When in Rome: Ninja Turtles

Here's the first of my thoughts from the trip. Our group included 18 kids (average age 15) and three (alleged) adults. We were in and out of various sites, on and off buses and subways, and free for various lengths of time with orders to group up at pre-arranged meeting points afterward. Every time, we would do a "buddy check." Groups of 4-5 of us all had to count each other and report back to Dr. Mac (our lead chaperone) that all were present. Each group had a name--I counted for the Raphaels, there was a Da Vinci group, a Michelangelo group, and a Bernini group. Now, any good nerd would tell you--something's wrong with this picture. Bernini should have been Donatello, and then we would have had all 4 of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Da Vinci, of course, is Leonardo).

Well, upon further examination, I have revised my opinion. Having now seen works by all those renaissance masters (and they are truly AWESOME, in the proper sense of the word), I have decided that the author of TMNT was wrong. Donatello was always the odd turtle out, anyway (he's the guy with the purple mask and the staff). But Bernini, he rocks. If I had to pick, I'd even put him a notch above Michelangelo in the sculpting department. Now Mike still takes the best all-around prize (2nd place in marble, no worse than tied for 2nd in the painting with Rapahel, right up there with Bernini again for architecture--Raph didn't sculpt, Bernie didn't paint. Mike may lose a style point for the hideous design of the Swiss Guard's uniforms at the Vatican, but he still would edge out the others on overall artistic genius points).

On a serious note--after teaching this stuff for years, even having some of these works of art and their creators as the answers to test questions back in my days of teaching western civ, it was thrilling to be in the same room with the real masterpieces. One only has to spend a few minutes in the Borghese, the Uffizi, or the Vatican to recognize two undeniable truths: (1) "modern art" can't hold a candle to these guys. And (2) all our attempts at glorifying "multiculturalism" can't change the fact that western culture is unique. Not that others aren't worthy of study, but no other culture has produced a Michelangelo (or, for that matter, a Thomas Jefferson).

Home Again!

Just a quick note--the Sals are back stateside. The trip was great, and there were MANY blog-worthy thoughts duly noted for future posting. In the category of updates, the running suffered while in Rome--except for one very memorable run of about 1000 meters around the ancient Circus Maximus, there was zero running. I fear that my brother-in-law has gained valuable ground, but I still have a couple of weeks to get back enough fitness to not embarass myself when we run together at month's end. And also, Ann got ANOTHER job offer before we left on the trip--at MY school (which means the same daily and yearly school schedule as the kids and me, plus a better salary). So God delivered not only an answer to prayer, but with perfect timing and the best of all possible worlds. Check out Ephesians 3:20-21, and don't forget it: He is able to do exceedingly, abundantly more than we can ask or imagine.

Catching up, taking off

Sorry no posts in a while--we've only been home 72 hours since camp (which was all-consuming), and we head out again tomorrow for the big Rome trip. A couple of updates:

Camp was AWESOME! If you frequent the PBC circle of blogs, you'll see more detail. But suffice it to say that all the work and worry that went into the programming end really paid off in a great week of camp that made it all worthwhile.

Mrs. Sal has a JOB! We worried (and prayed, and then worried some more) about how all our summer plans would impact the very necessary task of her re-joining the full time teaching corps this year. Never fear--God took care of everything in a 3-day window. After 4 interviews in 72 hours, Ann was offered a job on the spot this morning, less than a day out from our departure for Italy. It's a teaching assistant job--she's a bit worried because she could likely hold out and get more $$ by stringing the process along a bit. But the principal assured her that it would turn into an early childhood teacher slot by next year, and the money isn't the most important thing. This job not only has the advantage of being the proverbial bird in the hand, it also is close to home and seems to present the best path toward the achievement of her long-term professional goals. (If she takes the "better" offer of private school or public elementary school, it's harder to see the end result winding up in public school early childhood, where her heart lies). And for us, it's one more great opportunity to trust God that He really does know what He is doing. Once again, I am confident that He will honor our decision to think long-term and not just chase the cash. (And it's hard to complain about how little money you make when you're packing for an $8000 trip to Europe that's only costing you for meals!)

