. the typed micromessages sent and received on an electronic device (cell phone or computer) via the social networking service provider by the same name
4. a descriptive for the current culture (as in "Twitter Culture") of ceaseless, fragmented transmissions via one of countless communication methods
5. the final tremulous sounds or gasps upon the death of the remaining 3 seconds of uninterrupted time in the day

Rattus's Word of the Week: Respect

2011-06-05T09:12:00.000-07:00

"Respect your neighbor,
then do as you please."

Rattus Scribus©

Pur Frivolité

2011-05-19T23:20:00.000-07:00

"La Gastronomie de Paris"
Affectionately authored by Rattus Scribus
Performed with peerless pulse-pounding passionate pageantry by Tea Rat

---

Shall I compare thee to Marron glacé?
Thou art more gooey and affectionate.

Rough winds do shake the cafe's cheese-fill'd tray,
But naught can shake my love for thee to date.

Thou didst gift me my first crêpe brimmed with nutella,
And with enraptured tongue sang acappella.

Off cobbled streets I met Turkish delight,
Which in America one must chew for a fortnight.

Accras de Poisson, mayhap doth take the crown,
Cod fish fritters? I know how that mayest sound.

But if on barren island I was forever doom'd to be,
A heaven this: Anita, cod fish fritters, and me.

La gastronomie. Like nowhere else, la gastronomie
de Paris.

---------
"Tea Rat in Paris," By Anita Rivera
Marrons Glacés, by Artisian Chocolatier
Fromages, found on Tumbler
Nutella Crepe, by oli-and-mel.blogspot.com
Turkish Delight, by All of Our Fingers blog
Ruben -- Accras de Poisson in hand -- in nirvana, by Anita Rivera

Rattus's Back. Rumors and Other Follies.

2011-05-18T08:29:00.000-07:00

Dear friends,

I cannot here go into where I have been and why I was gone these many months. That is a tale for another time. But, like the phoenix from the ashes, Rattus is back.

I thought that I would celebrate this most auspicious revivification with a true story about the folly of rumors as instanced in my own life. I shall title it:

"Rumors and Other Follies"

We've all had false rumors spread about us. I am certainly no stranger to false rumors spread about me. The first one I can remember was when I was in the 5th grade.

That year I was so sick that I missed 2 weeks of school. When I got back (and despite a letter from my mom informing the school I was sick), everyone looked at me differently, like I'd walked onto the set of some B-grade horror film. Some kids feared me. Others thought I was cool.

Why? Because the rumor had spread that I had been sent to juvenile hall. My teacher even pulled me aside, got down on one knee, looked at me with the comical seriousness of hound dog, and asked: "Ruben are you square with the law now?"

Am I square with the law?

"Mr. D'amico, the whole thing is a rumor. I was home sick."

Ironically, I think I disappointed him -- I mean, after his groveling humanitarian reaching out to the most troubled youth in the black board jungle and all.

I don't think we ever spoke again after that. But maybe it wasn't him. Maybe it was me. Maybe because even then, at 11 years of age, I knew that the teacher, everybody, had accepted the premise of the rumor. And I think that bothered me; for it said something about the way people saw me. (Maybe it said more about them than me. But an 11 year old can hardly be expected to accept such things with the zen-like tranquility of a cow.)

But alas, for the next few years my nick name was "Juvy Ruby."

No denials or explanations of mine were remotely sufficient to quell the rumor, because of course that's what criminals do: lie.

The truth of it is that not all rumors are deliberate attempts at coercion (call these rumors of propaganda; and some can be malicious and destructive indeed). Some rumors are a kind of spice that we all seem to need from time to time to enliven the ordinary and the dull (call these rumors of entertainment). A 5th grader being sick is simply not in the same league, interest-wise, as a 5th grader going to jail.

But, what is true of spice is also true of some forms of entertainment: too much can give you heartburn. So please, don't just swallow the premise of a rumor. Find out if it's true. And even then, take no joy in the folly and misfortune of others.

Yours truly,
Juvy Ruby

The Dead Still Speak. But Are We Listening?

2010-10-28T04:42:00.000-07:00

By Ruben Rivera© 6 Nov 2010

The Greek philosopher Socrates (5th c. BC) famously said "The unexamined life is not worth living."

But Socrates did more than examine his own life -- testing the reliability of what his senses told him, even questioning the cultural assumptions, intellectual knowledge and religious beliefs upon which society's institutions and behavior were built. He spent much of his time questioning the people of ancient Athens about everything they thought they knew. They did not like it. So they had a democratic vote and told Socrates something like this: "You are one sick, sick anthropos. But if you swallow this drink made from a delightful little herb -- Ahhemlock! -- it will all be better."

"Death of Socrates," Daniel Chodowiecki, 17th C.

The Socrates affair has crisscrossed the globe through the ages in many different forms, but with the same caution to the wise, the summation of which only the king's English will do.

Never expose unto the people that they knowest not what they thinketh they know. Neither reveal unto them the gaps between their vaunted ideals and who they are in truth. For thou shalt surely suffer for it, and that right smartly.

Perhaps this maxim is easier to remember: The truth shalt get thee in a pickle. Pray, therefore, to love pickles.

I have written elsewhere on the need for education as soulcraft. I am saying here that foundational to soulcraft is the examined life. I am saying here that examining self and society may be an important step in the salvation of both.

One thing that desperately needs examination today is the difference between what we think we know is going on, and what is going on. Another thing that needs examining are the gaps between our ideals and who we really are. Take, for example, our much vaunted ideals of liberty.

1776

Excerpt: Declaration of Independence.

Some inconvenient truth here. When Jefferson said that "all men are created equal" and endowed by their creator with rights of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," he did not mean black people, whom he himself owned as slaves; he did not mean women, who did not get the universal right to vote in the U.S. until 1920; he did not mean Indians, whom he called "savages" in the Declaration. Jefferson, and the other founding fathers who signed the Declaration, did not mean a lot of people.

However, the Declaration, despite its obvious shortcomings, was actually a more radical document than the U.S. Constitution that was constructed for the new nation. For the Declaration stated the Enlightenment basis for a revolution for liberty. The Constitution promptly codified inequality and denied liberty to many.

For example, the Constitutional Convention of the new United States not only refused to abolish the very antithesis of liberty -- slavery -- but to add insult to injury, the Constitution defined black slaves as 3/5th persons for the express purpose of legally denying them democracy while simultaneously giving the white southern elite strong democratic representation in congress (U.S. Constitution, 1789, Article 1, Section 2).

"The elite," the great Latin American liberator Simón Bolívar once lamented, "want liberty, but only for themselves." That sentiment has never changed.

The 20th century was characterized by three developments of great importance, said Alex Carey:

"the growth of political democracy; the growth of corporate power; and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."
Alex Carey, Taking the Risk Out of Democracy (1995)

In 2005, the international financial conglomerate Citigroup sent an equity investment memo recommending a strategy of luxury investment in the era of emerging "Plutonomies" which are, especially, the U.S., UK, and Canada. (See the whole document here.)

"Income inequality", said Citigroup, is at "the heart of plutonomy". For example, in the U.S. 1% of richest households have some 40% of the nation's wealth, "more than the bottom 95%...put together".

Citigroup was careful to disclaim that it was not arguing whether Plutonomies were good or not. It was just stating the fact of their existence. The question for investors: "How do we make money on this theme?" But it seems that pesky democracy can ruin the whole investment opportunity. No, wait. Good news. The growing gap between the few haves and the many have-nots will likely never be challenged, as long as "enough of the electorate believe they have a chance of becoming a Pluto-participant...the embodiment of the American dream". Translation? Plutonomies, their illustrious 1%, and you as a prospective investor in what the 1% luxuriate in, have little to fear that actual democracy by the other 99% will ruin your day.

Does anyone see anything wrong with this thinking? Is this a civilization that values anything higher than money -- when push comes to shove, in the final analysis? Are political parties of the right and left manipulated into demonizing and fighting each other for scraps from the tables of the Plutocrats while plutonomies may be the biggest threat to democracy in generations? What about this year's Supreme Court decision to lift the ban on corporate political spending? Do we really still believe there is one-person-one vote democracy in this country? Think again.

"We are now in a situation where a lobbyist can walk into my office...and say, 'I've got five million dollars to spend and I can spend it for you or against you."
Alan Grayson, Dem-Rep, Florida (defeated in recent election)

Why isn't government working for everyday Americans, asks Bill Moyers?

"Because it's been bought off. It's as simple as that. And until we get clean money we're not going to get clean elections, and until we get clean elections, you can kiss goodbye government of, by, and for the people. Welcome to the plutocracy."

The victorious rise of plutocracy is just one issue in a sea of troubling issues that face all people. I am challenged to my core to examine my religious beliefs and my life. To ask myself: is mine a faith that is heavenly minded and earthly good?

I think the reader can see that engaging in the examined life, let alone trying to get others to do so, is not a work for the faint of heart. One needs the strength of Hercules, the patience of a monument, and the conviction of a martyr.

The Hebrew prophets of old tried to convey to the world something of the realities of eternity. The world conveyed its appreciation by sending them there.

Jesus of Nazareth once said that "a prophet has honor except in his own country." His message, that right belief means little without right action, crossed a line. He ended up crossed.

But what of the claim of the resurrection? It is true that Jesus' resurrection for life in the hereafter has long been popular with Christians. It is Jesus' teaching about life in the here and now that historically has not been so popular. Following Jesus into heaven is one thing. Following him on earth is another.

And therein lies the paradox. Oh how people love and admire these prophets and teachers of rational ideals, religious verities and social conscience -- but from a safe historical distance, when there is often little at stake in loving and admiring them. This allows us to believe one thing and live another.

But where would we be without these gadflies of the world who examine self and society? What would the world have been like if people listened to them while they were alive? But there is still hope. For, if I may borrow a phrase from the Christian New Testament, "though they are dead, yet do they speak". What may the world still become if we would but listen to them now?

The Value of a Civilization

2010-10-27T06:48:00.000-07:00

By Ruben Rivera@ 27 Oct 2010

An administrator and colleague at the university where I teach, sent to the faculty a link with two videos: "So You Want to get a PhD in the Humanities," and "So You Want to go to Law School." You can view them by going to this link. They are about four minutes each.

While viewing them, you may well laugh. I know I did. But I was also a bit saddened. My colleague said that while the videos may be a corrective to the naivete and false idealism of the students being depicted, they did not provide "an appropriate vision to encourage or assist students."

No they did not.

"The Thinker," by Auguste Rodin.
Rodin could never have conceived of someone with the ability to "think" who had not been schooled in the humanities.

If some people had their way, would education and professions be merely money/market driven, vacant of all ideals but that utilitarian one? The videos could be seen as sarcastic commentary against such mentality. Or they can be viewed as sarcasm against those who seek any kind of education and career in the humanities or other professions out of a belief in virtuous ideals to improve inwardly themselves and outwardly the world.

To me the videos largely mock the latter (even if not intended), if for no other reason that the students with good intentions appear as comical but tragic boobs, naive idealists, who have no clue that the educational and career paths they seek, and the "thinking" that inspire their choices, are all things of the past, and a moronic romanticized version at that. Moreover what they seek is worthless for making a good living in money-driven America (long one of the highest values in the culture), but having no other value or respect in the eyes of the same.

Two versions of lawyers and the legal system:

Normal Rockwell, "The Law Student"

Meanwhile, the teacher and lawyer are clearly depicted as the sages, who, while jaded about their professions (and American culture as a whole?) at least understand the present reality of market demands and public values. Once like the students they mock, they are now cynics, but sages nevertheless. Sages: assuming of course that you overlook their fatalistic resignation and misery.

I've been thinking about the developments that the videos depict, and my last two blog posts reflect this. In them I lament the contemporary trends that the cynics in the videos lament.

But that is where any similarities between us end. Because for me, those disconcerting trends are all the more reason to hold the line on the classical ideal of education as soulcraft, which I have defined as: "The development of people who know the world in something approaching accuracy, who hold a worldview in something approaching honesty, and live by an inward character in something approaching charity."

I used to give a lecture on "Imperialism and Missions," sometimes titled "Christianity and Globalization," that among other things showed some of the tragic consequences of European expansion in the name of "God, gold and glory" -- which was challenged by the occasional prophetic Christian voice: to wit (in the words of Jesus) that one cannot serve both God and money.

Artist unknown

The lecture ended with the following quotation. It is from nearly a century back in history, and the sentiment it communicates is ancient. But I find it most relevant for today.

"Europeans, and especially to unthinking practical Englishmen, who are accustomed to take what modern political economists call 'the standard of living' as the test of the moral culture of a civilization of a people, the actual life of the Chinese and the people of the East at the present day, will no doubt appear very sordid and undesirable....

In order to estimate the value of a civilization, it seems to me, the question we must finally ask is not what great cities, what magnificent houses, what fine roads it has built...what beautiful and comfortable furniture, what clever and useful implements, tools and instruments it has made...no, not even what institutions, what arts and sciences it has invested; the question we must ask, in order to estimate the value of a civilization--is, what type of humanity, what kind of men and women it has been able to produce."
Ku Hung-Mi, The Spirit of the Chinese People, 1922

I have just of course defended everything that our culture increasingly seems to view as comically and tragically worthless. But I like to think that it was not a mindless defense, nor that cynicism and resignation to these trends are anything to admire or emulate.

"Now, one cannot think of a single area of American life that does not define itself proudly and brazenly by the bottom line...Keep staring at the bottom line, and that's how our civilization will be remembered. America? It knew the value of a dollar, and that's all it knew." Roger Rosenblatt, PBS Newhour, 10 July 2006.

Only time will tell if education based on the value of "the bottom line" will create a civilization of value.

Ruben Rivera©

Education as Soul-Craft: Supplement to previous post: Resistance is Better Pedagogy

2010-10-10T08:22:00.000-07:00

Based on some comments to my last post, both here and via email, I make the following comment which may help to clarify and supplement the point I was trying to make in my previous post: RBP: Resistance is Better Pedagogy.
R. Rivera

Having taught for almost 14 years, I can prove that teachers can captivate, engage, and even revolutionize, positively, the souls of young people with little or no technology use at all, and without needing to transform education into cool and trendy edutainment. Among my most successful teaching strategies utilizes the ancient Socratic question - answer method, and uses, or needs to use, little technology. The only requirement is a brain.

I love the wonderful things technology can do just as much as anyone, and when appropriate I use it in the classroom. But just because a technology or trend is new and popular does not mean it is good of itself, nor that schools and teachers should accommodate it. Conversely, just because something is old doesn't mean it's bad or outdated for teaching methods.

