Gilberto Gil on Music

In a recent Wired article, Gilberto Gil discusses the responsibility of being a musician:

More than a sound, though, tropicalismo was an attitude. It was, in Gil’s words, “no longer a mere submission to the forces of economic imperialism, but a cannibalistic response of swallowing what they gave us, processing it, and making it something new and different. We saw the cultivating of new habits and manners from the outside as a way of nourishing ourselves, not just intoxicating ourselves.”

The military dictatorship that ran Brazil at the time saw it differently, however. “It was anarchism, it was subversion in sheep’s clothing,” says Gil, explaining why he and Veloso were arrested in 1968. “It was a social infection of troubling consequences for young people. Those were the reasons they gave.” The musicians remained in prison for two months. On their release the military invited them, firmly, to leave the country, and they spent the next three years exiled in London. No charges were filed, but according to Gil, their captors made it clear enough why they’d been singled out: “You represent a threat, something new, something that can’t quite be understood, something that doesn’t fit into any of the clear compartments of existing cultural practices, and that won’t do. That is dangerous.”

Indeed, even Plato banished the poets from the Republic. Yet, those who ran Brazil’s military dictatorship do not sound too far off from any tyranny that would seek to silence the opposition, yet at least I admire those Brazilians who had no qualms about being blatant about their desires. Here, I fear, we hide behind the rhetoric of difference and religious evangelism — words like “evil” ring a bell? — to get the people to do what many in the government cannot openly. I fear that if we increasingly do not fit into those “clear compartments of existing cultural practices,” then America will become to become less tolerant.

Hope I’m wrong, but when is the last time you had a healthy debate about abortion, homosexual marriage, the last election, or religion? When did “liberal” become an insult? This anti-intellectualism is just indicative of a greater fear of difference, something that has the possibility to turn into a great dark force.

Wired 12.11: We Pledge Allegiance to the Penguin

Gilberto Gil discusses the responsibility of being a musician:

More than a sound, though, tropicalismo was an attitude. It was, in Gil’s words, “no longer a mere submission to the forces of economic imperialism, but a cannibalistic response of swallowing what they gave us, processing it, and making it something new and different. We saw the cultivating of new habits and manners from the outside as a way of nourishing ourselves, not just intoxicating ourselves.”

The military dictatorship that ran Brazil at the time saw it differently, however. “It was anarchism, it was subversion in sheep’s clothing,” says Gil, explaining why he and Veloso were arrested in 1968. “It was a social infection of troubling consequences for young people. Those were the reasons they gave.” The musicians remained in prison for two months. On their release the military invited them, firmly, to leave the country, and they spent the next three years exiled in London. No charges were filed, but according to Gil, their captors made it clear enough why they’d been singled out: “You represent a threat, something new, something that can’t quite be understood, something that doesn’t fit into any of the clear compartments of existing cultural practices, and that won’t do. That is dangerous.”

Indeed, even Plato banished the poets from the Republic. Yet, those who ran Brazil’s military dictatorship do not sound too far off from any tyranny that would seek to silence the opposition, yet at least I admire those Brazilians who had no qualms about being blatant about their desires. Here, I fear, we hide behind the rhetoric of difference and religious evangelism — words like “evil” ring a bell? — to get the people to do what many in the government cannot openly. I fear that if we increasingly do not fit into those “clear compartments of existing cultural practices,” then America will become to become less tolerant.

Hope I’m wrong, but when is the last time you had a healthy debate about abortion, homosexual marriage, the last election, or religion? When did “liberal” become an insult? This anti-intellectualism is just indicative of a greater fear of difference, something that has the possibility to turn into a great dark force.

Wired 12.11: We Pledge Allegiance to the Penguin

Choice

Tired of giving M$ all your money for a productivity suite? Well, contrary to what you might think, you do have a choice. Try AbiWord, a beautiful free alternative to Word, or OpenOffice, a free office solution. Both read and write popular formats, so you won’t be living on a computing island all by yourself. As far as alternative operating systems, any flavor of Linux or BSD is a good choice — especially for a server, or there’s always my favorite, Apple‘s Mac OS X.

