Yesterday whilst looking for a coat–just a nice, plain coat, button-up or zippered, a couple of pockets–I was talking to my good pal DFJ3. I wanted a nice, plain coat, not too long, not too short, not too heavy or light. We talked about whether certain church folk would–hold on, I mean not fancy at all; no suede, no epaulettes. Not one with buttons on top of the zipper, or worse, a double-zipper system with an internal and an external zipper. No zippered pockets on the sleeves, no obnoxious logo placement. I must’ve gone to four or five places and couldn’t find one decent coat that fit. May have to go name-brand generic and head over to Wal-Mart or Target.

So I was talking to DFJ3 and we talked about all kinds of fun stuff, such as whether certain church folk he knows would be more agitated by his belief that young earth creationism should not be taught in science classes (shocking, I know), or by his opposition to dispensational premillennialism. I’m not a church-goer, but I guessed the latter, knowing how much some folks love that Left Behind series. He said it depended on the audience.

Anyhow, at one point he mentioned that he and his girlfriend, a professor, started to have a debate but then she cut it off. When he asked why, she told him that he was a closed-minded person because “you always have to be right.” He disagreed– which may have been the wrong move. His response, which I am both proud and deeply disturbed to say that I predicted almost verbatim, was, “I do always have to be right, and that’s why I’m open-minded.”

These days, it seems (I haven’t run a survey so I can’t prove it) that we usually use the term “closed-minded” to criticize those who disagree with us. It’s a term that’s on the verge of becoming a thoughtless epithet instead of a meaningful description, much like “unfair” is used to describe situations we don’t like.

I try to be a little more precise with language than that. In my book, “open-minded” means I’ll carefully consider your beliefs. Like DFJ3, I will do this because I want to be right about everything; I accept the possibility (however remote) that I might not be right about everything; and I am willing to change my beliefs so that I will be even righter than ever before. But please note that I used the words “carefully consider your beliefs” and not “automatically accept your beliefs just to make you feel better.” That won’t happen unless we’re dating or married; then I’ll cave strategically.

If it turns out that my beliefs are more true, more correct, more provable than yours, if my beliefs explain or predict reality better than yours do, then after careful consideration, I’m throwing your beliefs out. Sorry. In fact, if your beliefs involve my area of expertise, I probably already give those beliefs careful consideration on a regular basis, and have a pretty good idea of which ones have merit and which ones don’t. There’s a risk you’re going to get shut down real fast.

But here’s the larger point: neither the inadequacy of your beliefs nor your inability to change my mind makes me “closed-minded.” Hopefully you will reciprocate by being “open-minded,” i.e., carefully considering my beliefs and changing yours if truth, fact, reality, and your own pursuit of rightness compel you to.

Happily, DFJ3’s girlfriend saw his point and agreed. Crisis averted.

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Still no coat.

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The new season began today. We played two men down the first half and fell behind 4-0. Then two more players showed up–we had a full side for the first time since August! We still lost, 4-1, but were ecstatic at having seven players on the field. Well, maybe not ecstatic, that’s overstating it, but pretty damned happy.

Because my French maid vampire costume doesn’t fit anymore, I had to throw something together pretty darn quick for last night’s Halloween shindig. So I figured, I have a better-than-average grounding in theology and philosophy, a red shirt, and a crabby big sister. Throw in a blue security blanket, make a sign, and voilà…

…Linus van Pelt. My striped red shirt was in the laundry, but he’d respect and appreciate the minimalism either way.

Creative? No. Well-executed? Not really. But with so little time to plan, it was either this or go as a “control group” again (i.e., wear regular clothes). The costume got a few chuckles, was called appropriate for the occasion, and cost less than ten bucks. And they had pulled-pork sandwiches, deviled eggs and enough milk-and-cookies at the party. Mission accomplished.

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I always wondered why Linus–well-enough-versed in the Gospels that he could recite from Luke at Christmastime–had no clue about the religious background of Halloween. True, we abandoned the deeper meaning of the holiday ages ago, but you’d think he’d know something about All Hallow’s Eve or Samhain instead of waiting for the Great Pumpkin.

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Broken-ankled Brett Favre getting carted off for a lacerated chinny chin chin? Excellent. That man cannot suffer enough indignity for my tastes.