Now let me say something even more dangerous. I do not think that education in America should primarily be about meeting the needs of the market (to keep America strong and on top of the world, which is what I keep hearing from politicians and the business community), or accommodating to youth trends as the way (we are told) to educate them most effectively.

I concede that education should prepare young people to succeed in a world constantly being changed by technology and market trends. When certain jobs are doomed in America and shipped overseas, it only makes sense that young people know this and seek skills appropriate to those changes.

But a central feature of education should be similar to what the ancient Greeks thought of as soulcraft: the development of people who know the world in something approaching accuracy, who hold a worldview in something approaching honesty, and live by an inward character in something approaching charity.

My concern in education is that our culture is largely not conducive to education as soulcraft (unless there are conscious efforts to do otherwise). Education as soulcraft is, I would argue, even more important than trends adaptation or being technically savvy. What good is education that makes a person who knows all about what's cool and may even create the next technological or cultural phenomenon, but functions as if he/she has no knowledge the golden rule?

Norman Rockwell, "The Law Student." What I find interesting in Rockwell's rendition of a law student, are the pictures that surround the humble study space: Abraham Lincoln. This indicates that becoming a lawyer was, for this young person, more than about the lucrative living to be made. It was about truth, justice, and liberty. It was about serving not just self but others. Whatever you think about Lincoln, it is the motivating idea that I am trying to point out here. Here we see in one picture, what I mean by education as soulcraft.

Believe me, I've read those who argue that schools should eschew attempts at education as soulcraft. And yes, I am well aware that every generation complains about where the current generation is headed. I even see some merit to arguments that amount to "When in Rome..." But the Roman Empire is no longer around, and the results we are seeing from current trends don't appear too promising.

I'm reminded of the old definition of insanity (attributed to Einstein): namely, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

RBP: Resistance is Better Pedagogy

2010-10-08T07:29:00.000-07:00

©Rattus Scribus 8 Oct 2010

David Brooks, one of my favorite Op-Ed columnists, has an interesting piece on the new movie "The Social Network," about Mark Zuckerberg, the genius who created facebook. Ironically, Zuckerberg has little social and moral skills himself, yet creates the global online social networking revolution. In so doing, the character study suggests, he creates with his intellect a "medium he understands to conquer a medium he doesn't."

I find this interesting as it comes right at the time my wife (8 years now a 4th grade public school teacher) tells me daily how increasingly difficult it is to "teach" this generation of young people. These are the "natives" of the social network revolution, their day marked by constant interruptions of task-switching (not "multi-tasking," which is impossible) usually connected to on-the-grid time, and bred to be the consumers par excellence.

Most of the people reading this (if you are anything close to my age) are what sociologists term "immigrants" in this online technological world. The natives have the advantage of familiarity of this culture that is as second nature as the language acquisition of the country of one's birth. Older immigrants who finished with their formal education before this revolution and may even be already in their professions are constantly having to acquire new knowledge and cultural skills as if in a foreign land. On the other hand older immigrants have the advantage of knowing that other worlds have existed before this one, and other cultural options and directions are possible and maybe even preferable to the current cultural directions.

Discussions about education in this country are political footballs that ultimately lay the increasing burden of all the problems that need to be overcome on the shoulders of teachers. Witness the documentary "Waiting for Superman" and the flurry of articles it has spawned: the single most important factor in the educational success of America's children is teachers (professional, quality teachers), not more money, not better technology, not social location, etc.

That is actually old news. Only someone who is not a teacher or who has long forgotten what it was like can come up with something so obvious to we who actually teach, and make it sound like a new discovery.

But here is something you will not hear much about. Few politicians or anyone for that matter want to discuss America's cultural problems, only one of which is the emergence of a culture that sees itself as customer (who is always right) and education/school (indeed, everything) as but another product for consumption, the purpose of which is to help them fulfill (you guessed it) their programming for consumption. Add to this the Zuckerberg factor (the trend in the lack of social and moral skills as a cultural norm) and one may begin to see what teachers are up against, especially at the primary and secondary school grades, but even at the college level.

While I agree that teachers are a critical factor in the educational success of students, it is simply unrealistic to expect that every teacher everywhere will be able overcome the tidal wave of American cultural values, assumptions and habits that young people bring with them into the classroom of the type that are largely not conducive to a learning attitude and overall environment. And by the way, the very term "success" (which goes to the very purpose of education) itself needs much critique.

Another problem I'm having with the "all roads lead to the teacher" argument is that it is often lip service, at least in practice. The powers that be still lay off teachers even as they spend gobs of money on Promethean Boards, and subscribe to the "build it and they will come" corporate model, which, for all the arguments used to justify it, never adequately addresses how any of this is GOOD PEDAGOGY FOR THE SPECIFIC EDUCATIONAL GOALS the school has in mind.

The new Promethean Boards in the midst of layoffs is a particularly instructive example at the public school where my wife teaches. The remaining overworked, consumer student and parent (e)valuated teacher-baby-sitters certainly have more bells and whistles to up the entertainment value of education. But nowhere in the training of the use of this technology (so my wife tells me) are the teachers told how more magic boards make for better pedagogy in the face of challenges like larger student to teacher ratios, and "I'm the consumer" student attitudes. (Indeed, such technology only feeds that attitude.)

Here's a thought. Instead of catering to the cultural trends of young people (who, contrary to their own view, do not always know what's best, and in the case of the people who market products to them, may not even care as long as their quarterly statements get fatter), maybe in certain instances Resistance is Better Pedagogy (RBP).

PBS, Frontline documentary, 2007.

Instead of bowing to the tyranny of technological and consumer trends, maybe RBP. Instead of accommodating the cultural assumptions where everything is ultimately judged by "the bottom line," maybe RBP. Maybe RBP is a way to address the current trend in the lack of moral and leadership skills of the next generation who are nevertheless next in line to run things.

Jackass phenomenon: mook icon for boys.

Brittany Spears: pioneer "midriff" icon for girls.
From "Merchants of Cool."

David Brooks concludes his article by saying, "The character gaps that propel some people [like Zuckerberg] to do something remarkable can’t be overcome simply because they have managed to change the world." I think if we want anything like a positive moral outcome to America's educational enterprise, and not just more cultural reproduction, we should seriously consider RBP.

Ruben Rivera

Hey, Who Took My Peace?

2010-10-04T08:08:00.000-07:00

By Rattus Scribus© 4 Oct 2010
(Much revised and condensed from a speech I gave a few years ago.)

Peace means many things to different people.

There is "Peace on Earth": an end to all wars and hostilities between races, classes, parties and nations, and the institution of interdependent and mutually beneficial understanding, friendship and cooperation.

There is "Green Peace" (the moniker taken by the world famous organization): an end to the thoughtless stewardship and openly destructive exploitation of the planet, and the institution of interdependent and mutually beneficial environmental sustainability.
There is "Social Peace": an end to all the human-created divisions, prejudices, and oppressions between races, classes, genders, religions and cultures, and the institution of universal dignity, justice and equality.

There is "Relational Peace": an end to all broken and exclusionary affective associations, and the achievement of reconciliation, not merely as toleration, duty, or reluctant obedience to law, but as genuine conviviality and heartfelt embrace.

There is "Inner Peace": an end to the mental, emotional and spiritual state of turmoil, regret and self-condemnation, and the achievement of unfeigned calmness, contentment, and assurance even in the face of adversity and the unknown.

There is often so little peace in the myriad areas of life, that writer, director, actor Woody Allen once put it humorously:

"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly."

Challenges ranging from the personal (family and relations, health and finances) to the global (war and recession, crime and disaster) seem to conspire to make us all ask at some point in our lives: "Hey, who took my peace?"

Troy McClure, The Simpsons, Fox TV

Unfortunately, there are many oversimplified explanations about what robs or prevents peace and what to do about it. I remember an old Simpson's TV episode that mocked such easy answers.

Troy McClure (TV host): "Hi. I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such self help tapes as 'Smoke Yourself Thin,' and 'Get Some Confidence, Stupid'." [...Let's welcome our guest, Brad Goodman.]

....

Brad Goodman (self-help guru): "Troy, let's say this circle is you."

....

Troy McClure: "My God! It's like you've known me all my life!"

I am not here to claim (1) that I have the patented answer (do exactly what I do and you'll get the same results), or (2) that I experience complete peace in all areas of my life under all conditions seen and unforeseen. Most of us still register disappointment with questioning, doubt, anger and tears. That only means we are authentically human.

But I do believe that an undercurrent of peace as a part of our being and apart from and undiminished by the tumultuous waves of circumstances is possible. I have read of it; I have seen in others; I have personally experienced it. And I have learned that it does not exist or come by accident.

David Hunt, Walking on Water at Bosham

I have come to see that peace is something that comes gradually with maturity through the habit of conscious effort. For me it starts with the principle of the "golden rule" which is foundational to my faith. But you need not be of my religious tradition to live by the "golden rule," a rule not owned by one religion, nor applicable just to humans, but in all relations: international, environmental, social, personal, and yes even inward.

Peace Dove, artist unknown

For if you are consciously committed to nevermore think, say or do anything to anyone that you would never want thought, said, or done to you, that conscious commitment is the beginning of wisdom. And the beginning of wisdom is surely the beginning of peace.

"What lies behind us
and what lies before us,
are small matters compared to
what lies within us."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wisdom & Peace

Heroes Don't Have To Be Super.

2010-09-24T17:22:00.000-07:00

Text and Pencil Drawings by
Rattus Scribus© 24 Sept 2010

I have not drawn in many, many years. Anita has been encouraging me to pick up the pencil once more. As an artist I'm about as out of shape as Jabba the Hut, but it sure is fun.

Ever since I could read, I've been a sucker for superheroes and superhero stories. Comics were my first real entrance to the wonderful world of books, and I could not then and still cannot get enough. During my middle and high school years I was not a good student. I hung around some of the worse kids in the school. We made teachers quit. That will give you an idea of my background.

But I loved to read, and I read more than anyone I knew (which may not be saying much). So while school bored me to tears and I barely graduated high school, I was engaging, quite by accident, in a significant amount of self-education. Years later when I got married and started college, all my teachers loved my work; and I owe it to my start in comics. Today, ironically perhaps, I am a teacher.

The comic book stories I read as a child may have been primitive compared to some of today's sophisticated writers. For one, the science was often just plain bad. I still laugh at how many superheroes got their powers from exposure to some radioactive cosmic energy -- gamma ray bombs, rocketing through Van Allen's radiation belt, radioactive spider bites, tumbling into horrifically toxic sludge, and so on. And instead of withering to bacon, the characters end up with the ability to juggle tanks, flame on, scale walls, and control nature.

Nevertheless, I learned a lot. At 10 years old I knew words like inundate, quandary, conundrum, heinous, raiment, refulgent, salutary and munificent. I also understood basic physics concepts like the inseparability of time and space, and why (if E=mc2 is true at all) humans cannot and never will travel Faster Than Light (FTL), despite all the sci-fi books and movies that depict otherwise.

But my love of superheroes was more than just knowledge acquisition, or even childhood fascination with fantastic powers and thrilling adventures. For a time my biggest dream and prayer request to God was to be a superhero. Crazy, I know. But there was practical reason behind the madness.

I wanted to save the world, and the world I grew up in needed saving, badly. For this was the time of Cold War paranoia, epitomized by the Cuban missile standoff that nearly plunged the world into the unthinkable; a time of race riots in virtually every major American city; a time of assassinations -- President Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, and Robert Kennedy; a time of protests, from the Vietnam War to civil rights to the drug and sexual revolutions.

I wanted to help. But what could one lone skinny kid do about any of this? Comics came to the rescue, because I saw in them, three very important things that have stayed with me ever since.

First, comics stirred in me the beginnings of a social consciousness. Certain superheroes and stories impressed upon my young mind the need to look at evil and injustice in the world and to expose the causes. In many of the first comics I read, problems were often reduced to individual megalomaniacal super baddies who either wanted to rule the world or destroy it. But in the 1960s and early 70s, comics took a big risk and started dealing with systemic social problems like racism, drugs, homelessness, gender discrimination, political corruption and more, all reflective of real contemporary challenges.

Blue Beetle (Hispanic teen Jaime Reyes). Many comics today include ethnically diverse superheroes and social commentary. Such elements were rare when I was a child.

Second, action. Superheroes always took action whenever they saw the innocent threatened with danger, whether human, natural, alien, or mystic. I remember when Martin Luther King Jr. said: "History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people." His exhortation may well have been all the more influential on me because the groundwork had already been prepared by those comic superheroes who took Edmund Burke seriously when he said, all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.

Third, there is rarely a convenient time to be a hero. I loved Superman, but the guy is basically a god. When you're invulnerable to all but a rare chunk of your destroyed home planet, being a hero is not much to risk. Comic book writers understood this, and wrote some stories where heroes are marked not by their power, but by their willingness to do an utterly selfless heroic thing, even at great personal cost.

In my top five superheroes of all time is a Marvel character by the name of the Silver Surfer. Issue number five (1969) is titled "And Who Shall Mourn For Him?" The Silver Surfer, an alien being endowed with the "power cosmic" is exiled on earth. Misunderstood and hounded by a fearful and violent human race, he has at last found to his surprise that one human has befriended him, a scientific genius named Al B. Harper, who as an African American knows full well what it is like to be misunderstood, feared and hated.

Al B. Harper, a non-super hero.
Silver Surfer # 5 (Marvel Comics, 1969)
By Stan Lee and John Buscema

But a super-powered alien named the Stranger has arrived and judged humanity to be too wantonly ignorant and savage to live. This affront to the universe shall be destroyed by a (wait for it) "Null-Life bomb," which the Stranger has hidden somewhere in New York. While the Silver Surfer battles the stranger and seeks to change his mind about destroying the world, Al Harper frantically searches for the bomb using a sort of Geiger device.

Silver Surfer #5 (Marvel Comics, 1969)

Despite the ever-reliable ignorant humans who nearly thwart his efforts, Harper succeeds in finding and dismantling the bomb, but at great cost. An anti-tampering device is set off and Harper is killed, but the world saved. The Stranger then realizes that if one human is willing to lay down his life for his fellow humans, then perhaps the species does have redeeming value. He departs, leaving the Surfer to mourn the only human who, knowing alienation, befriended an alien. Although the world does not even know of Al Harper's sacrifice to save it, the Silver Surfer leaves on his otherwise unmarked grave an eternal flame as a testimony to a real hero.