Digital Archives: The Problems of Preservation

The NYTimes has an article that addresses the difficulties of preserving current digital information, including your email, digital photos, and word processing documents, for any real length of time, like one-hundred years or more. Jim Gallagher, director for information technology services at the Library of Congress, said that the largest problem “is that machines and software formats in use now will become obsolete sooner rather than later.” I have some old 5.25-inch floppy disks from my Dad’s old Eagle word processor, circa 1982. I think there’s a book report that I wrote on Ian Fleming’s James Bond that I would like to post to my blog. I guess keeping that obsolete equipment around the house, or what the article calls the “museum approach,” might just be a good idea.

Another problem is that current digital media lose they integrity in a short amount of time. About two months ago, the secretary here gave me some notes I asked her to type up on a floppy disk. I’m not certain why she just didn’t email it to me, but I didn’t ask. I just accepted the disc with a print out of the file, and put it on my desk until I could get to it. Well, I tried to transfer the file last week using one of the peecees in our lab, and the disk was unreadable. It only took two-to-three months to lose it.

Implicit in this article is the fact that atoms last longer and through harsher conditions than do digital media. Paper is relatively robust when compared to the typical CD-R. In fact, while paper can easily last over one-hundred years, the average CD-R lasts about ten if it’s stored properly. Solutions? We might still be resigned to the atom for now.

Even Digital Memories Can Fade

The problem of preserving digital photos and other electronic records for future decades confounds even the experts.

The NYTimes has an article that addresses the difficulties of preserving current digital information, including your email, digital photos, and word processing documents, for any real length of time, like one-hundred years or more. Jim Gallagher, director for information technology services at the Library of Congress, said that the largest problem “is that machines and software formats in use now will become obsolete sooner rather than later.” I have some old 5.25-inch floppy disks from my Dad’s old Eagle word processor, circa 1982. I think there’s a book report that I wrote on Ian Fleming’s James Bond that I would like to post to my blog. I guess keeping that obsolete equipment around the house, or what the article calls the “museum approach,” might just be a good idea.

Another problem is that current digital media lose they integrity in a short amount of time. About two months ago, the secretary here gave me some notes I asked her to type up on a floppy disk. I’m not certain why she just didn’t email it to me, but I didn’t ask. I just accepted the disc with a print out of the file, and put it on my desk until I could get to it. Well, I tried to transfer the file last week using one of the peecees in our lab, and the disk was unreadable. It only took two-to-three months to lose it.

Implicit in this article is the fact that atoms last longer and through harsher conditions than do digital media. Paper is relatively robust when compared to the typical CD-R. In fact, while paper can easily last over one-hundred years, the average CD-R lasts about ten if it’s stored properly. Solutions? We might still be resigned to the atom for now.

Even Digital Memories Can Fade

Reflections 2004

Earlier this month, I received an email from a member of the PTA — also a former student — asking me to judge this year’s Reflections literature contest for Houston Country High School, here in Central Georgia. I gladly accepted, and the judging was today at the school. We had to compete with a cheerleading competition — which startled me as I arrived: could all these people be here for an arts contest? It seems the arts are more important here than I had thought. No, it turned out to be a cheer thing in the gym, and the Reflections contest was across the courtyard in the theatre.

The other judge for literature was Dr. Berlethia Pitts, an Assistant Professor at Fort Valley State. Together we read eight shortstories and poems, and fairly easily picked the winners. I would like to offer my congratulations to those winners:

• First Place: Jackie Dent for a short story “Stars Hide Fires”
• Second Place: Brittany Robinson for a poem “Snatched from My House”
• Third Place: Amanda Hammonds for a short story “The Invisible Hope”

Thanks to Kathy Brown for inviting me to participate.

Reflections 2004

Earlier this month, I received an email from a member of the PTA — also a former student — asking me to judge this year’s Reflections literature contest for Houston Country High School, here in Central Georgia. I gladly accepted, and the judging was today at the school. We had to compete with a cheerleading competition — which startled me as I arrived: could all these people be here for an arts contest? It seems the arts are more important here than I had thought.No, it turned out to be a cheer thing in the gym, and the Reflections contest was across the courtyard in the theatre.

The other judge for literature was Dr. Berlethia Pitts, an Assistant Professor at Fort Valley State. Together we read eight shortstories and poems, and fairly easily picked the winners. I would like to offer my congratulations to those winners:

• First Place: Jackie Dent for a short story “Stars Hide Fires”
• Second Place: Brittany Robinson for a poem “Snatched from My House”
• Third Place: Amanda Hammonds for a short story “The Invisible Hope”

Thanks to Kathy Brown for inviting me to participate.