And speaking of the trip... the countdown is on. We fly out tomorrow afternoon. All of the expected butterflies are there, plus a couple unique to nerd-dom: what books do I take on the plane? 14 hours could mean several junk suspense novels (I'm thinking Clancy, Ludlum, or Ted Dekker... maybe all three), or I could put a serious dent in a Churchill biography that I've been putting off. Either way, I'll get to do some serious reading--my colleague who is the lead chaperone for this trip is a much more serious scholar than me (an ancient hist PhD, and a man of prodigious work habits), and has put together a 180-page typed guide to our itinerary. Oh, and I hope they show Spider Man 3 on the flight--my boys went to see it with their grandfather, so I missed my excuse to go see it in the theater. That's more Sal speed.

All of you friends out there, please pray for our family over the next two weeks. I'm not taking the laptop, so there will be no blogging from Europe. Ann will likely post pictures when we get back.

I promise I'll post more interesting stuff in July. My brain is cluttered again; time to dump it all in this spot.

SuperWeek

My buddy Mike says I've been a blogger wimp, having not posted in spite of being off for the summer. Sorry--Google has been jumpy about letting me in, and Mrs. Sal has had a honey-do list a mile long as we have been revving up for camp.

Speaking of camp, that starts tomorrow--the 26th annual SuperWeek! Since the vast majority of readers of this blog are camp staffers, not being able to post for a week won't be that big a deal. This year, all three of my kids (plus a nephew) are going to camp with us. I'm excited about the week for them, of course--being a camper is great. But I am also very excited for us grownups. Camp is a spiritual oasis; it's like going on a God-centered retreat. Yes, there are innumerable fun things to do. But there is also twice-daily worship, a daily Bible study, and most importantly, the fellowship of fellow staffers who are all there for a week of putting God first. If that doesn't sound fun, consider this--if you don't like being with Christians and praising God, you probably won't like heaven very much!

Prayers, please, all around for safe travel for everybody and for the week to have its intended goals of touching young lives significantly. Oh, and decent weather (or at least no monster hailstorms).

Go ahead. Envy me.

Just thought I'd point out, I didn't go to work today. And I won't be going Monday, either. Nor any day that I don't really feel like it until mid-August. 'CAUSE I'M A SCHOOLTEACHER! I will, of course, have to deal with students in my professional capacity for a couple of weeks... IN ROME! So life is pretty good.

Seriously, I have no idea how all you people with "real jobs" do it (I've been told teaching is an "unreal job"). I have nothing but respect for the folks who take their very limited vacation time and spend it on such things as PBC (and of course, SuperWeek starts in 8 days). For all the many gripes that teachers have about the pay (and believe me, a small number divided by 12 is even less per month than the same small number divided by the 9 months we actually work), I've said for a long time now that time is far more valuable than money. If I made six figures, I'd just spend it all, but I wouldn't be able to do the time-things that money can't buy (like camp, and enjoying the kids all summer). Now, I'll grant you that the best of both worlds would be even better--time to travel and the money to go places. But God has been awfully gracious in that area, too. Happy summer, all!

What do I need?

There's a game going around on the internet. You google your name, in conjunction with "needs" and relate what the world wide web says you need. Apparently, in no particular order, here are a few of the things "Larry needs."

1. Larry needs a lifetime supply of calcium supplement.
2. Larry needs a beating.
3. Larry needs to find several women. (I'm afraid this is from the game, "Leisure Suit Larry.")
4. Larry needs computer help.
5. Larry needs to stop trying to keep up with the Joneses.
6. Larry needs dental surgery and a somewhat complicated neuter before he can be placed in a permanent home. (please, please, please be about a dog!)
7. Larry needs love, too.
8. Larry needs some financial help.
9. Larry needs to get in shape. (Boy, do I!)
10. Larry needs to stick to stand-up comedy. (this would be the Cable Guy)

Basic Civics: The Electoral College

On the way home from work today, I heard a few minutes of the Laura Ingraham show; she's a conservative talk-show host who has replaced Dave Ramsey's financial show on my local AM station (full disclosure: I prefer Dave). She was interviewing someone on the still-far-off 2008 election, and was pointing out how likely it is that Hillary Clinton will be our next President. Although I can't say I am very happy about that, it makes good math sense. As I'm in the process of writing my final exam, and as there are a couple of questions on it about the electoral college, here's a brief synopsis for those who haven't had a civics class in a while.

