I'd Like to Spend Christmas With Russ Moore...

... after reading this very good article.

The Babysitter's Club: A Christmas Gift for Faithful Blog Readers

Are all the girls born between 1980-90 thinking this post is about those dumb girl books they read in 4th grade?

Think again. This post is a tribute to my Hall of Fame of substitute teachers in the Montgomery Public Schools. A good synonym for substitute teacher is babysitter because there was never any educational activity going on while they were there. Just babysitting. Here are some all-stars:

Mr. McCreedy

Mr. McCreedy was a heavy-set, single (divorced?), middle-aged white man who had a serious commitment to reading a newspaper or book whilst substituting. If you had a question, you were interrupting him. He was clearly being paid $50 a day to read. When you did interrupt him, he loved to be sarcastic... kind of like a not-funny Jim Carrey. One time, someone was complaining/asking him something, and he interrupted by holding up his thumb and index finger in the air, rubbing them together. "Do you hear that?" he asked. "No," said the student. "Well, that's the sound of the worlds smallest violin playing a lament for you." The person said, "Well, uh... I still need to go to the bathroom." Most people in public school had no idea that he was even trying to be funny because they didn't know what a lament was.

The really awkward thing about Mr. McCreedy was that I WENT TO COLLEGE WITH HIM later. He was getting his Masters in Liberal Arts while I was getting my undergrad in English; we had probably three upper level classes together. Every time he had anything to say, I wondered how embarrassed he would be if I told him that he and the world's smallest violin used to babysit me and my friends.

Mrs. Harrison (with the hole in her neck)

I think Mrs. Harrison might take the cake for worst substitute ever. I mainly had her in elementary school at Dannelly. Apparently, she was popular because she also substituted at Carver where a lot of my friends were. We shared stories about her.

The most distinguishing attribute about Mrs. Harrison was that she had a hole in the back of her neck. I have no idea how it got there. I don't mean a scar. I mean a hole. Maybe a really big wart or mole had been cut out. Maybe she was an alien and that is how she breathed. Maybe God just made her that way. All I know is that it was there, it was hard to look at, and it was how we identified her. "Hey, who's the substitute in literature today?" "That lady with the hole in her neck." "Awwww mannnn."

Other than the hole in the neck, Mrs. Harrison was kind of old (60s?), black, about 95 pounds wet, and she had an affinity for tacky sweaters - even in August. I guess when you weigh 95 pounds, you appreciate a sweater. Mrs. Harrison was sweet if you were sweet to her, but if you were even a little bit sassy with her, she would ruin your day. She was easily provoked.

There was this game in elementary school called B.B. Bush. I hated B.B. Bush because it was so hard to play. Your friends made you play even when you didn't want to. It worked like this: anytime you said a word that started with a 'B', you had to immediately follow it with "B.B. Bush." STUPID, I know. But (b.b. bush) if you didn't say it, your friends were allowed to hit you with something for not saying it.

One brave kid in our class decided to "play" this game with Mrs. Harrison, and I thought she was going to go to jail before the game was finished. (By the way, if you still don't understand the game, I would have just gotten hit twice in the last sentence for not saying "B.B. Bush.")

Kid: Hey, Mrs. Harrison!

Harrison: (sweetly) Yes, bay-bee? (that's how she talked to everyone until
they crossed her)

Kid: (throws a kernel of popcorn at her and hits her on the shoulder) YOU
DIDN'T SAY B.B. BUSH!

Harrison: (surprised) What are you talkin' bout, boy?

Kid: (throws another kernel) You said a b-word and you didn't say
B.B. Bush!

Harrison: (angry) You better stop that right now!

Kid: (ANOTHER kernel is thrown) You did it again! You just said a b-word?

Harrison: (screaming) HIT ME AGAIN, HIT ME AGAIN, BOY!

It all ended with a trip to the office rather than her killing the kid. Now, I am not condoning either the playing of the game B.B. Bush, nor the throwing of popcorn in class. But, in sixth grade, this was nothing shy of hilarious.

On another day, my friends and I decided to each draw a horrendous picture of Mrs. Harrison and give it to her. Everyone's picture included the hole in the neck. She loved them all and told us we were sweethearts - which I guess was a much better reaction than being sent to the office. But again, at the time, we thought it was hysterical.

Mrs. Strickland

Now, Mrs. Strickland made an appearance several blog posts ago, so I'll let you make your own cross-reference.