Online Literature: A Response

I recently received a letter from a colleague that asks some pertinent questions concerning my difficulties with teaching literature online. I have been sloth in responding, but answering his questions might help and encourage me to think about these issues a bit more. I will quote parts of the letter and make responses.

As I was browsing the postings on the Macon State website, I noticed your article about online literature classes. Until then I thought I was the only person concerned with the ethics of such a medium of academic instruction. After all, how am I to know that the person submitting postings, essays and other assignments is in fact the author?

A good question, and one that I have, frankly, not given too much thought to. I think there are two concerns here: (1) how can we tell if the student is plagiarizing, and (2) how can we tell if the student submitting the work is the student signed up for the course? I think the first issue is one that we educators in English Studies have been battling for years, though the internet has made our jobs a bit easier. There’s nothing like a Google search to track down suspicious verses in a student essay. There are also subscription services like Turn It In that assist in tracking down potentially plagiarized essays.

However, the more pressing question might be the latter: just who is doing the work. Now maybe I’m being blithe, but I’m not sure this should be a concern of ours. Might this be analogous to asking how do I know if the essay Johnny just turned into me is his own work? Now if Johnny turns in a first essay that is polished enough to receive the praise of his professor, but a second essay that has obvious grammatical and stylistic errors that are inconsistent with the first submission, then something is awry. In fact, online submission might even make this evaluation easier, since the first essay is still available to review.

Yet, these inconsistencies that come from cheating would not be evident if the student cheated the same way all semester, something that might be less obvious in an online course than it would be in-class. In the latter, there are opportunities for impromptu evaluations, but not so in online courses.

I guess one can never be sure. Does anyone have other ideas?

I teach English 1102 online and I am conflicted about my approach to the class. I feel that students are cheated out of the proper instruction (even though I do my best the way I would do in a physical classroom). Yes, I am all for technology and progress – I manage our division’s web page, require all my students to be computer literate, and push for more technology for our school. Yet at the same time I am worried that students need a “real” professor who will respond to comments and ideas on the spot.

I understand these concerns very well. In fact, they are the same that I have been struggling with for a while. Aren’t I more effective in the classroom, especially in a literature course? Now, I understand that some courses work better online, like those that require memorization – where there are right and wrong answers. I can see how a composition course, like English Composition I, Professional Communication, or Technical Writing, could be successfully delivered at a distance. Yet, courses that require more interpretation from a community are difficult to achieve with our current technology.

I see some solutions: (1) make those courses that require more textual analysis more like the courses that rely on the learning of facts; or (2) develop a hybrid approach that makes part of the course available at a distance while part remains in-class; (3) use various digital tools to facilitate all types of learners to acquire the knowledge on their own. Maybe a combination of the three would be beneficial.

I have always thought that students learn more when they are a part of the learning process. That is, students need some guidance, but most of the learning that they do – the lessons that remain with them the longest – are those that they find themselves. Perhaps if we are not so rigid with what we decide is education and how that education should be achieved, then maybe an online approach would be more beneficial. Why can’t a student begin her study of the Iliad by researching the education of Achilles or the curse of the House of Atreus? Won’t self-guided searching lead to a more profound knowledge of a text? Is it necessary that the whole of the Iliad be known cursorily rather than a specific portion in detail?

What if all those portions came together in an online venue, like a wiki? Then the accrued knowledge of several generations of students might assist others on similar quests. Isn’t this what academics and education is all about? We should use the strengths of the medium for our teaching: if what we have does not work with our tradition, then perhaps the traditions need to be reevaluated?

Since you have taught a literature class online before, would you please share some of your impressions with me? How did you handle your students without really knowing them and their abilities?