Contrary to popular belief, getting the most votes won't make you President. The magic number is a majority of electoral votes. Every state gets a number of electoral votes equal to its number of senators (always 2) plus its number of congressional representatives (from 1 in sparsely-populated states like Wyoming up to 53 in California). If you win the popular vote by even a one-vote plurality in a state, you pretty much get all those electoral votes. With 100 senators and 435 congressional districts, that makes 535 total votes, plus the 23rd amendment gave Washington, DC 3 votes to equal the smallest state. So that's 538. Half of 538 is 269, and a majority is 270. So if you get 270 electoral votes, you win. Simple enough!

But there's more--in a 3-or-more-way race, you can win the electoral vote without winning half the popular vote. A plurality still counts. Further, about 40% of the population tends to vote Democrat, about 40% Republican, and the other 20% or so are generally in play. That's why our biggest popular-vote landslides are always around the magic 60% mark. So it's possible, when a party is not united (like when two Democrats faced Lincoln in 1860, or Teddy Roosevelt took votes away from Taft in 1912, or a Ross Perot steals votes from George H.W. Bush in 1992), the other guy (Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, or Bill Clinton, respectively) can pick up the electoral majority while only winning around 40% of the popular vote.

It's even better than that. Four times in our history, the guy with the second-most overall popular votes has still won the electoral vote (in 1824, 1876, 1888, and most recently in 2000--and, trivia time: 3 of the 4 had a father or grandfather who had also been President--post a comment if you know who didn't). But that makes sense. The electoral college measures breadth of support across all the states instead of depth of support in just a few. If you can imagine someone winning California by a million votes, but losing each of the other 49 states by maybe 10,000 each, you can see how it's supposed to work--the winner of 49 states deserves more to be President, even though he or she "lost" the popular vote by half a million.

But why does all this mean we're looking at Bush-Clinton-Bush-CLINTON? Demographics. If you look at the map of the 2000 election county-by-county, George W. Bush painted the whole map bright red. But there were small patches of intense Al Gore blue along both coasts, up and down the Mississippi River, and in big urban areas. Yet Gore won more popular votes, and the electoral college came down to 600 votes in Florida. Urban voters, who tend to be younger, more often single, more often from minority backgrounds, socially more liberal--they break far more heavily Democrat than "red states" do Republican. And they are much more densely populated than much larger swaths of the country. So New York City dominates NY state politics. "Blue" LA, San Francisco, and other cities dominate the rest of "red" California. And so it goes across the country.

If you look at the 2004 map, it's hard to pick out any state John Kerry won that Hillary Clinton (or Barack Obama) would expect to lose. And let's not forget, Kerry ran a woeful campaign against an incumbent President, long before the Iraq war began to sour like it has recently. Add to that the fact that much of the "red state" base is less-than-in-love with the GOP frontrunners. I've already alluded to the fact that I won't be happy with Giuliani. Now that the immigration bill has hit the fan, McCain is hemmoraging base voters even worse than he was before. And Romney has yet to break out of third place behind those two. If a party can't even get all of their base, they can't win the electoral college.

Of course, there's lots of time between now and then--many GOP'ers think that a Fred Thompson candidacy might change the calculus, plus provide crossover potential to pick up some of that elusive 20% in the middle. Others think that this immigration bill might upset the apple-cart. And of course, as Dewey proved in 1948, the guy who is "guaranteed" to win can still be upset (by my favorite Democrat, Harry S Truman, who saw his party split three ways and still won). But if you're among those who says, "Hillary can't possibly win," think again.