The best story I have about Mrs. Strickland was pretty personal. I had AP Music Theory in high school but there were only four of us in the class. When Mrs. Strickland substituted for the four of us, whom she all trusted, she would just go take a walk around the track behind the school while we did our work. One time she invited me along.

But then she ruined my life by saying this half-way around the track: "Ben, you remind me so much of my son."

The son was in my grade and I had known him since elementary school. He (at that time) was the most obnoxious person I had ever met. (I guess he could be a nicer person now, since we all have a tendency to be especially obnoxious as kids.) What Mrs. Strickland intended to be a compliment was the most insulting thing she could have said. My readers who knew the son will understand. I could not afford to be Mrs. Strickland's friend any more or she might be inviting me over to hang out with the son. End of relationship.

Pat

I don't know Pat's real name. I named her Pat because she looked and talked a lot like an older version of Pat from SNL. Unlike the real Pat, we knew for sure that she was a female, but she was just otherwise incredibly awkward.

In high school, we were supposed to read 1984 in English class one day, but for some reason, Pat went to the library and checked out the film version of 1984 which is rated R. She proceeded to put it on for us to watch. It was pretty disturbing. I'll spare you the details. But Pat, in her awkwardness, made it worse by not being able to operate a VCR. She just stood there like a wet mop next to the TV making faces and weird noises (like the real Pat) every time something provocative came on the screen. I think a couple of times she put a hand over the screen to half-cover something unmentionable. And all of us were thinking, why don't you just stop the video? Seriously. But no. We had to watch it. Our teacher was mortified the next day when she came back. Maybe Pat got fired, too?

I'm running out of gas. That's my Babysitter's Club. Hope you were entertained.

I Love Me. And That's Bad.

I saw this joke-evangelism video recently where the dialogue went something like this:

Evangelist: Excuse me, but do you know that God loves you, and he has a wonderful plan for your life?
Intended Convert: Really? God and I must have a lot in common, because I love me, and I have a wonderful plan for my life, too.

I laughed really hard when I first heard that. But the more it settled in, the less I thought about the joke, and the more I thought about the fact that it is natural for every person to love themselves, and seek their own best interests. Most people make a life of it.

We already think ourselves to be the center of the universe; do we really need to hear a "gospel" reaffirming our own errant thoughts?

Tonight, I fell into a ditch of worry and self-absorbed thoughts. It was miserable. What looked like disinterest in myself was really obsession with myself. I love me, even when I am unhappy with me; the evidence is that all I want to think about is me, even if the thoughts were self-loathing and sulking.

So what do you do with self-love? I have to remind myself. You kill it with truth. You remember that Jesus came not to be served, but to serve. You remember that Jesus became humble and poor for our sakes. You remember that He rightfully commands us to love Him and others not just more than we love ourselves, but with the same intensity with which we would normally love ourselves. You remember that self-love is a broad path that leads to hell, and it's taken by people who think that they are God -- people who love themselves most of all. You remember that Jesus died to pardon you from that condemning, self-love. You walk in faith. You trust Jesus. And you put on the new man that is like Christ, that forsakes self-interest.

I hope I can remember to do all that when I wake up tomorrow.

Creativity Score: - 2

Here's a really boring way to share some exciting news:

We're having a baby!

There you have it. Good night! =)

Portrait Commissioned

For Tara's annibirthdayversary, I asked an artist friend, Lauren, to paint a portrait of MER from a picture taken at 13 months old. Here is how it turned out. If you want to commission her for your own artwork, you can contact her. She is a pleasure to work with!

Thank you, Lauren!

Finals, Christmas lights, and Kiefer Sutherland

I could write a post about how lists are so much more readable than un-numbered paragraphs, but I am going to trust that you already know this; here comes a list.

1. Finals are over. Thanks for your encouragement. It is hard to believe it is the 7th time I have taken them in two and half years. Only four more times! Now that they're over, we Robinsons have a full slate of things to do and people to see between now and whenever school starts again in January. I think we might need to start saying no or else we'll never spend any time with just each other.

2. I get asked when I will be done with law school probably five times a day. I *really* don't mind telling people again and again because it is closer now that it ever has been. Some folks apparently think that I don't go to work every day and that I ought to be done by now, and they act surprised that I am not. But anyhow. By my clock, I am at 58 hours of 90 needed to graduate. Basically, I am just a hair under 2/3 done. I plan to take a bar exam in August 2011. Tell all your friends about how they need to hire me.