I have not been very successful with online literature courses, yet. However, I do keep trying. I have tried MOOs, bulletin boards, web sites, mailing lists, blogs, and numerous other media, and all have remained dubious in their pedagogical efficacy. Here are some things that do work:

1. Organization. Students love clarity and simplicity, so I try to give them both. This is especially important for an online course, where the students will be struggling with the texts, so they will not want to struggle with the technology. However, with this said, there is a learning curve when using new technologies, or any new system. We cannot eliminate all of this cognitive dissonance, but we can mitigate it by utilizing with technologies that are familiar to our students. Therefore, I try to make everything web-based.
2. Structure. Students like to be told what to do. I think this is what our educational system trains them to want: not to be self-thinkers and self-motivators, but to be told precisely what is expected of them and how to accomplish that goal. This is an unfortunate reality that will require us to reevaluate our entire educational system. Perhaps technology will precipitate this reevaluation more quickly than we might think, for it seems that an intrinsic quality of our current networked microprocessing technologies is their ability to make information available in such a way as to reward those who are persistent, who make their own paths through the knowledge. Yet this also discourages those who lack the drive or persistence to research. One might suggest that the latter should not be in college. I tend to think that the educational system might need to take more responsibility.Anyway, I give just enough structure to those that need it, but I encourage students to find their own ways to the material. I never discourage routes that might seem questionable, and I always reward the original. We have to be more flexible when teaching online.
3. Consistency. I think part of making the students engage the material is being consistent. Part of this consistency comes with the simplicity of requirements and goals. I have never been very successful with this, but I have made progress. For example, instead of organizing my online World Literature course like its in-class sister, I have broken the work down into units that students may complete at their own pace. Each unit has the same requirements, so students always know what is expected of them. However, I advocate free thinking here, as well. If a student has a proposal for her own requirements, I’m always keen to consider.
4. Participation. I have struggled with this one. On one hand, I do not want to stifle the class interaction by imposing my words into the conversation, but on the other, many students need the structuring voice of the professor – the one who is presumed to know the right and wrong of the material. In the past, I have tried to be laissez faire, but many students needed my input. I have tried to be vocal, but that seemed frequently to stifle conversation and interaction. I have found that as long as I am consistent and timely in evaluation, that students will carry on well themselves. At least that’s been the case this term.

We also have to remember that not all students can handle an online course. I try to make that as clear as possible the first night of class, yet the problem here remains that many do not show up the first night of class because our college does not have any consistency in their rules for online courses. Online courses are difficult enough without the erroneous notions carried by many of our students that these distance classes will be much easier than having to drag one’s butt into the classroom twice a week. Dude, I get to work on my own usually translates to Dude, I can procrastinate as long as I want; this is a deadly mindset for a course that usually requires more work.

I have also considered lessening my requirements for online courses. However, I continue to resist this solution since (1) that would make the opinion in the last paragraph closer to being correct, and (2) an online course should not be any less complete than one taught in-class. This is a point I’ll remain pretty firm on.

These are all my thoughts for now. I’ve probably missed a few items, but I can add those later. I would appreciate any responses to these issues that will be plaguing us, I fear, for sometime to come.

Online Literature: A Response

I recently received a letter from a colleague that asks some pertinent questions concerning my difficulties with teaching literature online. I have been sloth in responding, but answering his questions might help and encourage me to think about these issues a bit more. I will quote parts of the letter and make responses.

As I was browsing the postings on the Macon State website, I noticed your article about online literature classes. Until then I thought I was the only person concerned with the ethics of such a medium of academic instruction. After all, how am I to know that the person submitting postings, essays and other assignments is in fact the author?

A good question, and one that I have, frankly, not given too much thought to. I think there are two concerns here: (1) how can we tell if the student is plagiarizing, and (2) how can we tell if the student submitting the work is the student signed up for the course? I think the first issue is one that we educators in English Studies have been battling for years, though the internet has made our jobs a bit easier. There’s nothing like a Google search to track down suspicious verses in a student essay. There are also subscription services like Turn It In that assist in tracking down potentially plagiarized essays.

However, the more pressing question might be the latter: just who is doing the work. Now maybe I’m being blithe, but I’m not sure this should be a concern of ours. Might this be analogous to asking how do I know if the essay Johnny just turned into me is his own work? Now if Johnny turns in a first essay that is polished enough to receive the praise of his professor, but a second essay that has obvious grammatical and stylistic errors that are inconsistent with the first submission, then something is awry. In fact, online submission might even make this evaluation easier, since the first essay is still available to review.

Yet, these inconsistencies that come from cheating would not be evident if the student cheated the same way all semester, something that might be less obvious in an online course than it would be in-class. In the latter, there are opportunities for impromptu evaluations, but not so in online courses.

I guess one can never be sure. Does anyone have other ideas?