This story and others like it (and my later introduction to Christianity) taught me that heroes don't have to have super-powers, only the willingness to be available. And that is something we all can do: a helping hand, a kind word, giving with no thought of reward, a shoulder to cry on, support, affirmation, love. These are the every day heroic acts that matter.

Above: A very kind rendition of me, after one of my favorite superheroes: The Silver Surfer. I loved this character not only because he had the coolest superpowers -- he could travel the distant galaxies, skim the surface of suns, and manipulate matter and energy -- but because comics legend Stan Lee made him among the wisest and noblest of heroes. I realized as a child that the Surfer had a wisdom that came with having seen much of the universe, with great civilizations that flourished for a time but are now long since gone, and what legacy did they leave? This cosmic perspective seemed sorely missing among us humans who tend to be imprisoned to the cultural-historical moment.

Heroes don't have to be super.
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Is Solitude Going The Way of The Dodo?

2010-09-17T10:35:00.001-07:00

By Rattus Scribus© 17 Sept 2010

I am the last of my kind, so I think

I'll put all my eggs safely in one basket.

(From a humorous cartoon I saw once.)

Most of us have heard, read, or watched a tale about a future world in which all privacy has been eliminated. It usually starts off in the name of benevolent protection of the people from an enemy, and inevitably the people themselves become the enemy. Orwell's 1984, the Wachowski brothers' The Matrix, Alan Moore's V for Vendetta, these are entertaining and thought-provoking.

Poster based on Orwell's 1984

But I never gave the premise enough concern to do anything about it personally. Until in a recent documentary, scholars demonstrated how the internet, cell phones, sophisticated non-stop consumer advertisement, astounding and increasingly ubiquitous surveillance capabilities, tracking and information devices on everything from consumer goods to pets and people, and other technologies, are making the world into a place where privacy and solitude are going the way of the Dodo bird.

"You have zero privacy now. Get over it."

Scott McNealy, CEO, Sun Microsystems, 1999

This small meditation is not about stirring up dire Orwellian predictions. But I am convinced that, in the face of these developments, unless we each take deliberate steps in our lives, solitude (significant quiet time that recharges and nourishes your mind, soul and faith) will become an endangered or even extinct practice.

Photo: Chris Otten, Camerahead Project (Devoted

to calling attention to America becoming a land

of surveillance cameras).

This truth came home to me not by reading and watching V for Vendetta, but during one of those moments of confirmation that come when prayer and a growing conviction collide with a seeming coincidence.

My wife Anita and I were driving in the Lake Elmo region of Minnesota looking for a mom and pop garden nursery. It was clear from the bleached buffalo bones and tumble weeds that we had strayed quite off the beaten path of civilization. Just then, something like a resort campground came into view, and a man ambling casually down the wooded trail towards the roadway where we waited to ask him for directions.

As soon as he was within earshot, I called out, "Excuse me! Can we trouble you for some directions?" He walked over to the car and gave us the directions that would thereafter get us to our destination. After he had finished speaking, I asked, "What is this place? It's beautiful. Do you live here?" He responded that it was the Jesuit Retreat Center at Demontreville in Lake Elmo, that he had come there seeking God in solitude and silence, and that his words to me were the first he had spoken in a week.

Now I may not be the sharpest knife on the butcher block, but even I knew that at that moment I represented precisely what spiritual adepts throughout the ages have gone to monasteries, retreats, deserts and remote mountains to get away from: the tyranny of the urgent, a mad whirling dervish of a world that will have us body and soul if we let it.

As I enter a new phase of my life I have become increasingly determined to protect this endangered species; to practice some environmental clean-up in my little world so that quality solitude should not become extinct.

So far I have affirmed three classical principles:

1. Don't think of the whole journey; think of the first step.

2. A little done often is better than a lot done rarely.

3. And third, with thanks to Jedi Master Yoda: "Do, or do not. There is no try."

Balzac And The Blair Bitch: A Children's Story For Adults

2010-09-10T05:31:00.000-07:00

By Rattus Scribus© 10 Sept 2010
Fabulous drawings by Anita Rivera©
Also found on our other blog: Witsend
Preface:
I don't know who came up with the saying, "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." I'm sure she or he meant well; and it does sound clever, almost poetic. But I don't think it delivers very well on its promise. A broken bone can heal. But cruel, humiliating, dehumanizing words can inflict terrible pain and significantly shape one's self-image negatively. Words do indeed hurt.

Recently I saw a situation in which a child was called something horrible. You could see clearly the internal hurt and damage occurring. That event was the inspiration for the following story.

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Balzac and the Blair Bitch:
a Children's Story for Adults
By Rattus Scribus© 10 Sept 2010
Fabulous drawings by Anita Rivera©

Meet Balzac. He is a wire-haired Fox Terrier that lives next door. Isn't he cute? He is also loyal and brave, I mean really. If you read a book or web page on the Fox Terrier, it will say something like this:

The Fox Terrier may not always be friendly with strangers, but it is very loving and protective of its owners. If the Fox Terrier senses any danger to its human family, it will charge to the rescue with utter contempt for its own safety. When it comes to protecting loved ones, the Fox Terrier knows no fear.

Balzac gives of himself 100 percent all the time, rain or shine. He gives 100 percent when he eats, plays, and sleeps. He gives 100 percent to his friends, to love and happiness. But he also gives 100 percent when he is angry or getting even with his enemies.

When Balzac is a good dog, he's good 100 percent. But when he's a bad dog, he's bad 100 percent. Good dog Balzac will make you laugh. Bad dog Balzac will make you scream.

One day Balzac sees new neighbors moving into the house next door, and he is 100 percent curious to see if they have a dog. They do. Her name is Blair, and by a strange coincidence she is also a Fox Terrier.

Balzac falls in love (100 percent of course). He thinks to himself: "I must win the heart of the fair bitch Blair."

(Now in English, bitch is simply the word for a female dog, like sow is the word for a female bear, drone for a male bee, and jackass for a male donkey. So Balzac wants to win the love of the fair female dog Blair.)

In love 100 percent, Balzac sets out to win Blair, you guessed it, 100 percent.

Every day Balzac dreams of Blair: chasing a ball together, or playing tug-of-war with a toy, or rolling in the grass (all these games done, well, you know).

Whenever Blair is near the fence, Balzac will run and get a dog treat from his bowl and poke it through the fence to give to her.

He even makes up poetry and songs about her.

Oh, fair bitch Blair
of wire hair
and gorgeous button eyes.

I do declare
a love most fair.
Be mine or else I dies.

As you can see, Balzac is not much of a poet. But what he lacks in words (which of course to humans sound like barks, woofs, growls, yelps and howls), he more than makes up for in complete sincerity.

There is only one problem. Blair seems to have no interest in Balzac whatsoever. None. Nada. Nul. Zip. Zilch. Zero. 0 percent is not something that Balzac's brain can even compute.

It isn't that Blair does not like Balzac. It's just that she is different from him. He's an all or nothing dog. She's more give and take. He likes loud activity. She likes quiet. He is very forward. She is more reserved. He wants a girlfriend. She just wants to be a girl.

But Balzac does not understand their differences and he gets completely discouraged. He becomes irritable and takes out his frustration on everybody, especially strangers.

The poor mail carrier becomes Balzac's mortal enemy. Everyday when she delivers the mail, Balzac growls and barks at her and makes threatening gestures. One time Balzac even tries to bite her. Luckily for the mail carrier, he just rips her pants.

"You need to discipline Balzac," says the mail carrier to the owner, "or I'm not going to deliver your mail anymore. He has to learn to treat others with respect."

The one who gets the worst of it is Blair. Balzac begins growling and rushing at her like he is going to bite her. Because of the fence he can't touch her. But she is still frightened.

Since Balzac can't bite Blair, he begins calling her names. Sometimes people will take a name and twist it in order to make cruel fun and hurt you. That's what Balzac does to Blair.

"Bark Woof, Bark Woof, Bark Woof," which in human means: "Blair Bitch, Blair Bitch, Blair Bitch." When he was totally in love, Balzac called her "fair bitch Blair." Now that he is all mad, he calls her "Blair Bitch," and there is a big difference.

Blair is deeply hurt. She doesn't know what she did to be called such a terrible name.

"Bark Woof, Bark Woof, Bark Woof," Balzac keeps shouting relentlessly from his side of the fence. "Bark Woof, Bark Woof, Bark Woof."

"STOP IT! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!" It is Balzac's master speaking. "I don't know what's gotten into you, but you will stop it this instant. Leave Blair alone or be nice to her. Be friendly and then you will both be happy."

The kind human disciplines Balzac and makes him stop being mean and calling Blair that awful version of her name.

In time Balzac learns that being respectful is not something you do when you feel right, but because it is right; and if you work at being nice, you might actually become nice. Who knows, maybe one day he will be 100 percent respectful and nice.

And everything ends happily ever after.

And everything ends happily ever after.

Tolkein Friendship

2010-09-03T15:18:00.000-07:00

By Rattus Scribus©

I've been thinking about friendship lately. Especially since the possibility of friendships has both expanded exponentially as well as changed dramatically as a result of instantaneous communication via the worldwide web.

Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, blogging, email and other forms of social networking have created the largest pool of personal contacts from which friends can be made in all of human history. I have heard or read people say, "I have 600 friends on Facebook," like they were collecting merit badges to put on display.

Some people claim to have thousands of "friends." THOUSANDS OF FRIENDS! I get exhausted just thinking about it. I wonder if that is even possible, and then I realize: "Duh! We obviously have different conceptions of friends and friendship."

I read somewhere once something J. R. R. Tolkien said about friendship and I have a close affinity with his view. Friendship is not a term fitting for someone you recently met. That is a "recent acquaintance," though of course friendship can develop, perhaps quickly, from that initial meeting. Nor is friendship automatically applicable to someone you have "known" for a long time. That is simply a long time acquaintance. I have had dozens of colleagues over the years that I have been teaching, and some of them are wonderful human beings. But the people I count as friends are far fewer in number.

Tolkein said something like this (and I am paraphrasing): a friend is someone who SEES YOU. Or to put it another way, a friend is someone who SEES WHAT YOU SEE. They may not agree with every thing you see. But they see it; they see you; they "get" you. And of course -- and this is critical -- a friend is someone who will "stand with you" come what may.

Hobbits Hiding from Ringwraith, by Gary Cook, 1998.
Based on scene from LOTR animated film,
Ralph Bakshi, Dir. 1978.

This SEEING and STANDING aspect is what I call "Tolkein Friendship," and it is clearly depicted in the myth-master's magnum opus, The Lord of the Rings.

Merry: "You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin–to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours–closer than you yourself keep it. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo. Anyway: there it is. We know most of what Gandalf has told you. We know a good deal about the ring. We are horribly afraid–but we are coming with you; or following you like hounds." (LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring)

Scene: Fellowship of the Ring,
Peter Jackson Dir. 2001

This statement by Frodo's friend Merry Brandybuck (speaking also for the other friends Sam Gamgee and Pippin Took) reveals that friends are people that have loyalty to each other, but (and this is important) "without subservience," as one author put it.
(Have you ever known a person who calls you their "friend," but only on their terms, only based on your subservience to them in some way? Friends they most decidedly are not!)

Friends are, without equivocation, equals and responsible to each other.

So the person who says that he/she has thousands of friends on the web cannot possibly mean it in the same way that these four hobbits meant it. For a friend is someone who becomes nothing less than family, indeed, sometimes closer than individual blood relatives. Sometimes disagreeing with them. Sometimes frustrated, even mad at them. Sometimes separated by time and great distance. But ever attached by the bonds of affection, regard, respect, concern and good will.

It is this Tolkein Friendship that is a major theme running throughout the LOTR trilogy, and The Hobbit before that. It is Tolkein Friendship that helps to supply the bearer of the One Ring what he needs, what he does not have by himself, for his epic journey.

"[Frodo] saw his friends' faces more clearly again, and a measure of new strength and hope returned." (LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring)

Sam carries Frodo. Scene: Return of the King, Peter Jackson, Dir. 2003

I have read some writers who think that the development of internet social networks has created a culture in which millions of people are constantly in contact with everybody and know nobody.

While I think this is certainly true for some. It is definitely not true for everyone. Anita and I have made what we feel are nascent and nurturing friendships in bloglandia. Some of you are "blood" family who are also dearest friends.

Others are people we have come to know through many blog correspondences, comments, team story telling and a general sharing of silliness. A few of you we have actually had visits with face to face. Others of you we dream of meeting some day, even if we have to fly half way around the world to do it.

And so, to all of you whom we have enjoyed so much in our journey through bloglandia:

Blessings to you, our Tolkien Friends.

The Golden Girls, NBC sitcom, 1985-1992

In prosperity, our friends know us; in adversity, we know our friends.

— John Churton Collins

No one ever won an argument that lost a friend.
— Unknown

No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are throughout persuaded of each other's worth.
— Robert Southey

No miles of any measurement can separate your soul from mine.
— John Muir

My P-r-r-re-cious!: A Lesson from The Lord of the Rings

2010-08-27T06:02:00.000-07:00

Scene: LOTR: Return of the King, Peter Jackson, Dir.

By Rattus Scribus©

My wife and I just finished watching, again, Peter Jackson's film adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's trilogy masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, one of my favorite reads since childhood. There are many lessons I have gleaned from this series over the years. But for this post I will focus on one, "the precious."

Many people of course know that I am referring to Sauron's master ring, with which the Dark Lord of Mordor sought to enslave all Middle Earth under his evil rule. In a previous bid for total domination, Sauron failed. The ring was lost and eventually ended up in the hands of a "river-folk" hobbit named Sméagol, who killed another hobbit to get it.

Corrupted by the power of the ring, Sméagol became Gollum, a frightful and pathetic creature of unnaturally great age with a mind as demented and disfigured as his physical appearance.

Gollum, by Greg & Tim Hildrebrandt

In time, the one ring was lost to Gollum and was found (stolen as Gollum saw it) by the hobbit Bilbo Baggins of The Shire.

In the LOTR trilogy, it is the great burden of Bilbo's young relative Frodo, to take the dangerous journey to Mordor, there to cast the ring into the volcano Mt. Doom where it was forged and thus the only place it can be destroyed.

Throughout the epic journey Gollum pursues the bearer of the ring, and even becomes Frodo's guide into the "valley of shadow." But Gollum does all with one relentless goal, one purpose to the exclusion of all safety and reason: he must get back the ring: "We wants it. We needs it. Must have the pr-r-re-cious!"