Two years ago, in the wake of Barack Obama’s historic victory, I offered some unsolicited economic advice to our President-elect on the off-chance that he might be a reader of this august journal. Let’s see whether he’s listening:

Dear Mr. President-Elect,

In no particular order:

1. You want to raise the capital gains tax. Don’t. Do not. Not even a teensy tiny little bit. Ignore the hootin’ and hollerin’ about selling out to “Wall Street” or “Big Business” or “The Man” that would undoubtedly ensue from some of your backers. Higher capital taxes encourage capital flight, i.e., investment dollars would fly overseas.

Next year, the current capital gains tax rates are due to expire and return to their pre-2003 levels. That means they’re going up, on average. There’s still time to fix this (by which I mean “keep these tax rates where they are now”), but somehow I doubt that’ll happen. Capital will fly away.

2. You want to give 95% of “working families” a tax cut, and raise taxes on the other 5%. Don’t. I mean, do, and don’t. Do give the 95% the tax cut, but leave the other 5% alone—especially since you’re planning to go after their capital gains, too.

President Obama still intends to keep the Bush tax cuts for that bottom 95% and make the top 5% of income-earners (aside, of course, from members of his Cabinet) pay their “fair share.” It’s still a mistake, and there’s still time to fix it and extend the current income tax schedule.

3. I don’t know what your energy plan was, because by the time you got to it in the debates I flipped over to the cartoon channel. Anyways, permit more domestic oil drilling and fire up more nuclear reactors.

President Obama has called for more nuclear power plants, which is good, but not as good as, say, actually getting them built. Let’s get cracking.

Re oil. The BP oil spill has made President Obama hesitate to permit much offshore drilling (and perhaps to accept so much money from BP?)–even though the moratorium was lifted a few weeks ago, the administration has been slow-walking drilling permits in both deep and shallow waters. I realize that in the wake of the oil spill, it’s not exactly popular to say “Drill, baby, drill.” But I still think offshore drilling is a good idea and needs to be expanded–assuming we hold the oil companies responsible for damages, and allow the people with the ability to clean up any potential mess to get in there and get the job done instead of delaying them for weeks because (A) they can only make the water 99% clean instead of a bazillionty percent clean, or (B) they’re foreign.

4. Keep your promise of a “net spending cut.” There was some talk in your campaign of reducing federal tax revenues to around 18 percent of GDP. That’s fine, as long as the federal tax spending is around 18 percent of GDP also.

Um… 18% is downwards, Mr. President.

5. This one isn’t advice so much as it is a warning. Even if you try to make the tax code more “progressive” (i.e., the richer pay higher tax rates), some imbecile will nonetheless scream at you for being a shill for the rich. Why? Raising the marginalrates on the rich may increase the percentage of total tax revenues paid by the poor. Why? Because when the rich hear that the government intends to raise their income taxes and their capital gains taxes and their Social Security/Medicare taxes, they’ll become less productive, and there’s less income and wealth to tax. Atlas may very well shrug.

This warning still stands, especially in light of items 1 and 2 above. And since a few meek words of warning from this humble blog have failed to sway you (never having heard of me is no excuse), please allow next Tuesday’s election returns and Ayn Rand’s Amazon.com rankings to do so.

6. Maintain every free trade agreement we have, and sign as many more as possible.

Despite some anti-free-trade rhetoric during the campaign and earlier in his administration (before anybody starts to defend his “fair trade” stance, please stand warned that you may as well claim that the Earth is flat or that Santa Claus sired the Easter Bunny by the Tooth Fairy), President Obama has pushed for freer trade with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. This is a promising start, and hopefully he won’t screw up NAFTA or our other FTAs.

7. Announce that pennies now count as nickels, and then slowly take them out of circulation, replacing them with real nickels. Put Lincoln on new dollar coins the size of the old Ike dollars. Also, start printing $500 bills again. I am not a crackpot.

My jar of pennies keeps getting fuller, I don’t see any Lincoln dollars, and I’m still waiting on the contest to replace McKinley on the $500. What’s the holdup?

8. Tell Bernanke to stop watching the Dow Jones and to do his damn job, which is to keep the dollar stable.

Erm… I’m not really sure that this is an improvement. A bit of deflation in 2009, a little inflation in 2010…

9. Abolish the concept of “off-budget” revenues and expenditures. Every dollar spent should appear in the budget, regardless of source and regardless of destination.