I teach English 1102 online and I am conflicted about my approach to the class. I feel that students are cheated out of the proper instruction (even though I do my best the way I would do in a physical classroom). Yes, I am all for technology and progress — I manage our division’s web page, require all my students to be computer literate, and push for more technology for our school. Yet at the same time I am worried that students need a “real” professor who will respond to comments and ideas on the spot.

I understand these concerns very well. In fact, they are the same that I have been struggling with for a while. Aren’t I more effective in the classroom, especially in a literature course? Now, I understand that some courses work better online, like those that require memorization — where there are right and wrong answers. I can see how a composition course, like English Composition I, Professional Communication, or Technical Writing, could be successfully delivered at a distance. Yet, courses that require more interpretation from a community are difficult to achieve with our current technology.

I see some solutions: (1) make those courses that require more textual analysis more like the courses that rely on the learning of facts; or (2) develop a hybrid approach that makes part of the course available at a distance while part remains in-class; (3) use various digital tools to facilitate all types of learners to acquire the knowledge on their own. Maybe a combination of the three would be beneficial.

I have always thought that students learn more when they are a part of the learning process. That is, students need some guidance, but most of the learning that they do — the lessons that remain with them the longest — are those that they find themselves. Perhaps if we are not so rigid with what we decide is education and how that education should be achieved, then maybe an online approach would be more beneficial. Why can’t a student begin her study of the Iliad by researching the education of Achilles or the curse of the House of Atreus? Won’t self-guided searching lead to a more profound knowledge of a text? Is it necessary that the whole of the Iliad be known cursorily rather than a specific portion in detail?

What if all those portions came together in an online venue, like a wiki? Then the accrued knowledge of several generations of students might assist others on similar quests. Isn’t this what academics and education is all about? We should use the strengths of the medium for our teaching: if what we have does not work with our tradition, then perhaps the traditions need to be reevaluated?

Since you have taught a literature class online before, would you please share some of your impressions with me? How did you handle your students without really knowing them and their abilities?

I have not been very successful with online literature courses, yet. However, I do keep trying. I have tried MOOs, bulletin boards, web sites, mailing lists, blogs, and numerous other media, and all have remained dubious in their pedagogical efficacy. Here are some things that do work:

1. Organization. Students love clarity and simplicity, so I try to give them both. This is especially important for an online course, where the students will be struggling with the texts, so they will not want to struggle with the technology. However, with this said, there is a learning curve when using new technologies, or any new system. We cannot eliminate all of this cognitive dissonance, but we can mitigate it by utilizing with technologies that are familiar to our students. Therefore, I try to make everything web-based.
2. Structure. Students like to be told what to do. I think this is what our educational system trains them to want: not to be self-thinkers and self-motivators, but to be told precisely what is expected of them and how to accomplish that goal. This is an unfortunate reality that will require us to reevaluate our entire educational system. Perhaps technology will precipitate this reevaluation more quickly than we might think, for it seems that an intrinsic quality of our current networked microprocessing technologies is their ability to make information available in such a way as to reward those who are persistent, who make their own paths through the knowledge. Yet this also discourages those who lack the drive or persistence to research. One might suggest that the latter should not be in college. I tend to think that the educational system might need to take more responsibility.

   Anyway, I give just enough structure to those that need it, but I encourage students to find their own ways to the material. I never discourage routes that might seem questionable, and I always reward the original. We have to be more flexible when teaching online.

3. Consistency. I think part of making the students engage the material is being consistent. Part of this consistency comes with the simplicity of requirements and goals. I have never been very successful with this, but I have made progress. For example, instead of organizing my online World Literature course like its in-class sister, I have broken the work down into units that students may complete at their own pace. Each unit has the same requirements, so students always know what is expected of them. However, I advocate free thinking here, as well. If a student has a proposal for her own requirements, I’m always keen to consider.
4. Participation. I have struggled with this one. On one hand, I do not want to stifle the class interaction by imposing my words into the conversation, but on the other, many students need the structuring voice of the professor — the one who is presumed to know the right and wrong of the material. In the past, I have tried to be laissez faire, but many students needed my input. I have tried to be vocal, but that seemed frequently to stifle conversation and interaction. I have found that as long as I am consistent and timely in evaluation, that students will carry on well themselves. At least that’s been the case this term.