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I have often thought how people, myself included, have our own versions of "the precious." It can be a fault in our personality or habit that is simply not up for discussion.

"I'm not listening. I'm not listening."
Scene: LOTR: The Two Towers, Peter Jackson, Dir.

I've known some people whose "precious" is to make others feel bad, because they feel bad. "I get to treat you like dirt because life has treated me like dirt. It's my right, mine, my own, my pr-r-re-cious!"

Most of us at one time have our own unassailable precious like money and possessions, careers, even religious beliefs.

What makes these like Gollum's precious is not that we should never pursue or have things like possessions or careers or beliefs. It is that they can become unhealthy distortions. At such times, even a good can become monstrous.

When profit, possessions and influence are pursued at the expense of people -- sometimes at the sacrifice of millions of people, their livelihoods and lives -- those things become our horrible "precious."
When one is married or devoted to career far more than spouse and family for which the career is supposed to exist in the first place, that career becomes our "precious."

And, dare I say it, when belief trumps common sense goodness, then even faith becomes a corrupting "precious." While he was being tortured for holding certain religious beliefs contrary to "established church doctrine," the 16th century Anabaptist, Balthasar Hubmaier asked his tormentors this tragic question: "You burn a man to uphold a doctrine?" (On Heretics and Those Who Burn Them, 1524). The church said in heavenly fashion: "But this is my belief, my own, my pr-r-re-cious!" Then in hellish fashion proceeded to burn him alive. But they were wrong. Hubmaier was right. I am a definite subscriber to the dictum that one cannot claim to love a God they've never seen, and not love people one can see every day. (Matthew 22:37-39; 1 John 4:20)

Mt. Doom, by Tim Kirk

As I begin a new academic year of teaching college students, I will meditate on those things in my life that have become my versions of "the precious." So if you think of me, pray that I will have the wisdom and strength to cast them all into the mountain of fire.

Humbly yours,
Rattus Scribus

Look Out, Here Comes the Birthday Girl

2010-08-24T07:35:00.000-07:00

We composed this birthday song in honor of our dear friend The Dutchess. (You can find her wonderful website here.) Sing along to the tune of "Spiderman" -- the 1960s TV cartoon. You can listen to the tune now playing, them shut off the sound and sing the words below.
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Birthday girl, Birthday girl

Not a Duke, not an Earl.

Dutchess this is your day

Beat the drum, hip hooray.

Look out, here comes the Birthday girl.

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Happy Birthday Dutchess.
From your devoted friends,

Rattus & Tea Rat

The Light Shines in the Darkness

2010-08-21T10:54:00.000-07:00

By Rattus Scribus©

My wife Anita from Castles Crowns and Cottages just posted an inspirational topic very relevant to me. For I am the type of personality that needs to be reminded often about the beauty and goodness in the world.

Ever since I was a child the harsh things of our world have tended to accost my attention and cost me no small amount of emotional labor.

The first time I saw Woody Allen's Annie Hall, I had to laugh at the young neurotic Alvy Singer (Allen), so distraught over everything, even the universe coming to an end billions of years in future.

(Pause the song on the playlist, see the 46 sec video clip here then return to reading)1

In a way, I actually envied Alvy. For I was a child who was forced to live inside his head, because unlike Alvy whose family took him to counseling, I had no such outlet. And so the darkness at times seemed to overwhelm.

Street violence that's senseless as usual, industrial violence on the earth that's business as usual, profit at the expense of people, tragic -isms, hell unleashed in the name of heaven, cruel words and acts that injure the innocent, graves filled with the wrongfully dead, oceans of tears, woes seemingly without limit.

But over the years I have seen the light in the darkness too, and in the words of the apostle: "the darkness has not overcome it."

I remember when Anita and I were first dating. One day we took a trip to a beach in Southern California. The sun was beginning to set over the water, and we walked hand in hand with the water dancing about our bare feet.

Then, dunderhead that I was, I looked out over the sea and told my soon-to-be wife this: "Can you believe all the pollution we've created? Isn't it sad?" We talked about this episode later: how while she was lost in the love the moment and was therefore more able to see the beauty in our surroundings, I threw a wet blanket on the whole thing with my, "sad state of the world" spiel.

Anita tells me often that I have inspired her in so many ways. Well, she has been my strongest reminder to see the sun through every gloomy cloud.

The magic in the deep forest.

The rainbow after the rain.

The arts that inspire us in ways we never previously imagined and show us what is possible that is good and kind and beautiful, full of hope and love unconquerable.

Yes, I do believe it.

"The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it." John 1:5

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1. Picture still from "Annie Hall," 1977, Dir. Woody Allen.
2. All other pictures found via "public domain" search strings.

In the Glow of Cottage Lights

2010-07-29T07:41:00.001-07:00

By ©Rattus Scribus, 30 July 2010.

Many of you know that Anita and I love the cottage. The cottage and its surroundings conjures in our spirits a peaceful existence in a pristine, undamaged nature and a magical community with all that is lovely in flora and fauna. In this world of the cottage there are tree lined paths that beckon adventure, the aromas of wild herbs waft through the air, fruits and vegetables have a flavor to be found in no modern food store chain, and fairies dance in moonlit gardens.

Inside the cottage, walls of books inhabit cozy rooms, animal friends visit frequently for food and fellowship, and love always outshines any evil in the wood.

Thus, in our many venturings, we are always on the lookout for anything that enhances the magic of the cottage. This summer we found lighting that had to be inspired by fairies, if not made by fairies themselves.

The first was a vintage bronze tree candelabra that was on a table of "discontinued" sale items. We both gasped simultaneously. "That's it!" Which to us meant, this is something we've dreamed about but never saw anywhere. We bought it immediately and took it to the cottage.

The second we found in an antique shop in Stillwater, Minnesota, one of our favorite local places to visit. It is a fairy lamp par excellence.

We fitted the candelabra with battery LED candles that light up automatically at dusk and shut off after six hours. We love the added sense of fairy magic when the candles light up on their own one by one. We wait for it each night.

I had to replace the electrical guts of the fairy lamp and fit it with a flame flicker bulb. When we turned it on, we went "Oooh!"

I know, I know. Maybe we are far too easily amused. Maybe we're still just too childlike. All I know is that everyone should be so fortunate. Anyone who can find magic and joy in so little a thing may have found one secret to a happy life.

In the glow of cottage lights, love always outshines any evil in the wood.

Reunions

2010-07-02T15:20:00.000-07:00

It happens to nations once torn apart by civil war. It happens to rock n' roll bands, high school friends, and to lovers. Reunions.

Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant as Elinor and Edward in the 1995 movie adaptation of Austen's classic.

The final coming together of Edward Ferrars and Elinor Dashwood in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility (1811), is to me one of the great reunions in literature.

Reunions happen in many places around the world and sometimes they are glorious. It happened to Anita and me during our recent visit to California.

I see my family about every two years and it is always wonderful. But Anita and her family had not seen each other in fourteen years, so that meeting was like something approaching epic.

The visit was more amazing still because we were also reunited, as it were, with some people who have become dear to us, but until then we had only known them via web blogging and email correspondence. Below are some pictures with captions: a sort of travelogue of these most memorable reunions.
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First, we flew to one part of California and had an indescribably happy reunion with my sister Nancy and her precious family. The up-till-all-hours fellowship and the fairy-like magic and hospitality of their home alone would have made the trip worthwhile (she is a home decorator par excellence; see her blog Fete et Fleur). My sister is very discreet concerning the information available on the internet about her family, so all I can say is that you brought a new level of joy to my heart. I love you ALL deeply. (And no, Anita and I are not standing in front of my sister's house. If only.)

A view from the Korbel Winery. Beautiful garden and history tour, followed by Champagne tasting.

Dinner at "The Claim Jumper" restaurant. Anita and I had never been to a place where the food was great and the portions were maniacal. That thing to the left of my brother's plate that looks like a small Bolivian village is actually a hamburger.

Southern California has some beautiful flora which never ceases to amaze me, like this Moreton Fig Tree that was planted in the city of old Orange in 1875. I had to walk across the street to capture something of its great size. It was so big that I did not notice the guy standing in the tree until he let out this blood curdling scream that made me literally jump in the air. The base lout was in the tree long before I got there and long after I left (I saw him there on the return trip), which reminds me of another thing about California that never ceases to amaze me: weirdness.

Anita and Penny, one our dearest blogger friends from Angelsdoor and a partner on the fun blog Nowhere. Our friendship moved from web to face-to-face. It was a marvelous reunion with a marvelous human being.

With Anita's very dear childhood friend, Edie.

Me on one of our regular morning walks in beautiful uptown Whittier.

The reunion with Anita's relatives and our mutual blogger friends. The party began at 10:00AM and everyone was having so much fun that it didn't break up until about 10:00PM, and it was supposed to be a "breakfast" event. This was an absolutely beautiful experience. I don't know how else to put.

Reunion of the Bloggers (sounds like a movie thriller). From left to right: the non-stop hilarious Debbie from From Venting to Viggo, Anita's dear cousin Marie from Dancing in Tattered Shoes, my Anita from Castles Crowns and Cottages, Bunny from I'm Just Sayin', and Yours truly. If you got a barrel full of monkeys, hit them with a massive dose of laughing gas and put them in the middle of a last comedian standing competition, they would not have had as much fun and laughter as we did that day.

Reunions happen in many places around the world and sometimes they are glorious.

The Toad & The Stool

2010-05-08T18:06:00.000-07:00

The Toad & The Stool

I was sitting in the university pub called The Toad & The Stool, nursing a beer and a bad day, when the door flung open violently, allowing a stormy gale to invade the establishment and diminish its precious warmth, causing no small consternation to myself and the other patrons. Along with the wind rushed in a rat, prodigious in size and circumference, who was at once distinguished and comical in appearance. One paw held a shredded skeletal object that I quickly surmised was once an umbrella. In the other paw was an open attaché case with its paper contents visibly exposed and trailing behind him on the ground.

The great rat’s wet and flapping overcoat was attached to his person, heaven knows why, by just one sleeved arm. Underneath, his tweed suit was of fine quality, but rumpled, even soiled in places, as if it had long functioned both for his profession and pajamas. His hat was a drenched and collapsed ruin, under which were furious black eyes set in a flushed and sanguine face. A pair of bent gold-rimed pince-nez clung barely to his nose, as if to life itself; and a soggy, battered belvedere was clenched between his teeth.

As if they were infected with the plague, the imposing rat cast off his outerwear and other accouterments upon the pegs and racks while simultaneously uttering several expletives in as many seconds. “The door,” shouted the proprietor from behind the bar. The rat had not yet shut it. Quickly gathering a few papers from the floor and stuffing them into his case, he then leaned his bulk on the wind-buttressed door and sent it squealing on its massive hinges to a more violent close than when he had opened it.

He stood there for a moment panting heavily, and then suddenly became a statue. Just then I knew why. For I too was startled by several animals dashing past The Toad & The Stool, appearing as a mass of chaotic and distorted images through the pub’s colored bottle-bottom windows. The horde was an undecipherable cacophony, except for an occasionally intelligible, “Not sure” and “This way.” And with that the disturbing apparition blew down the lane like so much debris swept along by the tempest, and the rat regained motion once again.

-----

Needless to say, everyone’s attention was focused on the drama, particularly on the intruder who hadn’t the sense to close a door in foul weather before divesting. Not a sip of ale had been drawn by anyone, as we all waited to see at which unlucky table he would sit. As I had ensconced myself several tables from the hearth in a posture that communicated clearly, “Do Not Disturb,” I felt secure. Surely he would want to sit somewhere near the warming fire after what had obviously been a miserable journey or perhaps some misadventure. But to my utter dismay, the corpulent fellow glanced around the room, immediately fixed eyes upon me, walked, or rather bounded, toward my table, planted his considerable frame in the bench directly opposite mine, and shouted, to no one and everyone: “A pint of dark, that the quicker the world may return to reason.”

Still out of breath, he turned his head only slightly and shouted out of the side of his mouth: “And may I trouble the house for a towel?” Turning to me, he added without a second’s pause: “Mad I tell you, all of them mad. That university is populated with certifiable lunatics.” This he said to me, a stranger to both the town and the pub, sitting directly in front of him, without lowering his voice a single decibel.

I was annoyed to say the least. For not only had my solitude been invaded without so much as a pardon or introduction, but the whole establishment now fixed its attention in my direction, when privacy and inattention were my earnest desire.

“Look here,” I said brusquely. “There is no one at this moment that appears more certifiable than you do now. That you seem wholly oblivious to your behavior only adds to that conviction. And if you do not calm down and lower your voice I shall be forced to move to another location.”

“Sorry,” he said, while trying to unbend his pince-nez. “But really, this place is the limit. I beg your pardon. I am Dr. Rattus Scribus, Professor of Religion, at your service. I am new at the university; and if I told you what happened to me on this my very first day, you would think me a liar or insane.”

He had only slightly attenuated his volume, so that the pub could still hear him. I came soon to realize that Rattus Scribus is nearly incapable of speaking softly at all. Indeed, a still small voice would be out of character coming from a rat whose physical dimensions were surpassed only by his exuberant persona.

-----

A dark middle-aged rabbit wearing an apron, with a tray carrying a pint and a towel, came to our table. His appearance was unforgettable. He was enormous, all of muscle, one of his eyes was completely dim and obviously useless; his body was covered with scars, and one ear was a tatter. An intimidating creature if ever there was one. It was rumored that he was one of those rare animals who had managed to escape from the so-called world of humans, having found a magic portal into our own. I had always believed that this other world was only a myth. To me, the obvious explanation for the rabbit’s maimed appearance was that he was a war veteran, or perhaps a former prize fighter.
“Brumbel’s me name,” said the battered giant in a voice as course as gravel. He eyed my books on the table and I hastily moved them to make space for the ale. “Lucky Brumbel,” he continued. “You can call me by Lucky or Brumbel, whichever you prefer. I be the proprietor, and always welcomes newcomers to The Toad & The Stool. That’s me wife, Meri. She be the barmaid.” The barmaid was, like her husband, a rabbit. But that is where the similarities between them ended. For she was young, petite, with pristine auburn fur, and unmistakably alluring.

“Anyways, Sirs, I welcomes you to our ‘umble pub. ‘Respects to your fellow, then do as please.’” He set down the towel for Rattus Scribus to dry himself and gave us both a look that communicated less “welcome” and more “I’ve got me eye on you,” a sentiment that was both literal and not a little disturbing coming from a hulking one-eyed rabbit.

