I did my big presentation, “The Two Olafs,” at a retreat in Wisconsin this past weekend. Not a religious retreat. It’s a gathering of academics with Scandinavian specialties, some of their students, and a few other people who are just interested in Scandinavian culture. Once a year they get together at a nature preserve in Wisconsin.

The experience was both good and bad. I think I did as good a job with the PowerPoint talk as I’ve ever done, and the audience was attentive and appreciative, from all I could tell. I sold a few copies of my books, and got the nicest speaker’s fee I’ve ever pulled down.

The second day wasn’t great for me, however. I felt I’d been keeping to myself too much, which (as you know) is one of my besetting sins. So I determined to join the organizers for breakfast, and try to be part of the conversation.

I heard a number of things I disagreed with, but kept quiet and listened, attempting to understand and evaluate the things that were being said. But when it descended into plain Republican-bashing, I left the table with the words, “He never said that. He said he didn’t like broccoli,” and went back to my quiet area with my book. Then, when everyone else went off to see a movie, the final event of the retreat, I packed up Mrs. Hermanson and drove home without saying goodbye to anyone.

This is one of those frustrating things. On the rare occasions when I make a determined effort to move outside my comfort zone, I so often end up sorry I even tried. You know the old saying, “Better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt”? My own best motto seems to be, “Better to keep to myself and be thought a jerk, than to talk to people and remove all doubt.”

There’s a popular idea that all a shy person has to do is take the risk of talking to people, and he’ll soon discover that his fears are groundless.

I have very little evidence of that in my own experience.

Older women (over 31 as far as I can figure) are among the most committed players of EverQuest 2, a massive online role-playing game, but they don’t readily admit how much time they spend in the game. According to researchers, these female gamers under report the amount of time they spending playing by three hours a week.

Gigi Anders has been waiting for Castro to kick it ever since her family left Cuba and her tricycle was stolen from customs.

Castro promised a democratic government with elections, the restoration of the Constitution, and freedom from corruption. We believed. Castro wasn’t a mythic white knight on a steed coming to save us. He was the steed itself, El Caballo. The Stallion.

My family and I fled Cuba because within months of the takeover Castro and his men appropriated everything we had worked so hard for: my father’s medical practice, my mother’s social work job, our apartment, its contents, my grandparents’ and uncles’ and aunts’ businesses and homes, and everybody’s bank accounts.

Some interesting thoughts on the idea that we should “never deny, rarely affirm, always distinguish.”

It’s difficult to truly listen to someone words and sift them for the truth. It’s easier to reject them out of hand or even accept them the same way.

Sure, it’s too early to talk about a legacy for President Obama, but nominating David Ogden for Deputy Attorney General may be a sign post pointing the direction of part of his legacy. Ogden has legally defended all kinds of pornography in the past. According to Matthew Schmitz of The Public Discourse.com, “Completing a sort of multi-media grand slam, Ogden has sued to allow sexually-explicit content to be transmitted over the phone. Taking this quest to its absurd limits, he has even claimed in court that there is a constitutional right for pornography to be kept in firehouses.”

Ogden also helped write a brief applying racketeering laws to pro-life demonstrators. So smut is a constitutional right while speaking up for women’s health and children’s wellbeing is racketeering, according to Ogden.

I give this a post on our fine, considered, literary (and sword-fighting) blog because of the free speech angle of Ogden’s nomination, but after a little thought on it, I start wonder at the irony of the civil rights achievement in Mr. Obama’s election and the civil wrongs defended by people in his political party, particularly by Mr. Ogden. Let me ask an ugly question . . . Continue reading One Part of Obama’s Legacy →