I got up this morning before the dogs (that’s early) and drove to the university. The sky was blue, the grass was green, and the beds of annual flowers were at their brightest to welcome the students who return next week.<\/p>\n
My normal parking lot was almost empty, and walking to my office, I was the only person in sight. Yet at 8:15, when I entered the big lounge in the student center, it was elbow-to-elbow people. Some time later, sort of fed on coffee and pastries, I sat with several hundred others on armless chairs in a ballroom to hear the new president address us.<\/p>\n
I started here as a part-timer in 1992, and he is the fifth president I have worked under in that time, so I am starting to feel a little jaded about university convocation-day speeches. You know the sort of thing: we will increase steel production 20 percent annually for the next five years and build a new hydroelectric dam across the Volga River.<\/p>\n
The slide projected on the big screen behind the stage had a montage of images with the words “Strategies for the Future.” I suppose that that beats “Strategies for the Past,” although one could argue that strategies for discussing the past have some influence on the kind of future that we get.<\/p>\n
In my office, the furniture was subtly out of place. When I tried to open the big file drawer in my desk, it bumped into a fixture that it normally will clear. Then it hit me–the floor had been waxed. For the first time in a decade. There must be a new custodian in the building–the old one insisted that her orders were to clean only classrooms. But I thank our new Comrade Leader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I got up this morning before the dogs (that’s early) and drove to the university. The sky was blue, the grass was green, and the beds of annual flowers were at their brightest to welcome the students who return next week. 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Clifton","date":"October 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"You can't keep a good drama queen down.Ted Haggard, the disgraced pastor of the New Life megachurch in Colorado Springs, whom you might of thought would never occupy a pulpit again, but rather skulk around Phoenix, Arizona, peddling life insurance, is ba-a-a-ack.Ted Haggard, who proves that the Elmer Gantry archetype\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7089,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7089","url_meta":{"origin":706,"position":1},"title":"Polyamory and the Secret History of Wonder Woman","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 1, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Snow is falling, and I am elbow deep in putting together the next Bulletin for the Study of Religion, which among other things carries an article called \"What is a Superhero? How Myth Can Be a Metacode,\" by Kenneth MacKendrick of the University of Manitoba. So, with comics on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"culture\"","block_context":{"text":"culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=culture"},"img":{"alt_text":"wonder woman","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/wonder-woman.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":938,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=938","url_meta":{"origin":706,"position":2},"title":"Slow-Cooked Campfire Gallimaufry","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 11, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00b6 If you are not totally saturated with LOLcat humor, there is always the LOLCat Bible. (Via Boing Boing.)\u00b6 Download a quick Dutch oven cookbook. Then at your next festival, elbow aside all those half-naked dancers, set your cast-iron Dutch oven in the lambent coals, and enjoy a drink while\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1055,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1055","url_meta":{"origin":706,"position":3},"title":"Gods Below","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Gods below!\" was a favorite oath of the characters in Rome, my favorite HBO series ever.I have been giving them a lot of thought lately, starting with Cloacina (scroll down to Poster 6).The line to the septic tank at the guest cabin was clogged beyond my ability to clear it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"polytheism\"","block_context":{"text":"polytheism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=polytheism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9978,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9978","url_meta":{"origin":706,"position":4},"title":"Sherlock Meets Poe? Sherlock Meets Lovecraft?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 23, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I am reading one of the Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child \"Agent Prendergast\" mysteries right now ,Crimson Shore. Pendergast is a New Orleans-raised rich eccentric (New York mansion, manservant) with a twenty-something assistant\/ward, Constance, possessed of \"an old-fashioned beauty.\" He has FBI credentials, but apparently answers to no one in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Salem\"","block_context":{"text":"Salem","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=salem"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=soutrocknatub-20&l=am2&o=1&a=1455525944","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11257,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11257","url_meta":{"origin":706,"position":5},"title":"Conference on Current Pagan Studies 4: Albrecht Auditorium","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 12, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Part 1: The Southwest Chief Part 2: Holing up in Claremont Part 3: Harper Hall I titled this post because my friend Jeffrey Albaugh, one of the conference organizers, more than once admitted that he just loved saying \"Albrecht Auditorium.\" It's a German given name and surname and also connects\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Jeff-draws-raffle-ticket.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}