-----

“Thank you kindly,” said the jovial Dr. Scribus, with not a hint of trepidation in the presence of the august Lucky Brumbel, who simply nodded almost imperceptibly, spun about-face and marched back to the bar.

“Civilization at last,” Scribus announced again to the world. “I had nearly despaired for its existence.”

I was on the verge of getting up to exchange locations or leave the pub altogether, I knew not which, when the jumbo rat read my intent and accosted me with this question.

“Tell me, Sir, do you think it is science or religion that provides the best answers to the most pressing questions and needs of the world?”

“Are you in the habit, Dr. Scribus, of invading places, coming up to total strangers and asking them questions about which no two people are likely to agree? If you are, you are in the wrong place, in the wrong form, with the wrong stranger.”

“It appears, to the contrary,” he said, “that I have come precisely to the right place, at the right time, with the right stranger, one who has obviously managed to experience a day as wicked as my own, coincidence enough to be deemed miraculous in the mind of some.”

I cannot remember if I was more annoyed at him or myself: at his presumptuousness, or that my manner was so unguarded that I had allowed a complete stranger to read me so easily.

“See here, my stout friend. You know nothing of me or my day, and as you are a Professor of Religion, I will keep my religious opinions to myself so as not to be rude. Now, I think I’ve had enough excitement for one day. Good evening to you Sir,” I said rising to leave, books in hand.

“Come now, Professor,” he said. “Do stay. Perhaps we can become acquainted, recount our troubled day, and discuss that question on our mutual interest in the debate between science and religion. Such as we cannot keep these issues to ourselves.”

Defensive curiosity overcame my annoyance and I sat back down. “How do you know me, Sir?”

“I do not.”

“I don’t believe you. You have been spot on, on three facts about me. That I’ve had a wicked day. That I have studied religion-science debates, much in fact. And that I am a Professor at the university. Moreover, amazingly enough, like you, this was my first day.”

“That is four facts,” said Rattus Scribus.

“Excuse me?”

“I was fairly certain of the first three. Although if I knew the name of the person I have the pleasure of addressing, I might have deduced the fourth.”

He had me. I could not leave until I found out if this rat was friend or fiend.

-----

“I am Spinoza Benedictus Hedgehog,” I said, “Professor of Natural Philosophy. Now if you will tell me how you came here, how you came to sit with me of all patrons, and how you knew those facts about me without our being previously acquainted, then I will answer your question on religion and science.”

“My good pleasure to meet you, Professor. Please, do call me Rattus.”

As we were talking, Dr. Scribus retrieved a small calabash and a pouch from an inside pocket, inserted the former into the latter, gently thumbing some tobacco into the bowl. He folded and restored the pouch to his pocket. He then placed the calabash in his mouth, taking measured draughts from the stem to test for optimum airflow, while simultaneously being enraptured, eyes closed, by the aroma. The image of that ritual was almost enough to make me take up the pipe, an image quickly shattered upon ignition.

“You were saying,” I coughed.

“Well, as to your bad day, I deduced from two facts that were soon confirmed by a third. Upon entering this public house, I immediately noticed you sitting alone at a table normally accommodating to four. Moreover, everything about your body language said ‘stay away.’ To wit, the spines of a hedgehog, normally relaxed when the mind is at peace, were in your case pointed outward in an expression of consternation, anger or threat. I say, that must be hard on the clothes.”

“Perhaps we’ll discuss which of us has the more unusual sartorial habits at a later time,” I said. “And the third, Dr. Scribus?”

“Please call me Rattus,” he said looking at his own suit and trying to smooth out the wrinkles. “The first two observations were sufficient to indicate your mood, but you confirmed my suspicions as to a possible cause when you said that you had had enough excitement for one day.”

“Are you a detective, Dr. Scribus?”

“Rattus, dear fellow. No, Historian, though the two crafts do indeed overlap. Now as to you being a professor I surmised from the proximity of this pub to the university, that your age is mature and your attire more befitting a careful professional than the average student, and from the scholarly books on the table. Finally, your interest in religion is clear from the titles of some of those same books, as well as your later comment on religion and science questions about which no two people would agree. Who would say that but one who has given such questions serious thought?”

-----

Dr. Scribus punctuated his last words by thumping his now empty glass down upon the table, like a gavel accompanying a judge’s verdict. The act had a double entendre. For the barmaid rightly took it as a summons, and suddenly appeared asking if we would like another drink. It was in my mind to decline. But, truth be told, I was in no hurry to expose myself to the harsh elements outdoors. By then the decision had been made by Scribus, who ordered a pitcher of ale, house sandwiches and chips for two, with mustard, vinegar and gherkins on the side.

“This is a civil place,” said Dr. Scribus, complimenting the barmaid’s efficiency. His tribute would no doubt have been more lengthy had it not been interrupted by an outdoor commotion, as the horde that had blown past the pub after his arrival, now returned heading back in the direction of the university; a troop of distorted shadows and lights marching hideously past the windows, accompanied by muffled sentence fragments like, “By thunder,” “bother” and “damn.”
“That’s four times now,” said the barmaid in a voice that sounded like a rubber squeeze toy.

“Four times?” inquired Dr. Scribus.

“Oh, yes, Sir. Four times that bunch ‘as run past this ‘ere pub. The first time was…was…why just after you arrived, Sir,” said the barmaid looking directly at me. “Are you all right, Sirs? You both looked a bit peaked, just then. Wouldn’t let that to-do give you a fright. The Toad & The Stool is Lucky’s pub. Everyone knows that. There are few disturbances in ‘ere.”

As I looked at the monster rabbit behind the bar, there was no disputing her point. Lucky Brumbel would frighten a dog.

The barmaid continued: “That customa ova there, ‘e says there was some kind’a student demonstration, at the university, that appears to ‘ave made thum a might disagreeabo.”

“Hah! ‘A might disagreeable,’” said Scribus. “Made them mad, all of them.”

“Just youth being young,” squeaked the barmaid, her voice diminishing, as she was already making her way past the kitchen’s swinging doors to fulfill our order of food and ale. An order she completed with astonishing rapidity. For before the doors had stopped swinging, she reemerged from the kitchen with a food-laden tray, whisked an already waiting pitcher of ale from the bar en route to our table, and gracefully deposited our victuals before us.

This remarkable efficiency was not lost on the minutely observant Rattus Scribus: “Miraculous! My dear girl, you are without a doubt the finest barmaid I have ever come across.”

“Meri, Sir. Not dear girl. And thank you.”

I did not expect much quality from food prepared far too quickly, or rather, surely, pre-prepared. But I was pleasantly mistaken. The crusty bread had a perfect earthiness and chewy texture, and the roasted meat contents were deliciously moist and tender. The chips were lightly crunchy, piping hot and, quite simply, the best I’d ever tasted. And the ale, pure ambrosia.

-----

I found myself in a more relaxed and peaceful frame of mind. I even began to enjoy the conversation from my new companion, who I have no doubt immediately surmised the improved change in my mood by the relaxation of my spines, the unfurrowing of my brow, or some other minute flux in my speech or bodily composure to which I was oblivious but which seemed to shout themselves out to him.

Well into our meal, the heavy pub door swung open and several wet and bedraggled creatures limped dejectedly into The Toad & The Stool. They were obviously university students. But not a one of them had the good sense to be wearing foul weather gear, and the only thing that had sheltered their heads were their storm tattered placards and banners, which read in ruined, weeping letters: “SciFii.”

No sooner had Meri Brumbel herded that bunch to a table when another group of students entered the pub, equally as rain-soaked and wind-battered. They too were carrying spoiled signs with barely coherent dripping black letters; only these read: “DOGMA.”

The two groups immediately recognized each other. Ears shot back, hackles were raised, incisors flashed, words crossed, and steps taken, when a voice like a rock avalanche stopped them dead in their tracks.

“Not’n ‘ere!” It was Lucky Brumbel. These were all the words he needed to say. Without ever seeming to look up at the commotion, he calmly continued whatever he was doing from behind the bar, and the two groups shuffled timidly to their respective tables as quiet as worms trying not to be noticed by the proverbial early bird.

As Meri was taking their orders, Lucky visited the students at each table, no doubt “welcoming” the newcomers among them in his customary and inimitable manner.

“Brumbel’s me name…” etc., etc.

“Yes, Sir, we know…” “Pleasure to meet you, Sir.” “Meant no disrespect…” “Oh, yes, Sir, we’ve ‘erd’ve you.” “Certainly, Sir…” “Pleasure’s all ours, Sir…” said the students profusely to their august host.

“No need to ‘Sir’ me, you know. I’m not gentry. I suspects after you’re done with university I’ll be Sir’ing and Ma’aming you all one day.”

“Not at all…” “Kind of you to say…” “Perish the thought…” “Never, Sir…”

“Anyways, good lads and lasses, I welcomes you to our ‘umble pub. ‘Respects to your fellow, then do as you please.’” Brumbel departed the nervous students and headed back to the bar, but not before he turned his great melon head in our direction and with impish grin winked his one good eye at us. In that moment, Rattus and I knew that Brumbel was no mere brute, and that there was an undeniable goodness and even humor to this hulking giant.

-----

“Now,” said Rattus, “as to how I came to this most excellent establishment in the first place, and ended up in your good company. As I said, this was my first day of teaching at the university. My two classes were mostly introductory in nature and went along swimmingly. If only the day had ended thus. But alas, I was unexpectedly recruited to conduct an errand of some urgency.”

So it was that Rattus related the following story. But, being Rattus, his voice carried and soon his tale drew other patrons around our table, including the adversarial students, though they seated themselves at opposite ends from each other.

-----

Rattus’ Tale:

“In a well-known rivalry dating back to the founding of the university itself, two school fraternities were engaged in a heated competition for members and supporters from among the fresh supply of unsuspecting students. On one side of this annual anarchy was the student fraternity, SciFii, or Scientists for Free Inquiry with Immunity. On the other was DOGMA, Doctrines of God Mandatory for All.

“In a grand coalescence of events that our friends from DOGMA here would have deemed miraculous,” said Rattus gesturing with his paw to the appropriate students on his right, “but which SciFii would no doubt call pure coincidence,” gesturing to the students on his left, “I was appointed by my department to speak at the rally of the former, even as our newfound friend Prof. Spinoza Benedictus Hedgehog had earlier been appointed by his department to speak at the rally of the latter.”

My eyes widened in shock at Rattus’ words. “I say, my good rat! You indicated earlier that you did not know me, and now it appears that you have known me all along.”

Rattus: “I entered The Toad & The Stool with rather limited information about one Prof. Hedgehog, but only in connection to the events I am now relating which led eventually to our actual meeting here. But I confess that it was not difficult to surmise that you, my dear Spinoza, were that same Prof. Hedgehog based on the clues I noticed upon entering the pub and which I subsequently explained to you.

“Now, whether it was because of our respective fields of scholarship, or a prank played upon us as new faculty, you and I were sent into a maelstrom of the vices of arrogance and intolerance pretending to be the virtues of reason and piety. I refer, of course, to the rivalry between science and religion.

“On the part of science, SciFii was then in quite the high spirits, as one of their own Professors, I. B. Atwitsend, had recently announced an unbelievable discovery. It seems that after a long but undistinguished career, the Professor, Atwitsend, came upon the idea of combining the pain-dulling agents in the sleep gas commonly used by dentists with certain rare psychotropic compounds he claims to have discovered in uncharted jungles. The resulting odorless, colorless and tasteless aerosol caused any subject to abandon all inhibition and prevarication.

“When asked a question, however controversial or secret, both male and female subjects would answer truthfully, no matter the consequences to social decorum, vows of silence, or even patriotic loyalty. Moreover, the natural instincts for self-preservation were completely shut down. For when introduced to a situation of gravest danger, the subjects plunged recklessly into the menace with utter contempt for their own safety. Although the effects are said to wear off after an hour, the government was highly interested in the military applications, and was then pressing on Atwitsend hard to pass his gas to them.

“SciFii leaders criticized religion for retarding civilization and progress by holding all intellectual endeavors hostage to superstitious views of the world and unverifiable metaphysical creeds. ‘If we left it to DOGMA,’ said one SciFii speaker, ‘the world would never make such scientific breakthroughs like Atwitsend’s Gas.’

“Religious creeds are indeed based on faith not fact. That is problem enough for the scientific mind. But even plain rational folk find it hard to understand why religious folk, instead of being humble about beliefs they cannot prove, have been willing to engage in violence and even war to defend and enforce them.

“For these reasons, SciFii loathed the very name of their rival fraternity, DOGMA (Doctrines of God Mandatory for All), which indicated intolerance and belligerence against any view but theirs. SciFii’s sentiments were summarized in a large anti-religious banner which read:

‘All religion is ignorance. One religion is arrogance.’

-----

“Meanwhile, in a hall directly adjacent to the SciFii rally, DOGMA student leaders preached on the dangers of unbridled science.

“‘The Fii in SciFii,’ mocked one DOGMA member, ‘stands for the fiction that science is the final authority for all truth, even though science admits that it can say nothing beyond the physical world. Another fiction is that science and invention for their own sake is a good thing. For we are told that animalkind becomes better with each technological advancement that helps us do things like travel faster, eat more, or live longer. But history shows that progress in the material conveniences of civilization, does not mean progress in the moral character of civilization.’

“‘Right next door, SciFii are celebrating what they dub as the latest victory in science: Atwitsend’s Gas. This is exactly what we’ve been talking about. These godless and arrogant eggheads get so excited about what they can do, that they never stop to ask if it’s something they should do.’

“‘I have here,’ bellowed the student and waving papers wildly in the air, ‘Atwitsend’s own report of tests done with this latest so-called scientific marvel. But what SciFii members won’t tell you is that the marvel can easily become a monster. For many of the original test subjects were married couples who are now no longer married to each other after being subjected to Atwitsend’s Gas. Let me read from the report.’

Prof. Atwitsend to husband: “Is your wife beautiful?”

Husband: “By beautiful do you mean ugly?”

Atwitsend: “Interesting. Next question: Do you think you meet your wife’s needs?”

Husband: “I’m not sure I understand the question. By beautiful do you mean ugly?”

Atwitsend to wife: “Do you think males understand females?”

Wife: “Is this a trick question?”

Atwitsend: “It’s just a straight forward question. Do males understand fe…”

Wife: “No.”

Atwitsend: “No, what?”