We also have to remember that not all students can handle an online course. I try to make that as clear as possible the first night of class, yet the problem here remains that many do not show up the first night of class because our college does not have any consistency in their rules for online courses. Online courses are difficult enough without the erroneous notions carried by many of our students that these distance classes will be much easier than having to drag one’s butt into the classroom twice a week. Dude, I get to work on my own usually translates to Dude, I can procrastinate as long as I want; this is a deadly mindset for a course that usually requires more work.

I have also considered lessing my requirements for online courses. However, I continue to resist this solution since (1) that would make the opinion in the last paragraph closer to being correct, and (2) an online course should not be any less complete than one taught in-class. This is a point I’ll remain pretty firm on.

These are all my thoughts for now. I’ve probably missed a few items, but I can add those later. I would appreciate any responses to these issues that will be plaguing us, I fear, for sometime to come.

Theocracy?

We may be in serious trouble. Gary Wills, in his NYTimes op-ed piece, asks “Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?” Even more radical and paranoid is this speculation. I mean, I thought it was Central Georgia; am I to believe the whole country is going this way? Maureen Dowd echoes these, and other, sentiments: “The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule. He doesn’t want to heal rifts; he wants to bring any riffraff who disagree to heel.” She continues, pointing out the irony that most refuse to see: “Mr. Bush, whose administration drummed up fake evidence to trick us into war with Iraq, sticking our troops in an immoral position with no exit strategy, won on ‘moral issues.'” Can I get an Amen?

Wills is worth quoting at length:

America, the first real democracy in history, was a product of Enlightenment values – critical intelligence, tolerance, respect for evidence, a regard for the secular sciences. Though the founders differed on many things, they shared these values of what was then modernity. They addressed “a candid world,” as they wrote in the Declaration of Independence, out of “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind.” Respect for evidence seems not to pertain any more, when a poll taken just before the elections showed that 75 percent of Mr. Bush’s supporters believe Iraq either worked closely with Al Qaeda or was directly involved in the attacks of 9/11.

The secular states of modern Europe do not understand the fundamentalism of the American electorate. It is not what they had experienced from this country in the past. In fact, we now resemble those nations less than we do our putative enemies.

Where else do we find fundamentalist zeal, a rage at secularity, religious intolerance, fear of and hatred for modernity? Not in France or Britain or Germany or Italy or Spain. We find it in the Muslim world, in Al Qaeda, in Saddam Hussein’s Sunni loyalists. Americans wonder that the rest of the world thinks us so dangerous, so single-minded, so impervious to international appeals. They fear jihad, no matter whose zeal is being expressed.

It is often observed that enemies come to resemble each other. We torture the torturers, we call our God better than theirs – as one American general put it, in words that the president has not repudiated. [. . .]

The moral zealots will, I predict, give some cause for dismay even to nonfundamentalist Republicans. Jihads are scary things. It is not too early to start yearning back toward the Enlightenment.

More from Dowd:

Just as Zell Miller was so over the top at the G.O.P. convention that he made Mr. Cheney seem reasonable, so several new members of Congress will make W. seem moderate.

Tom Coburn, the new senator from Oklahoma, has advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions and warned that “the gay agenda” would undermine the country. He also characterized his race as a choice between “good and evil” and said he had heard there was “rampant lesbianism” in Oklahoma schools.

Jim DeMint, the new senator from South Carolina, said during his campaign that he supported a state G.O.P. platform plank banning gays from teaching in public schools. He explained, “I would have given the same answer when asked if a single woman who was pregnant and living with her boyfriend should be hired to teach my third-grade children.”

John Thune, who toppled Tom Daschle, is an anti-abortion Christian conservative – or “servant leader,” as he was hailed in a campaign ad – who supports constitutional amendments banning flag burning and gay marriage.

Seeing the exit polls, the Democrats immediately started talking about values and religion. Their sudden passion for wooing Southern white Christian soldiers may put a crimp in Hillary’s 2008 campaign (nothing but a wooden stake would stop it). Meanwhile, the blue puddle is comforting itself with the expectation that this loony bunch will fatally overreach, just as Newt Gingrich did in the 90’s.

But with this crowd, it’s hard to imagine what would constitute overreaching.

Invading France?

Congratulations, America. The Holy War is just beginning I’m afraid. And I close, from the heart of Jesusland, with a proposed new map: