Thoughts on the Inaguration

I’m happy to see Obama as our new president. I think this country could potentially be on the right path once again. I suppose the common comparison is to JFK, with the feeling of youthful optimism he brought to the nation. I can see the similarity but I hope it ends there. As a historian, I am comfortable saying that JFK is one of the most overrated presidents in our history. He talked a good game and certainly inspired the country. But his deeds rarely matched his rhetoric. He preferred to straddle the fence on almost every important issue, only acting somewhat radically when forced. No one could say what might have happened had he lived. But Johnson actually deserves the credit for implementing all the ideas that Kennedy espoused but never attempted to make reality.

So I hope Obama is the best of JFK without the negative reality. On the other hand, I fear he will be more like Jimmy Carter. Both were elected as relative outsiders in years that the publc was fed up with the Washington status quo. Both were tasked with bringing integrity and compassin back to government. Both came into office in the middle of a dire financial crisis. There was nothing Carter could have done to help the country. Most historians will say that now. The job was impossible for anyone to accomplish well. But as head of state, Carter bore the brunt of the blame. And he was turned out of office and the Republicans rode a wave of dissent into twelve years of power. I worry that Obama might face a similarly impossible situation. Perhaps no one can turn the country around in four years. But if that’s the case, Obama will unfortunately get the blame and be driven from office.

This Semester

I’m just taking one class again this semester. I had signed up for two but the other got canceled. I was kind of looking forward to it. It was on the rise of complex civilizations. It might have been a bit dry but I think I would have found it interesting.

The one I’m left with is on theories of teaching world history. It’s a required class, designed to familiarize the student with everything they need to know to feel comfortable teaching a world history class once they graduate. The final project is a complete syllabus for two semesters of world history.

I’m not looking forward to the daily grind of the class. It’ll be a lot of intellectual history, very theoretical. But I’m looking forward to the final product, and I suppose that is the point here.

Bowling

One of the arguments for the college bowl system remaining as it stands is that the sport has the best regular season of any sport and that it shouldn’t be tampered with. Perhaps. But college football easily has the worst postseason of any major sport. How can you claim that the winner of tonight’s game is the true national champion? They have as much claim as any other team, I suppose. But what about USC? What about Texas? What about Utah? There are too many questions still remaining.

The college bowl system offers very little to the average viewer. The national championship game is worth watching, though it is clearly flawed. A handful of other games are worth the effort. And if you follow a team closely, their bowl is worth watching. But after that, nothing. Easily the worst postseason of any sport.

For the record, I have never been to a Tennessee bowl game but I do watch them on television. They go to them too often to travel to any game that doesn’t have the highest stakes. And those games price out the average household like mine. But I did go to Vanderbilt’s bowl this year. It’s probably not something I’ll be seeing again anytime soon. And I only had to travel three hours. So I did make the effort to go and see a few long lost friends.

Latest Reading

My Christmas presents for my nephew and nieces this year were the book The Dangerous Book for Boys and The Daring Book for Girls. I’ve skimmed through them before but couldn’t resist a more thorough reading before I wrapped them up. For those who’ve never heard of them, they’re not quite like the name suggests. They won’t teach you how to be a rebel, just how to be adventurous in a good way. They’re meant to recapture the golden age of childhood when boys and girls actually knew how to do something besides play video games. They include everything from how to make a battery to how to identify constellations to inspiring stories of historical figures and everything in between and much more. They’re great reference books for people of all ages. The book for boys is definitely better than the one for girls, though maybe that’s just my prejudice, but both are very much worth the effort it would take to browse through them.