Wife: “Males don’t understand.”

Husband: “Excuse me.”

Atwitsend: “Yes?”

Husband: “By beautiful do you mean ugly?”

“‘And so in the interest of science,’ continued the DOGMA speaker, ‘an untold number of marriages were ruined. Is this not proof enough that scientific investigation with immunity is but arrogance with impunity?’”

-----

Rattus continued his narrative:

“To make matters worse, according to reports, someone had sabotaged a tank of Atwitsend’s Gas, which leaked undetected into the science hall and was apparently working the SciFii students into a frenzy.

“Into this explosive situation was sent none other than our newfound friend, Spinoza Hedgehog, Professor of Natural Philosophy. As a thinker who looks to naturalistic explanations for all knowledge about the world, one would think that SciFii would have welcomed Spinoza with open arms. But apparently the effects of Atwitsend’s Gas caused them to abandon all reason, no small irony for the champions of science. May I ask, my dear Spinoza, what spark in your speech ignited the gas-induced brains of the SciFii students into madness?”

“I was going to speak,” I said, “on the great responsibility that comes with delving into the mysteries of the natural world. ‘As investigators into the laws that govern our universe, we must be careful to pursue responsible free inquiry. For even science is accountable to the dictum: First, do no harm.’ At this the students went instantly mad and began to rush the stage. I had to flee for my life as they gave me chase across the university campus.”

“Ah,” said Rattus, “I see now where your trouble lay. While you thought to calm tempers with a statement of simple common sense, the students of SciFii obviously thought that DOGMA had infiltrated their ranks. For unaccountable science is among their central criticisms.

“You wisely chose flight over fight, Spinoza. Your instincts for self-preservation no doubt gave you the speed needed to distance yourself from the mad horde and enter The Toad & The Stool undetected, where I later found you in a lonely and dejected state.”

“It is now equally clear,” I said to Rattus with the entire pub listening on, “that you yourself were chased by that same mob, for you froze, just as I did, every time they ran past The Toad & The Stool.”

“Not quite the same mob, my dear fellow,” said Rattus. “For while you were persecuted by those who should have recognized you as a friend of science, I was hounded by those who should have recognized me as a friend of religion.”

At Rattus’ words, the students of SciFii and DOGMA lowered their heads in shame at the realization of their dangerously irrational and impious behavior.

“Do tell us, Dr. Scribus, Sir, what ‘appened to you when you spoke to DOGMA.” It was Meri’s voice, like a squeaky wheel in need of oil, but somehow, coming from her, not annoying in the least.

-----

“Well,” continued Rattus, “some time after Spinoza’s dreadful encounter with SciFii, I spoke to the members of DOGMA. I introduced myself as Professor and friend of all true religion, and was received with loud applause. But seeking to assuage the enmity between science and religion at the university, I spoke on the need for humility and charity to replace the arrogance and intolerance reflected in the very names each party had adopted, as well as their infamous behavior toward those who differed from them.

“These were all the words I was allowed to speak. For the students went utterly barmy: perhaps aggravated by the residual effects of Atwitsend’s Gas in the science hall next door. I barely had time to grab my belongings and fled the building just as a thunderstorm broke outside.

“Pursued by the hounds of DOGMA, I dashed toward The Toad & The Stool where I had previously arranged to meet an old friend, who has yet to arrive. I foolishly tried to employ the use of my umbrella, but the storm made short work of that. Somehow I managed to round the corner of this street and enter the pub unseen by my pursuers.

-----

“That, in summary are the circumstances under which I came here in a disheveled condition, and recognized you, my dear Spinoza, as the animal most likely to have fled from ScifFii and found asylum in this pub, just as did I.”

The students looked at us with great guilt and dejection on their faces at having persecuted not merely two members of the faculty, but two fellows who had actually arrived at their respective rallies as friends. One after the other, the students stood up and apologized, deeply regretting their belligerent behavior and begging forgiveness.

Each one, however, offered in their defense the fact that they were robbed of their wills by Atwitsend’s Gas, a thing that the DOGMA students would have joyfully held over the heads of the SciFii students, but thought the better of it and wisely left the matter alone.

-----

At just this somber moment, the mighty pub door swung open and there in the entrance stood a rat, wearing nothing but a pair of green boots. In a pose as dramatic as any stage actor, the rat stood before the entire pub, arms outstretched and said: “I’m looking for Dr. Rattus Scribus. Where is Dr. Scribus?”

Total silence fell on the pub momentarily while everyone tried to figure out if this animal was a student mob straggler or some new madness altogether.

“This,” said Rattus, answering everyone’s unspoken question, “is my oldest and dearest friend, Tea Rat, come to celebrate my first day at university.”

“That’s right, old thing,” blared out Tea Rat. “I have indeed come to honor the university’s newest brain trust. Ale for everyone. Tea for me.”

The booted rat gave hearty congratulations to his larger friend and then took a seat between Rattus and myself.

“Now,” said Rattus, “when our drinks arrive, I want you all to notice the welcome that my friend here receives as a newcomer to The Toad & The Stool. For here, in this ‘umble pub, as our sagacious host Lucky Brumble puts it, one may find a simple but profound philosophy that can teach something to both science and religion.”

Lucky and Meri Brumbel soon arrived with our ale, and tea for the aptly named Tea Rat. Lucky shared his usual welcome of newcomers, and concluded with the words that Rattus wanted us all to hear.

“Anyways, Sir,” said Lucky to Tea Rat, “we welcomes you to our ‘umble pub. ‘Respects to your fellow, then do as you please.’” With that, the giant rabbit strode back to the bar.

“So,” said Rattus, “Lucky Brumble turns out to be wiser than us all. For despite all the misunderstanding and madness outside that pub door, here in The Toad & The Stool, everyone is to be accorded basic dignity and respect. After this, one is free do as they please. No scientific pursuit nor religious belief is exempt from this rule.”

“Here, here,” I said raising my glass. “To the rule of The Toad & The Stool.” Even the students joined in: “Long live The Toad & The Stool.” “And to Lucky Brumbel.” “To The Toad & The Stool.”

“I say,” interjected the clueless Tea Rat, “what is this mumbo, jumbo? What rule?”

“I’m afraid, old chap, that is a long, long story,” said Rattus.

“I see. Well, speaking of stories,” barked Tea Rat. “Did you hear that some kind of gas was released at the university that is supposed to remove all inhibitions? Steal your very brains, the inventor claimed. Turns out the whole thing was a fraud. Nothing more than air and extract from the denatured Peace Lily plant……………………….What?”

-------------------
Copyright© Rattus Scribus. No portion of this work may be quoted, copied or borrowed in any form without written permission of its author & artist.

Coming Soon

2010-03-24T06:17:00.000-07:00

Dear friends,

I have been surprised by two developments this Spring semester 2010 that have greatly added to my regular teaching responsibilities. As such I have been quite behind in my own main blog Rattus Scribus, and criminally negligent of Rattus' Tales, let alone visiting and commenting on the blogs of dear friends. But I am nearly done with a fully developed short story that I will be posting on Rattus Scribus and Rattus' Tales, and possibly also on a blog called Nowhere begun by our dear friend The Duchess. My short story will give readers an in depth look at Rattus Scribus and the circumstances of his first encounter with Spinoza, a hedgehog who subsequently becomes a life long friend. A highlight is that my wife Anita of Castles Crowns and Cottages (and other blogs) will be contributing her wonderfully humorous drawings to accompany the story.

Your devoted scribe,

Rattus

Never Want to Wake From You.

2010-03-03T06:26:00.000-08:00

Happy Anniversary, Anita.
Lyrics and music by Ruben Rivera (aka, Rattus Scribus). (Sightly revised from my original composition of March, 1997)

"Long ago..." the story goes

He met a princess in a world of dreams

With hair like night, and starry eyes
The heart of legends they sing far and wide

And in between she won her lover's soul
After all these years, I love her so

If you're my dream
I never want to wake from you
If you're my, my dream
I never want to wake from you

In dreams where anything comes true
I can do anything I want to
Live in the sea

Or fly with wings

Or make a carousel from Saturn's rings

But not one of these compares with you
and the love I feel when I sing you to you:

If you're my dream
I never want to wake from you
If you're my, my dream
I never want to wake from you

If growing up

and waking means

that life is real

and love the dream

I'd rather stay asleep with you

and show to all the world what love can do

For love can make this world a fantasy
like heaven where we're meant to be

If you're my dream

I never want to wake from you
If you're my, my dream
I never want to wake from you

Happy Anniversary, my Anita
March 6, 2010

--------

Photo credits:
#1 Castle, unknown
#2 Summer Dreams, by Dameon and Meagan
#3 Anita, Mancester-by-the-Sea, MN, 2008, by R. Rivera
#4 "Robin & Marian," Sean Connery & Audrey Hepburn Columbia Pictures, 1976.
#5 Polar bear cub, unknown

#6 Manatees, unknown

#7 Flying dog, unknown

#8 Saturn, Cassini space craft

#9 Carousel, unknown

#10 Panda, unknown

#11 Sleeping dog, unknown

#12 Old dog cartoon, unknown

#13 Dog eat dog cartoon, unknown

#14 Enchanted Beloved, Andrew Annenberg

#15 Earth, BBC WorldWide, 2009

#16 Adventures of Robin Hood, Errol Flynn & Olivia de Havilland, Warner Bros, 1938

#17 Bunny Heaven, by angrymikko

#18 Sleeping Rabbit, by Kelly Dyson

Wisdom From The Outer Limits: The Sixth Finger. The Wisdom to be Human Lies Not in the Distant Future

2010-02-07T14:24:00.000-08:00

By Rattus Scribus© Sunday, 7 February 2010
You may want to read the introduction to this series here

The story:
In a mansion on the outskirts of a Welsh mining town, Professor Mather (Edward Mulhare) has advanced the science of genetics. Out of guilt for his part in the creation of the nuclear bomb that now threatens to wipe out all life on earth, Mather has invented a machine to speed up the evolutionary process of humanity in a desperate attempt to “make war impossible.”

Young Gwyllm Griffiths (David McCallum) jumps at the chance to be the first human subject for the machine, anything to escape the mining job and town that have condemned him to insignificance. The experiment succeeds. Evolved 20,000 years into the future, Gwyllm emerges with a much larger head and the bud of a sixth finger on each hand, denoting a human future of vast intellect and greater manual dexterity.

Scene: The Sixth Finger

But the machine unleashes the self-perpetuating forces of evolution and Gwyllum continues developing at an exponential rate. Eventually he evolves into a being with near god-like capabilities, complete with twelve fingers, a massive head/brain, and (for reasons unexplained) pointed ears. In the script, he also becomes translucent and lives now by photosynthesis, thus no longer requiring food or sleep; but none of these characteristics (except no longer needing sleep) are clear in the television episode.

Scene: The Sixth Finger

Having evolved the equivalent of well over a million years into the future, the only thing remaining of the original Gwyllm is his hatred for the town and, in general, for the ignorance, prejudice, and unreasoning destructive hatred of “man.” He is set on destroying the entire town with a mere thought (and afterward, to teach the entire world a similar lesson?), but then he evolves past the need for revenge or power, and indeed all things material.

Scene: The Sixth Finger

Impatient to wait for the completion of the human evolutionary process into "Vortex" -- the non-material transition into cosmic being of pure "intelligence in space" -- Gwyllm returns to the lab and enlists the aid of Cathy (Jill Hayworth), a poor bread delivery girl who loves Gwyllm deeply and first introduced him to Professor Mather. Gwyllm enters the machine but, afraid to lose him, Cathy reverses the process and brings him back to his original state, exhausted, but "glad" to be back, says Cathy.

The context:

When "The Sixth Finger" first aired (Oct 14, 1963), America was engulfed in two raging conflicts, one foreign, one domestic. On the foreign front, the early 1960s was the height of the Cold War. Exactly one year before, the Cuban missile crisis (Oct 1962) illustrated the Cold War era madness that threatened at any time to bring the world to thermo-nuclear annihilation. Indeed, the previous OL episode, "The Architects of Fear," dealt with the nuclear war paranoia by weaving a tale in which altruistic but misguided U.S. scientists secretly manufactured an extraterrestrial harbinger of invasion in the attempt to unite the world's two main antagonists -- the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. / China -- to overcome their differences in order to repel a common threat.

American children were taught to head for a bomb shelter if they heard a civil defense siren, or to "duck and cover" if they saw a flash in the sky, as if hiding beneath a wooden school desk could protect them from the equivalent of a small exploding sun.

Ironically, while the U.S. lectured the world on liberty and was prepared to vaporize the earth in defense of it, on the home front, America was far from the model of democracy. For the legacy of slavery and racial segregation finally erupted into the protests and conflicts of the Civil Rights Movement.

1965: Police break up a civil rights protest,
ironically in front of a U.S. symbol of democracy: The White House.

Meanwhile the feminist, youth, and sexual revolutions were also creating tensions and resentments with the traditional holders of power. Finally, about a month after this episode aired, the United States would lose its president, John F. Kennedy, to assassination (Nov 22, 1963). Thus, while America saw itself as the world's physician, it was a physician much in need of a doctor.

The Wisdom:
There are always things one can find to critique in fictional drama such as "The Sixth Finger." One glaring problem for me is when devotees of the inductive science of evolution (who have often criticized deductive philosophy and religion for making unprovable claims about the divine origins and final non-material state of humans) themselves speculate on a final non-material destiny of human evolution that is just as unprovable. Evolution can only attempt to trace the material origins and development of biological life. It has absolutely nothing to say about what, if anything, happens beyond the vale of biological death. Nor can it track or prove any species development that includes non-material factors or states of existence. This utopic ideal of humans evolving to pure non-physical intelligence absorbed in the cosmic all, may be standard fare in many a science fiction novel or film like "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," or "The Outer Limits."

Scene: 2001: A Space Odyssey.

But it has far more to do with Plato, or (ironically) religion, or plain wishful thinking, than with the science of evolution itself.

Scene: Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Captain Decker "joins" with the entity known as "V'ger" and evolves to pure intelligence in space.

Nevertheless, in the paranoid and uncertain Cold War context, "The Sixth Finger" very deliberately attempted to illustrate humanity still in its developmental infancy, driven by primitive and petty motives of ignorance, hatred, lust and the quest for power. Technologically entering the space age but developmentally not essentially different from Neanderthal, humans seemed doomed to self-extinction unless something could render us "intelligent."