3. I am considering driving through my neighborhood and taking pictures and blogging about how not to abuse your yard with Christmas lights. Much of this side of town looks like Cinco de Mayo with inflatibles. Why? For the kids, I guess. I demand classy Christmas decorations or none at all. I am passionate about classy Christmas decorations like I am passionate about grammar skills.

3a. One of my favorite things to do during my freshman year of college was to rearrange yard decorations on people's lawns at Christmas. Nativity scenes were the best. I do not condone this sort of behavior now.

4. The Oues from church loaned us Seasons 1 and 2 of 24. Watching 24 is like crack. Not that I would know. All I do know is that we. can't. stop. I also think that David Palmer (a/k/a/ the Allstate Insurance guy) looks like a black version of my former pastor (Hey, Greg!). Anyone agree? Me and Tara call David Palmer "Greg Belser" throughout the show. So far, we love his character just as much as we love the real Greg, so it's a fit. If you're still reading, Greg, I hope you get a kick out of that, and if you're ever entered in a celebrity look-a-like contest, you need to test the waters with this and see if anyone agrees.

5. I have this idea to take a goldfish in a fishbowl for a dirty Santa gift. What do you think? I would keep the fish in the plastic bag from the store, of course, so as not to slosh around.

6. I hope for a Chia pet every time I play dirty Santa.

7. Mary Ellen is getting big. My favorite thing lately is when you ask her a series of questions and she shakes her head and says "mm-unh" - a lot. However, she does this selectively which makes me tend to think she knows what she is being asked. We think she really understands about 90% of what we're saying to her. We say, "Do you believe in Santa?" And she says no, emphatically. Hilarious. I didn't teach her this, I promise. We'll see if we can get a video this week.

8. I'm out of silly things to talk about. Serious post forthcoming.

"I Don't Deserve a Share in Governing a Hen-Roost"

Great quote:
"A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. . . I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. . . . The real reason for democracy is . . . Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters."
“Equality,” in Present Concerns: Essays by C. S. Lewis.

The Commerce Clause

Don't read this post if you are here to be entertained.

I am some-kind-of-crazy-not-in-the-mood-to-study tonight. But I ought to be studying. I have been... off and on. I think a long time ago I promised someone (Pam?) that I would try to explain what I know about the commerce clause. I anticipate an essay question on this topic tomorrow night, so, I will tell you almost everything I know right here, right now, as practice, and as an outlet for my desire to blog. Two birds, one stone. Score. If there is no essay question about the commerce clause, well, I am a better man for practicing.

Here's a broad introduction to the commerce clause:
You learned in fifth grade that the federal government is established in three separate branches, right? Well, the legislative branch (Congress) is limited by the text of the Constitution as to what powers it may exercise. (See Article I, where the Founders expressly stated that "all legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in Congress. . .") Therefore, if a legislative power is not enumerated in the Constitution, it is non-existent on the federal level of government. To make up any powers for Congress not already written in the Constitution would be unconstitutional. Follow so far? Good.

So why is Congress so blasted powerful? Why are they able to micro-manage basically anything they choose - like your personal life, the national economy, crime, food and drugs, education, etc., etc.? Did the founders enumerate those powers to Congress in the Constitution? Well, the short and simple answer is that the commerce clause is Congress's primary mechanism for justifying their legislative behavior. Second to the commerce clause would be their constitutional power to tax and spend for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. But we're not talking about the spending clause. We're talking about the commerce clause.

Article I, Section 9, Clause 3 states, "Congress shall have the power . . . to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes."

There you have it. Seems pretty straightforward, but it's gotten pretty convoluted over a couple of hundred years. The Supreme Court's interpretation of those few words is what I dream about every other night.

So what is commerce "among the several states"?
I am so glad you asked.
As of 1995, the Supreme Court has defined "interstate" commerce as being:
1. channels of interstate commerce (think roads, rivers, rails, etc.)
2. instrumentalities of interstate commerce (think people and goods in transit)
3. activities which have a substantial effect on interstate commerce

As you might be guessing, the "activities which have a substantial effect" is where Congress has done whatever they pleased legislatively in the name of their right to regulate interstate commerce.

What exactly qualifies as an activity that has a substantial effect on interstate commerce? Well, believe it or not, growing wheat for your own consumption on your own land does. So does growing and using medicinal marijuana as a cancer patient. Those are just two examples that I remember from class. The argument goes like this: the guy growing wheat or marijuana for his own personal use - even though there is no commerce per se in that he is buying from no one and selling to no one - in the aggregate scope of things, affects the interstate markets for wheat and marijuana. Said another way, if 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 of us all did the same thing, we'd have a "substantial effect" on interstate commerce ... even though we never participated in commerce - which is what Congress is supposed to be regulating. I think that is kind of bogus that you can regulate non-commerce in the name of commerce. Just saying.

