on June 29
in Baby, Philosophy
This morning I was awakened by the sun shining through the windows of my new home: a quaint rambler on the East side of town.
Crowded in by piles of our possessions though we may be, Wifey and I are now settled comfortably into our new digs.
The move, completed over the course of three weeks, is thanks to the gracious help of my friends.
Thanks to Dave and Greg for helping me solve my drainage woes; thanks to Joey for assembling some of the IKEA furniture and helping me to move that stupid piano; thanks to Peter for painting the baby’s room; thanks to Danielle for cleaning up Peter’s little messes and painting the guest room; and thanks to Scott for helping me move all the stuff that hadn’t made it into boxes, and for helping me to keep my sanity throughout the last day.
And a special thanks to my realtor and friend Ron Nallon, who talked us out of several “fix’r uppers” before we found a home we really wanted.
on June 11
in Projects
I grew up in Virginia during the eighties and nineties. My childhood occurred in the Reagan years – a period during which many conservatives grew to consider the United States a nation of conservative people. Much to my surprise, Virginia hasn’t always been so conservative. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself.
Growing up, the handful of people who did talk to me about politics were conservative. So without really earning it, I adopted what I will call a “series of conservative opinions.” In my twenties, I grew to recognize these opinions as being rather more like libertarian ideas than conservative ones, and far right of neoconservative ideals.
As I approach thirty and fatherhood, it is becoming more important that I understand these philosophies and their politics to a much greater depth. Unfortunately, independent critical analysis doesn’t exist – everyone’s opinion is biased by nature, from some much more than others’. So I have decided to make a different approach.
I intend to read two books
- The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater
- The Conscience of a Liberal by Paul Krugman
For those of you who know neither the books nor the authors, I suggest you head to Wikipedia and play catch-up. Suffice it to say, these men represent the faithful few: men truly dedicated to the ideals of their political camps. So I will read them both, and throughout the experience I will measure my reaction as a means of deciding (for now) where my own politics lie.
In short, I will develop my own opinion.