That something, it was assumed, was the progress of evolution. And why not evolution? Neither philosophy nor religion had as yet been able to render humanity intelligent enough to avoid the horrors of slavery, racism, sexism, war and holocaust. But, evolution is too slow. The fear is that humans are likely to destroy themselves long before reaching that state of blissful intelligence. Simply put, we cannot wait millions of years to grow up.

Scene: The Sixth Finger: "Evolution Machine"

Wouldn't it be great, therefore, if someone could invent a machine to do it all at once? Zap! Problem solved. That is the stuff of dreams and science fiction movies. The writers of "The Sixth Finger" of course knew that there was no such machine in reality that could come to our rescue. So all they can do is close the TV episode with the following narration:

"...And yet, may we not still hope to discover a method by which within one generation the whole human race could be rendered intelligent: beyond hatred, or revenge, or the desire for power? Is that not after all the ultimate goal of evolution?"

"Within one generation." Why the hurry? Because WWIII (or today, some other Weapons of Mass Destruction conflict, environmental disaster, water wars, etc.) could ruin our whole day. We cannot wait for "the ultimate goal of evolution".

But, if I may be so bold, there is hope for the wisdom we need, and we need not wait for the distant future. It has always been right here. We have all known people from ancient times down to our own day that have imparted to the world just that wisdom. Moreover, it is a wisdom that has nothing to do with the mechanisms of evolution, nor with advancements in science, technology, or futuristic material progress at all.

The wisdom that is selfless, other-oriented, and at peace (neither afraid about things one cannot control like Hurricane Katrina, nor withdraws from things one can ameliorate, like human poverty and injustice) have found expression in many cultures. Socrates of Athens, Gautama Buddha of India, Jesus of Nazareth, Sor Juana de la Cruz of Mexico, Mahatma Gandhi of India, Mandela of South Africa.

Gautama Buddha

These and other sages have shown us the heights of human wisdom, love, and fraternity. Ironically enough, much of this wisdom has been around since ancient times: so much for modern progress and final evolutionary scenarios. Indeed, this kind of wisdom actually violates the basic evolutionary impulse of self-preservation and species propagation.

For there is a wisdom without which human life is simply another animal species competing for domination in the food chain. Without such wisdom, the human, dare I say it, may not be worth preserving. And it is our only hope, lest our scientific knowledge and inane pursuit of material success so far outpace our human wisdom and character, that we render life on this planet a purgatory, or end ourselves altogether.

That would be most tragic. For if there is a great cosmic record of all things -- an Encyclopedia Galactia -- there will be but a tiny footnote on one of its countless pages that reads:

"Human Race, Earth, Milky Way Galaxy: Extinct from stupidity."

Jesus preaching "The Sermon on the Mount."

Or, the human race can become an inspiring and important part of the galactic story.

But for this to occur, we must acquire and live by the ancient wisdom that is not motivated by nor captivated to mere "animal" impulses and pursuits.

It is a wisdom from the Outer Limits, and it has long taught us such timeless principles as:

--Examine your lives and question what you think you know. (Socrates, paraphrased)

--"Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely." (Buddha)

--A good idea put to action is better than just an idea. (Buddha, paraphrased)

--"Treat everyone as you would wish to be treated," "You cannot love both God and money," "The greatest commandments are these: Love God, and your neighbor as yourself," "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." (Jesus)

--"Be the change you wish to see in the world." (Gandhi)

Nothing of this wisdom is dependent upon or proven by the mere progress of science or evolution. The Wisdom from the Outer Limits is available to us all, here, now.
------------

O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1900.
..

Wisdom from the Outer Limits

2010-01-31T12:33:00.000-08:00

By Rattus Scribus© 31 January 2010

Movies and television programs have long provided a window into contemporary culture and issues. Today we are thoroughly shaped by the corporate interests behind most of the audio-visual media we consume (film, internet, advertising, music, etc.). The unabashed and openly stated goal (as one 1950s advertising executive put it) has been to create a culture where people find their very identity, their spiritual and ego satisfaction in consumption (see, for example, the documentaries: "The Persuaders" and "The Merchants of Cool").

But there have always been attempts to use film to critique contemporary culture, events and trends. The most obvious form of informative and analytical film is the documentary. But once in a while, creative stories and a desire for social commentary combine to create highly rated TV shows. One such ground-breaking show was the 1960s prime-time series, "The Outer Limits." It aired for only two seasons (1963-64 and 1964-65), but it was popular for its day and left a lasting impact. When released on DVD in 2002, popular novelist Stephen King called The Outer Limits, "The best program of its type ever to run on network TV." The program still has a loyal following of rerun and DVD watchers; and several decades later a new series of The Outer Limits ran for seven seasons (1995-2002).

When writing about what the past can teach us today, it is important to play fair. For example, it is easy to critique, even make fun of, old TV programs for the inferior production values of the past, with their very visible "invisible" wires suspending people and objects, serious characters made to wear cartoonish make-up and costumes, and painfully obvious set miniatures. Inadequate as they were, these were the cutting edge "effects" of the day. It therefore makes no sense to compare The Cold War era "Outer Limits" (OL) with, say, James Cameron's recent CGI movie blockbuster, "Avatar," any more than it makes sense to criticize the past for its horse-drawn carriages because it had nothing that could match the Ferrari of today.

It is, however, fair game to point out, for example, how many old TV shows where hopelessly mired in the contemporary values and worldview of the dominant social group of the era, which was overwhelmingly white Midwestern middle and upper class males. For example, in the context of the civil rights movement, the 1960s original Star Trek series did try to push the boundaries of race relations: to wit, when the corn-fed Iowa interstellar playboy Captain Kirk (William Shatner) kissed the Bantu African beauty Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols).

Star Trek, "Plato's Stepchildren" (Nov 1968). Considered by many to be the first interracial kiss on U.S. television, but African American entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. gave a friendly kiss to white female singer Nancy Sinatra on her variety show on Dec 1967. And in fact Shatner had kissed an Asian actress in a previous Star Trek episode. But the Shatner - Nichols (white - black) kiss that was overtly romantic had the whole studio buzzing prior to and during the filming. It was too much for some TV stations in the south which (according to some accounts) originally refused to air the episode.

Yet, despite the underlying presumption of human evolution, and predicted scientific and social advancements hundreds of years into the future, such as faster than light travel, teleportation, and interstellar civil rights, the U.S./earth-centered Federation of Planets will still be predominantly a male-run affair. Meanwhile, the women of the future will, apparently, still be bouncing about like forest nymphs in 1960s style mini-skirts.

Because…what woman wouldn’t want to wear a regulation uniform with the coverage equivalent of a scarf, while splayed out under an electronic panel trying to restore subspace communications after a deadly Klingon attack?

Or, when forced into mortal combat with a Barbie-bodied female alien from another galaxy who, miraculously enough, is wearing a regulation bikini from 1960s Earth. Apparently, females are the same in every corner of the universe: men wear clothes during space travel, or in battle, or you know, in public. Women? What need have they of anything more than a mini-skirt when they accompany men to other worlds, or get into a cat fight with Alien Malibu Barbie who knows better than to wear even a mini-skirt to battle, when far less will do?

"Mini-skirts? Hah! Who wears a mini-skirt to a bikini fight? Earthlings, fools all! Prepare to die embarrassed!"

Nevertheless, despite its historically captive shortcomings, certain Outer Limits episodes sought to inject cultural critique into the American social conscience, albeit sometimes naively and inadequately, but at least causing us to question the "official story," and the obvious gaps between what nations, people, even religions claimed to value and what they did. The Outer Limits was among my earliest introductions to a fairly intentional cultural questioning on network TV. In the next several installments, I will be writing partly serious, partly humorous pieces on the insights and, dare I say it, "wisdom" we can glean from some of the episodes of the 1960s television show, "The Outer Limits."

...the whole reason they existed at all...

2010-01-20T12:07:00.000-08:00

By Rattus Scribus@ 20 January 2010

"Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of the least considered and ignored persons in society, you did it to me." Matthew 25:40

One of the most powerful movies I have ever seen is Steven Spielberg’s Amistad, a true, albeit made-for-Hollywood saga about illegally kidnapped Africans who revolted on the Spanish slave-ship la Amistad. Recaptured by Americans, justice for the Africans was circumvented time and again by greedy Spaniards and Americans, as well as Southern slave-holders who threatened to embroil the young nation in a war over the issue. The Amistad case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1841.

Lower court trial at which Pedro Montes identified
Cinque as leader of the Amistad mutiny.

At this point, Cinque, leader of the embattled Africans, utters one of the most profound statements I have ever heard. Although he knew that the upcoming court hearing would be extremely difficult to win (as all previous cases were won and then subsequently set aside), Cinque said he was nevertheless prepared because he had called upon the help of all of his ancestors. For it was his ancestors' lives and labors that made Cinque's tribe the people they had come to be, and "right now," he said, "I am the whole reason they have existed at all."

Cinque, Portrait by Nathaniel Jocelyn, c. 1840

This astounding statement was not lost on Cinque's aged lawyer, John Quincy Adams, who like his father John Adams was a former U.S. president and a "father" of the nation.

As some of you may know (and as I state on my sidebar profile), I see human history as a struggle in closing the gaps:

"The struggle to close the gaps between what is believed and what is done, what is and what could be, is the greatest human drama of every culture in every age. The heights of human imagination and achievement, as well as depravity, dwell in the gaps. The former escape to brighten the world. The latter remain forever imprisoned, and constantly seeks company."

The case of the Amistad Africans is one of many examples of North America's long struggle to close the gap between its much vaunted ideals of inalienable rights and liberties on the one hand and actions too often motivated by selfishness, greed, prejudice and fear on the other.

John Quincy Adams

Miraculously, Adams argued the case successfully before the Supreme Court. Surprised and elated, Cinque asked him what words he could have said to persuade the judges (some of whom were from Southern slave states) to free them when all previous words and court cases had failed. Adams replied: "Yours." He referred of course to Cinque’s words that at that moment, he was the whole reason his ancestors had existed at all.

Think how the greatness of American or even Christian ideals are to be measured. Not by the rights, wealth and deference enjoyed by the powerful, but by the rights, dignity and opportunity enjoyed by the powerless.

Scene in Louisville, Kentucky. Life Magazine, Feb
1937. What is wrong with this picture?

A believer in American ideals of liberty cannot escape the truth of the statement that "any nation is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members" (Cardinal Roger Mahony).

A believer in the Christian ideal of love of God evidenced by love of neighbor cannot escape the truth of Jesus' statement that the way we treat those least in our society is a reflection of how we treat him. In other words, to claim to love a God we've never seen, but not love people we can see everyday, is not a religion that Jesus had any part of.

If our American and Christian ideals (and I am not necessarily equating the two) mean nothing for the Cinque's of the world (for women, the poor, people of color, the discarded laborer, the disabled, in a word, the "other"), then do we not dishonor those ideals and the people who sacrificed so much to make them a reality? That is to say, do we not dishonor those we claim so much to honor?

After all, the very least regarded individuals among us, are “the whole reason they existed at all.”

People Are Not Just Meat

2010-01-11T11:04:00.001-08:00

By Rattus Scribus@ 11 January 2010

All the years that my wife was pursuing her college degree and teaching license, she worked part time at a food market for well-to-do Minnesotans. Now many of you have heard me say that Anita is one of the kindest, most humane and sensitive persons I have known.

It therefore angered me when a customer treated her like something on the bottom of their shoe. We've all heard the common store motto that "the customer is always right." But in my experience, the customer is not only frequently wrong, but quite nasty about it too.

"The Customer is Always Reich, I mean Right"

I could tell you countless stories of abusive customers, but I will tell you only one here, and hope to draw a common sense lesson from it.

Anita was working at the deli section of the market, when a man quite rotund in circumference came up and asked her for an order of Asian food that included rice and a mound of battered fried spicy chicken. Now, leaving aside for the moment the irony of my wife, healthy eater extraordinaire, working at a job that caters to "upscale" Americans who eat more meat than a velociraptor, the man took one look at the pyramid of fried flesh and fumed:

"You're not doing it right! The small section is for the rice and the large section is for the meat!"

Background. The oval plate has two small sections for rice and another side dish, and the large center section for the main -- always some kind of meat -- entrée.

My wife's unpardonable sin? She had put the rice in part of the large (meat) section, and put the meat on the rest of the plate, the difference to the portions of which was nothing.

But he insisted: "Do it right!"

My wife then plowed what she already considered dinner for two onto a fresh plate with the rice and the meat in their proper sections.

End of story? Of course not. For he was now forced to ask what he really wanted but was too prideful or malevolent to ask kindly.

"I want more meat!" came the hiss between pursed and bloodless lips. And she gave it to him, lest the matter go all the way to the Supreme Court.

That day, in a lovely fashionable Minnesota market, some nasty cuss had two entrées: one was Asian spicy chicken; the other was a human being. To him they were both just meat.

I was determined after this incident that I would try to the best of my ability never to be the customer from the infernal regions.

There is something horribly wrong when the most trivial of things is all that is needed for one person to treat another in so shabby a fashion.

We are none of us perfect. But surely we can agree that a human being is worth a little more than an extra helping of Kung Pao?

-----------
Photo credits:
Human meat: http://www.liberacionanimal.org

New Year's Reflection: The Life Lived Deliberately

2009-12-28T15:03:00.000-08:00

By Rattus Scribus© 28 December 2009

" I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854

I have recently written two lighthearted poems (some might say frivolous rhymes). One on the day before Thanksgiving here on Rattus Scribus, written in the desperate need for distraction. The other on Christmas Eve and posted on Rattus' Tales, written in a moment of sheer lunacy. So I rather feel a little small starting this New Year's reflection with the august poetical language of Thoreau.

But as I look on this past year 2009, and my dreams for 2010, I feel I need help from the big guns. You might ask what right I have to appropriate from Thoreau's Walden -- a work that called his readers to the "simplicity, simplicity, simplicity" that the woodland-cloistered Transcendentalist found infinitely more meaningful than the time-wasting, unprofitable pursuits and responsibilities imposed by the "chopping sea of civilized life."

What can I, indeed what can most Americans, possibly have in common with Thoreau?

In a phrase: the desire to live life deliberately. To assess honestly, even brutally, what things in this world are essential to develop my life to the full, and to excise all the parasites of the deliberate life.

As 2009 comes to a close I am grateful to know people not so far removed as Thoreau, from whom I draw inspiration. I am only going to focus on one person in blogland here, though there are of course other dear friends and family I could praise.