Fortunately, the Rehnquist court of the 1990's shot a few laws down for not meeting the already humongous and broad definition of interstate commerce (e.g., a law about domestic violence and abuse, and a law about guns in proximity of school campuses) because neither of these issues could be shown to have had any effect on interstate commerce. There is nothing wrong with government wanting to regulate guns (a little) or violence (completely), but remember my introduction -- Congress can only regulate the things it is empowered to regulate under Article I of the Constitution. Everything else is something that the individual states are entitled to regulate (or not regulate! imagine that!) pursuant to the Tenth Amendment which states, "[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

Nevertheless, basically everything that is regulated federally today is so regulated pursuant to the commerce clause. Blech.

If you're still with me, here's where things go South big time on an essay question. There is such a thing as the "dormant commerce clause" which is the name that lawyers have come up with to identify Congress's unused but nevertheless real power to regulate commerce. Like, suppose Congress has never regulated tires on 18-wheelers before now. They can, presumably, regulate tires because they are goods which travel - quite literally - in interstate commerce; they even facilitate interstate commerce. But if the federal government has never regulated tires, and Alabama all of the sudden wishes to regulate tires, the situation presents a "dormant commerce clause" problem. Some lawyer (actually, more like 50 of them) has to figure out if Alabama's regulation is constitutionally permissible or not.

The Supreme Court has historically held that the federal power to regulate commerce generally is not exclusive to Congress alone; it is concurrent, or shared, with the states. (Regulating interstate commerce is exclusively Congress's task.) So it is presumably possible that both Congress and a state like Alabama could regulate some commercially related issue like tires on 18-wheelers.

To figure out whether the state regulation is okay or not, you're supposed to ask:
1) Does the regulation discriminate (purposefully or incidentally) against out-of-state commerce or competition? (if so, then the state regulation is presumptively invalid, subject to a few exceptions which I won't bore you with)
2) If the regulation is not discriminatory, then does it unduly burden interstate commerce? (again, if so, then the state regulation is presumptively invalid, unless its burden can be outweighed by the promotion of legitimate local interests)

Suppose that a dormant commerce clause problem arises, and it plays out like this: Alabama passes a law that requires that trucks driving in Alabama must have tires made in Alabama.

Problem? Yes. This regulation is invalid for two reasons: it discriminates against all other 49 states (and foreign nations) who produce tires. Moreover, it is burdensome to interstate commerce; it would require a truck with the wrong sort of tires to bypass our state to travel lawfully. Alabama's law would be stricken as some sort of constitutional infringement of Congress's right to regulate interstate commerce.

That's an easy example. But test questions are never so easy. They involve complicating facts and they concoct situations to which exceptions to the rules apply. Moreover, the Supreme Court reaches irrational decisions on these sorts of questions of law (like, for instance, holding that New Jersey could not discriminate against out-of-state trash that was imported to its landfills. That is just nonsensical that the Constitution prohibits a state from keeping garbage out of its borders in the name of interstate commerce.) And this nonsensical-ness has me worried. I am not so good at applying abstract principles to real situations... especially where I think that the abstract principles are kind of bogus to begin with.

So, there you have a quick and dirty explanation of the commerce clause and the dormant commerce clause as I know them. Hope you stayed awake.

Get Behind Me, Exams, I Rebuke You

I have been kind of no-bloggy lately, and will continue to be no-bloggy until December 14th at 9:30 pm when finals are over for me. I don't know how many hours I have studied since Thanksgiving but it has got to be in the fifties... maybe sixties. I am frankly getting tired of it. Tonight I kind of almost had a meltdown about the Constitution. I hate the Constitution. Or, to clarify, I hate the Supreme Court trying to interpret the Constitution. I thought it would be such a fun class... but no. I understand the concepts well enough but taking them out of the abstract and applying them to real situations is a booger.

In contrast to con law, Family law is just creepy enough to always be interesting, and Evidence is fun because I am convinced it makes sense and will actually be useful one day.

I guess if you love me you can pray for me not to have a meltdown or get sick this week. I would really appreciate it. And pray for my wife not to miss me too much. Gracias.