Still waiting on this one.

10. Push for my proposal to key congressional salaries to the size of the budget surplus (assuming you’ve implemented #9).

This’ll never happen. I think Congress would go for it, but voters probably wouldn’t because gosh darn it, congressmen should eliminate the deficit and reduce the national debt because it’s the right thing to do and not because of the seven- or eight-figure salary they’d get paid under my proposal.

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There’s still time, Mr. President–maybe not to save your buddies in Congress, but to save your own hide in 2012. I had to pay twice as much for an Obama yard sign as I paid for one of McCain’s, the least you could do is everything I say.

This isn’t that big a deal, but since my current batch of students are getting to the point where they’ve discovered the blog and I’ve embarrassed two of them enough for one day, I’m gonna password-protect it for a while.

Last week in class, it somehow came up that Girl X and Boy Y were dating. This week, to draw an analogy to Calhoun’s “The Union–next to liberty–most dear!” toast, I needed to use a boyfriend and girlfriend, so I quite innocently thought I could pick on X and Y.

A rough transcript:

ME: Who were the boyfriend and girlfriend last week?

SOME OTHER STUDENT: It was Girl X and Boy Y.

[Girl X looked normal. Boy Y was squirming.]

ME: It was?

BOY Y (bitterly): It was.

ME: Oh. It’s not anymore?

SOME OTHER STUDENT: No.

ME: Oh.

[I paused to consider how to proceed, and settled on normally instead of delicately or considerately.]

ME: Well, I’m using you two in the example anyways. Pretend Girl X asks Boy Y, “Do you love me?” Y answers, “You–next to pizza–most dear!” How would X feel about knowing that she’s second in his heart to pizza?

SOME OTHER STUDENT: Not good.

ME: Right! So Calhoun’s quote means that he loves the Union, but…

SOME OTHER STUDENT: Not as much as his liberty.

I glanced around to room to check for the looks of comprehension, and sure enough, Boy Y was glaring at his desk and Girl X had that smiling-yet-fuming look on her face that I’ve seen once or twice in my brief time on this Earth. It’s not a happy look, and it doesn’t bode well for anybody. I figured I’d better apologize to them privately.

I spoke with Boy Y right after class and said I was sorry to have hit a sore point, and that I hoped I hadn’t hurt his feelings. He said he was a little hurt but that he’d be okay one day. Not quite the “Oh, it’s no big deal” I was hoping for. Oops.

I ran into Girl X later in the school day and apologized to her. She replied that it was okay because she hurt him more than he hurt her. Before bringing out any more of the worst in her, I cut her off and said I didn’t care one way or the other who hurt whom, I just wanted to apologize. She said it was okay. I concluded, in essence, with “Good. Now go away.”

So, to recap: hurt one kid’s feelings in front of the entire class, tapped the inner Heather in another kid, probably made things even worse with the apologies… not a proud day. This is what I get for trying to be creative during lectures. Maybe I should just have the kids do word searches and color.

Once upon a time I was talking to my Marxist friend “Lego.” He asked me if, before violating a law that he considered immoral, he would have to justify that violation–even if it would hurt no one. I was fairly certain that he was about to do something illegal, and that the morality of said action would be questionable at best. I was also fairly certain that the question was a thinly veiled attempt to distract me from talking him out of it (he mistakenly assumed that I cared… he’ll learn).

I told him I wasn’t going to answer his question directly–which he was probably perfectly-happy-with because it would further the “distraction.” I told him, in essence, the following:

If you (i.e., the government) are going to keep me from doing something that is not immoral, if you’re going to threaten to throw me in jail or shoot me for doing something that harms nobody else, then you need to explain yourself to me. My rights precede any power you have over me.

Lego was content with my answer, though at this point in the conversation I think he would’ve been content with anything. Maybe he got it, though I wonder whether he’d apply the principle to areas of law and governance other than those of his immediate concern.

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I went shopping for two new suits this weekend, then stopped by my dad’s house. He told me that I’d left a suit there years ago. Turns out it was the first suit I bought with my own money, back in ’97. Navy blue with very faint pinstripes. It could use a cleaning, some brushing and some tailoring (it’s a teensy bit loose in the gut), but it fits. That means I weigh roughly what I did when I was 20. I need a pizza.