Before I do, it would be an injustice if I did not mention my wife Anita from Castles Crowns and Cottages. Hers is among the most authentically lived lives I have ever known: her love of life, of God, of nature and its creatures, of artistic creations, her tenacity to accomplish goals (even those which have made her feel painfully like an insignificant fish in a cosmic pond), and her "natural" kindness" have blessed my life in a way it would not have been otherwise.

Anita & me at my doctoral graduation,
Boston University, May 2008

To Patricia (Tita) Cabrera of WoolyTales Miniatures.

Tita would never praise herself as I am about to do here. But she is a remarkable example of the deliberate life. Brazilian-born, she came to the United States and now lives on a working farm with her husband and seven children. Moving to a farm was a Thoreau-like equivalent of opting for a more deliberate life: a space where she and her family could "live deep and suck out all the marrow of life," instead of yielding to so much in today's culture that sucks the life out of us.

When Tita is not home-schooling her children, or helping and supervising chores like raising chickens for a poultry company, keeping bees, making honey, baking breads and other goodies from ingredients grown on the farm, making butter and cheese from their cows and goats, making wine from apples or blueberries, sewing clothes for her family and more, she is engaged in other truly magical skills, and her children are taught these skills and enter into the play. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

She and her children put on puppet shows in public venues (all marionettes -- wonders to behold -- props, stories, etc., are done by her and her children).

One of my Christmas gifts to Anita:
Wirehaired Fox Terrier, by Tita Cabrera

She creates the most amazing pieces of art (dolls and animals, of which Anita and I have three) and sells them to bring in family income. She draws and paints beautifully on fairy story themes. All these things and more are imbued with magic, an incredible attention to detail, and constant gratitude to God.

Perhaps the surest sign of a person living deliberately is that they share with others those things that bring them joy. Tita does that, constantly, consistently, deliberately: from a simple word of kindness or thanks, to the magical productions of her substantial imagination. If you have not visited Tita's blog, do yourself a favor.

Thank you dear Tita. Your religious faith, your artistry, your generosity (you blew us away this Christmas) and your life lived deliberately have placed before both me and Anita a new benchmark.

Your devoted friend,
Ruben

The Wright Stuff

2009-12-12T06:37:00.000-08:00

After I graduated college, my wife and I left California for graduate studies in Massachusetts. My intended career? Teaching. But before we left, one of my professors asked me to stop by his office because he had some parting words for me. He has, himself, since parted. His name was Ronald Wright. I had come to love this professor for his academic brilliance combined with an almost childlike Christian piety. No, not almost.

So you can understand that I did not mind in the least having to take the hour+ drive in Los Angeles and Orange County traffic to my alma mater. I was elated in fact. Prof. Wright wants to say something to me before we leave. I was prepared to write it down.

When I arrived at his office, he was, as usual, busying himself grading mounds of exams, essays and research papers. (Grading -- I speak now as a teacher -- the one thing without which teaching would be the world's perfect profession.) I knocked at the open doorway; he looked up.

"Ah, Mr. Rivera, what can I do for you?"

"You called and told me you had something you wanted to tell me before we left for graduate school?"

"Oh, yes." Pause. "Yes, brother. 'Let not many become teachers, for a such we shall incur a stricter judgment.'" [James 3:1]

I spent over an hour in the traffic purgatory of the world for that? You have to know that I was expecting something more like: "For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11)

I thought Prof. Wright liked me. My academic enthusiasm was unparalleled; my papers were "a joy to read," and the models he had other students read: "This, ladies and gentleman," he'd say holding up my latest paper, "is what I'm looking for."

"Let not many be teachers..." It was as anti-climatic a thing one could say to an aspiring teacher as could be imagined. But that was many years ago. I've learned something about what it means since then, and it is something that is actually applicable to every person, not just teachers, though of course those who "know more" are accountable for more. It's about the influence and legacy we leave on others, for good or ill. It's about the difference between believing and acting, saying and living, orthodoxy and orthopraxy.

Goodness, righteousness, universal humanness are never expendable to any religious orthodoxy. They are the things that make religion believable and worth practicing at all. A passage in the Christian scriptures or "New Testament," summarizes the sentiment like this: You cannot claim to love God whom you've never seen, and not love the people whom you can see every day. (1 John 4:20; cf. Luke 10:27)

For me, the Wright stuff, that the claim to truth means very little unless that truth also makes us good towards others, is illustrated powerfully in Chiam Potok's 1967 book, The Chosen (from which a 1982 film was made). The story follows the unlikely friendship of two Jewish boys in New York City in the period surrounding World War II. One boy, Daniel, comes from a strict orthodox home of a rebbe, or Jewish spiritual and community leader. The other boy, Reuven, lives with his liberal Jewish dad who is one of the leading Zionists in the city.

Reuven cannot understand why Daniel considers his father such a great man. To Reuven he seems tyrannical because he never speaks to Daniel and will not let him make his own choices about is career and life path. Daniel (a brilliant young man with a photographic memory) does love and revere his father. But he does not want to go to Yeshiva and become the next rebbe, as is expected of him. Daniel wants to explore the world outside of Hasidic Judaism, go to secular university and become a psychologist.

The whole thing looks like it's going to end in a collision between the will of a seemingly tyrannical father and the dreams of the dutiful but frustrated son. In the end, however, the father is content to let his son go into the world and make his own choices. He reveals why.

...When my Daniel was four years old he read a book. But he didn't just read it, he swallowed the book like one would swallow food. And then he came to me and...told me the story that was in the book. And this story was about a man whose life was filled with suffering and with pain. But that didn't move Daniel. You know, Daniel was happy. He was happy because he realized, for the first time in his life, what a memory he had.

"Master of the universe," I cried, "what have you done to me? You give me a mind like this for a son? A heart I need for a son. A soul I need for a son. Compassion and mercy I need for my son. And above all, the strength to carry pain. That I need for my son."

But how was I to do this?...How was I to teach...this to the son that I love..and not lose the love of my son?

Then as he became older, and he became indifferent to people less brilliant than he thought he was, I saw what I had to do. I had to teach my Daniel through the wisdom and the pain of silence..as my father did to me....He became frightened...bewildered. But slowly, he began to understand that other people are alone in this world too. Other people are suffering. Other people are carrying pain. And then, in this silence we had between us, gradually his self-pride, his feeling of superiority, his indifference began to fade away. And he learned, through the wisdom and the pain of silence, that a mind without a heart is nothing.

So you think that I've been cruel? Maybe. Maybe, but...but I don't think so...because my beloved Daniel has learned. O, let him go, let him become a psychologist. Become a psychologist already. But you see, now I am not afraid. I have no fear because my Daniel is a Tzadik. He is a righteous man. And the world needs a righteous man.

So this is a tribute to my old professor. And if there is a heaven, as I do believe, then he is surely there. For he had more than orthodoxy. His faith moved him to live here as he believed we would live in the hereafter. He had what I now call the "Wright stuff." For years he had been inspiring his students with it. But there comes a time when we must consciously attempt to do the same. That legacy is what he was passing on to me that day in his office.

The man was goodness. Not the otherworldly implacable platonic perfection beyond the grasp of we poor matter-bound masses, smatterings of which only the most disciplined and gifted philosophical and religous minds could attain. But a universally recognizable "golden rule" goodness, walking erect, among us, here in this world. A truly inspirational human being, he is one of the chief reasons that I am a college professor today, and it remains a chief aim of my life to live out and pass along the Wright stuff.

Photo credits: "The Chosen," TheatreWorks, San Fancisco, CA, 2009.

'Twas the Nightmare Before Thanksgiving

2009-11-24T11:57:00.000-08:00

I think I'll take a small break from my regular series and do some pure humor, which I haven't done since my very first post: "Refrigerator Etiquette." I just wrote this one and posted it to another blog I contribute to once in a while just for fun.

How about a Thanksgiving tale of nonsensical proportions?
Hold on to your wits. Here goes.

'Twas the Nightmare Before Thanksgiving
By Rattus Scribus© 24 November 2009

'Twas the night before Thanksgiving and all through the land,
every turkey was afraid ending up a meal plan.

The dinner table was arranged with the greatest of care,
but mysteriously not a turkey was found anywhere.

The mother was embarrassed, the father nonplussed;
the children began to complain and to cuss.

The turkey, meanwhile, was partying up,
for avoiding becoming this Thanksgiving's sup.

But then it decided: "Enough is enough!"
And armed to the beak it stormed the house rough.

The chairs it upturned, the china it shattered.
We flew down the stairs to see what was the matter.

Then what to our wondering eyes should appear,
but a crazy-eyed turkey with not one shred of fear.

Its beard, snood and dewlap -- grotesque rubbery folds;
its razor-sharp spurs were a dread to behold.

Like lightning it turned when we all at once squealed,
and looked at us, drooling, as if we were the meal.

We tore open the shutters and flew out the window,
and landed like rags on the stones down below.

But we shut out the pain and fled down the dirt track,
that Thanksgiving nightmare shouting, "Don't even look back!"

So I share this tale truly from my heart to thine.
Become vegetarian while you still have the time.

Happy and Appreciated: It Starts with You. Part 4b

2009-11-15T04:48:00.000-08:00

By Rattus Scribus© 16 Nov 2009
Newcomers may read the previous parts of this series by clicking the links in the blog archive.

Rule 4b: Don't Get Lost in Translation: Mishearing.

When Anita and I moved from California to Massachusetts to pursue graduate work, we experienced a mild culture shock. As diverse as southern California is, having been raised there since about the age of six, it was not until we moved to Massachusetts that I became truly conscious of the cultural "Pluribus" in our national "Unum."

One micro-shock was trying to understand the New England accent and its variants. For example, -a words are pronounced with an -er sound; and -er and -ar words are pronounced with an -ah sound. My wife's name is Anita, but it was pronounced "Aniter." Car is cah, yard is yahd, lobster is lobstah, and so on. "Ha-ha. Cute," I said to Anita when we first heard such words pronounced. And indeed it was cute, and at times downright hilarious.

One time we were at a Christian fellowship in the home of some lovely friends in the town of "Manches-tah by the Sea." There was a time of Bible study led by a fellow seminarian from South Carolina who had one of thickest southern drawls I'd ever heard. He was a real southern Christian gentleman and a dear friend. (And his wife was the first truly southern belle I had ever met.) But I mean when he spoke, his whole mouth, indeed part of his face, shifted downward and to the left; that will give you an idea of the force of his drawl. The study was followed by a time of worship led by me on guitar. So there we all were -- New Englanders, Southerners, and of course the only people who know how to speak English properly, you know, like us Californians like -- singing the old tune:

Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us. (clap, clap)
Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us. (clap, clap)
That we should be called the sons of God. (clap, clap)
That we should be called the sons of God. (clap, clap)

The last words and robust claps faded sweetly away, as we enjoyed a moment of silence, eyes closed, our hearts peaceful and aglow in the Spirit. Then Marge (excuse me, Maahj) -- a delightful no-nonsense older woman, whose home we were in, and whose "seen it all" life had made her skeptical to the core, especially of any thing new -- shattered the mood, her cynical words creaking like an old door: "Aaahh...I don't know. What does manner have to do with anything?" [Remember, -er words are pronounced -ah, hence manner = manna]

Silence...blank stares...thirty seconds... illumination...uncontrolled laughter (by everyone but Maahj). "No, not manna" [food miraculously provided to the Israelites during their wilderness wanderings]. "Manner" [see how, in what way], "Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us." "Oh, OK," said Maahj, a little embarrassed. "Because I wasn't sure why we were singing to God for manna. It sounded fishy."

I'll never forget how a simple mishearing due to pronunciation differences made someone think that us newcomers might be trying to introduce some new-fangled heresy into the church. My stomach hurt from laughing.

Sometimes, however, mishearings are not funny but frustrating. A road sign in Massachusetts says "Gloucester" (three syllables: Glou-ces-ter) but it is pronounced by the locals, "Glos-tah." This matters when you're completely new to the area and you drive past Gloucester and stupidly keep heading til kingdom come because you're looking for Glosta. "That's what he said, right Hon?" "Don't look at me." "Arrgh! Now you know why men don't ask for directions. From now on, I'm having these people write it down."

Of course the Bostonian will say that the problem is MY mishearing due to MY accent. Because, I mean sure, any reader of the English language knows that Gloucester is pronounced Glostah, Haverhill, Havrl, car, cah, yard, yahd. So I scowl at him and give him the "thumbs up" and walk away, because, I mean sure, every American knows it can't mean anything other than "excellent."

There are of course times when mishearing can be costly and even rupture relationships.

I have my wife's permission to share this story. One time Anita and I ended up in a big argument as a result of mishearing on both our parts. I was trying to encourage her artistic drawing skills and how I thought she had a gift and should pursue it. But Anita heard something like this coming out of my mouth: "I think you should pursue this artsy-fartsy avenue because you have no significant intelligence or admirable skills to do anything that's really important in the world." I of course proceeded to defend myself vigorously that I did not say or mean that; and Anita -- who started out, I thought, as the object of my compassion and was now my opponent -- was just as recalcitrant that encouragement was most definitely not the way it came out.

But what I did not know, and what I only learned after we cooled down and spoke later, was that in the past some people had made similar statements that were a veiled way of saying, "We don't expect much from you; but maybe you can justify your use of air on this planet by doodling."

Anita had misheard me based on past hurt. I said one thing; she heard another. But I made matters worse because I also misheard her explanation. What she said was, "I don't want to be limited to this career path because people in my past have said things like this because they had so little expectations of me." But what I thought I heard was: "If someone I just met for the first time in my life, two seconds ago, were to tell me the same thing you just told me (in the exact words, vocal tone, and body language), I would have joyfully received it as praise, encouragement and support, and I'd be drawing them a thank you note right now." Translation? "I respect anyone but you."

I know of many, many blow-ups due at least in part to mishearing that has caused marriages to rupture, former friends and family members to hate each other, and even nations to go to war. I am grateful that Anita and I have had, in our 27 years of marriage, actually few blow-ups. But I would say (Anita can comment about what she thinks) that probably all of those major arguments had a significant element of mishearing to them, and some of them were the result of pure mishearing alone, and not on the basis of a fundamental difference about an issue.

Imagine how many fewer hurt feelings, fall-outs, and broken relationships there would be if we all made a conscious and consistent effort to clean out our ears daily of that annoying build-up of waxy gook in the form of excess baggage from our past, mood swings, poor listening habits, defensiveness, insensitivity, and self-centeredness? What a wonderful world it would be.

Next: Misinterpreting