Bus Nightmares

I think at some point I promised more stories about riding a school bus in Montgomery County. I already blogged about Mrs. Tessie, who I thought might eat me for dinner. Here are some more scary stories.

When I was in 5th and 6th grades, I had to ride a bus from Ryan Road to Dannelly Elementary on Carter Hill in the middle of town. That is 25 minutes of un-air-conditioned nastiness. I think about 6 white kids besides me lived in my neighborhood and rode the same bus. The rest of our bus riders lived in trailer parks buried deep in the woods along Ryan Road (which were soon blown away by a tornado that hit Pike Road area in ... I think it was 1996). Nobody died when that tornado came through, but they all basically moved to other trailer parks, paving the way for development of Ryan Road. You think I am kidding, you Ryan Road dwellers, but your neighborhood used to be pretty sketchy, and you owe its niceness to a natural disaster.

So anyhow, before their homes were blown away, every day I rode the bus with Bighead, Bam-Bam, Monique, and their many cousins. I remember more nameless faces from the bus, but I especially remember those three people and their names because they were the bullies. Bighead, not surprisingly, had a large head, and he was the leader of the clan. He had flunked enough times to be a foot taller than anyone else on the bus. Everyone was nice to Bighead because you didn't want him to beat you up. Bighead called me Mr. Spock because I had pointy ears. I can't remember what he called everyone else, but they had a mean nickname, too. Bighead threw a bottle of white out at my head one time, and from then on, I sat low enough in the seat to avoid a repeat performance.

Bam-Bam was the girl equivalent of Bighead, but she had a harder life. She proudly came to school pregnant in 6th grade. I am not going to pretend that that is funny at all. But she rode the bus with us. She was mean like Bighead; nobody messed with her. I could tell you more about her, but it would make you blush.

And then there was Monique. She was my least favorite. Monique was about as big as your pinkie toe, but she had larger than life attitude. She was always yelling and cussing and stealing and threatening and throwing and, most memorably, eating Kool-aid crystals like they were crack. Everyday, Monique would get on the bus with a gallon-sized bag of red kool-aid powder. Her cousins would pay her a dime or a nickel or whatever for a hand full. Then they would just lick it straight off their unwashed hands until their hands and faces were bright red. Talk about NASTY. I was regularly offered red kool-aid, but something about the fact that twenty licked hands had been in the bag made it totally unappetizing.

Back to Monique. I remember her best, mainly because I dreamed that she would get expelled from school and the bus would be a happier place. She was that mean. Have you ever watched a documentary about tribal people that are just ruthless and brutal? She was like that. This girl would cuss you out for looking at her, and then cuss you out some more for not looking at her while she was cussing you the first time. She could start a riot over nothing and everyone would follow. She was not afraid of biting, stabbing, etc. I was seriously scared of her.

The only thing that humanized her was that this girl had about two inches of her own hair all over her head, and she was at least slightly self-conscious of that one fact. This lack of hair necessitated some cosmetic attention. Everyday she got on the bus with some hair-weave and a scrunchy in her hand. On the way to school, she put a crazy looking pony tail on top of her head; it did not appear to matter to Monique where the ponytail was placed - left, right, or top, so long as it was there somewhere. The scrunchy was the only thing keeping it in place. One day, while we were leaving school, she was hanging out the bus window cussing out some other kid and the wind caught her weave and away it went. She yelled at Alex, the bus driver, to stop so that she could reclaim her hair, but he kept going. All her cousins laughed at her, and she proceeded to punch them all in the face. I don't know why it bothered her to ride home bald headed since she mounted the bus bald headed every day. Anyhow.

You probably are thinking I am making this stuff up. But really, people. I am serious. These kids were real. To tell you the truth, I basically hated them and hated riding the bus. I would never let my kids ride the same bus. In fact, I am kind of wondering why my mom let me ride the bus with them. I should ask. Maybe it was because the school itself was a good place and these 40 hoodlums were the only hoodlums there... and the bus ride was just a means to an end. I don't know.

Well, there you have it -- another highly coveted story with no real climax or resolution. I guess a tornado wiping a trailer park off a map is resolution. Maybe I gave away the ending too soon. I kind of wish that it was 7:30 am on a weekday in 1995 so I could make some fresh observations of the bus ride and give better details. Maybe I remember so little of it because it was so miserable and I have blocked it out.
Oh well. Good night.

Desiring God Christmas Sale

In the event that you love John Piper books (or giving them away to other people) you should hit the Christmas sale at Desiring God.